The human youngling was still unresponsive and clearly indifferent to the terror the other captives experienced. Her weight was manageable but it did cause the OOM to fall behind
BX-4381 while the unwashed masses scuttled to recover from whatever it was that hit the super-structure. JELLY could hear the Lieutenant trying to retain order. The B1 could not detect exactly what was wrong with the
Gehinnom but it knew the sound of technology straining itself past the breaking point. It knew that the ship was groaning, shaking, and that structural integrity was failing.
The worldship—This Holy City to the Mawites—was dying a slow, ghoulish death.
Bits of the ship were chunked off with every explosion that rocked every clanking move forward. The OOM observed a distant sense of simulated sympathy for it. Once, it had been a thing of grand design. Now? It was breaking down systemically in a cascade of failures that would soon see it burn up in the atmosphere and crash to the Port of Sorrow. There, if there was anything left, the skeletal remains would exist as a husk of the glory it had once held.
OOM-002-HONEYCOMB
caught up with 001 and the B1 could only shake its head at the familiar battle-brother. They had executed many missions together in the past.
“Your memory core is fracked. Of course, they come in smaller sizes. This one is not broken. It is brave. See how the other carbon-based lifeforms scramble and fight despite grievous harm and little chance of survival?”
“This one does not cry or shout. It is brave.”
JELLY let HONEYCOMB lead the way. It was impossible for the B1 to predict the actions of the Brotherhood of the Maw. There was insufficient data. The befouled object that the other OOM offered 001 to help prompt the tiny human into activity was met with blank reception. Perhaps, HONEYCOMB was right. Perhaps not. JELLY was merely following orders from Lt.
BX-4381. It could no longer receive an active data stream from the Stormking or NAVCOM.
“I have no signal.”
“No connection.”
It could only connect with other droids in its immediate vicinity. Even that, perhaps because of jamming, or because of damage taken to sensors, was spotty. Poor. Either way, they had to proceed quickly.
Time was short.
The
Gehinnom, through observation, would give in. Eventually. Destruction was imminent.
\\ CMND-CMSCN-RLY \\
V330CRF104MES514
TMST/15:16
AI-COM/TYRN:ASSETS\\FORCECON\\IMPERATIVE
\\ HURRY_HURRY_HURRY \\
Imminent.
The super-structure shook the B1 off its feet when the reactor went off and dropped its cargo. The unit struggled to get back to the youngling, but, found its lack of movement disturbing. Should not extreme external stimuli draw some sort of response? The battle droid didn’t have the processing capacity with fragged sensors to accurately compute that captive would never respond. Would never react, never move, because it couldn’t. It got to its feet with servos whirling noisily picked up the cargo with difficulty.
JELLYBEAN was damaged.
”BX-4381” said:
"Advance and flank. Taking them in the rear will incur heavy losses on their forces.”
The verbal order registered and JELLY nodded to HONEY.
“Take point. Shoot the enemy before they can fill our mission with holes.”
The designated landing zone was under fire. They were to commence boarding the civilians but the mounted canons made it hard to cross until the more advanced units helped clear a path. The floor was littered with the remains of other droid units and the OOM could only release a nasal complaint as something rotten stuck to its foot pedals. Some kind of necrotic cellular flesh. The transports were filling, however. It seemed to be a quick enough process but Maw forces were decimating the other platoons. “We are here, human.”
With the help of HONEYCOMB and the other commando units, it was able to make it to the ramp of one of the transports. The unit that aided in loading the civilians reached for the youngling but skipped over it immediately for another organic. B1 did not understand.
How rude. It shook the cargo slightly.
“It is time to go. We are the Confederacy of Independent Systems. We are here to help.”
No response.
The female was cold. There was no electrical-current. JELLY could not detect vital signs.
Was the OOM broken?
Logic and circumstance caught up to the B1 all at once. The cargo it carried was not silent through some act of bravery. The youngling was and had always been—
Offline.
"WAR! DEATH! REBIRTH!" They threw themselves at the battle droids trying to lead the slaves away with wild abandon, trying to cut them down with lightning cannons and then push past them to the CIS landing zones.
\\ CMND-CMSCN-RLY \\
V330CRF104MES514
TMST/15:21
AI-COM/TYRN:ASSETS\\ALFCS\\PRIORITY
\\ HOLD_THE_LINE \\
JELLYBEAN remained stock still despite the call to hold the line against incoming enemy combatants. Its memory hadn’t been wiped from Ryloth. An oversight. This led to the development of new ideas. A very basic and pale imitation of a sense of self.
Importance. The fact that the entirety of the trek through the dying worldship had been for naught was enough to overwhelm it. The unit began to twitch and glitch while fractured metallic joints and strained appendages began to spark. Just like the
Gehinnom—the B1 was breaking down. Programming, failing. Flawed. The objective, the mission, was lost in a series of misfired data packs.
\\ ERROR \\
The 001 remained frozen while holding the deactivated child. Systems were not responding.
\\ ERROR \\
Amethyst lights winked out in emotionless photoreceptors and the unit slumped over. The cargo fell to the deck of the landing zone, unmoving, among charred disassembled droid parts. Among the rot and filth.
\\ CRITICAL ERROR_SYSTEM SHUT DOWN IIMMINENT \\
Darth Tennacus
] 
