Chapter 106: Chapter 96
"Psst… you know what's going on?" Renn heard Shae whisper into their private helmet to helmet commlink and he shrugged subtly in response.
"Your guess is as good as mine. The way they talk reminds me a bit of Clank, but I tend to tune out his little psychotic rants for my own sanity." Renn said slowly as he watched the little pit droid leap down from on top of the binary loadlifter, its black cloak fluttering grandly behind it.
The pit droid then started dancing around Renn and Shae while singing about death, explosions, and other violent things and Renn couldn't help but imagine the droid as some kinds of insane dog that had been possessed by a demon but that was still excited to see its owner.
"Well, they seem to think you're their god or something so maybe you should say something to them." Shae hissed over their private commlink and before Renn could think of a protest she pushed him firmly in the back.
Renn staggered forwards a few steps and in an instant all the droids went silent and began to stare intently at Renn.
"Ummm... Hi?" He waved uncertainly towards the droids before shooting a glare towards Shae who just looked away innocently.
"HE SPEAKS!" The pit droid screamed in excitement, "The great destroyer has blessed us with his holy voice!"
Renn stared at the droid, not quite sure if he was being serious or if he was being subtly mocked by the psychotic little droid.
"Is this guy for real?" Shae asked over their private commlink, echoing Renn's own thoughts.
"I believe he is, despite the fact that his mental abilities seem severely degraded I can detect no deception from any of these droids…. Although his ranting is starting to get quite annoying." Sapphire cut in, grumbling about the fact that the pit droid was still spewing nonsensical sentences.
"….. and we shall be baptised in the flames of death! While…" The pit droid continued until Renn cut him off.
"Sorry mate, could you just chill out for a second and explain who you guys are." Renn said and the droid stopped talking immediately but still vibrated slightly in excitement.
"But of course, my lord, my liege," the droid said, "What would you like to know?"
Renn watched the droid for a moment, wondering what to ask first, before deciding to start off with some basic information.
"First off, who are you?" He asked the droid curiously as Shae stepped forwards to stand beside Renn.
"I believe I already told you, my name. Oh, mighty one," The droid said cocking its head slightly in confusion, "But I am called, The harbinger of Doom, lord of death and misery, high priest of annihilation."
Renn stared blankly at the droid with the very long name from behind the mirrored visor of his helmet and wondered if anyone actually referred to him by that name.
"Or did you mean who are we?" The droid asked gesturing to the other droid cultists in the cargo bay, "We are the Children of Annihilation, and we exist to serve the great destroyer."
"And the great destroyer is me? How do I fit into any of this?" Renn asked the droid, who he had decided to call Doom-bot instead of his actual name.
"The prophecy! Your arrival has been foretold in the holy mural of the great destroyer" a high-pitched voice cut in, and the AZ-series surgical droid from earlier floated down to hover beside Doom-bot.
"I'm AZ-956784 by the way, but everyone calls me Azzy. I'm sort of the number two droid around here so if you need anything I'll see if I can sort it out for you" The surgical droid said happily.
"Quiet fool! Do not bore our lord with useless information." Doom-bot snapped at the other droid, "and if anyone is second in command it would be my trusty stooge Lifty!"
Doom-bot gestured towards the massive binary loadlifter as he said the last bit, who gust grunted disinterestedly in binary.
"Okay focus, what prophecy?" Renn asked, interrupting the weird power struggle in an attempt to get the droids back on track.
"Yes! The prophecy!" Doom-bot squealed in excitement, seemingly forgetting the argument he had just had, and scuttled forwards to grab Renn's hand before leading him further into the cargo bay.
Azzy the surgical droid flew alongside them, attempting to join Doom-bot in leading Renn somewhere by pulling on one of the pieces of his shoulder armour.
Shae walked close behind the group and Renn had the vague suspicion that she was laughing at him from the privacy of her own helmet.
The droids led him past the cargo container and stopped in front of the cargo bays far bulkheads and Renn watched as they began excitedly jumping up and down while pointing at the bulkhead.
The bulkhead was dominated by a massive mural, similar in appearance to the murals in the corridor leading to the cargo bay.
It depicted a man in black armour, very similar in appearance to Renn's own armour, surrounded by the burning ships of a destroyed sith fleet.
"The great destroyer, he has descended!" Doom-bot cheered in joy and the other droids began joining in the cheer.
"That is your ancestor, a past lord of house Dredd. These droids must have created some sort of mythology around the ship's sensor data from its last battle.
… it's a bit odd, but they'll probably be very loyal to you… seeing as though they think you are a god and stuff," Sapphire grumbled in Renn's ear, and he smiled.
"How did so many of you find this place?" Renn asked Doom-bot, who had finally stopped jumping up and down in excitement.
There were about sixty droids in the cargo bay, of all shapes and variety's and they very clearly hadn't been here since the time of the old republic, so Renn was wondering how they had all got here.
"The holy beacon allowed our order to gather here after we activated it to spread our holy message." Doom-bot said while gesturing towards himself, Azzy, and Lifty as the activators of 'the beacon'.
"He means that they've been using the ships long range comms to spread their religious views across the galaxy." Sapphire said helpfully.
"I think they've been transmitting on one of the frequencies that are used for droid software updates which is why only droids are part of this cult." She continued.
"There are frequencies like that? Wouldn't that be a security risk? Like what if someone uploaded a virus or something that created a droid uprising." Shae asked over the comm.
"They aren't able to make big changes to the droid's systems or anything, it's more small patches over newly discovered galactic languages, navigational data, and the political situation of the galaxy, like if there is a war on, that's transmitted on the frequency.
And its up to the firewall of the droid that receives the signal to decide if it accepts the update or not. So, the signal these guys are sending out is more like a little whisper to droids that might be passing in range of this crashed ship's comms system.
Which is why there are less than a hundred droids in this cult, and not every droid in the galaxy," Sapphire explained, and Shae nodded.
Renn looked down from the mural and fixed his gaze on the exited pit droid, who was still bouncing up and down in happiness and was now looking up at Renn expectantly.
"So, you said that you want to serve me?" He asked the droid who began nodding vigorously.
"Cool. Want to help me blow stuff up?" Renn said and the droids cheered.
-
After solving the issue of the haunted shipwreck, Renn and Shae returned to the others and their own ship.
They had contacted some of the freighters that Renn owned as part of his shipping companies, to come and excavate the crashed ship and transport it and the droids inside it to the shipyards near the bastion 1 space station that he had created.
Once there Renn's other A.I, Neo, who was over seeing the construction and creation of house Dredd's new navy, would repair the ship or create a new one if it was too badly damaged and find a place for 'The children of Annihilation' in the new Aruum commonwealth's burgeoning military.
She would probably let them loose raiding pirate bases and Hutt smuggling operations near the border of New Aruum Commonwealth space, and he imagined the psychotic droids would love to be in some actual battles.
He'd also messaged the sand people to let them know that he'd delt with the problem, and that they would be safe to claim that area of desert without having to worry about any ghosts.
The sand people had been very pleased with the response and promised to turn to him should they have any other problems in the future, which left Renn wondering about the possibility off setting up a trade lane between them and his own people.
While Renn was mulling over future possibilities he walked into the landing bay where he had left the 'speedy vagabond' to see a second smaller ship next to it.
The second ship had a droid loitering near its landing struts and Renn smiled as the droid saw him and began jogging towards him.
"Hi Spark," Renn called out as the HK-50 assassin droid neared him and Shae, "When'd you get here?"
"Hiya bossman," The assassin said cheerily as he stopped in front of Renn, "Lady bossman," He added bowing his head to Shae in a sarcastic manner.
"The glowing blue woman who control's our lives told us that you'd adopted a child so the boss decided we should come over to see if it needed any extra security… or maybe if it needed babysitting?
It's hard to tell with him sometimes, but I think his maternal instincts have been on the fritz since you and the others stopped being so small, fragile little hatchlings… is that the right term? All organic offspring seem the same to me, it's hard to remember all the different terminology for them.
I don't know maybe me, and the others should get him a pet… or a plant? They do basically the same things, right?" Spark explained rapidly and Renn and Shae found it hard not to start laughing as the droid began trailing off.
"Anyway, the others are inside your ship, well apart form Crow who's back in ours and sulking about there being too much sand on this planet, apparently they've intercepted a transmission that you might be interested in."
-
Renn couldn't say he was surprised to learn that Obi-wan Kenobi had discovered the traitor among Jango's training sergeants on Kamino, or that that traitor was Yin Eness, the corellian man had always been a bit suspicious.
He also couldn't say he was surprised that after discovering the traitor, Obi-wan had fought a running battle through the corridors of Tipoca city, destroying several rooms and a lot of doors, before chasing Yin all the way to Geonosis, where Kenobi promptly got himself captured by bug people.
Probably the least surprising thing though was that after learning of his master's capture, Anakin had rushed of to Geonosis to rescue him, only to find himself captured as well.
The only thing about the situation that wasn't completely unexpected was that senator Amidala had accompanied Anakin to Geonosis.
Although despite loving to preach about peace and non-violence the senator could be surprisingly trigger happy when it suited her purposes.
Sapphire had also intercepted transmissions from both the separatists and the republic and informed them that not only was a jedi task force heading towards Geonosis, but the clones on Kamino where also preparing to head to the world.
A world which just so happened to be home to the main factories for the separatist's new droid army.
It sounded like there was going to be a bloodbath, and Obi-wan, Anakin, and Padme would be right in the middle of it, and probably at a high risk of getting killed it the crossfire if the battle started with them in a prison cell.
Renn and the others on Tatooine where quite close to Geonosis and so it would be feasible for them to get the planet before the battle properly started so that they could rescue their friends.
"Okay then. Let's go save some idiots." Renn muttered with a sly grin, and Sapphire plotted a course to Geonosis.
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