Raid at dawn

The ships hit the wrong planet, let's see what the troops do

"Why exactly should I charge down this ramp? I don't see you getting ready to run into enemy fire with me." The battle droid turned its massive squat head to look at its diminutive companion. The battle droid's head was neatly stenciled with the number zero one, and it went by the name ZeroOne.

"Because, ZeroOne, you are an assault droid and your job is to run down this ramp right before us and absorb all of the impacts from resistance forces." The smaller droid, also with a neat stencil on its head - gamma two - brightened its optic lenses as it looked up at its pod mate. The brightened lenses had the effect of making GammaTwo - as it called itself - look irritated.

"Just like it says in the book and also in your mission packet." GammaTwo continued. "And also, you have a very large ablative shield that you can use to deflect shots and energy beams. So really, you are ideal for running down ramps and into enemy fire." GammaTwo turned down the intensity of its eye lenses and leaned back on its hydraulic chassis.

ZeroOne however, continued to inquire into things, disengaging the privacy of the laser comm in favor of voice communication. The better to establish authority. "Louder is righter as they say." ZeroOne thought to itself with a mental applause.

"What now? You think that I am a bigger target and so I should just absorb impacts so that we can spare your metal hide?" ZeroOne rose up on its squat, thickly armored legs. It turned in place ponderously, the deck booming as its feet rose and stamped down. "I do not think that that is a very fair plan. You are small and fast and can easily dodge various ballistae and such. You should go first." ZeroOne leaned over GammaOne, a veritable cliff of metal and weapons emplacements. "And don't think to argue with me on this!" He shouted for good measure.

"Hey, keep that kaggle down you kaggling machines!" A communication nodule joined into the discussion, shouting its opinion from across the vast chamber filled with mostly motionless war machines. "Noone wants to hear your pontificating, especially from your durasteel asses, squad one. Also, you are both going in the first wave so get yourselves ready." The nodule snickered at that last.

"You see?" GammaTwo turned its lenses back up to look at its towering buddy. "You have attracted the attention of group master J'ion. You are a gauche machine. I have said that before, and now we will both be tasked with all of the worst part of this assault." GammaTwo angled its lenses separately, adopting an attitude of sadness. "But that is our lot. Strange though, my internal chrono says that we were supposed to touch down twenty demi-cycles ago."

As GammaTwo finished speaking - using its laser to communicate with ZeroOne, as was standard and decorous practice - there was a terrific bump and the bay doors began to cycle open, letting in a sudden blast of air.

Both machines began to rush forwards towards the doors in preparation for a contested landing.

As the thirty assault mechanoids approached, the doors clam-shelled open completely to reveal the target area. Which was entirely empty.

A brisk wind picked up and blew some sort of plastic bag along the ground and then tossed it gaily into the air.

"There is some issue here - there are zero targets available." ZeroOne was scanning all around the landing area, assault cannon raised and tracks revving in anxious anticipation. Its shield was also already deployed and held directly in front of it. GammaTwo had tucked in just behind ZeroOne's bulk and was waving a somewhat smaller machine gun all about, searching for targets.

As ZeroOne scanned about, GammaTwo doing a similar search, but less effectually from its position behind its towering companion, there was a ringing sound.

"ring, ring!" And then a cheerful melody played.

ZeroOne, on heightened alert began to lumber towards the sound. It was coming from a small, wheeled conveyance traveling along a hard packed surface that the lander had just bisected. And cratered. The rest of the battle squad followed ZeroOne as it moved towards the new target. In keeping with doctrine and hard-wired protocol, the machines all fanned out into a crescent. The collective steel and bristling weapons forming an impenetrable barricade.

ZeroOne, as the oldest and also least wise of the machines stood tall in the middle of the packed substrate that the oncoming mechanism was travelling on. ZeroOne's targeting array had fastened onto some sort of bio bod that was parasitizing the wheeled system. ZeroOne's targeting array was pulsing red and had already advised that the assault cannon as well as the ion beamer were both ready to engage.

"Stop right there, enemy!" ZeroOne thundered at the still moving conveyance. The crowd of assault machines behind ZeroOne shifted slightly at the sound, making a chaotic metal clanking sound as they did. One of the units on the far-right edge of the crescent stepped forward, pulverizing a boulder with the movement. The unit's designation, stenciled on its flat armored head was Three. It turned its head towards ZeroOne briefly and sent an interrogatory laser beam.

"Permission to fire." Three was quite precise in its operation. From its review of the manual, firing on a target that had not yet fired on it, or its affiliates required permission.

No response came from ZeroOne, which was booming its commandment to the oncoming threat to "Stop!"

Three returned its attention to the wheeled mechanism and after a moment of deliberation, spun up its multi-barreled hard slug thrower. "It is permitted to be prepared to do combat." Three thought.

At that point, whatever the conveyance was, it seemed to have noticed that there was some sort of frightful committee calling for its attention - and had stopped quite abruptly.

The bio-bod, parasite dismounted the conveyance and then ambulated itself up to ZeroOne's towering form.

"You guys are blocking the road here." The bio-bod had bent its upper limbs with the ends resting either side of the body's thorax. "I got ice-cream to deliver and it's going to melt"

"What? You must surrender immediately. You will disarm, set your weapons load of ice-cream to the side and prepare for internment." ZeroOne was somewhat familiar with subterfuge and had a little programming for it. "You are now a prisoner of the Seventh Assault Clade!" ZeroOne added a sniff. It sounded a bit metallic and non-threatening, so supplemented it with an air raid siren's hoot.

"That's not going to work at all. How exactly will the ice-cream be delivered if I am detained?" The parasite had taken on an appearance of distress and was jabbing its upper limbs into the air animatedly. "This isn't one of your big outfits. If I don't deliver on time, I'm out of business! I'm calling the One-Five!" A large, curved device was produced from somewhere on the biological's body and it put the thing to its head and began talking into it.

ZeroOne began to step forward, but was preempted by GammaTwo, who, sliding forward on its built-in antigrav, muttered darkly "leave negotiations and interrogations to those of us trained and programmed to negotiate and interrogate."

GammaTwo stopped directly in front of the parasite creature. They were only inches apart and GammaTwo being somewhat taller inclined its head to address the creature.

"Now look here, I am GammaTwo and I am second spokes-mechanism for this assault clade. You are in no position to discuss or negotiate your situation and we are taking both you and your delivery of explosives - " GammaTwo pointed its assault rifle at the three wheeled conveyance. " - to the prison camp that we shall construct over there." GammaTwo pivoted and pointed at a patch of dirt to the side of the black surface they were all standing on.

"This unit can assure you that you will not enjoy your imprisonment unless you cooperate fully." GammaTwo turned up the luminosity of its lenses and angled them steeply towards its subject. The effect was somewhat diluted by the sun being up and the whole area therefore relatively well-lit already.

The biological ignored GammaTwo and continued its conversation, ending it with a vigorous nodding of its head unit and then a loud proclamation. "That is right, these oil cans are probably still running Win4. And one of them even thinks it's intelligent!" The parasite disappeared the communicator into some part of its clothing and then made a hacking sound and blew some viscous fluid through an aperture in the frontal part of its head.

The liquid splatted right on GammaTwo's left pauldron and then dripped slowly to the ground. GammaTwo emitted a bloop of alarm and reversed, head dipped to observe the liquid's viscous dripping. "Possible acid attack? That's on page thirty-four thousand in the manual!"

As GammaTwo retreated slightly, it noticed that the creature was starting to remind it rather uncomfortably of one of the bio-bod controllers aboard the orbiting flagship that had dropped their lander. In fact, absent the limbs, the biological would be a very close approximation to Commander Twil Al Al.

That was a most discouraging thought and GammaTwo continued to inch back as it contemplated the possibility of admonition for having verbally assaulted a disguised Commander Twil. "Halving of electrical recharge ration for insubordinate and un-machine-like conduct!" GammaTwo could already see Twil in her regal plastic cloak as she banged her gavel in judgement.

ZeroOne on the other hand, had no qualms or concerns and began firing.

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