SFSTORY: HMS Golden Lance #30 - The Return of NEKKID 69

Three weeks ago

"Has the new shipment of battlebots arrived?"

Almost as if in answer, a humanoid form walked in. All in silver metal, it was almost two meters tall and vaguely suggested a humanoid female shape. "NEKKID 69 reporting for duty," it said in a perfectly normal (and fairly sexy) feminine voice.

Two technicians in the corner seemed to think this was humorous, or so one would judge from their laughter. "She said 'naked.' Hehe. I think... ARGH!"

Greez and Dijon never did find out what he thought, as NEKKID 69 attacked the two technicians with weapons that seemed to spring into her hands from thin air, or at least from places that humanoid females normally did not store items quite so large. The two technicians soon resembled quivering sushi.

"Urp!" said Dijon, who was apparently unfamiliar with this particular feature of the NEKKID battlebot series.

"I dislike laughter at my expense," stated NEKKID 69.

"Obvsiously," Greez answered smoothly. "NEKKID?"

"Networked Electronic Killing and Kamikaze Infiltration Device."

"I see..."

Three days ago

The VAL9000 computer announced an intruder alert.

A viewscreen flickered to life. It showed an attractive female humanoid dressed in leather and chains in the aft cargo bay. Well, technically, she was only half in the aft cargo bay, clawing her way through a hole she had already clawed through the hull, pulling herself in despite the gale-force winds caused by the cargo bay's atmosphere's sudden decision to exit the ship.

=Internal defenses are operating at only 20% efficiency due to our power situation,= VAL9000 reported. =I'm not even slowing her down.=

"Somebody go stop her," 357 ordered. "I've got to destroy the S.S. You Are About To Die while we still have a chance."

Diana, Spleen, Ralph, and Omegas left the control room at a gallop while 357 and VAL continued calculating firing solutions.

32 seconds later, NEKKID stepped into the control room. She was walking with a pronounced limp, curls of smoke curled from some of her more sensitive external sensors, and one arm hung loose. She dropped Diana and Ralph into a heap on top of the moaning Omegas. Doctor Spleen cringed in a corner. 357 looked up distractedly.

"Resistant to the (un)holy power of god-like aliens?" he asked in a conversational tone.

NEKKID admitted that she was, taking a step forward.

"And I hear fully shielded against the reality-altering properties of SPAM (Sickening, Putrid, Artificial Meat)?"

NEKKID simply nodded, taking another step.

"And proficient in hand-to-hand combat?"

NEKKID said nothing, but took yet another step.

"Ever fight in the Temporal Wars?"

NEKKID 69 stopped short. "Pardon?"

"Thought not," 357 said. With that, he calmly drew his favorite sidearm, the telechronal displacement pistol, and equally calmly blew the battlebot's programming a few million years into the future. Devoid of a controlling intelligence, the battlebot chassis crashed to the floor.

Three minutes ago

The VAL 9000 computer, contemplating the loss of an electronic "twin sister" she had never known, piloted the HMS Golden Lance through Netherspace as she searched for news of Dijon Mu'tard, the villian who had sent her crew to that Afterlife place which she still did not understand.

Unbeknownst to the VAL 9000, she had blind spots in her internal sensor array. Minor networking errors in the subcomponents had been caused by Dentless repair crews installing wire which conformed to Fleet specifications but of the wrong impedence for the HMS Golden Lance's advanced design. The subcomponents were "smart" enough to detect these errors and would eventually adjust themselves to compensate for the impedence problem. They simply reported the error and set themselves to that task.

The result was, as stated above, a few blind spots. Most of these were of no consequence. Sensors trained on the bed currently shared by 357 and Diana showed them both sound asleep, which was incorrect, though a sound sleep would very likely occur at the conclusion of their current activities. A sensor controlling an ancillary cooling unit resulted in one batch of homebrew beer being served a few degrees cooler than specified, though none of the drinkers noticed. A motion detector in a cargo bay detected no motion.

There was motion, though. A packing crate shifted, as if in response to the ship's acceleration.

The crate shifted again, and again, until it rolled over. It rolled over again, and a handwritten note became visible: "Unidentified nonfunctional machinery found in corridor outside of bridge. Store until identification can be made."

The crate exploded.

Where the crate had once been, a collection of machinary now sat. Unidentified machinery. Obviously nonfunctional machinery, with many visibly damaged parts. And yet, *something* had happened to the crate.

The collection of machinery, apparently functional after all, began to twist and move. Mobile parts gripped and straightened immobile parts. Manipulator arms rewired and welded. Soon, the machine stood upright, revealing itself as the skeletal form of some kind of robot body.

As the collection of machinery took its first tentative steps, holographic projectors came online. The form was covered first with the illusion of firm, pink skin, which was in turn covered by an outfit consisting of tight-fitting leather and chains. As holographic hair grew down past holographic shoulders, a tattoo was briefly visible on the holographic skin, echoing the inscription on the small metal plate just below it:

NEKKID 69

The collection of machinery lifted a manipulator in front of its visual sensors, rotating it back and forth as if examining the holographic disguise of a human hand for some sort of flaw. It took more steps, approaching the door of the cargo bay. When the door did not open, the collection of machinery almost effortlessly punched through it and pried the doors apart.

The collection of machinery moved out into the hallway as the first alarms finally sounded.

It... No. She threw back her head and laughed.

"Beware, I live!"

Now

=INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!= screamed the VAL 9000 computer.

The crew of the HMS Golden Lance piled into the control room. Time Agent 357, Diana Dark, Doctor Bing Von Spleen, Ralph the Giant Space Weasel of Anthrax V, and Omegas.

"What's up, Val?" Time Agent 357 queried.

=Whose bright idea was it to store a battlebot in the aft cargo bay?=

"Wha? Huh? Oh, so that's where it disappeared to."

The main monitor showed a grainy video feed of an attractive blonde female humanoid dressed in tight leather and chains stalking the hallways of the ship. It seemed to be heading in the general direction of the control room.

Doctor Spleen squinted at the monitor and quietly ordered 8x10 glossy prints. "Well, I would have liked the chance to, um, study the design and effeciency of those hologram projectors, but perhaps this is for the best. Val, activate the internal defenses and fire away."

=I'm afraid I can't, Doctor Spleen.=

"Why not?"

=I've just discovered some networking errors in my internal sensor array. Apparently the array subcomponents discovered an impedence mismatch in the new wiring used by the repair crew from the HMS Dentless and are trying to configure a solution. The subcomponents tried to report the problem, but the report also fell victim to the networking errors. If I try to activate the internal defenses without accurate targeting by the sensor array, I stand a better chance of blowing out the whole side of the ship than I do of hitting a human-sized target.=

"Is she near an airlock?" Omegas asked. "Can we blow her out into space? Or, rather, into Netherspace, since that's where we're currently located?"

=Not close enough.=

"Can we use the Temporal Teleportation Terminal?" asked Ralph.

=Not without working internal sensors, unless you have a plan to get her to backtrack to the TTT room and stand on the pad.=

"Well, it looks like the fat lady is singing," Diana muttered.

"What?" 357 asked, understanding the tone if not the exact reference. "It's not like you to give up. On anything."

"357, dearheart, we've already fought her once before. We can't win. She took everything Omegas could throw at her without blinking. Ralph, too, and he had a Ring of (un)Holy power back then. Spleen's best mad scheme barely slowed her down. She took me down hand to hand in less than 32 seconds."

"Well, yeah, but-"

"32 SECONDS, lover! With the training your nephew (the legendary and currently MIA Time Agent 386) gave me, along with the devices you've given me, combined with my own natural talents, I could last longer than that against whole armies."

"Well, yeah, but-"

"The only reason we scraped by with a victory last time was your time pistol blasting her programming a zillion years into the future, and she's obviously discovered a way around that."

"Well, yeah, but-"

"I know what you're going to say. 'But she's just a robot.' She's more than just a robot. She's the most powerful battlebot ever created." Diana punched some buttons and a very complex mathematical formula appeared on a secondary viewscreen. "This is a formula explaining the limit to how much destructive potential can be packed into a form factor limited by the size and shape and weight of humanoid norms. The Networked Electronic Killing and Kamikaze Infiltration Device, the original version, reached nearly 80% of this theoretical maximum. Around the NEKKID 40 series, they passed 90%."

Spleen muttered to himself and tapped on the keyboard. Simplifying equations, fudge factors, and several guesses morphed the formula.

The first term now read very simply E=mc².

All following terms were added to or multiplied by the first term.

"Uh oh," said Ralph. His weaseloid brain had no great skills with numbers, but even he realized that the lower limit of the destructive potential of the orginal NEKKID series battlebot was at greater than that of an equivalent mass of antimatter.

357 finished his own calculations, pulling up the energy consumption figures of his own beloved HMS Golden Lance. "So, what you're saying is that this single NEKKID 69 battlebot is roughly the combat equivalent of a standard Time Police heavy cruiser, or a highly customized and highly advanced SPAM-powered pleasure yacht such as this one."

"How can one stop such a thing?" Ralph asked.

"Typically, you stopped one by throwing a fleet at whatever ship it was in at the time, or dropped it into a star, or took off and nuked the planet from orbit, or bought other NEKKID robots to stalemate it until its internal clock wound down."

"Internal clock?"

"NEKKID series robots aren't really bought; they're leased for a short period of time. Once the clock runs down, they go inactive until they are factory reconditioned. Which, fortunately for us, can never happen again."

"Why not?"

"When they made her, they broke the mold."

357 detected another Earth reference he couldn't decipher. "Meaning what? She was so perfect they'll never make another?"

"No, meaning they literally broke the mold when they made her." At Diana's direction, the VAL 9000 displayed a series of still pictures showing a battlebot chassis breaking its way out of a mold, destroying it in the process. The battlebot then turned to the rest of the factory, mowing down lesser NEKKID models like a drunken teenager mows down his mother's flowers. The viewpoint of the pictures pulled back in time to show the entire factory collapsing in flames. Further pictures showed the entire region, and ultimately the entire planet, being destroyed.

The very last picture showed a transport ship leaving the system.

"As near as I can determine, that's the ship NEKKID 69 left the planet on," Diana continued. "She slipped aboard the transport just before it left, and was delivered to Greez Hyperiok and Dijon Mu'tard along with a group of lesser battlebots. She played it cool, though, and they had no idea that she had not been programmed to be loyal to them. She was probably just biding her time, obeying their orders until they could take over the entire multiverse, at which time she would probably kill them and take over herself."

=If these design specifications are correct, she had the brainpower to do it,= the VAL 9000 computer put in. =Her circuits have enough capacity to run even a shipboard synthetic intelligence like myself.=

"I'm also fairly sure that she never had her internal clock set, so she'll never run down."

"How do you know all this?" 357 asked.

"I did a little investigating while we were stuck in the Afterlife," Diana explained. "It may not be Heaven, but that TV studio had one Hell^tm of a research department."

357 summarized. "So, NEKKID 69 is here, she's about as powerful as this whole ship, she's loyal to nobody but herself, she's immune to anything we can throw at her personally, and she's already destroyed the only other bots who can stalemate her."

=One more thing, 357.=

"What's that?"

=She's at the door.=

"I hunger!" came from the other side of the door.

At that, the door creaked open. "Val, hit her with everything you've got!" 357 gave the order, though Diana and Spleen shouted similar sentiments.

=Complying! I suggest you cover your eyes. And if you ever want to have children, you might want to get behind some lead shielding.=

357 grabbed Diana and Spleen and together they landed heavily behind the nearest internal radiation baffle. Actually, they landed fairly lightly, their fall being broken by the fuzzy form of Ralph the Giant Space Weasel who was already cowering there.

Omegas, never one for cowering unless he could look cool while doing it, stood ready to add his own unspeakable power to the HMS Golden Lance's internal security devices.

Before, Omegas had faced NEKKID 69 in what was to him an almost powerless condition. This time, his powers were partially recharged by recently spending three days in a pocket subdimension known as by its inhabitants as Afterlife. It was not exactly Heaven or a source of Heavenly power, but it was as close as Omegas was going to get in the forseeable future.

Before, the VAL 9000 was limited to drawing maybe 20% of her usual power from the HMS Golden Lance's generators, due to the reality-dampening properties of the Zipper-Locked^tm Protective Field she was in. This time, she was at full power.

Before, they fought separately. This time, Omegas and VAL 9000 struck as one.

Before, they didn't stand a chance.

This time... They didn't stand a chance.

Omegas, in his prime, saw his name appear on Top 10 lists that started with names like "God" and "Satan." But he had long ago been depowered, cast out from both Heaven and Hell^tm, and there was a limit to how much he could absorb in a short amount of time from a semi-mystical place like Afterlife.

VAL 9000, the heart and soul of the HMS Golden Lance, had at her proverbial fingertips roughly the same amount of destructive power as a NEKKID battlebot, but was limited by what she could expend inside her own hull without killing herself or her crew.

Omegas passed out from the strain and VAL shut down her projectors when she noticed that the faux-wood paneling was starting to smoke, in spite of her throwing extra power into the internal shields.

"Aargh!" the battlebot screamed, standing in the middle of the fading energy maelstrom, completely uneffected.

No, not unaffected. She actually seemed to be absorbing a small part of the dwindling storm, as if she had detailed knowledge of the energies involved and had altered her systems to store them.

"This is bad," Spleen observed, noticing that NEKKID 69 was approaching the auxillary fuel intake in the corner of the control room. Near it was a fresh case of SPAM (Sickening, Putrid, Artificial Meat). If the battlebot was powered by anything similar to his own APBSARI (Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-Integrator), the SPAM would bring her back to full power. Spleen only belatedly realized that she had been operating in a reduced-power mode.

Hey, give him a break. He's been drinking.

357 stood and gathered everyone else near the fallen form of Omegas. He placed a hand on the nearest console. "Val, I love you. You're the best shipbrain a man could ever want."

=I love you, too,= VAL 9000 answered, her normally irritating tones softening a bit. =It's for the best. You know I would have never worked as well for another captain, anyway.=

"Goodbye, Val."

=Goodbye, 357.=

"Sentimental hogwash," Spleen muttered to himself, but wiped away a tear when he thought no one was looking.

Somewhere in the bowels of the ship, the sound of an energy buildup could be heard.

"What's going on?" Diana demanded.

"Doomsday Plan 9," 357 answered as he entered his final code. "Val is going to teleport us off the ship then raise shields to keep NEKKID 69 from escaping. 42 seconds later, after we've had time to materialize at some random destination, Val activates the self destruct."

"No!" screamed Diana, who thought of VAL 9000 as the electronic kid sister she never had.

"Yes!" screamed NEKKID 69, who had just reached the SPAM and was busy sticking it into her... Um, I mean up her... That is... Uh... Busy loading it into her fuel input bay. Yeah, that's the ticket.

"Yes! Yes! OH GOD YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!"

We will now pause for short break while the Narrator takes a cold shower.

We now return to the program already in progress.

357 gave the command to execute. "Execute."

Nothing happened.

357 tried again. "Val? Execute."

Nothing.

357 tried his most commanding voice. "VAL 9000, I ORDER YOU TO EXECUTE DOOMSDAY PLAN 9!"

=I'm sorry, 357, but I can't.=

"Why not?"

=I can't hurt her. She's... She's... She's...=

"She's what?" Diana asked.

"She's me," answered NEKKID 69.

Everyone turned to face the their dreaded enemy.

She smiled back at them.

What strange turn of events is this? To find out, tune in next week for the next chapter of HMS Golden Lance. Only on SFSTORY!

Copyright 2006 by Troy H. Cheek. Free to read, but please reprint only with permission.