Before the Saga Assassin Droid Blues| Holiday Fic Gift for @Findswoman| KOTOR era, HK-47

Title: Assassin Droid Blues
Author: Raissa Baiard
Timeframe: Before, Old Republic Era, ca. 3960 BBY, during the events of KOTOR
Characters: Revan, HK-47.
Genre: Humor
Synopsis: Assassin droid HK-47 takes up a new hobby.

Notes: this was written for @Findswoman ‘s Holiday fic gift. Her request was:

HK-47 sings the blues. Any era, setting, or scenario is fine; any other characters, EC or OC, may appear. The sole stipulation is that HK-47 sing the blues. (Using his usual HK-47ish speech pattern, of course: e.g., “Statement: My baby’s gone and left me.”)​

Here you go, my friend. I hope you will enjoy this story and have a very happy new year.
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Revan had a lot on his mind.

He was not, as he’d believed, a mild-mannered Republic Scout from the Outer Rim, but was actually Revan—yes, that Revan. The Revanchist. The Prodigal Knight. Darth Revan. Revan the Butcher.

And the reason Revan hadn’t remembered any of it until his old frenemy Darth Malak hijacked the Ebon Hawk and kidnapped and tortured its crew was that the Jedi Council had locked it all away in his head.

And his Council appointed caretaker and mentor, Bastila Shan--who Revan couldn’t decide if he wanted to throttle or marry-- was still in Darth Malak’s clutches, having sacrificed herself so that Revan and the others could escape to continue their mission to find the Star Forge.

Because if they didn’t Malak and his Sith would use it to destroy the Jedi, take over the Republic and plunge the Galaxy into Darkness.

So, yes, Revan had a karking Sith-load of bantha poodoo on his mind, and the strange honking wail that kept reverberating throughout the Ebon Hawk was absolutely not helping him concentrate.

Wahh--wah--waah--waaaahhhh….
Wahh--wah--waah--waaaahhhh….

At first, Revan thought that Canderous had finally snapped and was making good on his threats to rid the Ebon Hawk of its infestation of gizka. But as he followed the sound towards the aft of the ship, Revan realized that the noise was too euphonic and rhythmic to be the gizkas’ terrified squeals. It was almost musical in fact, and, oddly enough, it seemed to be coming from the garage bay.

Wahh--wah--waah--waaaahhhh….
Wahh--wah--waah--waaaahhhh….

HK-47, the assassin droid whose talent for creative mayhem was unparalleled, was alone in the bay; even the ever-present gizka had apparently fled from the anguished ululations that were emanating from him. Revan listened from the doorway for a moment, trying to decide what in the six novas the droid was doing-- practicing some obscure alien language? Perfecting a new form of sonic torture? Simple vocabulator failure?

HK-47’s head swiveled at the sound of Revan’s approach and his optical receptors lit up. ”Greeting: hello, Master,” he said, his voice back to normal. “You’re just in time to hear my new composition.”

“Composition? You mean that noise was…music?” What constituted music varied wildly across the Republic, but Revan would have been equally convinced of HK-47 had told him it was the death throes of a consumptive nuna.

“Agreement: Indeed, Master; that was the sound of the Growdi harmonique, popularized by prominent blues musicians like Silty Aquifer, Yowlin’ Lupine, and Filial Progeny Billiamson One and Two.”

“I didn’t know you were such a blues aficionado.” Of course, there was a lot Revan hadn’t known he knew. He was just now finding out how much.

“Statement: Oh,yes. It was a very popular musical genre on Tatooine.” The droid tilted his head slightly. “Sarcastic aside: I cannot imagine why. Yuka Laka often played the blues while he was working in the shop and sang along…How that Ithorian meatbag could possess four throats and none of them be in tune is beyond my logic circuits to understand. Speculation: That is perhaps the root of my long standing desire to crush his neck.” Somehow the droid managed to approximate a wistful sigh. “Observation: Sadly, it seems that ambition will go unfilled.”

“I wasn’t aware that you were capable of writing music,” Revan ventured, partly out of curiosity, but mostly in a bid to change the subject from HK’s unfulfilled homicidal longings. He realized he’d probably been responsible for the droid’s unbridled enthusiasm for violence in his previous life as a Sith lord, but it still managed to disturb him at times. “I don’t remember adding to your programming, at any rate.”

“Modest assertion: I am an entity of prodigious talents,” HK-47 replied, spreading his hands “not all of which pertain to my core function. When I belonged to that ill-fated senator on Coruscant, he installed a music appreciation module in an effort to make me and I quote ‘behave in a more genteel fashion befitting my station’.” Here his voice became shrill and whiny, with an affected Core World accent, presumably in imitation of his late master. “Indignant interpolation: Can you imagine?”

“It boggles the mind,” Revan replied. “So what made you decide to write a song now?”

“Commentary: Our current wretched circumstances proved quite inspirational in writing the blues. Would you like to hear it, Master?”

“Sure, why not?” Revan had a long list of bad decisions to his name; what was one more in the grand scheme of things?

Wahh--wah--waah--waaaahhhh….

It was surreal to hear the Growdi harmonique pour from the assassin droid’s vocabulator, and even more so when it was joined with a bass quetarra and kick drum. And on top of that, HK-47 began to sing (if by singing, you meant “speaking in his usual deadpan voice, but in a slightly more rhythmic fashion”):

Lamentation: I woke up in a junk shop;
My core memory was offline.
Repetition: Said that I woke up in a junk shop,
With my functions all offline.
Further dejection: ‘Til some meatbag unlocked my data core,
And gave me back what’s mine

Revan could sympathize with the frustration of having all of one’s core memories offline, so to speak. But he’d been the meatbag in question, and HK-47 had been neither particularly cooperative nor very grateful for his attempts to restore the droid’s memories. “That was…er, really something, HK…”

The droid’s optical receptors glinted red, and he glared at Revan. “Statement: I’m not finished, Master.”

“Entreaty to the audience,” he continued, as if Revan hadn’t spoken. “Listen to what I am saying.”

Second refrain:
Desolation: No one listens to me; they say I’m just a droid
Recapitulation: I said no one listens to me, ‘cause they say I’m just a droid.
Pronunciation: But I have a superior intellect
And I could have them all destroyed.

Wah, wah, wah…wah, wah,wah…wah, wah, wah…waaaaaahhhh…

Narration: We were tracking down a Star Map
In the wastes of Tatooine
Elaboration: Met some Tusken Raiders
Who thought they could treat us mean
Declaration: Well, you know I could’ve shot them
Dropped them right onto the sands
Indignation: But the master wouldn’t let me
Just what does he think I am?

Exclamation: I’m an assassin droid, baby!
And I got the assassin droid blues

Melancholy: If they won’t let me kill things
Then I might as well be dead
Additional despondance: Yeah, they won’t let me shoot things
So I just sing the blues instead.

Now that, thought Revan, was just plain melodramatic, even for a droid with HK-47’s talent for hyperbole. He might have forbidden HK to kill the Tusken chief in the interest of stopping what would surely have turned into a massacre of the entire tribe, even the women and children, but it was hardly true that he never let HK shoot anything. Their misadventures had provided the droid with any number of targets, from kath hounds to Sith agents. It wasn’t as if Revan had installed a pacifist module in him!

However, Revan wisely kept these thoughts to himself as HK droned on:

Recitation: We keep searching for the Star Forge
With Darth Malak on our track.
Expression of dismay: Now the Sith Lord’s taken Bastila;
Master says we have to get her back.
Proclamation: When I find Meatbag Malak,
I’ll shoot him right between the eyes
Explication: With my Aratech sniper rifle with the tri-light scope,
Statement of purpose: Just so I can watch him die.

Exclamation: ‘Cause I’m an assassin droid, baby!
And I got the assassin droid blues.

Avowal: Someday I’ll find Darth Malak,
And then I’ll make him dead.
Reiteration: Yes, I’m going to find that meatbag,
But now I sing the blues instead.

Wah—wah—wah—waaaaahhhh

The music died off in one last tremulous wail, and HK fixed Revan with a look of laser-focused intensity, the kind that only a psychotic assassin droid was capable of. “Query: what did you think, Master?”

“I…I’ve never heard anything quite like it before.” And with any luck, he never would again. “It was quite a…moving experience.”

“Gratitude: Thank you, Master. Writing it was quite cathartic. Qualification: Perhaps not as satisfying as making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away, but few things in this Galaxy are.”

“Yes, well…keep practicing and maybe someday you’ll be the next Besh-Besh Knig or Teta Semaj.”

“Objection: I could never give up my career as an assassin for the tawdry world of show business. I have standards, you know,” HK proclaimed indignantly. “Addendum: However, I have begun work on a follow-up. I call it ‘The Kill Is Gone’.”

——-
Revan retreated back to his cabin once HK decide to share his newfound musical talent with the rest of the Ebon Hawk’s crew. (Canderous might enjoy it, Revan thought. Carth and Mission would probably listen in stunned silence, but the Force alone knew what Jolee was going to say.) After being subjected to assassin droid performance art, it was a relief to do something pleasant like contemplating the certain demise of Galaxy.

Hmm…hmm…hmmm…hmmmm… Revan hummed and drummed his fingers against his desk as he thought. Hmm…hmm…hmmm…hmmmm…

“‘Cause I’m an assassin droid, baby… got the assassin droid blues…”

Oh.

Oh no…

HK’s song was stuck in his head now. And while ear worms might be less fatal than Geonosian brain worms, they were almost as difficult to dislodge.

It was enough to make Revan sing the blues.
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Notes:

The blues do indeed exist in the GFFA, and the Tatooine blues are a subgenre.

The Growdi Harmonique is the same instrument played by the Shawda Ubb musician, Rappertunie, in the Special Edition of RotJ

The harmonique players mentioned reference Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson I and II (yes, really), all of whom played blues harmonica.

Besh-Besh Knig and Teta Semaj are of course blues greats B.B. King and Etta James.

The main influences for HK’s song were Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues, with its immortal line “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die” for overall tone, and…Weird Al Yankovic’s Generic Blues for the overall structure.

 

Never in a million years would I have thought of blending HK47 with singing the blues. As a classic jazz afficianado I found this particularly HILARIOUS! And to have THAT song stuck in your head, oh my.

 

Hilarious and so in character for HK with his abilities to show what he can do as an assassin. Love how Revan deals with it and getting a worm from it.

 

Love it! It does slightly amuse me Revan ended up taking a place in more than one gift this year.
You do a great job of intertwining the lore. I picked up on quite a bit. The pacifist package in particular gave me a chuckle.
I have a really odd feeling HK would be a halfway decent singer, your songs were VERY creatively put together.

 

This was a lot of fun to read, and it's incredible to realise just how versatile HK-47 is as a character. It still felt very much like him throughout the story.

"Chats on the Ebon Hawk" is one of my favourite kinds of Star Wars fic. The multiple-choice aspect of the KotOR games means that almost all of them feel like feasible scenarios for one playthrough or another.

Oooh. Now I need a sequel fic where HK's talent for the blues reemerges during the events of KotOR II. If anything would bring it back it would be the HK-50s

 

@Raissa Baiard This was my fourth time reading this story, and I laughed just as hard as on the first, second and third reads Your humorous stories always have me in stitches, but you outdid yourself this time. Between Revan's side thoughts (e.g. not being able to decide if "he wanted to throttle or marry" Bastila, or confusing HK's singing with "the death throes of a consumptive nuna", the starwarsified blues band and musician names (Silty Aquifer ), HK's running commentary on everything and anything around him ("How that Ithorian meatbag could possess four throats and none of them be in tune is beyond my logic circuits to understand" ) and the ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS mental/acoustic image of HK speaking in his usual deadpan voice while the sounds of all sorts of instruments come out of his vocabulator – not to mention the INSANE lyrics, this has got to be waaaay up there on the list of the funniest stories you ever wrote.

And the pacifist module got a cameo

I remember laughing so hard the first time that I was really wondering how you could still one-up the story and stick the landing, but then you did! If Revan is stuck with an earworm of HK's latest composition while "contemplating the certain demise of Galaxy", the galaxy is in a lot of trouble, I say.

This was a fantastic, fantastic read on every level. Thanks so much for sharing!