#cmo shiv like mmm gonna get my scanner out real quick okay

[rooksunday]

hi okay so we’re onboard with fox and his droid buddy and all i’m saying is

there’s a universe where the kaminoans weren’t quite as confident in their product and they slid one perfect android into each dispatched division, to report back on defects in the clones in the field. to protect the IP, and all that.

the AD units don’t know what they are. why would they need to know that someone else sees through their eyes? besides, all vode know they are observed from the moment they’re decanted until the moment they die. what would one more set of eyes be, after all that?

anyway what i’m saying is that, in the coruscant guard, those eyes are thorn’s.

but the force is dark on coruscant and it does strange things to thorn’s circuitry. he gets blackouts—but many in the guard experience blackouts. he should report them—he feels strongly that he’s supposed to report them and yet—but it’s probably just the weather. the job. not getting enough fresh air or laps. that’s probably it.

then thorn is lost on scipio, and all his data is lost with him.

(by that point the kaminoans don’t bother issuing new AD units. the war has firmly cemented their galactic reputation.)

time passes. then, one day that resembles every other murky day, a knock comes at fox’s door. it’s honk!, the mouse droid that adopted fox for some absurd reason, and behind him trails—

fox stares. “that’s a b1 in a trench coat.” he jolts to his feet, drawing his blaster in the same motion, and shouts, “that’s a kriffin’ b1 in a karking trench coat! i’m going to hang widget by his toes!”

the clanker dodges the first shot, and the second, and then fox yelps as honk! tases him in the shin and—

“what in haran is going on in here?” stone demands, bullying past the crowd. he stops in the doorway to fox’s office and has to take off his helmet. “i reiterate my question more forcefully.”

fox is hopping, holding onto his shin with one hand, and waving his blaster in the face of a placid b1 droid. a droid wearing a trench coat. a droid with red wings painted on the crest of its chassis.

“honk! is a separatist! arrest these droids!” fox yells. his eyes are wide and his forehead glistens with sweat. he has, stone notes, impeccable balance.

“i’m not a separatist, sir,” the b1 says. “you said they’d never take me, anyway. remember?”

it sounds—

fox’s blaster hand is shaking. “i don’t— i don’t know what you’re— stone! shoot it!”

stone didn’t reach for his blaster. he’d get decommissioned, but he waved off the troopers crowding behind him, and he didn’t reach for his blaster.

at least the clanker would shoot him in the front. stone swallowed.

“sir, i—“

“commander—“ the clanker started.

fox barked a command, underscored with a wave of his blaster. “no!”

a flurry of beeps came from the region of fox’s ankles, loud in the standoff. honk! whirred around fox’s desk and chittered at stone. he glanced at his vambrace, then honk!, then the clank— then the droid. then fox.

fox’s hand was trembling on his blaster. he could’ve shot the droid a dozen times by then but he hadn’t. he didn’t seem able to look away from those red wings for more than seconds at a time.

stone swallowed again.

he’d been wishing for thorn to come back for a long time, and now he finally understood the warning in all those tubie tales. be careful what you wish for didn’t cover even half of it.