Author's Note: Well, here it is, Chapter 20.
Disclaimer: Refer to prologue
Story Title: Corrupted Programming
Chapter Title: Get Us Out of Here!
Cluster Imperial Flagship
Vexus peered out the port as her gigantic, beetle-shaped flagship bore down on the boxy, diminutive command ship of Grand Marshal. The command ship was merely a twentieth of the size of her flagship, anyone looking at the scene would have concluded that the command ship stood no chance. But the queen knew better, she had followed Yomex's military history with interest and she knew that the Grand Marshal's craft was more than it appeared. One of Yomex's greatest victories had been taking out an enemy warship 8 times the size of his command ship, plus the warships escorts. The Cluster ruler had no doubt that Yomex could seriously damage her craft.
"Hail them." Vexus said curtly to a roach drone on a communications console.
"At once, my Queen." Answered the roach drone. The red drone started tapping a few keys, but after a few moments he turned back. "We cannot open a channel, Your Highness. Either he shut down his communications or there's a problem with the communications system of his command ship."
"I expected as much." Vexus mumbled, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "Have they shown any sign of detecting us?"
"It's strange, Your Majesty, but they don't seem to have detected us. Their shields are down and their weapons systems are inactive."
Queen Vexus nodded. Here it was, the perfect opportunity to destroy a traitor in one fell swoop. With the command ship in its current state, destroying it would be easy. In fact, it was too easy, far too easy. Vexus narrowed her eyes warily. Yomex was up to something, she was sure. This was some sort of elaborate set up. Well she wasn't going to fall for it.
"Keep your distance," she warned. "Shields and weapons to full power, have them on standby. Something's not right here…"
The Cluster Imperial Flagship kept a wary distance from the command ship, its shields and weapons ready with sensors peeled for any nasty surprises. Anticipating some sort of surprise move from an enemy they didn't know was dead.
Grand Marshal Yomex's Command Ship
ADAX's left arm flailed limply as he dodged energy ball after energy ball from High Commander Viruz. He couldn't fire back since Miffy was charging up. Besides, this wasn't gonna last long anyway. He took a look at Miffy's timer, 2 minutes, 52.1 seconds. Yup, not much longer. He put his weapon and hand over the hole in his stomach, trying to slow the bleeding of his formaldehyde.
He ran down the corridors, leading the purple robot on a wild chase. He only had to hold out for little longer than two more minutes. After that, his mission would be completed. He would succeed. He wouldn't be a failure. It was just too bad that he most likely wouldn't be able to gloat to Wakeman about how he had proven her wrong. Oh well, at least he prove himself.
"What's the matter, ugly, too fast for ya?" ADAX taunted, further enraging Viruz.
The High Commander chased after him as fast as he could. The intensity of his energy field was actually slowing him down since his feet literally melted to the floor with every step, it made it as if he was sloughing through thick mud. ADAX saw that end just smiled crookedly. He took another look at his weapon's timer. 1:24.6
Finally, the corridors came to a room. The schematics he downloaded told him that this was the engine room. He looked around and saw security and engineering drones. They were all slinking toward him with weapons drawn when Viruz literally plowed into the engine room. Seeing the insanely glowing purple robot, the drones immediately for got about ADAX and started running for their lives. Apparently, they had heard about the High Commanders current temperament.
The green robot turned to face the Cluster High Commander and childishly stuck his tongue out to provoke him. The purple robot screamed in pure fury. He produced a massive ball of energy then hurled it at ADAX, but in his rage he wasn't aiming well enough. ADAX ducked, but he didn't need too. The shot passed by well away from where he was, side swept a reactor cylinder, the exploded into a wall.
[Warning, reactor containment unit damaged] A mechanical voice droned out as alarms started to blare. [Total containment failure imminent]
But neither Viruz nor ADAX was listening. The former was too caught up trying to destroy the latter, while the latter was concentrating on evading the former. Viruz shot out his remaining arm, attempting to claw at the green robot. But ADAX jumped out of the way, causing the High Commander to instead claw into a wall and send globules of molten metal flying. The purple robot whipped his head around in rage, turning to look at his target.
ADAX just taunted him again. Viruz tore on, clawing and flinging energy balls as he went after ADAX. ADAX, in the meantime, was starting to feel lightheaded. His formaldehyde fluid was almost fully drained and his bio-circuits were stating to feel the effects. He started feeling woozy and his vision blurred. He shook his head and forced himself to focus.
'Just a little more.' He mentally pleaded to himself.
'You got it, buddy.' A voice in his mind answered. He shook his head again, this time in disbelief. This close to what was most likely his end and he was still talkin' to himself.
Then, he came to a dead end corner. He turned around and saw Viruz, smiling like a lion closing in for a kill. ADAX looked at Miffy's timer: 0:5.0
He smiled and looked at Viruz. "Too late, dude."
ADAX felt Miffy explode in his hand. He just managed to see Viruz's shocked look a split second before everything went dark. The EMP field expanded to a radius of 15 meters, completely shutting down any unshielded piece of electronics within its range, including hapless roach and mantis drones. As ADAX, Viruz, and the drones clattered lifelessly to the ground the alarms and warning messages kept on blaring.
[Warning, reactor containment unit damaged, total failure imminent. Warning, reactor containment unit damaged, total failure imminent…]
Cluster Stealth Wasp
Dr. Wakeman studied the Cluster Imperial Flagship as she got over her initial panic. It was clearly Vexus' ship, but it wasn't acting the way the doctor expected it too. It seemed almost wary of the command ship. Though the scientist reasoned out that it must be because they had been discovered--ADAX had guaranteed that—and they didn't want XJ-9 to escape. She shook her head, she'd have to deal with that problem later. First, she had to get XJ-9, ADAX, and Bradley with her.
She shot a look at the jerry-rigged tracking monitor and was pleasantly surprised to see XJ-9's signal edging closer towards her, and the internal diagnostic system reported that XJ-9 was under no form of control or reprogramming. But then she frowned, where was ADAX's signal? She looked around and managed to see ADAX's signal go out somewhere onside the commandship's engine room. Quickly, she reached for her radio link and keyed in XJ9's frequency.
"XJ-9! XJ-9!" she called out urgently.
"Mom!" a familiar, excited-sounding voice answered back. There was no visual link since XJ-9's primary communications monitor had been destroyer before she had been kidnapped. "You don't know how glad I am to hear you voice!"
"Yes, I'm glad to know that you're all right as well." Mrs. Wakeman responded in a rushed manner. "However, I need to ask, did you rendezvous with ADAX?"
"You mean Dax? Yeah we did, but…" Jenny's voice suddenly became unsure with a slightly guilty tone. "But we left him behind, he said he'd hold off the guy who was comin' after us."
"I know that," the doctor answered. "I've been keeping track of your signal. I hailed you because I've lost ADAX's signal—"
"What?!" Jenny demanded, interrupting her mother.
"I've lost his signal somewhere in the engine room—"
"I'm going to get him." Jenny declared without waiting for Dr. Wakeman to finish. The scientist then heard her daughter say to someone, presumably Brad: "Just go forward for about 30 feet then turn left, it should be right there. I have to go get ADAX."
Brad must've answered because Mrs. Wakeman then heard: "I don't care if I'm not up to full power, I gotta get him. I may not know him that much, but he's still my brother."
"Wait, what was that about not being up to full powe—" Dr. wakeman started to say, but again she wasn't able to finish. This time, because Jenny cut off her radio link.
Grand Marshal Yomex's Command Ship
Jenny looked up the location of the engine room from the copy of the schematics ADAX had given her. She felt a few of her systems becoming accessible again as she slid out of gap in the thermal vent. Apparently, Fixit's disabling charge was wearing. She concentrated on her pigtail jets, willing them activate. At first, her pigtails only quivered and didn't activate, but when she tried again they suddenly came to life.
Jenny didn't linger around to celebrate. She had to hurry. As if in agreement to her thoughts, a warning message kept repeating it self: [Warning, reactor containment unit damaged, total containment failure imminent]
She flew down the corridors quickly, knocking down every drone that came in her way. She knew that a containment failure in the reactor meant that it could explode anytime soon. She had to get to ADAX before that happened. As she flew onward, she saw several signs that Viruz had left in his wake. There were melted corridors and drones and several scoring marks from energy balls that had missed their mark. But as she neared the engine room she saw seemingly untouched drone bodies lying on the floor, unmoving. It was an ominous sign.
Finally, she came inside the engine room. It didn't take her long to find ADAX and Viruz, both lay unmoving on the floor. It was then that she realized what had happened, ADAX must've detonated some sort of EMP device. It was the only explanation for all the seemingly untouched robotic bodies splayed lifelessly in close proximity to the engine room.
She scanned ADAX's body. Hoping to detect something, but knowing that she would most likely detect nothing. To her surprise, she detected traces of biological matter and faint cerebral activity. It took her a moment to realize that the bio signal was not a form of contamination but actually ADAX's control circuits. 'A bio-brained robot? Man, I never Mom would ever try something like that,' she thought to herself.
She shook that thought away. Somehow the fact that ADAX's brain was of biological nature had saved him from the effect of the EMP, but judging from the pool of spilled formaldehyde on the floor Jenny knew ADAX was in a critical situation. She hoisted her brother up then activated her radio link with her Mom.
"Mom, is Brad with you?"
"Yes," came the reply. "He's here. I see that you're in the engine room. Have you found ADAX? Is he—"
"Yeah, I found ADAX. I'm getting some brain activity, but he's leaked out a lot of formaldehyde."
"Formaldehyde?! You must get him here as quickly as you can. I need to work as soon as possible of ADAX will lose all neurological function!"
"I know that!" Jenny said irritatedly. "Look, this ship's about to go boom, so just go okay? I'll blow my way out of here and meet up with you."
Jenny didn't wait for her mother's reply. She activated the arm cannon on her free arm and started blasting her way out of the ship as she carried ADAX in her other arm. A few walls later, she was out of the ship. She swept her sensors around and found a Stealth Wasp heading right for her. Initially, she thought she was being attacked. She was about to turn and fire when her scanners revealed that the Steath Wasps occupants were two humans, namely her Mom and Brad. She flew toward the ship and managed to grab hold of it. A moment later, it disappeared into a wormhole.
Cluster Imperial Flagship
"Your Highness, we have detected a wormhole jump just after we detected two objects launching away from the command ship." A red roach drone.
Two launches and a wormhole jump? Escape craft? Vexus asked the questions in her mind. Yomex's wasn't one to abandon his ship without a fight. So what did those mean… Suddenly, it hit her. The only logical reason she came u with was that Yomex was self-destructing his craft. And with the kind of reactor the Grand Marshal's ship had the explosion would be…
"Get us out of here!" Vexus suddenly screamed. "NOW!!!"
The drones scrambled to obey her order. The Imperial Flagship turned around and managed to enter a wormhole just as the blackness of space was lit up by a large, powerful detonation.
CONCLUDED IN EPILOGUE