Super Protocol Droid

Posted on Sun Oct 11th, 2026 @ 5:36pm by Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Mentis & FA-1S & G2-O7

2,661 words; about a 13 minute read

Chapter: Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Red Raptor
Timeline: Late, Day Nineteen

"No."

G2 answered with a long, indignant warble from the navicomputer.

"No," Rex repeated, leaning toward the display and jabbing a finger. "You can make that noise as many times as you like. It is still the same route, and it is still crawling with Judicials and whoever else."

The astromech replied with a rapid sequence of chirps, whistles and something which sounded suspiciously accusatory.

"I know it is the fastest!" Rex hissed back.

Another shrill burst from the astromech, who so rarely showed such spirit. Of course, this was a navigational matter, specifically designed around the ship's anonymity and survival.

"I can read the damn calculation, G2," Rex stated.

The argument had been continuing in various forms for nearly twenty minutes. Corellia itself was not the problem. From their present position, somewhere broadly beyond Onderon and already moving away from the system, there were several perfectly serviceable ways of reaching the Core Worlds and joining the established routes feeding into the Corellian system. Under ordinary circumstances, Rex could have programmed the journey, made whatever adjustments traffic demanded and spent the remainder of the flight complaining that nobody appreciated how easy he made it look.

These were not ordinary circumstances, however. Judicial naval activity had increased sharply across the Third Republic, especially towards systems that were seemingly torn between various political blocs, and particularly those that made any sort of favourable noise towards the Alliance. Major hyperlanes were being watched more closely, patrols were appearing around junctions which had previously attracted little more than customs traffic and automated monitoring, and ships moving through strategically important systems were being subjected to considerably more interest than Rex considered healthy. None of that would necessarily have mattered if the Red Raptor had still been another anonymous freighter.

Unfortunately, a sizeable bounty now existed upon several of the people aboard it, and both Bomoor and Thane - Darth Serus, Rex corrected himself for the fourth time in the past hour - had expressed concern around any Jedi entanglements. The fastest route towards Corellia, therefore, carried them through precisely the sort of traffic-control architecture Rex wanted to avoid. The quieter alternatives added time they might not possess if Faze's assessment of the Cult was correct, whilst several of the more imaginative routes presented by the navicomputer appeared to have been designed by somebody with a personal dislike of fuel, engines or continued existence.

G2 produced another emphatic whistle and rotated slightly towards Rex.

"Yes, yes, 'statistically insignificant chance of inspection'," Rex muttered. "'Statistically insignificant' is very reassuring right up until somebody recognises the ship, pulls us out of traffic and discovers that half the people aboard have their faces circulating through bounty networks or 'persons of interest' for a galactic cult of warrior-monks."

A questioning series of beeps followed and Rex stared at the astromech.

"I am not," he said with a scowl, "changing the transponder again."

G2 immediately erupted.

"Oh, by a rancor's hairy ass! The last time you said that was simple, I spent six hours convincing a port authority that the Raptor had not simultaneously been registered as a cargo vessel on three planets."

Another offended warble was his reply.

Mentis had been staring at a control panel on the starboard side of the cockpit, looking at some of the tactical data Faze was showing him, but clearly becoming increasingly fidgety as the commotion between Rex and the astromech intensified. Or perhaps it was discomfort from the tall skeletal droid bearing over him expectantly.

"I don't know," the Rattataki said finally to Faze, voice betraying his irritation, "These new ciphers and call signs don't mean anything to me and I can't recall any more of the ones I used right now."

Instead, it simply leaned in and opened another page of the communiqués it had been showing Mentis.

"AKNOWLEDGEMENT: Your former organisation probably uses different codes for different divisions within the organisation." the droid's voice hummed, low and resonant, "QUERY: However, the key phrases in these messages appear to be consistent throughout all communications coming in from suspected cult sources towards CEC. Do you recognise any of these?"

Mentis gritted his teeth and looked back at the display, eyes flicking across the words, but finding the lines blurring together as the chatter behind him continued.

"Listen droid," he winced, eyes dropping down, "I know you think there's valuable data in my brain. But it's honestly been so long and I can't even concentrate on these endless messages any more."

Faze straightened up, photoreceptors adjusting dimly to the Rattataki's scarred face. He did not have a chance to add more before their pilot raised his voice again.

"Look," Rex said, turning back towards the navigational display. "We need quick, quiet and preferably not suicidal. At the moment, you are offering me two of the three."

Frustrated, Rex whipped the pilot's chair around like a child spinning a desk chair and fixed upon the sight of the tall, still partially-exposed chassis of Faze, who had seemed to have taken a momentary break from its fixation on Mentis.

"Ah. Super Protocol Droid," Rex acknowledged the machine with a gesture and expression of relief, as if its inclusion in the conversation signalled sense and competence had reached the debate.

G2 gave a distinctly hostile chirp.

"Sure," Rex grumbled under his breath at G2. "Not the first jealous droid that existed."

Rex then straightened and pointed towards the astrographic projection with the air of a man appealing to an expert witness in the court case.

"If you two are done looking at code, you can help out here!" Rex beamed. "The goal is to get to Corellia quickly without advertising ourselves to half the Republic, and our resident navigation genius has decided the best solution is to fly straight through every Judicial checkpoint between here and there."

G2 shrieked.

"I paraphrased," the swarthy smuggler said with an exaggerated shrug as he then looked back towards Faze. "Please tell me you have something smarter to add."

Faze angled the upper half of its chassis towards Rex and then inclined its head to the chart, head momentarily dipping to Mentis again before returning it upright and taking several clinking steps towards the centre of the cockpit.

"STATEMENT: I am not a computational droid," it began, a warble introducing itself into his tone as he continued, "Nor am I strictly a protocol droid by modern standards. Super or otherwise. However, I am capable of analysing numerous parallel data streams and integrating for trend and tactical analysis."

The FA-series droid whipped its cranium to the rounded chassis of G2-O7 as if to punctuate a point, "ASSESSMENT: Navigational projection is as valid a data stream as any other. In fact, given that the priority for discretion outweighs expediency, I would avoid that route down the Perlemian corridor altogether. Recent communications on the HoloNet report an increased flagging of non-GalactaWerks registered vessels all the way from the Corporate sector to the core. Since this ship is not currently registering a company transponder, we would almost certainly appear on a public log the cult could be monitoring."

Rex's expression flattened slightly as Faze finished, his gaze moving from the droid to the web of projected routes suspended over the console.

"That is not just smarter," he said after a moment. "That is you explaining, in considerably more words, why my route is also terrible."

G2 produced a smug, ascending sequence of whistles.

"Oh, get kriffed."

The astromech rocked fractionally upon its mountings as Rex leaned closer to the projection and enlarged the relevant section of the galactic chart. The major routes brightened into thick bands of traffic, branching and intersecting across the display whilst smaller local corridors appeared around them in progressively fainter lines. Even without the overlays showing Judicial activity, the problem was obvious enough. The quickest passages towards the Core were precisely those upon which a vessel could least easily disappear. Faze's additional point made matters worse.

"Company registration," Rex repeated quietly, rubbing at the side of his jaw. "Of course they are flagging everything else. Why simply monitor traffic when you can persuade half the galaxy to sort itself into convenient little categories for you?"

A short electronic chirrup came from G2.

"No, I am not suggesting we forge a GW transponder either," the pilot hissed back.

The astromech answered immediately in another string of binary.

Rex slowly turned his head. "How long have you been thinking about that?"

G2's globe rotated away from him with an innocence Rex found entirely unconvincing.

"Right." Rex returned his attention to Faze. "Perlemian is out, then - at least the useful portions of it. The other main routes are slower, and the quiet ones start putting days onto the journey once we account for refuelling and corrections." Rex gestured towards several thin lines wandering around the brighter arterial routes. "Which leaves us choosing whether we want the Axio-loonies to know we are coming because somebody spots us, or because we arrive three days after everybody has packed up and left." He sat back, studying the skeletal machine for a few seconds, then something occurred to him. "Actually... how old are you, exactly? You keep talkin' about modern standards, modern droids, modern navigation systems like the rest of us have made a series of kark decisions whilst you were away."

A slight grin appeared beneath the pilot's stubble. "So, my new best Super Protocol Droid pal, forget the modern charts for a minute." Rex reached forward and stripped several layers of information from the projection until little remained beyond stellar positions, major gravitational hazards and their present location relative to Corellia. "If you were trying to make this journey when your maps were current, how would you have done it?"

G2 emitted a long, uncertain descending whistle.

Rex glanced towards the astromech. "Oh, now you are worried about outdated navigational data?"

Another emphatic burst answered him.

"I know stars move." Rex looked back towards Faze, the humour remaining but curiosity having overtaken it. "I'm not asking to fly us there from memory; I'm asking whether there used to be routes through this region that nobody bothers using anymore. No buoys, sure... But... Somethin'?"

Mentis finally rose and joined them in the centre of the cockpit.

“I don’t think Faze will have anything different from what G2 and the ship’s navicomputer already contain,” he crossed his arms, looking over the route himself before adding, “Remember, Bomoor had to rebuild its entire memory architecture when he replaced the crystal. Most of what's in there now is reconstructed from modern sources.”

Faze emitted a sound from his vocabulator that sounded like a combination of an error tone and a muted grunt before directing his gaze back on the Rattataki.

“CORRECTION: That assessment is only partially accurate,” it continued, back in the same resonant tone, “While my crystalline memory core contains none of the Rakatan data that would have been present in the original core, many of this unit’s core subsystems…”

He head flicked suddenly to Rex, “…which are 26,419 years old to answer your earlier query…”

Then a hard reset back towards Mentis, “…contain hard coded firmware routines. CLARIFICATION: These are not full databanks, but fragments of navigational logic designed to recognise and prioritise efficient transit corridors. The logical subsystem retains partial navigational markers which I have been slowly integrating with contemporary astrographic surveys.”

The ancient droid took a steady step forward and brought an exposed wire arm up to point at an empty section adjacent to where the Perlemian route crossed with the Hydian Way.

The droid uttered a simple call to their attention: “DIRECTION: There.”

Rex rubbed his hand against the back of his head, squinting at the section the droid had highlighted. "Uhh... What's so special about that pretty little corner of stellar nothing?"

“OBSERVATION: Contemporary charts display nothing of importance," Faze answered, "But this unit’s underlying navigational routines repeatedly prioritise that sector when evaluating pathways to Corellia."

The droid tilted its head slightly and its photoreceptors dimmed momentarily as though it were examining processes buried far deeper than ordinary memory.

"ANALYSIS: I cannot determine whether this response originates from incomplete historical data, legacy hyperspatial modelling, or residual Rakatan-era navigational calculation."

It paused for a moment.

"OBSERVATION: Yet the conclusion remains consistent."

Rex stared at the empty patch of the map for a moment, then slowly looked across at Mentis. A grin began to spread beneath the pilot's stubble.

"Heh."

G2 produced a low, suspicious warble, and Rex pointed at Faze without taking his eyes from either of them.

"Told ya."

Mentis had not actually said anything quite as definitive as G2's earlier objections, but Rex seemed perfectly willing to award himself the victory anyway.

"There's more to a droid than whatever happens to be sitting in its databanks," he said, giving Faze an approving glance and tapping his own head. "Old routines, habits, instincts... whatever you wanna call them. You spend long enough around one, you learn that."

G2 answered with a sequence of electronic noises which sounded distinctly mollified.

"Yeah, that includes you," Rex said as he turned back towards the projection, humour fading into concentration as he studied the apparently empty region Faze had indicated. "Alright. We don't trust it blindly, but we don't ignore it either." He enlarged the sector and began calling up the current stellar data surrounding it. "If there's an old corridor through there, then we work out what changed. Mass shadows, stellar drift, anything nasty somebody discovered twenty thousand years after you stopped using it." He glanced between the two droids. "G2, run the modern surveys against whatever markers Faze can give you. Faze, dig as deep into those routines as you can without inventing an answer because you think I'll like it."

Rex then looked towards the Rattataki with an entirely straight face. "If they start arguing, though, I'm making you fly us in, instead."

A hint of a smile came across Mentis' cheek.

"Well, I got us out of Sleheyron just fine, didn't I?" he uncrossed his arms and allowed one to rest on his belt, while the other hung down, "But I'd better keep looking at Faze's data."

He looked at the droid with a little less irritation than before, in spite of its need to correct him, "If Faze can find some data from twenty-six-thousand something years ago, then maybe I can recall something useful buried in my considerably more recent memories."

Faze rotated towards the Rattataki again with such speed that it made the Force-user flinch and bring both his hands up.

"ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: I am pleased my capabilities are a source of inspiration to you, Master Mentis."

Settling down slightly and trying to avoid the amused gaze of Rex, Mentis rubbed the scar on his face.

"Yes, very inspiring indeed. Thank you, Faze."

He sheepishly turned back towards the terminal on the far side of the cockpit and slumped back down.

Rex glanced between Mentis and Faze, the grin returning almost immediately.

"Right. You two go rummaging around in your heads and see what falls out." He paused, looking first at the ancient droid and then at the Rattataki. "Preferably not onto the deck. Useless would only complain."

G2 emitted a short, strict-sounding warble, conveying his own protectiveness towards the state of the ship's flooring.

Rex turned back towards the astrographic display and began expanding the empty sector Faze had identified.

"G2 and I - and, uhh, maybe Brick - will work out whether this forgotten road still exists without turning the Raptor into a rapidly expanding cloud of spare parts."

Another series of tones came from the astromech, considerably more agreeable than before.

Rex rested one hand against the controls and looked once more towards the blank patch of space.

"Find me something worth flying," he said. "I'll handle the rest."

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