Author's Note: As Deadeye1 pointed out, I was a tad harsh to Smytus in the last chapter. Okay, more than a tad. The reason for that is actually kinda petty and pretty childish. You see, Smytus kinda reminded me of a loudmouth classmate of mine who used to bully me. I always bore a grudge for that and, well, I guess I took it out on Smytus. But trust me, I wasn't planning on being that harsh on 'im for the entire fic. I actually planned for him to be quite competent in the later chapters.

As for the Star Wars thing, well, it really is kinda a lot like tokenism. Ever since I saw the Clone Wars cartoon I always wanted to see a fic where the Trade Fed battle droids got pitted against Jenny. But I will try to give them personalities instead of just being mindless droids. Anyway, enough excuses. Time to continue with the fic.

Disclaimer: I neither own MLAATR nor Star Wars.

Story Title: Metal Army

Chapter Title: Cluster Inbound

USS Renzetti, now somewhere in the South Pacific

Jenny stared glumly at the cold, blue waters of the South Pacific from the flight deck of the Renzetti, the phrase "Are we there yet?" repeating over and over in her mind like a mantra The carrier's slow transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific had wasted her entire weekend and left her feeling both bored and dejected. She understood what the UNERU wanted from her, but that didn't erase the fact that a perfect weekend had gone by without her enjoying it. If they only allowed her to fly there herself she probably would have cleared out the derelict ship in no time and still have time left over for some fun. Instead, the UNERU insisted on keeping her under their direct control, I. E., dragging her along with them.

She tried to pass her time by talking to the robots she found on the ship, but the naval maintenance bots and the UAV attack planes were even more dry and dull than their human military personnel. She actually did find fellow teenagers on the ship, but they were either newly-enlisted petty officers or dweeby hackers the UNERU had plucked from Internet Cafes, ill-kept apartments, or their mothers' houses. The former treated her like one of the UAV jets while the latter were more interested in trying to hack her systems than talk to her.

She had tried to talk to her mother—yes, she was that bored and desperate—but she was too busy socializing and technobabbling with her fellow scientists on the ship. Some of whom—surprise, surprise—turned out to be her former students. And Jenny knew that their "rousing" (insert heavy eye-rolling) conversations would have probably put her in permanent sleep mode.

"Pre-programmed responsibilities over personal enjoyment," Jenny muttered to herself. "Story of my five-year-long life."

She gave out a theatrical sigh and moved her attentions from the rolling blue waves to the drab gray hulls of the aircraft carrier's escorts. Her expression soured even more. Somehow, the ships' color schemes were not doing anything to lighten up her mood. She turned away and started back for the ship's lower access ways. Maybe she should just go into sleep mode until they made it to wherever they were going…

"Attention XJ-9 and all UNERU and civilian personnel," a voice blared out over the ship's PA system. "We are within jet chopper range of the derelict site, begin boarding your respective aircraft."

"Finally," Jenny said to no one. "The sooner we begin the sooner I can get this over with."

Suddenly, like ants abandoning a flooded anthill, UNERU troopers and scientists came rushing out from the carrier's lower levels and into the jet choppers. Jenny pushed against the human stampede, trying to look for her mother. But her mother was a diminutive woman, and the fact that she was wearing the same white winter gear as everyone else made her even harder to spot. Frustrated, Jenny activated her pigtail boosters and took to the air.

She scanned the ground, looking for a frock of standing white hair. She spotted one and sped towards it. "Mom?"

The person with standing white haired turned. It was a man considerably taller than her mother. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, sorry." Jenny said. "I thought you were someone else."

As Jenny took to the again, she heard the man say to his young assistant in what, to her, seemed to be an overly dramatic voice: "Come, Marty, to the time ma—I mean, chopper!"

Geeze, what a nut job, Jenny thought as she resumed her scanning. I hope not every one here is that whacked. Finally, she spotted another crop of white hair, this time though, she also caught a glint of red prescription glasses. Jenny zoomed down and managed to catch her Dr. Wakeman just as she boarded their assigned jet chopper.

With a roar, the jet chopper lifted of the deck. The engines realigned themselves horizontally before the jet chopper accelerated to supersonic speeds.

Cluster Infiltration Sloop, 300,000 km from lunar orbit

The insane twisting of colors gave way to the starry blackness of space as the 100-meter long, dragonfly-like Infiltration Sloop exited from the wormhole. Almost simultaneously, four smaller wormholes appeared and out each came a red ant drone. The ant drone escorts magnetically perched on the ship as its cloaking field activated, concealing both it and them.

Within the cloaked ship's bridge stood the drone vessel of Commander Smytus. Satisfied that his ship was not detected, he gave the order to proceed toward the planet. Before, he wouldn't have needed to cloak himself when approaching Earth, but the little monkeys were learning fast and already their pesky UNERU soldiers were starting to make their own combat starships. And as much as Smytus hated to admit human ingenuity, intelligence reports revealed that the UNERU ships increased in sophistication with every new ships that rolled out the human space yards. In fact, the humans were reported to have partially constructed a starship as large as a Cluster Star Carrier.

As if on cue, the ship itself came into sight. It was still strapped onto the orbital space yard and some of the hull plates were missing, but it was still huge. However, Smytus pretended not to be impressed. There were hundreds of Cluster ships that size and they were better designed. The Cluster Star Carriers were beetle-shaped with their engines tucked into the armored hull for protection. In contrast this human ship was saucer shaped with two very exposed engine pods sticking out of an almost cylindrical section that was attached to the saucer. Not at all a good design for a warship.

"Look at that pathetic human attempt to defy the Cluster," the Commander blustered. "Even a roach drone could shoot it down. All he'd need to do is blast those stupidly exposed engine nacelles!"

Even as he said that, a more analytical part of Smytus knew better. And if the humans managed to learn anything about the derelict, then he knew it would be increasingly hard for the Cluster to "liberate" the robots on Earth. And that wasn't counting XJ-9 whose track record was more than merely impressive.

"I would advise against that, Sir," came a monotonous voice from behind. Smytus spun in his tiny cockpit. It was the weevil-like drone, SID. "The chances for a successful infiltration would be greatly reduced if we dispatched a roach drone to attack that human vessel."

"That was just wishful thinking, you dud-drone," Smytus sneered. "I, Smytus, the greatest Commander the Cluster has ever known, know better than to jeopardize this mission!" Especially since the Queen will turn me into a hood ornament if I fail. He mentally added. SID, meanwhile, just remained expressionless, though this was probably due to that fact that he was built with non-expressive blank eyes and a fixed grill as his "mouth".

Smytus heard a snicker and turned, shooting a snarl. It was AHAB, and his crooked mouth was in barely suppressed leer. Smytus growled under his nonexistent breath, he still stung from the humiliation a mere ED-13 drone and his two creations had dealt him. And the fact that he had been forced to bring both of those said creations along did nothing to alleviate his mood. I swear, Smytus thought, That I'll find a way to wipe the grin off that overgrown locust's face.

The Infiltration Sloop continued onward, careful to avoid the space yard and the automated defense satellites in orbit. Every drone within the ship felt jittery as it hit the atmosphere. Sure, they were cloaked, but the heat of their re-entry would be visible to both visual and thermal sensors. The dragonfly-like ship continued, the heat of re-entry indeed producing bright gouts of flame. Luckily for the ship, the defense satellites and deep sensors were all pointed in the opposite direction.

Smytus allowed himself a surreptitious sigh of relief which, thanks to his shrunken size, went unnoticed. He stood up within the dome cockpit of his drone body and gave a green roach drone an order to open an encrypted channel to the Stealth Wasp just as they entered the lower atmosphere. A communications monitor emerged from the bridge's roof and on it appeared the image of two nervous-looking roach drones.

"Greetings, Commander," the red drone greeted nervously. "Are you sure it's sure to open a channel? We're following XJ-9 and the other humans right now and the risk of detection—"

"Bah," the Commander said, making his drone body wave it's arm dismissively. "You transmitted that recording all the way to Cluster Prime right over a human carrier battle group and you clearly were not detected."

"Well, yes," the green drone said. "but that was a one-way transmission—"

"Are you questioning an officer's decision?" Smytus said in a threatening tone that only seemed funny to the bridge crew, though it didn't seem so for the drones in the Stealth Wasp.

"N-no, Sir, we were merely pointing out risks."

"I concur with the Stealth Wasp crew, Commander." SID spoke up in his flat monotone. "Opening communications now increases that chances that we might be detected. Ill-advised for a proper infiltration."

Smytus' mouth reflexively twitched. He did not enjoy being told what to do by drones far below his designated rank, especially since this drone was practically an untested prototype. "Do not presume to tell me what to do, drone! I have been a Commander since I rolled off the assembly line, and I know what I am doing!"

From the edge of his vision, the Commander caught AHAB open and close its mouth. He knew that the locust drone had probably wanted to say something snide. His face twitched again. He never suffered such insolence in his former commands, but then he had been larger than any drone back then. His mouth tightened to a determined line. Whatever he took he was gonna complete this mission, if only to get his old body size back. He swore to himself that only then would he find as way to get back at everyone who had mocked him. If possible, including the Queen.

He shook the vengeful thoughts out of his head and turned back to the comm monitor. "Just keep following XJ-9 and her monkey companions, we'll rendezvous at the alien vessel's crash site."

The communications monitor receeded up to the ceiling as the Cluster ship turned toward its destination, swirling the clouds as it spun. With a suppressed roar of its engines, the cloaked vessel sped forward.

Somewhere en route to Dome Circe, Antarctica

The mother penguin stood vigilant, keeping her single egg between her legs. She patiently kept it warm as she waited for her mate to return and bring her food. She looked about, keeping watch fro any possible threats. Close to her, dozens of other penguins did the same. Then, something caught their eyes. They all turned their attention to little dots in the sky that seemed to grow larger and larger. They watched uncomprehendingly as the dots slowed down slightly and came lower…

The penguins screamed in panic as the strange things roared past them, causing snow to wash over them and knock them. They frantically searched for their eggs, which they found in short order, and honked indignantly at the passing jet choppers.

The penguins' protests were, though, unnoticed by the passengers of the offending vehicles. Many of whom were more concerned about their destination than their flight. One of the passengers, however, just stared out the jet chopper's windows and tapped her foot impatiently. This passenger was a feminine-shaped, blue-colored robot who was beginning to loose all her patience with the slow speed that events seemed to be proceeding in.

An aggravated "Finally!" came from her mouth a the jet chopper she was in finally stopped and started to settle down. The rear doors had barely opened when she quickly unstrapped herself and jumped out of her chair. She followed the UNERU troopers in winter BDUs out of the jet chopper much to the frustration of her mother who had wanted her to wait.

"Honestly, XJ-9, I wished you weren't so impatient." Dr. Wakeman. "This could be the greatest scientific discovery in decades and you're acting like you'd rather be somewhere else."

"Uh, hello? It took you that long to notice?" Jenny huffed. "Of course I'd rather be somewhere else! If it weren't for this I probably would've had a very enjoyable weekend."

"An enjoyable weekend?!" Mrs. Wakeman repeated. "After you've been briefed about the importance of this situation all you can think about is your personal gratification? Never have I had creation of mine that was capable of being so selfish! Well, with the possible exception of XJ-6."

"You're calling me selfish?" Jenny seemed indignant. "Time and again I've had my chances for a normal teenage life tossed down the pooper just because of some stupid mission or crazy upgrade! Remember those freaky eyes you set me up with, or that time you made me incapable of retracting my monitor, and don't even get me started on the—"

"Excuse me?" a voice interrupted. It was Captain Burke. "Dr. Wakeman, Col. Little sent me to get you and XJ-9 to him immediately."

"We'll continue this discussion later, XJ-9." The doctor said to her robot daughter. She then nodded to Ct. Burke, silently thanking him for saving her from another of XJ-9 overly dramatic tirades that made her question the wisdom of her decision to design a robotic teenager. She followed the Captain with Jenny trailing behind her sourly.

Author's Note: Okay, that's all for now. I'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as I can.