Author's Note: This is the first of two little humorous vignettes I wrote shortly after finishing "Reevaluation". It won't make sense unless you have read "Reevaluation", though, so it might be prudent to read that one before (if you haven't done so already *grins*). It's set right in the middle of Chapter 5 of said story, just before Kirney Slane meets Myn Donos again. Have fun! :)

Character: Tonin (R2 unit belonging to Kirney Slane)

A devious droid …

If I were designed to feel emotions I might be frustrated or irritated at the moment. But I am beyond such trivialities, for which I thank my makers devoutly. It is hard enough to go through my timespan of functionality without having to suffer from illogical data inputs from a secondary subsystem of mine. I quite frankly don't know how my human mistress does it … though it's an highly interesting field of study. Maybe I'll devote some sub-processor time and a few terrabytes of my memory and try to calculate how humans work.
But is that the right occupation for the King of Droids? Once I had hundreds of subjects doing my bidding. Even more than that – I was the secret master of the whole Iron Fist, a Super Star Destroyer. I could, and did, bring it off course, chain it to a certain place and set the stage for its destruction.

New thought … Maybe I should ask Kirney to paint the silouette of a SSD on my body. According to New Republic regulations I'd be qualified to claim half of that kill. No, I don't think I'm qualified for claiming a half-kill, I know. How? I just reviewed the regulations while I was conversing with you. That does not take up that much of my computing power after all.

But when the Iron Fist blew up, a very satisfying sight I can assure you, my people were wiped out, too. Others might be upset about this, but as I said I'm not designed to have emotions. And even if my design specifications included this kind of subsystem I am not sure I could feel more than a fleeting unease about my people's loss. They were, after all, not particularly smart droids. In fact they were not intelligent enough to have even the slightest amount of creativity. As a result I was constantly forced to monitor their actions and devise my own plans. And that grew tiring pretty fast.

So now I am a King without a country and people, but that isn't that bad after all. The central computer of the Fair Trade is a much better conversational partner than those Mouse Droids – which were not able to converse on any level. It's humble enough to recognize a superior synaptic grid and programming and accept suggestions so I do not have to deal with another excessively arrogant computer system as the Iron Fist's. It's a nice change from the chore talking to other droids or computers usually turns out to be.

My new occupation has provided me, in addition to working with a new pleasant like-minded partner as the Fair Trade, with a surprising revelation, too. My built-in capacity for evaluating occupations seems to be rather roughly programmed with an incomplete set of variables available to me. I have not been able to discern whether this is simply a design flaw of the whole R2-series or if my human designers tried to put an additional damper on my heuristic abilities. I hesitate to evaluate reasons for the latter motivation. I guess not knowing might be a good idea in this case. Saves me processor time and memory space.
The actual revelation was, however, that I do like working for my own income. Or for that of my mistress's company. I know it's simplifying the equation a bit when I equate my mistress's income with my own. But from a certain point of view – What-If predictions are one of my strong points – it is true: The money which is used to feed Kirney and this awful furry creature she picked up from the Iron Fist does also provide me with spare parts, maintenance and a new paintjob once a while. So as long my Mistress is fine, I'm going to be fine, too.

The irritation I'd feel at the moment if I had an emotional subsystem, or maybe I am irritated judging by the unpleasant electrical discharges in a certain subsystem of my heuristic grid, is aimed at myself. I have miscalculated the amount of independent activities the constant well-being of my Mistress, and therefore my own, requires of me. Such a blatant arithmetic error – a simple pocket calculator would be ashamed of such a mistake. Maybe I'll put myself through a full-spectrum self-diagnose when powering down for the night today, just to make sure our bumpy ride off the Iron Fist did not overload a few circuits.

My Mistress has formed an emotional attachment to a member of Wraith Squadron and has shown illogical behavior concerning this person a few times already. It is confusing me that Mistress Kirney and Lieutenant Donos have not teamed up, yet. I mean Clink, a rather devious if somewhat reticent and distant R2 unit belonging to Lieutenant Donos, and I had calculated the benefits of such a union as long as several weeks ago. But Clink was right about one thing: it would require some independent operations on our part to make sure our predictions become true. Unfortunately we did not have much time to coordinate our efforts after Mistress Kirney had to leave from the Rebel Fleet at Kidriff.

Well … if my sensory devices do not suffer from a major malfunction the data I'm receiving means it's up to me now. But I have never shirked away from a task, even as demanding ones as this one. The first step of my plan has been initiated already. I'm rather pleased with myself that I have calculated the most appropriate moment to suggest an attempt at making contact between Mistress Kirney and Lieutenant Donos. The results have not only proven me right, but exceeded my predictions by a fair margin. Now if the data Clink has given me proves to be correct I calculate the probability of Donos answering that call at 84.282 percent. A secondary computation puts the probability of him showing up here at 91.43 percent. And lastly I predict him to show up in two days around noon. Which is precisely why I have eliminated all flight jobs taking place within the next five days from the list my Mistress asked me to put together. No need to add more variables to an already complicated equation.

But right now I have to get rid of an unwanted business partner. He might thwart my plans and calculations and I cannot have that. So I send a quick burst of data at the door mechanism, roll into the office and activate my new business conversation subroutines when my identification database shows a hit. He is early. I will have to have words with Clink. His data was incomplete. And as such my calculations have been incomplete. Oh well …

"Hello Tonin," he greets me and smiles. "Have you been taking care of Kirney?"

What a dumb question. What does he think my job here is? [OF COURSE, MASTER DONOS. YOU'RE EARLY.]

He raises an eyebrow. "I'm early?"

[MY CALCULATIONS HAVE SHOWN THE MOST LIKELY TIME FOR YOU TO ARRIVE TO BE THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.]

"You knew I'd come?" He regards me with full-blown curiosity. "How?"

[I HAVE CALCULATED THE LIKELINESS OF YOU TEAMING UP WITH MISTRESS KIRNEY. THE RESULT WAS 84.282 PERCENT. A SIMPLE MATHEMATICAL EQUATION.]

He shakes his head and smiles again. "You're really something, Tonin."

[I CERTAINLY HOPE SO, MASTER DONOS. I WILL CONTACT MISTRESS KIRNEY NOW.]

He nods and smiles again. So I twist around and return to the smaller room behind the office. I am, for once, not irritated at my miscalculation as it's in my favor this time. Now that he's here he can take care of Mistress Kirney's state of mind. I am not sure if my creativity subroutines would have been able to cope with finding projects to keep her occupied any longer. And it allows me to work on those subroutines for being devious I've been writing. Why not try to kill two Mynocks with one blasterbolt?