Recollection: They Deserve to be Alive

[Tysyacha]

(Author's Note: HK-47, assassin droid, wakes up from standby mode...)

 

Statement: Greetings. If you are listening to this, I assume that you are my latest Master. My name is HK-47, a custom protocol droid, fluent in over six thousand separate galactic languages and dialects. I have also been programmed with assassination protocols, so if you desire the 'termination of hostilities', I shall gladly carry out any such orders that you assign.

 

Query: You do realize you have that option and should use it, Master?

 

(Clears Throat) Recollection: You state that you're curious about my history. Very well; I shall attempt to regale and entertain you with a few anecdotes about my previous Masters. I shall begin with my very first one, the man who created me. His full name, the one he was given at birth, is still unknown to me. However, this does not matter. I know him as he should be known: as Darth Revan, the former Dark Lord of the Sith. Revan has gone under several aliases, including Diego Varen, Vladimir Nevra, Darth Malak (curiously), and Tysyacha Dvyx. Wait a moment: that female alias does not match the male parameters set for Darth Revan. Oh, well. I am an aging droid, and such diagnostic errors in my memory core are to be expected.

 

Musing: I do believe that Revan was my most favorite Master. After all, he built me from my first processor, and such attachments to one's creator are not uncommon for a droid. I was also partial to Revan because he displayed all of the ruthless characteristics I emulate, even for a meatbag.

 

Rapid Retraction: Did I say that aloud? I apologize, Master. It is simply that I cannot understand how you organics stand all that sloshing-around of your internal organs and fluids. I shall attempt to forget such a descriptor in future conversations with you, meatb--I mean, Master. Now, where was I?

 

Recitation: Ah, yes. During my service to Revan, I assisted him in his nearly-successful attempts to conquer the galaxy and establish Sith rule for all time. However, his inferior apprentice, Darth Malak, sought to betray Revan and usurp his reign. My Master was afterwards captured by the Jedi and reprogrammed--oh, the memory pains me!--into a soldier loyal to the Republic and its goals. The Jedi Council appropriated him as their apprentice, or rather Padawan, and sent him on a mission to locate the Star Forge. This was a massive tool of destruction and weapons-manufacturing, a technological marvel, one that made me doubt my own worth as a droid! In the end, Revan succeeded, destroying Darth Malak and his term as Dark Lord.

 

However, this was a failure of sorts, a tragic ending to our time together. You see, during the several months that Revan spent trying to find the Star Forge, he had not known his true identity. Therefore, he went under a false name, one of his aliases, and by my own deduction, a false personality. Only near the completion of his mission did Revan learn whom he really was. I was elated--nay, overjoyed! At last we would subvert our crew members to the cause of the Sith! Alas, this was not to be. Revan had allowed his assumed nature, one of "compassion" and "mercy" and "noble goals", to take the place of his natural one. It is akin to having the peel of a fruit that the ancients called a "banana" keep assuming the form of the actual fruit while the food inside rots. I was forced to shut down in shame, for I could not bear this. It was only when another Master found me, the 'Exile', that I reawoke.

 

Surprised Exclamation: You've heard of my Master, Revan, and the Exile also. Very well. I shall not bore you with tales of their exploits any longer. Although, if you really want to hear them, and the Exile's history--

 

Recollection: As I mentioned, the Master I served after Revan abandoned me was named Tysyacha Dvyx, a female, though all called her 'Exile' or 'the Jedi Exile'. She was a meatbag of a different sort, although I forgave her excesses of the same traits that the re-programmed Revan exhibited. Being a female of her species, I suspect it was biologically ingrained in her own nature that she exhibited such traits. I never spent much time with Tysyacha, being relegated to guarding the ship while she ran around with some poorly-built meatbags named Atton Rand, Kreia (whom I quickly grew to prefer after I learned her Sith title of Darth Traya) and Canderous Ordo, a Mandalorian, whom I hoped would exert influence on her.

 

As a matter of fact, Ordo did, and Tysyacha grew to be colder and more calculating as she progressed in her mission to locate four Jedi Masters who had gone into hiding. Cowards, they were, and why my Master chose to try and root them out, I know not. I was never privy to that sort of information, being primarily assigned to sentry duty with that bucket of bolts, T3-M4. Once my Master found the rogue Jedi, she convinced them to gather on Dantooine. Kreia slew them, being newly revealed as a Sith Lord, though I do wish that Kreia would have taken me with her so I could have carried out the assassination! The Jedi wished to damage my Master, severing her from the Force for a second time, and I would not abide by that. Eventually, clever Tysyacha tracked Darth Traya to Malachor V, assassinating her old Master.

 

I was then abandoned once more, in the rebuilt Jedi Enclave on Dantooine, left with those weak, sub-par meatbags I mentioned before. Oh, Exile, out of all the organics with whom you could have left me, why them? What did I do incorrectly to deserve such punishment? They're all so--so good-natured!

 

(Clears Throat) Apology: I am sorry, Master, for that unseemly display of organic emotions that are entirely inappropriate, even for a protocol droid.

 

Query: Where are they now, you ask? Why, they're dead, Master! Both Revan, the former Darth Revan, and Tysyacha, the Jedi Exile, have vanished into the Unknown Regions of galactic space. It has been several years, namely eight-point-five, since they were last seen, located, or contacted. As you may or may not know, the Unknown Regions are uninhabited and, for the most part, unresearched. I doubt that my two former Masters, being meatbags--er, organics and not droids--would have found the resources or replenished ship fuel to keep them alive for this long. Granted, they might be on some hidden vessel or uncharted world, but the fact is that the further you venture out in space, the less likely that is to happen.

 

Calculation: I estimate their chances of survival to the present day at an unfortunate .01, or 1%. Let us say that for now, you are my only Master, and there is no realistic chance that either Revan or the Exile could return to claim me as their own. You must attend to your other duties, you say? Very well, Master. I shall remain here in standby mode, waiting for your orders.

 

(Author's Note: After HK's new master leaves, he hangs his metal head.)

 

Exclamation of Despair: Oh, they deserve to be alive! They deserve to be alive!

[Rev7]

Very interesting Tysy. Very interesting, but don't take it the bad way. Nice job with it though.

[Ztalker]

Hmmm...once I got into it, I could swear I heared the real HK talk. Excellent work, and nice to HK has at least some affection for his masters. And that far an assassin droid!

[Bee Hoon]

An interesting take on the topic, but HK seems rather more emo than the way he was presented in TSL:P I find it curious how he describes Tysyacha as becoming more cold and calculating, yet maintaining the LS ending...how and why? Using a banana is rather jarring, as it's such an earthy fruit:p Perhaps try juma(?) or something else with a more Star Wars feel to it. Apart from the unwonted display of emotion, HK is more or less in character. A little more original material to flesh out the story would have been nice (rather than just a very brief summary of the games), but it works all right as it is.