The door hissed shut behind us, muting the sounds of the lower levels after we returned to our cabins. Next to me, Vila stretched her arms with a satisfied groan, audibly and visibly happy from the exercise she got in with the Mandalorians.
"Want to come in? You could wash my back." She asked, making me almost trip, but I shook my head, answering calmly.
"Not now. Let's keep our heads in the moment until we are finished here."
"I am doing that! But... oh well. So not now, hm? Soooo... does that mean when we are done here, you will come in? The shower on the ship is small... but I like the idea. We would need to... snuggle. Good thinking, Kael!"
Looking at her, she winked, then disappeared inside the bathroom before I could muster a comeback. Of course, she hadn't closed the doors fully... and just a moment later, I heard the rattle of water and the sound of her humming filter through the partition... Damn it. Vixen... All of them are like that?
I shook my head, smiling despite myself, then turned toward the small galley corner of our suite. The racks of sealed containers looked more promising than I'd expected when we arrived, as I was pretty hungry by now. Mandalorians apparently ate like soldiers, no matter where they were, as what I found there were dense, practical meals ready to be heated and 'assembled' on the spot. Wonderful... Still, I had to admit, the selection wasn't that bad. There were mostly dried meat, some compressed grain packs, preserved vegetables, and even a tin of something that smelled suspiciously like spiced nerf. Not exactly gourmet, but edible, and we had the appliances to make something out of it.
I set a pot on the emitter and busied myself with boiling water and chopping the vegetables with a utility knife. It didn't take long for the aroma of something warm to begin drifting up, mixing with the recycled air and a hint of oil. Which meant that I wasn't 'alone' anymore.
Of course, I heard it before I smelled it, as behind me, the hum of servos shifted into gear as HK came up to me. I mean, close to me, because he stood by the window, his silhouette dark against the glow of dawn beginning to rise above the horizon, bringing a new morning to the capital city. Looking where he was gazing, the streets were still glittering with lights, the early, emerging lines of traffic, but soon, the sunrise would chase away the darkness completely.
What surprised me, for once, was that HK wasn't pacing or muttering kill protocols. He was the calmest I had ever seen him, standing still, his photoreceptors dimmed to a much softer amber glow, his arms crossed behind his back. Occasionally, his head twitched, the faint click of gears marking some internal diagnostic cycle being completed before starting a new one.
"You seem calmer," I said after a while, stirring the pot and striking up a conversation because he didn't seem to be interested in starting it.
[Flat Confirmation: Diagnostics seventy percent complete. My subroutines have been stabilized. Emotional leakage… minimized.]
"Huh?" I arched an eyebrow, "Emotional leakage? You're a droid, HK. You're not supposed to have those."
[Defensive Statement: Incorrect. I am a Hunter-Killer platform. My emotional subroutines are deliberately exaggerated for intimidation or persuasion values. If meatbags hear cheerful laughter while I dismember them, they panic faster. I can also infiltrate and predict organic reactions more quickly and precisely. It is an efficient subroutine.]
"Cheerful. Right... Everything to be a better killer," I ladled the broth, watching steam curl upward, shaking my head, "Still, the way you nearly collapsed in the museum didn't look like intimidation. Or persuasion. Or as an advantage... Am I wrong? It was more like a malfunction. A big one."
[...] His optics flared a fraction brighter, his head slightly turning, putting me into his peripheral vision. [Statement: I did not malfunction. I… recalibrated.]
"Mm. Sure," I leaned against the counter, mug of steaming broth in hand. "You ever think about letting someone take a proper look at your core? I mean someone who can help... A droid specialist. Someone who knows what they're doing. They might help stabilize you. That was not a simple malfunction that can be fixed by dragging folders from one memory core to the other."
The reaction was immediate, of course. HK's head snapped toward me fully, servos grinding, and his eyes were glowing as bright as the rising sun behind him.
[Hostile Refusal: Negative. No meatbag hands will rummage through my core. Tampering equals corruption, downgrades, and reprogramming. Or, worse… deletion. Confirmation: I will die before letting a meatbag dig into my system.]
"You say that now," I sipped my broth, unbothered by his sharp tone, "Not everyone wants to erase you. Some of us want to keep you functioning. Is it that hard to believe that?"
[Cold Statement: If I fail, I fail as myself. Not as someone's experiment.]
"You never had friends? People you can trust?"
[...]
Well... the silence is as good as a maybe. And maybe, he just didn't recall it...
"Fine!" I gave up, "No mechanics, for now." I set my mug down and turned to face him fully. "But then humor me for a minute here. Tell me what you do remember. The things you're sure of... okay? We are bound to travel together for many years to come, so I at least need to know what is happening with you. What's clear right now?"
HK tilted his head, the processors in his head humming, and for a moment, I thought he'd shut down the conversation entirely. Then his voice came, slower than usual, almost as if he was being extra careful about what to share or what to recall without overwhelming his internals.
[Observation: I have confirmed evidence that I fought Mandalorians. I recall dismembering them with enthusiasm, be it an axe, blade, or blaster; it makes little difference. Their screams are archived in my core.]
"Lovely," I muttered, wanting to skip the murder part.
[Addendum: I also remember cooperating with them. Standing beside them in battle... Sharing respect… As meatbags, they were good sport about it… Although with very irritating drinking songs. Correction: Extremely irritating drinking songs. But they had respect nonetheless.]
"Huh," I blinked my eyes, "So you were both their enemy and their ally."
[Confirmation: Yes. Confusion: The sequencing of the memories is corrupted. Did I hunt them after they failed? Or fight them before we allied? Both feel true, yet I am unable to decide which came first. The order of events remains unresolved.] HK's head twitched again, his optics dimming, then flaring back to full power, [Unpleasant Admission: Perhaps I did both, but it doesn't matter. Perhaps I was lying to get into their ranks to find my mark. I am missing the context for most of the memory fragments in my databanks. The dates and sorting are corrupted in such a way that it is impossible to reorganize them.]
"History's rarely neat anyway," I said finally, "Maybe you did both. Enemy one century, ally the next. It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened, and certainly not the last either. Given how long you've been around, I'm not surprised."
[Grudging Agreement: Efficiency is timeless. I was efficient in both roles if that is the case.]
"Yeah, yeah," I chuckled softly. "That's one way to look at it. But you also must consider the fact, HK, that you are broken."
[Sarcastic Retort: Meatbags break more easily.]
"I mean it, HK. Don't sidestep it! You are trying to make sense of something broken with malfunctioning tools. Of course, you can't put it back together! It will come back, it will cause problems later on, and it will be hindering you more and more..."
[...] I wasn't sure if I was getting to him, but I hoped so. He was, in a human sense, injured, and he needed help. Even if he hated the fact or didn't want to admit it... But he didn't turn around... yet.
"If you don't want to cause your own downfall and watch as your systems fail, one by one, until you become nothing more than a glorified history unit, spewing recorded fragments from your leaking database, you need someone to look at you. Like it or not, my friend, you are... fucked."
[...]
"But it's your choice." I shrugged, "I am not going to force you."
Behind the half-open door, the water was finally shut off. Then, the buzz of the recycler kicked in, and moments later, I heard Vila humming again, her voice echoing louder this time through the chamber as she was ready to reappear. At the same time, HK turned his head toward the sound, photoreceptors flickering.
[Statement: Female meatbag is noisy. Observation: She will consume half the water supply if not restrained.]
"She's fine," I said, smiling despite myself. "Let her enjoy it. She earned it."
[Flat Retort: Indulgence breeds weakness.]
"Or it keeps you sane." I countered, "She forced one of our oppositions for us to be here to see us in a new light. She can use as much of the water as she wants."
HK didn't answer this time around, and he just turned back to the window, resuming his silent diagnostics as if the conversation between us had never happened. By then, the refresher's door fully hissed open, and Vila reemerged, wrapped in just a towel that hung almost to her ankles, damp lekku trailing down her back as she sniffed the air and her eyes lit up.
"Is that breakfast?" she asked eagerly, padding barefoot toward the galley, "Finally! I could eat a whole bantha in one go!"
"Happy to hear that, and well, sort of, it is a breakfast." I handed her a steaming bowl, "Don't get your hopes too high, though. It's military rations with… some seasoning."
"Come on," She took the bowl, inhaled deeply above it, and smiled at me, "Mmm. Smells better than anything I had as a kid. If I had anything to eat at all. Plus, it smells better than the cantina food in the Academy sooooo... You're hired as my personal chef."
"Great. Another job title? If you continue like this, my title as Jedi will be pushed down on the importance ladder."
She just giggled, tiptoeing and giving me a kiss before she plopped down on one of the stone couches and dug in with obvious delight. Her contented hum filled the chamber, blending with the quiet thrum of the tower itself, and I just watched her, feeling... satisfied. I leaned against the counter again, continued to sip my own broth, and let my gaze wander back to HK from Vila. Once again, he stood motionless, staring out at the rising sun, photoreceptors glimmering faintly.
For all his menace and bravado, he looked… almost tired... Lost.
I wondered how many ghosts rattled inside that corroded frame of his... How many centuries of blood and betrayal pressed against his memory core to be this muddled and shattered? And how long he could keep holding them back before something finally gave way...
I couldn't put myself in his shoes, to be honest... But I wanted to help him. I don't know if he ever had friends or not, or if he had something that he might consider a friend... Maybe he did. Perhaps he is like this because, as a droid, time affects him differently than it does us... He outlived probably everyone he knew.... Maybe it was hard to come to terms with... I am not sure.
But I knew that I wanted to help him.