Sorry for the delay everyone, things have been kind of nuts since school started - but here's the next installment of the story. Read, review, and enjoy! Hugs and butterfly kisses, ravenclawdancer4999.
As it turned out, their return was only the calm before the storm. After visiting Bug-World once more, February and Bug returned to the starship with startling news. While it had been common knowledge that Junior was a jerk, the two discovered that the entire mission had been a set-up. Junior had wanted February to be captured, in the hope that the bugs would plant an egg in her esophagus so that he could create his own bug army and take over Earth.
Things only got worse from there. The rangers fanned out in an attempt to find Junior, only to find that he had already fled the ship. Before they could investigate the matter further, three ungodly large mosquitoes and a giant scorpion the size of a small car had infiltrated the ship. The three mosquitoes went straight for Krayonder and Specs felt as though she might lose her lunch right then and there. Before she could try to help him, the scorpion grabbed February up in one of his massive claws and blocked the engineer's path. It wasn't long before much to everyone's shock, Bug revealed that he wasn't who everyone thought he was; he was, in all reality, a bug in a human body. The scorpion looked as though it was about to tear into February, when suddenly the ship gave a lurch, throwing everyone and everything off balance. Apparently MegaGirl had reverted back to her mindless killing core and was behind the systems' override.
"IT'S NOT OVER YET, MAN!" Krayonder yelled, hefting his zapper. He fired a volley of shots at the giant scorpion, causing him to release February from his claw. "Run! I've got him pinned down like a piece of Arcturian poontang!"
By this time, the mosquitoes were beginning to move in on the rest of the crew as he continued to fire, thirsty for more blood. Specs looked back as they closed in and felt her stomach jump into her throat. Pincer had caught Krayonder up in one of his claws, and was looking at Krayonder with hungry look in his beady eyes.
"One day, someone like me is going to kill you and your whole effin' race, man!" Krayonder growled, struggling to escape. The scorpion said something in its own language before his other claw closed in over the ranger's head.
"KRAYONDER, NO!" Commander Up screamed, voicing Specs' thoughts exactly. Her head began to buzz as she watched February fly into Up's arms, crying her eyes out over what she had just discovered, Bug looking on with a look of utmost regret.
"Specs, go find Tootsie!" Taz ordered, "Reverse the core overload!"
Specs looked at Krayonder, who was lying on the ground unconscious, with blood pouring from his head. The giant scorpion was moving closer, ready to strike once again. She looked from Taz to Krayonder, torn between her orders and her friend. Eventually, she gave Taz an apologetic look and charged toward the scorpion.
"Specs, what da hell are jou doing?" Taz barked.
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but I'm not about to let a ranger die on my watch," Specs shouted, skidding to a halt behind Pincer. She pulled a wrench out of her tool bag and threw it as hard as she could at the bug's head. "Leave him alone!"
The scorpion stopped where he was, turning slowly to face Specs. He made a noise that sounded like a growl and started moving toward her. Desperately, Specs pulled out her spectrometer and furiously typed in a command. Pincer was raising his claw to strike when a high squealing noise filled the corridor, emitting from the spectrometer.
Clearly the sound had some sort of negative effect on the beast, because he immediately retreated, barreling off to another part of the ship. Specs pulled another large roll of gauze from her bag and secured it to Krayonder's wound with medical tape, praying it would slow the bleeding long enough for her to regain control of the starship. Ignoring the look she was getting from Taz, she took off toward the ship's mainframe, running faster than she ever had in her life.
She ran into Tootsie on the way, who looked even more bewildered than usual, if that was at all possible. He jogged along beside her as the two made their way to the heart of the starship, Specs anxiously monitoring the status of the control unit.
"The state of the engine is pre-meltdown, I've got to reverse the polarity of the electron flow before the reactor core undergoes complete atomic conversion," she rambled, the words spilling out of her mouth so fast that she could hardly understand them.
"Me, too?" Tootsie replied, clearly having the same problem.
"Good luck, oxygen suckers," a familiar voice gloated. MegaGirl stepped out from the shadows, her eyes glowing dangerously and a sneer written across her face.
Specs' eyes narrowed angrily. If it hadn't been for Junior forcing the robot on them, the engineer would still have control of the ship and wouldn't have been forced to leave Krayonder bleeding on the ground. With all of the firewalls MegaGirl had applied to the system override, it was going to take Specs three times as long to access the core reactor. In that kind of time, the whole ship could be reduced to nothing more than a pile of ashes
"MegaGirl, what are you doing?" Tootsie cried, "You shouldn't be here! It's dangerous!"
"Allow me to interface with the synthetic being," Specs cut in.
If she could reactivate the inhibitor chip on the back of MegaGirl's neck, she might be able to get the robot to relinquish control of the starship. She vaguely remembered reading something about using extremely specific vocal commands to establish the connection between the operating system and the human. Her only hope was to attempt to repeat the commands, word for word.
"Greetings humanoid robotic artificial intelligence, my name is Specs," Specs started slowly, "To my guild, I am known as the super-intelligence neuro-"
She never finished; MegaGirl grabbed her roughly by the arm and threw her against the nearest wall. While she managed to keep her head from making serious contact with the metal corridor, the force was still enough to knock the engineer unconscious for almost a minute.
By the time she came around, she saw MegaGirl standing stationary with her head tilted up. The air was filled with loud, synthetic humming that appeared to be emitting from the robot's mouth.
"Downloading new emotion. Download complete," MegaGirl said, "This emotion was downloaded from the inter-web and could contain viruses, are you sure you want to open it?"
"I do, I do!" Tootsie exclaimed, hardly containing his excitement.
"New emotion installation complete," MegaGirl continued, her systems beginning to whir loudly, "It is, love. It is love! I love you, Tootsie MegaGirl!"
In a heartbeat, the farm boy and the robot were kissing passionately, there arms wrapped tightly around each other. Specs didn't know much about artificial intelligence, but she had no earthly idea of what had caused the override of MegaGirl's instincts to annihilate all humans. All she knew, was that those instincts appeared to be long gone.
"What a woman!" Tootsie whooped as the two pulled out of their kiss.
"Ocular sensor malfunction!" MegaGirl exclaimed, attempting to dab away what appeared to be tears rolling down her cheeks. Specs was mystified; robots couldn't cry, could they?
Suddenly, her mission came back to mind and she scrambled up – time was of the essence.
"MegaGirl, don't cry," Tootsie grinned goofily, wiping the tears from the robot's face, "Your pretty makeup is running!"
"You two, go help the others!" Specs interrupted, pointing down the hallway toward where she had left Up, Taz, and Krayonder. "I'll go try to save the reactor core!"
"Okay, Specs!" Tootsie replied, picking up MegaGirl and running off to find the others. Specs sprinted toward the control room, hurriedly typing diagnostic codes to analyze the status of the starship's mainframe. It seemed that there was still time to save the reactor core before it became too unstable to handle. She pushed through the door and immediately sat down in front of the ship's main computer, putting on a headset as she hurriedly typed in her password.
It didn't take long for Specs to bypass the first few access codes – this much she expected. The protective measures only became more difficult to hack as she continued, but soon enough there was only one barrier between her and regaining control of the starship. It was a seven letter word, one capital, no spaces, but nothing the engineer tried worked
"Computer, call MegaGirl," Specs instructed via headset, initiating the voice-activated command system.
"Calling, MegaGirl," the computer repeated, dialing the robot. There were two rings before she picked up.
"Hello, Officer Specs," MegaGirl answered somewhat absentmindedly, "What is the purpose of your call?"
"Is that Specs?" Tootsie's voice asked, "Hi, Specs! Did'ja fix that core doohickey you was talking about?"
"Almost, Tootsie," Specs sighed impatiently.
"Is not my boyfriend the kindest hu-man you have ever met?" MegaGirl said proudly, "His oblivious nature does not prevent him from caring deeply for the welfare of others in the slightest."
"I love when you use those big words," Tootsie chuckled and there were noises that Specs could only assume meant that the two were kissing again.
"If the two of you don't mind, I am attempting to prevent the core reactor from exploding and killing us all," Specs snapped, "I just need the final password to bypass the override."
"That is simple," MegaGirl cooed, "I would only protect such an imperative program with the one thing that defrosted my icy, metal heart."
Before Specs could say anything further, the other line clicked, indicating that MegaGirl had hung up on her.
"The one thing that thawed her heart," Specs thought, racking her brain. A minute later the answer hit her – something so obvious that she hadn't thought to try it.
"Tootsie," Specs uttered, typing so quickly that her fingers were a blur. The computer immediately accepted the password and the engineer rapidly keyed in the necessary commands. With baited breath, she threw a lever on the control panel, reversing the polarity of the electron flow to positive.
"System override canceled, self-destruct maneuver deactivated," the computer recited in a monotone a few seconds later. "Returning to auto-pilot."
Specs exhaled slowly, slumping against the back of the chair. The relief didn't last long as she remembered the state Krayonder had been in when she left. She ripped the headset off, slung her bag back over her shoulder, and sprinted off once more.