First, the unit had tried to dig its way through the ship's flesh. The wound had closed, encysting the intruder. That was when the battle had begun in earnest.
The combat parameters of the unit had increased dramatically as it had fought. Reluctantly, because the intruder's potential if brought into the Unity was so high, the machine had decided to utilize lethal means. First a sonic field had been attempted, ramping up until the point where internal organs should have ruptured. When the unit had managed to survive that, hard radiation was utilized in intense focussed beams. The unit attempted to escape after taking initial damage, but was slowed considerably.
Which had been the plan to begin with. Frictionless surfaces provided enough disorientation for the dissection lasers to be brought to bear.
It had already analyzed the data from the two intruders earlier and determined how it could have more efficiently dealt with those parasites. It was now testing such methods and further fine-tuning the protocols.
With the unit disassembled, control was firmly established before reassembly. Alteration in keeping with the Sanitation Engineer's directives was done before the Inspector's reversal was received.
Which left the machine with an "oh well" attitude as it was either flush the incompletely rebuilt unit off to the biomass converters or just go ahead and rebuild. Analysis of the Inspector's choices so far indicated that salvage was the preferred option.
Everything that could account for the combat ability upgrade was analyzed, and it seemed mainly to center on the visual sensory organs and the corresponding sections of the brain. There was a significant departure from the standard model. Analysis indicated a genetic mutation of some kind, exact parameters unknown.
The machine sent off a query to the Inspector.
The Inspector sent back that it was "some sort of martial arts special technique" with a two degree desire to upgrade own parameters to include this.
The machine complied, sending the file to the medic unit assigned to serve the Inspector and maintain his functionality.
The machine then turned the rest of its processing to analyze the other odd data from the unit.
The machine was aware of the Inspector doing something further, but was told in response to an initial inquiry that it should focus on its task at hand while he tried a different tactic.
Temari's snarl faded as she noticed the boy who had used his body to shield her was looking kind of sadly at her. "What did you do that for?"
"It seemed the right thing to do at the time," said the boy. "Never expected to be caught like this with someone of the Sand tribe."
"Strange fight, strange comrades," said Temari, acknowledging the odd situation.
The combat drones, something like metal praying mantises, simply held them in place as the floating discs came closer.
"Can you do that bit with the wind again?" asked the boy.
"No. I don't have enough chakra," admitted Temari. The fight had been running for hours after all. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Shikamaru," answered the boy. "Why?"
Temari closed the small distance in order to kiss him. It beat trying to spit on the robots as a gesture of defiance.
"Uhm, excuse me? Can anyone hear me?" asked one of the combat drones.
"Uhm, hi," said a number of combat drones to a number of people who'd expected to join the drones momentarily. "Look. I kinda got a little bit of control over the system right now. Don't attack the drones and I'm telling them that you're actually already droned. That way they'll ignore you. You attack any and it'll all come apart."
"Can't you just tell them to get out of here?" asked Naruto on the ship.
"I ain't got that much control here," said the voice, not knowing that the questions weren't being relayed - only his answers. "I gotta go WITH what the system allows and not make too many waves. The alien ships ain't got no aliens in command. As long as it thinks I'm one of the alien masters, I think I can nudge things a little. Though you got to watch out for some guy in South America who keeps doing weird stuff. I don't think it's a real alien though. I wouldn't expect 'em to be perverts."
"Can you shut anything down?" asked Shikamaru, figuring out a lot of things as he went. "How about specifying a zone they won't monitor?"
"Ah. Yeah. Breeding preserves for native species judged of interest. That's what came up anyway," said the drone. "That mean anything to you?"
"Yeah actually," said Shikamaru. "Take that option."
"WHAT?!" asked Temari.
"It's asking me for coordinates and area to be designated a preserve," said the voice.
"Can you access latitude and longitude?" asked Shikamaru.
"Yeah, it's apparently been getting ahold of maps and translating 'em. Got it."
Kakashi eyed the drone which was now apparently ignoring them.
"Wait a minute, that's IT? After all that?!" began Naruto, getting more angry as he went. "What about Sasuke?! What about Sakura?! What about everyone else?!"
"Hey, mystery person," said Might Guy. "You have a name?"
"Ranma. Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School Of Anything Goes Martial Arts," came a reply from the drone. "Look. I gotta go. The machine's finishing up whatever it was doing."
"Who cares what his name is?" asked Naruto. "We just need to find him and make him give back everyone."
"He already said he didn't have control of the machine and he can't push too far," said Kakashi.
"Little nudges can build up," said Might Guy. "It takes time though."
"We just got Sasuke back!" exclaimed Naruto.
"We didn't get him back, he was just cooperating against a common enemy, and he promised to 'rip your heart out to sharpen the blade of his own heart' if you recall," said Kakashi.
"Wellllllll," said Naruto, not really wanting to concede the point.
"What he and we have just bought is time," said Kakashi. "Time to evaluate. Time to take stock of resources. Time to learn how to fight these things."
"Time to train!" declared Might Guy.
The Unit felt the upgrade go into effect and lifted her head. For a brief moment her eyes displayed a shape like two magatama beside the iris, then her eyes closed again as she who had been Akane returned to a Rest state.
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(Posted Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:36)
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