Author's Note: Thanks to those who've read and reviewed, here's the next chapter. I was supposed to submit this earlier, but was still having the bugs fixed. Anyway, on with the chapter.
Disclaimer: I neither own MLAATR nor Star Wars.
Story Title: Metal Army
Chapter Title: AHAB and SID
Cluster Stealth Wasp, approximately 500 ft. above the USS Renzetti"3000 meters?!" gasped the red roach drone as he watched the feed from the fly drone. "That's larger than the Queen's Royal Flagship! Way, way larger."
"An advanced ship this big in human hands can't be good news for the Cluster," the green roach drone said a bit more phlegmatically. "RD-6287, patch this through the long range comms and transmit it to Cluster Prime, top priority level."
"That's too risky, RD-9980." RD-6287 pointed out. "We're in the middle of a carrier battle group here, and as primitive as their sensors are they might be able to pick up the transmission. Especially since we're this close!"
"We have to chance it, information of this level could get us promoted!" RD-9980 countered.
"What use is a promotion if we get shot down!"
"Just do it! Trust me, these human sensors won't detect the transmission."
The red-colored RD-6287 glared at his green counterpart. "If we get shot down, I'm ripping out your central processor."
RD-6287 turned to the control panels. A few minutes and several control panel buttons later, their transmission was connected directly to the Cluster Imperial Palace, deep in the heart of Cluster Prime. The red roach drone turned to face his green partner. "Transmission sent, the human vessels do not appear to have detected us."
"See, what did I tell you? There's nothing to worry about." RD-9980 said in a reassuring tone. RD-6287 nodded, but he was far from reassured.
Command Bridge, USS Renzetti
A junior lieutenant manning a sensor station frowned as his flickered. At first, he had dismissed it as nothing, but the screen had been flickering in the same area for quite some time, now. And it was starting to look suspiciously regular. He recalibrated his sensors, hopping to clear up whatever it was that was causing the flicker, but his scopes stayed the same, still flickering in the same area.
"Sir," he called out to the Renzetti's Captain. "I think there's something you should see here."
"What is it?" the Captain asked as he walked over to the Lieutenant's sensor station.
"My scope's been flickering again and again for the past few minutes, Skipper." The sailor said. "And it's been happenin' in the exact same area."
The Captain leaned over to see what the Junior Lieutenant was talking. He squinted at the screen, watching it carefully. His face contorted into a slight frown as he saw the flickering in the area the sailor had pointed out, but no matter how much the Lieutenant recalibrated, the sensors were indicating nothing solid. He turned to the young sailor.
"It's probably just a glitch," the Captain said. "It happens all the time."
"Yes, sir." The Lieutenant said, but he still looked troubled.
"Still, we'd better keep a close eye on it. We can't afford to be lax in an operation this sensitive."
The young Lieutenant nodded, proceeding to recalibrate his sensors further.
Cluster Imperial Palace, Cluster Prime
Footsteps reverberated with metallic clanks down the corridors of the Cluster
Imperial Palace. The source of the footsteps seemed, from afar, to be a single yellow-colored roach, not exactly an uncommon sight in the Palace. But upon closer inspection, one would begin to see differences in the yellow drone that set it apart from your standard roach drone.
The yellow drone appeared to be slightly taller than a standard roach drone and had a transparent dome in place of its head. Within this clear dome was a small cockpit upon which a tiny yellow-and-green colored robot controlled the drone body. The little robot scowled at the Palace guards whom he passed by, but all he elicited by doing so were barely suppressed sniggers. As he stopped in front of the door to the Queen's throne room, the face of the yellow-and-green robot twisted to a mask of anger.
"Insolent fools!" bellowed the small robot. "Do you not know who I am? I am the great Smytus! Conqueror of Enemies, Scourge of the Galaxy, Destroyer of Worlds—"
"And currently the six-inch high resident of an inverted fishbowl." An annoyed-sounding voice shot from behind Smytus, causing the Palace guards to snicker even louder.
The Cluster commander spun his yellow roach-drone-like body around to face whoever had insulted him. It turned out to be a blue-colored, mantis-like engineering drone with two robots behind him. The mantis robot had his arms folded and was tapping one of his four legs impatiently. Smytus glowered at him.
"You talk too impudently for a lowly Type-13 Engineering Drone referring to a great Commander such as I." Smytus growled in his best intimidation voice.
The ED-13 wasn't impressed. "And you talk too pompously for someone you can easily pick up and chuck down a toilet."
At this remark, the Palace guards flanking the throne room door broke into fits of laughter, causing Smytus to be further enraged. He flexed his hands around his drone body's control levers in an attempt to calm down. He couldn't let this non-combatant humiliate him like this! He had to bring this little mantis down a peg.
"Listen here, Eddie," Smytus retorted, using the nickname he knew ED-13s despised. "I have been called by the Queen for a very important appointment and I do not have time to squabble with a drone who couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. So why don't you just turn around and get out of my sight before I turn you into a pile of scrap!"
"I also have an appointment with Her Majesty," the ED-13 said calmly, not letting Smytus' attempts at insults get to him. "And you are currently holding me up. So you either get going or get out of the way because I don't have the time to listen to you ranting."
The shrunken Cluster Commander went livid. His temper got the better of him and he launched a punch at the blue Engineering Drone. But before his fist could make contact, a short, black, weevil-shaped robot, one of the two who were standing behind the engineering robot, got between him and the mantis robot, catching his fist with all four of its hands. Smytus merely sneered.
"So," he taunted. "Since you can't even defend yourself, you get this short, little robot to do it for you. Pathetic."
"I don't think you're in any position to be calling anyone short and little, Commander."
Smytus threw another punch with his free hand, but this was also caught before it made contact. This time by the second robot who had stood behind "Eddie", tall locust-like robot whose crooked mouth was currently twisted into a smile. When the tall robot spoke, it was is a hiss-like voice that seemed to be challenging the shrunken commander. "You gonna back off, or do I have to break your arm off?"
Smytus looked up at the locust robot's crooked smile from inside his transparent dome cockpit and saw the danger. He backed off, but not after making another crack about the Engineering Drone's cowardice. He spun around in a huff and proceeded to enter Vexus' throne room. The Palace guards struggled to stifle their chuckles when he passed by. ED-13 and his two companions shot triumphant looks at the back of Smytus' yellow drone body before following him into the throne room.
"Ah, Commander." Vexus greeted Smytus as he entered. "You're here at last."
"At your service, my liege." Smytus said, making his drone body bow.
"How's your new body?" Vexus asked, her voice falsely pleasant.
Smytus made a small scowl, which, fortunately for him, was easily hidden from the Queen because of Smytus' size. "It's fine, Your Majesty."
"Really? I was considering giving you a chance to have yourself restored to normal size but since you seem to be quite content with your current state I guess I can always…"
"Wait, Your Highness, I didn't mean it that way! I hate his body! I despise it with every wire of my being!"
"Hm…" purred the Cluster ruler. "So you're saying that you despise this body which I ordered you to be put in as punishment for your previous failure. In essence, you must be saying that you hate my order. Is that right, Commander?"
Smytus' oil went cold. "N-no, my Queen. Never! I would never question the justness of your punishments and orders! Not in a million years!"
"Yet you expressly said that you despise the body I ordered you to use with every wire of your being. Or did I mishear you?"
"It's not… I mean… What I was trying to say… Um… Uh… Oh boy…" Smytus struggled with his words, trying to find a way out of this particular semantic trap and finding none.
Vexus, in the meantime, was having fun flustering the Commander. It was good to see that she still inspired fear and awe, even in one of her more grandiloquent minions. She raised a hand, shutting Smytus up. "As enjoyable as it is to fluster you, Commander, I didn't call you here for that purpose alone."
She pressed a button on her throne, activating a holographic display. "A reconnaissance team on Earth sent us this transmission a few hours ago."
An image of what appeared to be a conference room of some sort appeared. It was full of humans but also included a very familiar feminine blue robot. "XJ-9!" Smytus exclaimed as the recording continued. An image of a short human in a white military BDU was addressing the crowd in the conference room.
"A 3000-meter-long alien derelict in the Antarctic is certainly not something we can just ignore." The short human was saying.
"3000 meters long?!" exclaimed Smytus while the recording continued.
"We've deployed a UNERU battalion around the derelict and uncovered part of it, but we have yet to enter the derelict itself since we are not certain whether this vessel has an automated defense system or not." The human pointed at XJ-9 and the human called Wakeman. "That's where the Global Galactic Response Unit comes in. Dr. Wakeman, we'll need your robot to lead a scout team into the derelict vessel to ascertain if it has any automated anti-intruder system. And if it does, we want it to disable such as system. Can your robot do it?"
Dr. Wakeman seemed to be about to answer, but XJ-9 cut her off. "I can speak for myself. And the name's Jenny, not 'Global Galactic Response Unit' or 'robot'. As for what you want me to do, yeah, I can hack it. I just hope your guys don't slow me down."
Dr. Wakeman gave XJ-9 a disapproving look for the impertinent tone she had used. The short human however just raised an eyebrow and continued. "Yes, well, after the scouting team and the ro— I mean, Jenny clears out whatever automated defense system they come across, if any, we will then place a full three companies of UNERU troops to explore the rest of the—"
"Isn't three companies a little too much?" a human in non-military clothing asked. "I mean the ship is a derelict after all."
"For a vessel of such proportions, I am not willing to take any chances. After our troops have checked out the ship you scientist will then come into play. It will be your job to—"
The human was interrupted again, this time it was because Queen Vexus turned off the recording. She faced Smytus. "I think it's apparent why this situation has captured my interest. XJ-9 herself is there along with a bunch of humans who would like nothing more than to utilize whatever they can learn from that derelict alien vessel. As primitive those bags of bio-matter, they can still learn. XJ-9 is already enough trouble by herself, the added pressure of humans armed with highly sophisticated alien technology is a thorn I would not want jammed into my side.
"I am putting you in command of an infiltration force, Commander Smytus. I want you to rendezvous with the recon team's Stealth Wasp and infiltrate that derelict. Once there, you should do all you can to learn or even collect anything about the ship that could be of use to the Cluster while denying the human's from learning anything from the ship they could use against us."
"Yes, Your Majesty, it shall be done." Smytus said. "I, Smytus, Scourge of the Galaxy, Destroyer of Worlds, and feared Conqueror of all who stand in my way, will not fail you."
"You had better not, Smytus." The Queen said, eyes narrowing. "Because if you do I will turn you into a hood ornament for my Royal Hovercar."
Smytus gulped. "I won't disappoint you, My Queen."
"One more thing, Commander. I also want you to assimilate XJ-9. We have dear little Jennifer her play with these monkeys for too long, it is time she take her rightful place among her own kind here in the Cluster."
"It will be done, Your Majesty."
"Alright then, go on, I want this mission completed as soon as possible."
Smytus gave a bow and was about to exit the throne room when the ED-13 unit he had been arguing with earlier spoke up. "Excuse me, Your Highness, but I believe I may have something that could greatly aid in Commander Smytus' mission."
The Queen arched up an eyebrow. "Really, what?"
"Your Majesty, I present to you the Advanced Hacking/Assimilation Bot" the mantis drone pointed to the tall, olive-green, locust like robot that had intimidated Smytus earlier, "and the Specialized Infiltration Drone," The mantis drone pointed to the small, weevil-like black robot, "But you can call them AHAB and SID."
"My queen, I must protest," Smytus objected. "A mission of this importance can't be used to field-test unproven robots, they might screw up the mission!"
"As loathe as I am to admit it, Smytus is right." Vexus said. "I cannot risk the failure of this mission by using it as a testing bed for your prototypes."
"But, my liege, AHAB and SID are far from prototypes. They are the end result of a long line of other prototypes, perfected over the course of their development. AHAB here not only can hack into and assimilate any computerized system, but he can also release a hundred miniature assimilation probes, expanding his assimilation abilities literally a hundred fold. This would make him perfect for assimilating XJ-9. As for SID, I'll let his abilities do the talking."
Taking his cue from what the engineer robot had said, SID initiated his cloaking device and disappeared from view. A moment later, he appeared before Smytus, surprising him so much that he nearly jumped out of his dome cockpit. But it didn't stop there. SID's body structure reassembled into a tall and thin form that was quickly covered up by a flawless hologram of Queen Vexus. The weevil drone reassembled himself again and projected the hologram of a roach drone. It kept on changing one disguise after another until Queen Vexus raised her hand, wordlessly ordering SID to stop.
"Very well," she said. "I shall give them a chance to live up to their designations. Commander, take them with you."
"B-but, My Queen—" Smytus began.
"Do you question my orders, Commander?"
"N-no, Your Majesty."
"Good, now go!"
Smytus muttered under his breath as he went out of the throne room. Following him were AHAB and SID. And ED-13's smug look.
Author's Note: Well, that's all for now. I'll try to get the next chapter up. I had to rush this up a bit because of my tight college schedule, so I'm sorry for any typos and mistakes.