Robinseye sighed in relief as he walked through the portal, his armor changing the usually jarring sensation into a smooth one. He’d finally been rotated off of Nauvis, the tides were higher this week and the fronts had narrowed. Meaning less androids were needed, especially as the tunnels had equal odds of being flooded. And no one wanted to get caught in the water.
His assigned ‘partner’ followed him through the portal, still riding that courier drone of hers. She was one of the androids that had undergone drone training, something the resistance had requested to have an equivalent to the scanner's own abilities at drone control.
She had a dozen of the things, and each of them were named and decorated. Well, she had been assigned a dozen, as far as Robinseye knew the human had no plans of selling his own drones. The oddly chipper android had never seemed to care about that though, and she’d grown attached to them regardless. Robinseye found it odd to grow attached to a tool, but some androids were weird like that.
Robinseye glanced at the sky above him, gawking for a few seconds at the sight of a moon and stars, and … was that a face on the moon? The glass ceiling allowed any arriving androids a clear view of the sky, and Robinseye just knew Balistraia was recording his reaction for ‘encouragement’ (read blackmail). He’d had the option of heading back to earth for his leave, but by now the fame of his initial discovery of the humans camp had reduced to embers. Only his status as one of the first resistance androids to get a full suit of power armor made him noteworthy, and that just meant people came to him when they needed something killed or help moving heavy things.
No, Robinseye yearned for a new adventure, something to add to his admittedly spare legend. He known now, but he wasn’t special. And there wasn’t any glory to be had fighting the bugs, only carnage. And from what Robinseye had heard this was an entirely new and more importantly safe world to explore. And if he found a new ‘slime’ or even just a useful plant well, that’d set a trend. And he could be sent on more expeditions and adventures, rather than just front line fighting.
That exploration was part of the reason he had requested to be teamed with a drone control, even with her odd instance to not wear her armor (really just a shielded bodysuit?!?!) She was a prodigy with her drones, and her courier drone had systems that made it almost as good as an armor when she was riding it, even if those systems were meant to work with armor rather than as the armor.
“Do you see that! The moon has a face! You think we can go there, I heard the Maker had a moon base on earth so maybe they are building one here?! We should ask!” if Robinseye had to guess he’d assume Balistraia knew his plans, and had sent this as some form of karmic punishment. Sunbright was a hyper active, chatty android, and one with a strong, strong sense of curiosity. Apparently she’d nearly fried herself trying to eat sunflower seeds as a freshly made android, and she’d kept that streak of recklessness up for the rest of her life, a paltry six months. Honestly if the human hadn’t arrived she’d have gotten herself killed by now, probably from trying to paint a machine form or eat a fish.
And he was stuck as her partner, or really her babysitter, Robinseye had heard that every other android team Balistraia had put together had worked without almost any issues, and most of those had been happenstance like tripping onto someone's prized possession and breaking it. But apparently she hadn’t been trying here, because he genuinely couldn’t imagine a more insufferable person.
Though he was probably being too hard on her all things considered, it was just as likely Balistraia had put her with him because he was experienced enough to counteract her own behavior. Basically babysitting or if you looked on it thoughtfully, a mentorship. It was a common thing with the more skilled members of the resistance, they’d take on freshly made android recruits and teach them. And if he thought about it that way Robinseye felt better, it just meant Balistraia thought him skilled enough to teach.
Still, he let out a put upon sigh and turned to the android still gawking up at the sky, “We can ask, but your in the way of the portal and we better get moving.” Sunbright stuttered for a few moments, and then urged her courier drone out of the way. Letting a few waiting android pass her, who either similarly gawked or walked through without even looking up. Robinseye cleared his throat and she turned to look at him “we should check into our Barracks and check to see if there's any specialty equipment we might need”
He’d just brought up his armor's mini map to check if one of the minds had already assigned them a barracks when a voice rang in his ear, Balistraia had a habit of doing that and while newer androids jumped any of the older ones were used to it by now. “You're in the west wing, and your suit should be more than sufficient in terms of safety equipment but I’d recommend grabbing a vac pack for easier specimen gathering. Oh! Byzantine has a notice board full of things they want gathered so check that out too! And good hunting!” That mind’s tone changed at the drop of a hat, from calm and methodical to excited, and Robinseye still found it jarring on occasion. Outside of battle it was far more apparent but whenever he was fighting he’d never seen her speak with anything approaching a worried tone.
She’d brought up good ideas though, and that vac pack recommendation meant he’d been right on the money. “Hey sunbright, can you send a drone or two to pick up a pair of vac packs for us? Make sure to get an armor variant for mine. Then we gotta pick out a job” She nodded at him and he watched a pair of logistics drones fly off. He hadn’t been sold on bringing the non-combat models into a fight originally but they’d grown on him. Useful buggers they were, and dropping a boulder from a few hundred feet meant they weren’t exactly incapable of causing harm.
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He sent the directions to the courier drone and hopped on its back with Sunbright as the drone leapt into a gallop, the new larger versions more than capable of lifting the both of them, and better at moving with other drones regardless.
Robinseye had been to quite a few of the humans outposts by now, and had even been to the semi-mythic ‘main base’ on a few occasions, but none of them were anything like this, here the walls actually had windows. There were trees in pots with actual fruit on them, and vines covered some of the walls. Not even mentioning the slimes he’d heard so much about, just hoping throughout the halls and eating any scattered food or detritus dropped from the trees. Every time they did a drone would fly over from nearby and vacuum up the leavings, which seemed unsanitary just letting them roam free if they just went wherever. But it was like that with a few of the animals on earth too, so it made some sense and apparently this stuff was useful as more than fertilizer.
He was so busy watching the slimes and androids walking the halls that when Robinseye turned to Sunbright he nearly jumped, the girl had apparently grabbed one of the slimes while he wasn’t watching and was cuddling the thing. The odd striped creature seemed to not enjoy it in the least, hissing and flashing into and out of visibility. “What are you doing with that?!” Sunbright turned at that, and proffered the hissing ball to him “oh isn't it just the cutest thing! You think I can keep it!” Robinseye shook his head, leaning back away from the thing. “I think you should put it down, someone probably already owns it and its friends are here” by now they were a few minutes away from where she’d grabbed the thing but it’d be fine… probably. She pouted for a few moments before nodding and passing the yowling thing to one of her drones to set it on the ground.
He watched it with his peripheral cameras, partially to make sure she actually got rid of it and saw the thing disappear the moment the drone let go of it, only the faint outlines of its eyes remaining. Which was freaky, and now he was paranoid. He’d heard about the new invisible armors and about a body paint you could buy to turn yourself invisible for a day or two, and if he was guessing he’d assume that little thing was how. Not really his style though, Robinseye was just looking into getting the enhanced armor package. Stronger armor plating was never bad, and he’d needed to rely on armor rather than shields far more often than he was comfortable with.
Only so many times you could get tackled by a giant bug into an even larger lake of acid and have to fight through dozens of the things while the acid drains your shields and then at you before you get some upgrades. Far too many androids only wore the lightest armor plating, but those were the same ones who didn’t really care about the pain of being melted. Insanity is what that was.
They finally got to their quarters through the maze of tunnels and Robinseye looked at the room, two bedrooms, one kitchen they didn’t need and a washroom. And as was becoming usual he watched Sunbright head straight to the kitchen while the courier drone tried and failed to sit on the couch, the other drones just perching on the various shelves and tables.
Anything not on the front lines had a fairly decent room arrangement, and even the outposts had individual bedrooms and a common room, if not personal showers or a wide variety of food. Infinitely better than what the average resistance android got, and as Robinseye lounged on the couch he let out a content sigh. Sure his armor would be leaving a divot in the thing, but they were rated for more heavy things regardless. As evidenced by the courier drone now resting its head on his lap, looking depressed as a metal cat without much facial articulation could. The thing was far too large for the couch, but he counseled the thing by scratching its metallic ears, they weren’t soft, not even droopy and only capable of rotating like radar dishes, but the cat thing seemed to enjoy it regardless.
Then he brought up the list on his armor, not seeing any need to actually walk out to the physical one when he could just accept a task on the network, and ignoring the squealing he heard from the kitchen. Sunbright was either trying to eat the silverware or had found something new, and he didn’t particularly care which. There were dozens of missions, ranging from gathering slimes from known habitats, or plants from the same, exploring new lands for new slimes, taking care of the slimes, or ….. Spying on human ranchers? Robinseye had heard rumors that there were humans here, but really a task to spy on them? Regardless he wasn’t going to be doing that, eventually settling on exploring a newly discovered environment. And getting sent a path to the teleporter that’d take him there.
He dismissed the screen covering his vision and nearly jumped as Sunbrights face was only inches from his face. “Look what I found!” and she leaned back to brandish an odd yellow crystal at his face, his armors sensors reading the scent as ‘sweet’ and he saw a large bite already taken out of the thing. “.....was that even food?” Sunbright smiled again and nodded “probably!” then she poked his helmet “are you ever going to take that off?” and he sighed again “after our mission yeah” she had the same issues with him wearing armor that he had with her not, apparently not feeling the wind and smelling the air was unthinkable to her. He didn’t really get what good there was to smell in the bowels of a biter hive, but he wasn’t insane so he didn’t think to long on it.
“I got us a mission to explore the glass desert, we just need to gather some plants and slimes before heading back, whens your drone getting back?”