Star Wars Fanfic - Programmed to Obey

Chap. 70 - Act of Despair

Very oblivious to what was happening in the Phantom, a few days had passed since Icarus left all contact with the rest of the team. Since that day he left with Tronda for the same Gwori forest where he had that... "strange encounter" with the ghost of Ki-Adi-Mundi. Although the droid still refused to recognize what it had seen, justifying that it was a simple error in its sensors. Who knows? And maybe that forest had an electromagnetic field that will affect the droids.

Even so, Icarus himself could not deny the fact that Tronda, even with his blindness, knew perfectly where to go, even traveling at a speed as high as that of a Speeder. As if... something... had called her to that place.

Now, Icarus was sitting on the moldy forest floor, with Tronda right in front of him. While Alfa waited further from the first line of trees. Without any type of communication with his general. And at a bad time.

Tronda: - If you don't close your eyes and concentrate... you won't be able to see the world any other way. - He said with slow and patient words.

Icarus: - If by "close my eyes" you mean turning off my optical sensors, I don't think I can see. -

Tronda: - Ha ha. No... I don't mean that kind of view. -

Icarus: - It's been a long time since we've been here and I don't notice any progress. I don't think it's wise to spend more time away from the rest. -

Tronda: - Haven't you seen progress? I think that is not true. -

Icarus: - No... I don't understand what you mean. -

Tronda: - At least you're listening to me. That's progress. -

Icarus: - My auditory sensors have always heard her. -

Tronda: - You heard me... But they didn't listen to me. -

Icarus: - This is... absurd. -

Tronda: - That's what someone who hasn't tried says. -

Icarus let out a metallic growl of anger, an iota of his emotional part, although very repressed inside. He felt that all of this was a waste of time, but perhaps the most effective thing would be to simply listen to the psychic and show that all of this was in vain.

Still annoyed, Icarus turned off his optical sensors, and just as he had predicted... he saw nothing.

Icarus: - And now? -

Tronda: - Now? Now you must turn off the computer. -

Icarus: - I am, literally, a computer... I can't just "turn it off." -

Tronda: - I mean that you stop thinking... Computing... Drawing plans and strategies. -

Icarus: - "Clearing the mind" is not something I can literally do. How am I supposed to do it? -

Tronda: - I don't know, hehe. - Her mockery somewhat irritated him. - That's something you have to find for yourself. -

Icarus believed that the situation couldn't get more ridiculous. But I had an idea what to do. At least I could imitate the organics when they did something similar.

The droid lowered the speed of its computations to a minimum, as if its RAM were working at the lowest possible capacity, only maintaining the basic calculations to keep it running. Something he had never done, and it gave him a feeling of... emptiness... Something unpleasant indeed for a mind that has never rested.

The feeling he felt could only be described as discomfort. He could not find peace as Tronda said, because a droid that was created for war had perhaps never calculated what true peace would be like. A paradox in his own mind that, when it became a loop in his mind, gave him some restlessness... Some... alienation.