NationStates Jolt Archive

Throughout the universe, there are many evils that must be confronted and defeated to ensure survival. There are many pirates, dictators, empires and rebels who desire nothing more than to conquer, to inflict pain on others and further their own aims. However, there are few, very few species and races that can shake a people to their very core. One of these was the race known as the SASM.

The SASM were a race of biological robots. They used the brains of conquered races as ‘processors’ to power their Bioroids, the foot soldiers of the SASM. They were cold, heartless, merciless and ruthless. There was no alliance with the SASM, no treaties. They had destroyed thousands of races throughout the centuries, hundreds of Empires had fallen to them, trillions of individuals ‘dissected’ and their brain used to power another weapon of robotic war.

However, they were not invincible, although they were as close as one could get without being an Immortal, and one unfortunate unit found itself off course after a battle with a stubborn race that refused to be defeated even by the SASM. One of their biggest units, a SASM Space Combat Unit, twisted down through the atmosphere of an unknown planet. It cut through the atmosphere as if it wasn’t there and crashed into the vast and empty frozen north. There is remained for over 400 years, until one lucky group of military explorers made the discovery of a lifetime…

Slicing through the atmosphere at dangerous speeds, Brain Jar literally screamed for mercy. Her pilot, the Metal Man, had been investigating reports of a type six consumptor--a plague species that could threaten entire solar systems and beyond--when he had run into the remnants of a mechanized battle fleet. Though their crews were long dead, the ships' automatic defenses still functioned--and this had caught the Metal Man by surprise. By the time he'd finished neutralizing the navigational threat, there was a hole in his hull and he was venting atmosphere. He'd done the only thing he could do--find the first inhabited planet that he could and attempt to land, hoping he could borrow, beg or negotiate for the supplies he'd need to continue on his way.

It wasn't until he hit the atmosphere that he found out that they'd been using Ionic Pulse Missiles. IPMs are hell on engines--and they'd taken a nice little chunk out of his.

So, with his hovering maglevs fractured up beyond all recognition and his retro thrusters about as useful as a screen door in an airlock, the cyborg pilot found himself in need of a minor miracle--and some crazy piloting. He had finally located a nice, long lake on his flight trajectory, and decided that, if he brought his ship down just, just right, the water could finish the breaking job that the main atmospheric drive system, sans retros, could only start.

As he gently eased her down onto the smooth surface of the water, it was all that he could do to keep himself from going into a panic. If he wasn't exceptionally lucky (careful would not be enough), he was going to turn that little flying saucer of his into an over sized skipping stone--and, at over 300 kilometers per hour--now, 250--the entertainment value would be strictly limited.

It all went just fine, until, about three kilometers later, still barreling along at around 40 km/h, he ran out of lake. This was more troublesome than it appeared--there was a line of trees that came almost up to the shorline. Thus it was that the last 15 or 20 km/h of that little ride went away rather a bit more suddenly than the rest. One other minor thing--the main power went with it.

It took about thirty seconds for the back-up to kick in, and, by then, the Metal Man had lost his Operating System. It was a pain in the hardware to have to wait for a complete cold boot, but at least, when it was done, the cyborg would be alive to assess the damage.

"Pete," he said, about another minute later, "what's going on?"

No answer.

"Pete? PETE!"

Still jacked into the main data console, he fired up a diagnostic report. Sure enough, main computer was offline. Pete was gone.

This presented another distinct problem. When the Metal Man rebooted, it reactivated the Personality Control Program, a security protocol that Species One had applied to him when they had first torn his body away. Pete was the only one besides the Metal Man himself who knew the code words to deactivate the protocol--and one of its provisions was that it prevented him from telling anybody. For almost a hundred years, the thing had been the bane of his existence. Things just kept getting better and better.

But the Metal Man was not the kind to just quit. The security protocols wouldn't prevent him from fixing his ship, and, once he got Pete up again, he could solve his other problems. The first step would be a more complete assessment of the damage.

As he found his way into a humanoid suit--one that could interact with the civilization that he'd found evidence of on the planet and do some repair work--his foremost thoughts were about getting his friend back. There was evidence of a battle in nearby space, but it had been a long time ago, and there didn't appear to be any survivors nearby. It looked like the reports of the consumptor in the region could--fortunately--be consigned to the ashcan of history.

----------------------

OOC: With the name on this thread, how could I resist?