I flew in behind the cyborg as she dove into a rocky channel along the planetoid's surface. She twirled, and machinery attached to her back unfolded, transforming her into a fighter jet.

I extended the wings on my jet harness, using my tail to boost the acceleration on the aft rockets.

Stretches of tan-brown rock flashed past me, interspersed with stretches of concrete-like substances marked with foreign symbols. One couldn't observe any of it for more than a few seconds, for scatterings of random debris constantly belched from Naju's core: Chunks or iron and feldspar composites, pieces of broken machinery, winged creatures of species science had yet to classify.

The cyborg obliterated a great deal of them with her built in weaponry, but a few got through, weakening her electric forcefield. "A little help?"

I swooped in, but I'd just barely figured out my weapons systems a second ago. The laser cannons did their job, but my exoskeleton received a pelting of rock fragments, blood the color of laundry detergent sprayed me from somewhere.

I dodged out of the way seconds before a small asteroid whipped toward my face.

Behind us, The Saucer skimmed the top of the channel, exploding the objects escaping us. Ideally, Colonel Schickn and his comrades shouldn't have to, they'd sent us ahead to clear a path.

Further along, the bits of machinery proved resistant to our weaponry., especially the floating mines. The ring shaped devices shocked us with energy weaponry whenever we made the mistake of disturbing their morningstar-like interior gyroscopes.

"Hsss! Look out!" the cyborg shouted in my radio headset.

Cannons popped out of the walls, firing projectiles shaped like throwing knives. She'd blown one to bits before I realized one had come close to opening my elongated skull.

An asteroid struck me in the head, and I blacked out.

Black.

Dark as the body cavity I hatched from.

At birth, I didn't even recognize light as a thing. I emerged from the victim's rib cage with only a sense of smell, hearing and touch.

I smelled oily feathers, then a container of polycarbonate bullet resistant glass closed around me. Somehow I became unconscious.

When I awoke, I could see.

I'd been placed in a box made of tough glass. A mirror reflected what had been done: Somehow a blue jellyfish-like machine with a smiley face had drilled through my skull and attached itself to my brain.

Through the glass I could see a laboratory, a multicolored menagerie of exotic zoological specimens suspended in liquid (whole creatures, or their severed body parts), magnifying lamps, a rainbow of chemicals in locked cabinets, machinery that took readings on the living samples, EKG, brainwaves and whatnot. I spotted a worm thing that had failed its encephalogram.

I nearly flatlined when a feathery face appeared at the glass.

A smirk crept up the thing's orange beak. "Hello there, little one! I hope you didn't feel too much pain when we implanted the Blue Lander. We wanted to communicate and learn more about your species without you trying to kill us. Sorry about that. My name is Doctor Kwak. What's your name?"

"Hssss!"

The android had me clutched against her bosom, firing at objects with her right hand, and a gun affixed to the tip of her rocket plane.

I shook myself awake. "Thank you. Sorry I—"

"Don't worry about it, Hssss. Just get flying and clear a path. Our shields have already taken a beating."

"Yes, ma'am."

I swooped out with my jetpack, shattering rocks and gun turrets as they came along.

All of a sudden, angry red lights flashed up and down the channel, and we both heard a voice in our headsets, growling something in a language we didn't understand.

"What do you think it means?"

"I think it's some kind of perimeter alarm. Look!"

We'd reached a dead end. Before us, a series of metal panels opened up, revealing a threatening array of weaponry.

I shrieked as jagged, corkscrew shaped flechettes tore into my exoskeleton.