Oldies But Goodies
It had been thirty years since the destruction of Citadel Station, thirty years since TriOptimum faced the worst publicity known to mankind, and most importantly thirty years since anyone had seen a Cyborg Assassin. They were re-animated human corpses that were heavily cyberized with pitch black exo-plating, a nano-fiber hood with an optical band grafted over their mutilated faces, and they were armed with an anti-personal laser rifle and throwing stars made out of pure energy. When citadel station was destroyed by a renegade hacker in 2072, everyone assumed that all of SHODAN's creations including the cyborg assassin's were wiped out from existence.
However, that was far from the truth...
When Anatoly Korecnchkin bought off and re-licensed TriOptimum, as well as christening the starship Von Braun he secretly developed a new variant of the cyborg assassins that would be used as 'insurance' in the case that there was a conflict between his crew and the crew aboard the UNN Rickenbacker that was attached to vessel.
When the annelid infestation began, he let the cyborg assassins loose so that they could gun down anyone who opposed the will of one of SHODAN's indirect creations known as 'The Many'. While they weren't armed with the laser rifles that their predecessors possessed, they still had the throwing stars and a smaller version of the laser rapiers that were commonly used by some of the crew members aboard the Rickenbacker and the Von Braun.
Regardless, they were still a threat to those who were unaffected by the pestilence that was The Many...
It had been exactly three months, one week, four days, and five hours since it was activated and given orders to subvert one of the Simulation Units on the Operations Deck...Since then, it had been carrying out its other directives. Only three remained while the one it had received from a superior had been overridden upon completion.
DIRECTIVES:
-TERMINATE ALL ENEMIES AS INDICATED BY XERXES.
-PATROL FOR INTRUDERS/HOSTILES.
-PROTECT ALL UNITS DESIGNATED AS ANNELID.
-SUBVERT SIMULATION UNIT IMMEDIATELY (COMPLETED, DIRECTIVE OVERRIDEN.).
Strangely though, the human also refitted it's exo-plating and nano-fiber hood with equipment that was obviously the same but was cosmetically altered to the color red. It didn't question the redudance of the refitting, it merely obeyed its orders as it was programmed to. The chance of the new armor affecting its performance was negligible and therefore irrelevant.
It slowly returned to its patrol of the area as it noted the signs of struggles all over the hallway. Corpses, Bullet Holes, and blood stains littered its way but quick scans from its neuro-interface indicated that they were more than several days old and were no longer fresh.
Before it could continue forward, it received a short digital transmission.
INTRUDER DETECTED ENTERING DECK 4.
THREAT LEVEL: 1
ROBOT: FALSE.
ANNELID: FALSE.
ARMED: TRUE.
PSIONIC: TRUE.
TERMINATION: AUTHORIZED.
GLORY TO THE MANY, GLORY TO THE FLESH.
The cyborg assassin paused and slowly turned its head to the right, waiting for its quarry. After what it calculated to have been five minutes, its target emerged from one of the nearby office sectors and quickly activated one of the Quantum Bio-Reconstruction Devices. From what it could see of the target, is that it was human, male, armed with a shotgun and carrying what appeared to be a Psi-Amp in his pocket.
It quickly dashed through the door behind it, weaving past the humans mutated by the annelids that infested their bodies and minds, passing by at least one protocol droid that was aimlessly wandering about, before entering a small room built for holding meetings with the crew members of ship operations. Once again, it decided to wait. The re-animated corpse turned bio-mechanical killer had an infinite amount of patience and it had no need for consuming or ingesting substances, or sleeping like most organics did. Occasionally it heard the sound of one of the human-annelid hybrids giving one last roar of defiance before its death, as well as the sound of quick human footsteps.
SECURITY SYSTEMS DISABLED.
So this target was a hacker. No matter, it would terminate its new target with extreme prejudice and as fate had it the human was approaching it. Its head panned to the right as it watched its target come in through the door. Its target was still carrying a shotgun, and was obviously wearing a form of powered armor. The chance of the target's survival was moderate at best.
The human raised human shotgun and fired a blast of normal rounds that pierced through its belly and groin...causing an extreme amount of damage to its mobility but not entirely compromising it. The cyborg returned fire with three of its energy-based throwing stars that hit the human, startling it and doing some damage but not killing him. Before the walking cadaver could plan its next move, its prey raised a psi-amp and released a Cryokinetic blast that compromised its mobility. The cyborg turned around to face the enemy to inspect him before seeing the sight of a laser rapier cutting through its torso.
The soldier examined the remains of the red cyborg assassin...it's lower body frozen to the floor by its feet and legs while its upper body laid on the floor in a pool of blood. He flipped the body over and began sifting through its belongings as its biomechanical limbs twitched. Its optical band flickered once as the survivor pulled out the sim-chip for one of the simulation units.
'YOU P-P-ERFORMED WELL, INSECT. UPLOADING CYBERNETIC MODULES.' The survivor nodded to himself and then proceeded onward, he had two more of those things to kill.