Now that Kaylee had apparently called it quits on interstellar bug warfare, Laura had found herself in a very interesting situation. Fortunately, she still had some assets available, for one Kaylee either by accident or on purpose had left the van behind. The second issue she had was logistics, the problem being of supply, 60 shots a piece wouldn’t do her troops much good if they got stuck in proper, especially against an enemy that could simply replace their troops faster than her bots could shoot, or had shots for. For that reason, she had a constructor bot set up about 2 kilometers down the road, in the process of setting up a little ‘base’. Normally the term ‘base’ would have been far to generous a term, but with three collectors, a couple of mines and a fabricator it was pretty much a capital city by Laura’s standards. At the moment she was now parked along the main road, eight bots standing vigil under the shadow of the tree line. Mentally scanning the battle net she gave a small smile, that smile slowly stretched into a grin as a cloud of the minuscule recon drones along with a scattered number of the combat drones drifted over her head. Checking once again that she had set them to only engage defensively Laura gave the mental command and the swarm rose and scattered over the area. Closing her eyes, Laura ‘saw’ as the drones saw, the landscape slowly coalescing, points of interest, hostiles and most importantly the warchive lit up. Turning back to the ‘squad Laura focussed on the one at the head of the line, “your mission is to navigate your way to the target, avoid detection as much as possible, keep low, stay quiet, get in, get the data and get out.” Despite the fact they were still to simple to have a personality, at least according to ALAN, she could have sworn that the bot nodded slightly. As soon as Laura marked the target location the robots spun on their heels and strode into the underbrush, with the robots on the way, Laura set about ensuring that the route was quiet. With the mental flick of a switch, the drones opened fire, dousing the bugs below with bright blue fire, flicking her hands, Laura directed the drones to begin moving perpendicular to the road, the effect was immediate with the aliens immediately rising and scattering, some going to ground while those that could began to fire skywards, stepping back into the van, Laura gave a small smile, this time the prize was her’s.

/DIRECTIVE: RETRIEVE INTEL

/MISSION: IN PROGRESS>

The robots swept through the underbrush, footsteps padded by the sacks they had wrapped around their pads before moving out, photoreceptors scanning all around for any hint of the enemy. They would complete their mission, not that they wanted to, they didn’t hope to, it was simply a fact. It was what was going to happen. 001 was right in the middle of the group, as the designated ‘squad lead’ it was 001’s directive to acquire the warchive data, and so it was the most important element, the only one that needed to stay functional. Regardless the Commander had decided that they should ALL avoid destruction where possible and so in spite of their programming that dictated a full assault, the bots moved to the will of the Commander. As the group egressed the first hill a silent alert past from the first along the chain, simultaneously the entire unit crouched, servos whispering as they slithered onto the mud. The reaction had not come a second to soon as the light above them was suddenly cut as a massive… something swept over their position, followed by a chittering swarm of smaller entities. This time the robots could get an ID, those smaller bugs that had attacked in the previous engagement, easily identified by their incessant chattering. The robots lay still for several seconds, waiting for their processors to calculate the point of acceptable risk. For several minutes all was still, then the command came as silently as the warning and the robots began to crawl forward, their forms indistinguishable from the bushland floor. While the bots proceeded in silence, the situation in the air was very different as Laura poured wave after wave of drones into the melee, beams and bolts streaking past each other in a dizzying dance of fire and chaos. Meanwhile, Laura was rattling down the road back towards the fabricator, half focussing on the road and half on the battle raging above and behind her. Skidding into the path that had been cleared by the fabricators, Laura came to a stop between the two sentry guns that were holding security on the road. Stepping out of the van, Laura took a look around at the base, already three more solar arrays, two more mines and a fabricator. All the while the first fabricator was still spitting out wave after wave of drones towards the battlefield. Frankly she was a bit worried, this battle was starting to drag on and every minute increased the chance that one of those bugs would stumble across the ground team. As if in an attempt to soothe the human, Alan spoke up.

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Laura nodded, “Are you sure it’s a warchive and not a nuke or a reactor or something?”

Unit 001 raised its head out of the brush and scanned the environment, not even 100 meters from their position lay the target that was the warchive container, scanning the surroundings further it found that the area was for the most part clear of bugs. With a mental command the group rose and started sprinting towards the warchive. As they continued running they continued to scan their surroundings, whilst their ‘eyes’ couldn’t identify any hostiles, meanwhile their hearing systems could pick up the sounds of battle, slowly drawing away. Stepping to the computer 001 scanned the object whilst the rest of the unit fanned out to protect the clearing. Slowly, almost… cautiously the bot placed its palm on the structure, there was a click and Laura was suddenly assaulted by a rush of data. Laura dropped to her knees, grasping her skull, emitting a growl of pain as she tried to squeeze out the pain. After a moment the sensation cleared, and Laura rose to her feet.

“Alan. Report.” She barked.

Laura stood up and waved a hand, there was a whine, and the second printer began its work.

001 rotated its optics, it could hear something, with a mental command two of the escorts turned their weapons in the direction of the noise, and at the same time Laura was assaulted with half a dozen more alerts. Swearing through the blaring alerts Laura opened a view from one of the recon drones that was hovering above the battlefield. From its point of view Laura could see a new contact, this one highlighted by a blinking red icon. Laura ordered the drone to approach the contact, the machine immediately began moving, its speed and direction matching the little machine below it. For several seconds the drone scanned its target, and then it got a match.

“Wait is there another Commander on the planet?”

“Outstanding so what are we going to do about it?”

“Thanks for nothing Alan.” Laura muttered as she turned her attention to the conflict. At the moment the bugs were making progress, steadily beating back her forces with a barrage of fire. Laura grimaced, even though at this rate the bugs were putting more distance between them and the warchive was expanding, the last thing she wanted was for the moth-spider to stumble across it. Good news was it wouldn’t get the chance, bad news is something else did.