Buzz drummed his fingers on the control panel as the Cruiser left Lahila's atmosphere. Soon they would be clear of its orbit, on their way to Apocrita, where with luck Ty was waiting for them. Booster was getting XR rebooted, running scans, trying to figure out why his friend was offline. It wasn't from falling- that would be fixed if he hit the reset button and maybe knocked out some dents. Mira looked over her shoulder then got up to help him. They were experts in repairing their teammate. Usually they didn't even need the LGMs to fix him anymore. Together, they knocked out a dozen viruses, all before even reaching whatever was causing this. Mira grumbled about computer security and safe searches, before they found a little glitchy-looking file. It had rectangles and question marks instead of letters.
"Should I delete this?"
"Gee, I don't know, Mira. What if it's important?" It could just be a corrupted file.
"Hmm, let's just put it in quarantine for now." Don't want to delete his personality or something...
They continued the repairs, and all of a sudden XR sat up, grinning.
Booster was very happy. There was finally some progress! "Hey, he's awake! XR, what happened?"
The little robot's head turned to them, slowly, and then bounced inside the helmet as it let out a high-pitched mechanical whir.
"Uh, wow, I don't think he's supposed to do that," said Mira, backing away as though the robot might explode. Which, given his history, was a real possibility.
"He looks creepy like that," Booster whinged. But XR would be alright. He always was!
"You're telling me! Okay, lets try rebooting him. Again."
They turned XR off, waiting a few minutes before switching him back on again.
"Hello! My name is XR!"
"Hey, XR! How are you feeling?" She smiled at him, hoping he wasn't too mad about the crash. That probably hurt.
The robot opened his mouth and said... "Hello! My name is {error} XR!"
"You said that already," said Booster. "Are you okay?"
"Hello. Hello. Hellolloooooo. My name is Hello! XR."
Mira groaned and put a hand on her forehead. He was glitching. Just what they all needed. "Well, it's something."
"Hello! Hell-ell-ell-ello Help me Hello!"
So he knew what was going on! "We're trying XR! Can you tell us anything?"
"My name is trophallaxis!"
"What?" his teammates said simultaneously. "What does that even mean?" Mira asked, for everyone. Was it even a real word?
"I don't kno-kno-knnnnnnnnello my name is help me my name is XR stuck in XR loop XR {system error} Hello." XR crossed his arms and sighed. "The word is Hello my name is word was in Hello my files I name is XR downlo-lo-loaded-ed-ed Hello my name is XR!"
"Um, did you try deleting the file, or maybe isolating it?" Booster asked. XR shook his head, not wanting to risk talking again. Whatever this glitch was, he'd be glad when it was repaired!
Buzz looked over his seat. "Booster, why don't you work on XR in the back, Mira you help me navigate. If you could have him functional by the time we reach Apocrita, that would be great."
"Yes sir!" Booster cheerfully saluted and dragged the robot out of the bridge.
"Hello my name-" and the door cut off the rest of XR's loop.
After an incredibly awkward silence, Buzz turned to Mira.
"What were you two thinking? Can you imagine what could have happened if we got caught?"
"Sorry, I just thought that maybe we should do some investigating as to why Talnak would try to hide the existence of an entire planet?"
Buzz 'hmm'ed thoughtfully. "Something like that's a bit higher-up than him. And he's a dignitary, Mira, even if we did find something he could have arrested us for espionage! And then where would we be?" Seeing Mira's expression, he went on. "Look, I know, it's all fishier than a Bathyosian buffet, but we've got bigger fish to fry." He grimaced. "Uh, bad choice of words but you know what I mean."
"I know, I was just trying to help. Take the initiative," she explained. "I didn't think XR would get hurt." She mumbled an apology. Or that he'd get caught.
"I'm not mad or anything. Just... run that under-the-table stuff by me first next time, okay?"
"Yeah, okay." Like Buzz ever ran that under-the-table stuff by Nebula!
"Good, glad that's settled. So what were you two looking for?"
"Just anything to do with Apocrita besides that file he gave you."
"Yeah, this doesn't have much about their society they didn't already tell us. A whole lot of anatomy and medical stuff, but unless we plan on running into... 'Degenerative Neuro-Pulmonary Mycosis Type 3' I don't think it'll be much help." The planet had some nasty diseases. Several lethal fungal infections, freaky parasites, and garden-variety bacterial and viral infections. More than half were labeled zoonotic, so Buzz knew he wouldn't be going near the wildlife. There was nothing saying the stuff wasn't able to infect, say, vertebrates, and quite a lot of things saying "no known treatments"...
"So how do we know who to talk to?"
"If we get XR working we might have an idea, otherwise we'll just have to wing it."
"Are we going to use that disc Talnak gave us?" The first one was not as advertised.
Buzz was on the same track. "I don't think so, it might not be what he says it is... We'll try getting past the satellites ourselves. They look like primitive tracker-explosives with a jammer signal, it shouldn't be too hard." Very primitive, if his scanners were right- outdated to the point where they wouldn't be detected automatically, which was probably how they got Ty.
They flew on in silence, dodging the occasional space debris, for the next few hours. Suddenly Mira stretched with a satisfying 'pop!' from her elbows.
"We're getting close, I'll go see how Booster's doing." Mira got up and ghosted through the door, leaving Buzz alone in the captain's seat.
Booster's fingers were stuck in some wires, and he poked them back into place. "Oh, hey Mira. I can get him to work when he's separated, but once I put his head back he crashes again. Any idea how to fix that?" XR's head sat on a ledge, a low AAAHH emanating from his voice box.
"Sorry, Booster, I don't. That's kind of a weird problem to have." Usually putting his head back on solved the problem...
"You said it." Booster tweaked a wire and the noise changed pitch, sounding more like his real voice. Then he took a screwdriver and tightened a few screws, and XR's body zoomed forward, banging against a wall.
"Wait, XR I'm not done!"
"I can t-take it fro-from here, Husk-ky-ky Bob!" Then he shut off. Booster and Mira waited, while XR rebooted himself. "Oh, am I glad to be out of that loop. Mira, you owe me big time! I mean it!"
"Sure, um... What's your name again? I don't think I caught it," the Tangean joked.
XR put his hands on his 'hips'. "Ha, ha, very funny!"
Mira giggled.
"You wouldn't be l-laughing if happened to you!" Darn, he still had a couple bugs to get. And that was before they landed on bug planet. Speaking of... "Hey, let's see if I can get that file open."
"Be careful, XR, please," said Booster. He twiddled his fingers as the robot made some little beeps. A printer shot out of his chest, and began spitting out some dot-matrix paper. "Are you going to print everything?"
"No way, I don't have enough paper. These are just a couple pages where that word shows up."
"Tro-whatever?" Mira asked.
"Yeah, that one. Apparently these guys eat each other's stomach contents. Is that freaky or what?"
"... And what stage in the digestive process does this happen?" And did she really want to know?
"Says here they have two stomachs... if the food's in numero uno they just harf it back up as a show of respect."
"Ew!"
"Yeah, so the Lahilans used to spray Cadrinian powder all over their food supply, and as it's digested it gets stronger so whoever yaks ends up poisoning the people who ate it."
"You'd think that would be a deterrent..." If nothing else was. It still grossed Mira out. "So why are they poisoning their 'partners'? And isn't Cadrinian powder that stuff they sell in the joke shop?"
"Oh, now we're getting to the good stuff! It's not a partnership, they're using the place as a giant military training/testing facility. Or they were until around fifteen, twenty years ago. I didn't find anything on why they stopped, they just... did."
"But that's illegal!" Booster protested.
"Yeah, it is. So I guess it all makes sense now, sort of," Mira said, wondering along with XR what exactly was going on. "Oh, by the way we're almost there. Are you going to be in working order?"
"I've got a few kinks to work out, but I'm ready for duty!" He rolled forward and fell on his front. "Ouch."
"Yes, you're definitely ready. I bet they'll never see you coming!"
"Bet you twenty unibucks they will! Wait, that's not what I meant..."
Booster went to the bridge with Buzz while XR and Mira kept teasing each other. Buzz was doing some stretches, since he'd been sitting for a while. Booster looked at a large, blue-and-green planet. "Whoa. Is that Apocrita?" It sure looked pretty from a distance.
Buzz smiled. "Affirmative." Then, over the intercom, "We'll be entering Apocritan orbit in forty-five minutes, so everybody to your stations." He activated 42's cloaking device; if that was enough, they didn't need to risk any funny business from that disc.