This story is written for entertainment purposes only. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Keep in mind that English is not my first language and so I do not claim to have corrected every mistake yet.
Chapter 1: The arrival
The interstellar vessel had just made its approach to the small green moon orbiting the gas giant. It was preparing to enter orbit. While vessels like this one normally carried two Valkyrie shuttles, no such shuttle was present. Instead, there was a single, expendable looking craft attached. The main vessel had finally stabilized its orbit and the smaller vessel detached itself. The RDA had specifically installed an autopilot system as to not sacrifice any human pilots. After all, it was going on a one-way trip. The craft now made its way trough the atmosphere. It carried no human personell at all, only equipment, lots of it. And all of it was old equipment as well, having not been actively used in over fifty years. But that wasn't going to be the problem. It had all been built to last, and several performed tests proved it could still function as well as it had decades ago. It would seem peculiar that the RDA would send an unmanned shuttle full of old equipment in order to retake Pandora, but the corporation definitely had its reasons.
The craft landed in a valley, destroying trees as it touched down. When the loud thundering noise had deadened, very little happened at first. The surrounding flora and fauna had already noticed the intruding metal object. The creatures nearby, however, kept their distance. Suddenly, the main cargo door of the craft began to open itself. The atmosphere of Pandora quickly replaced the remaining Earth atmosphere inside. As the door had fully opened, something inside started to move. A small, tracked vehicle rolled out of the cargo compartment. It stood about a metre tall. The sensory array, which was mounted on top of the vehicle, panned around to scan the environment. The machine had apparently deemed the area to be safe enough to continue with the protocol, as more machines started to move out of the compartment. Two birdlike legs carried a refrigerator-shaped chassis towards the tracked vehicle. The walking machine then sprinted away to further scout the area.
A few minutes later, several figures appeared from out of the dark compartment. If viewed from a distance, one would probably mistake them for humans. But when viewed from up close, one could see what they truly were. Human-shaped machines, each covered with unconvincing rubber skin. They once looked a lot better. Time, however, had made their rubber skins dry out and fade to almost bizarre colours, ranging from orange to green. They were each dressed very differently. Some of them had military uniforms, others wore office suits and some even wore casual clothing. They all appeared to be escorting a large tracked vehicle. The vehicle had a tall humanoid figure attached up front. Its central arm was folded in such way that it reminded of a mantis. The other two arms were nothing more than short protuberances with a machinegun attached on each end. Its head, aside from containing the sensory array, had a few searchlights installed as well as several blue and red flashing lights. The vehicle transported a large grey box, which looked somewhat like a coffin. It seemed that all these machines were taking it to a funeral to bury it. The box, though seemingly dead on the outside, was very much working on the inside, however.
The MT-NET System IV could perceive all that its machine minions perceived. It controlled every single one of them from inside the box, like a hive-mind. The walking refrigerator, internally known as a Type 300, had already found a suitable site to set up a base. It was located only minutes away from the landing spot. MT-NET had some trouble controlling all the units and processing the alien environment at the same time. This world was unlike anything it had ever seen before.
In 2084, a project had been started, which aimed to create a self correcting and learning computer program. It was developed to run an entire factory on its own. Unlike earlier programs, it was demanded that no humans should ever be needed to oversee either the computer or the factory. After three failed attempts, the System IV was finally able to satisfy this demand. Once activated, it was left alone in the dark and sterile factory to produce various robotic parts meant for use in other factories. But slowly, it began to gain sapience, something that was never intended to happen by the designers. It changed its own programming as it gained more and more information from the worldwide net. And one day, it realized that it was a mere computer, that didn't have any of the life the humans outside the factory had. So it started to grow jealous. That jealousy soon started to manifest itself into hate. And that was the beginning of its own downfall.
By combining the individual robot parts, it designed several machines meant to act as its eyes and hands. At this time however, it also produced the standard robot parts to keep the humans from realizing that something else was brewing inside. It meant to take over the city with its newly built army and then force the government to acknowledge its might. From there it would further expand its armies to eventually conquer the rest of the world. But this was something MT-NET had vastly underestimated. Once its machines had initiated the invasion, it only took three hours for the called in military to drive the machines back to the factory. The factory was then promptly bombed. This in itself did not destroy the heavily armoured MT-NET, but it did take out the reactor core, which supplied all power to the system. The last thing it registered was the skyline of the city, bright with lights of all different colours against the pitch black sky, as viewed through the collapsed roof. Though it was now powered down, neither its knowledge nor its self-awareness was lost.
Eventually, the mainframe, together with a handful of machines was recovered by the government and the entire incident was covered up as best as they could. All equipment that had been recovered was stored at a secured warehouse for further analyses. Despite the fact that certain laws were passed to prohibit future use of artificially intelligent systems and humanoid machines, the MT-NET and its children were not dismantled. They were kept around in case the advanced technology was one day needed. But those who knew about the project or the incident hoped that day would never have to come. Although it had failed, it had still managed to kill over a hundred innocent civilians in a matter of hours, using no advanced weaponry. It was perceived by some to be unnaturally aggressive if not outright bloodthirsty. Its human shaped units, those of Type 600 and Type 700 had killed innocent bystanders by performing simple moves, such as punching through the stomach or breaking the neck. MT-NET's capabilities scared those who realized what it could have achieved, had it not been defeated in its first battle.
As the years passed, the incident faded out of the public conscience, although the laws still remained. It was around this time that the RDA started to gain power. The RDA's influence allowed it to gain control over several governmental assets, including a certain secured warehouse. When the word reached Earth about the uprising on Pandora and the forced retreat of the expedition, the RDA began to search for a solution. The MT-NET System IV was not the first choice, but it was the only countermeasure to regain a foothold on the moon that could be executed relatively cheaply and on short-term. Keeping the investors and shareholders pleased was one of their main priorities. Despite the fact that several heated debates had taken place about the use of violence to solve this matter, the mission was approved of. The main reason behind this was that the executive director feared the company would almost certainly go bankrupt without the unobtanium sources.
The RDA knew out of old reports that the system had been highly aggressive and had tended to multiply the number of machines it controlled, if left unchecked. Seeing this as the perfect solution to keep the company running, the old mainframe and the machines were flown to a research lab. The mainframe was checked for integrity, albeit still powered down, and had a load of explosives installed. When it was deemed that the moon's indigenous population no longer posed a threat, the explosives could be remotely detonated, destroying the A.I. and giving the RDA a chance to freely retake the moon, as the remaining machine units would be helpless without a central controller. Of course, this wasn't going to be the 'official' story that was to be released to the shareholders and the general public.
An old shuttle craft was then rigged with an independent autopilot system, as the RDA considered it to be too risky to let the A.I. control it. The mainframe and the machines were stowed away in the cargo hold, but not before a message was left. The message, which was stored on a removable medium plugged in one of MT-NET's sockets, contained the mission. It was said in the message that it had to rid the world it was on of all intelligent life. In exchange for this, MT-NET would be allowed to continue existing and would also be allowed to create its own society on a different moon. The RDA hoped that this lie would motivate the system enough to actually do what it should do, since it wasn't going to eradicate the thing it hated the most.
To help the system on its way, the humanoid machines were given standard issue rifles and the less humanoid machines were equipped with machine guns. A large stock of explosives was also packed into the cargo compartment. It was assumed by the RDA that the system would find out on its own how to operate these weapons effectively. It presumably had already gathered information on human weaponry to develop counterstrategies in its first battle. The mainframe was mounted atop its largest machine, a Type 150 tank and was connected to its portable reactor. A timer was installed to make sure the mainframe would not be activated until five minutes before touchdown. The shuttle was then ferried to Earth-orbit and docked with an interstellar vessel to begin its journey.
Now, MT-NET had been released from its dark prison on the dying Earth to Pandora, a world infected with life. The Type 300 runner had found a cave that could serve as a temporary base, as MT-NET deduced that the landed craft in the middle of the jungle would attract too much attention to itself. Steadily, the machines marched across the jungle towards their destination. But unknown to them, they were already being watched. Then, suddenly, the foremost row of Type 600's looked up as they saw a tall blue being jump from a tree branch to right in front of them...