HOME | DD

Description
As he had left the Irk system, the artificial life preserver, activated. To him, this long space voyage would only seem like a small nap, when in fact he would be drifting in space, he could of serviette trip, but freezing him like this was the only way to guarantee he wouldn’t be troubling the empire for a long time.

~~~Sol Several Hundred Years Later~~~

He had taken a beating in the asteroid belt. He was now heading towards the planet earth at a mind numbing speed, as he entered the atmosphere a few damaged hull areas began melting, he still hadn’t woken, usually he would have been awoken several hundred thousand miles from such a danger, but all the damage the ship had taken over the decades had taken its toll on several dozen important systems.

A small hole began to develop on the heat shield of the cockpit and it was burning through, the ship wouldn’t hold up against this kind of pressure much longer, but suddenly the ship slowed it halted mid air and slowly drifted towards the ground. As Ace began to wake up his vision blurred he looked up as the heat shield was ripped off, he looked to the side to see a blurry irkenoid form reaching for him, he was two weak to resist and as he was being carried off he blacked out still weak from the long ”nap” he had just had.
The next thing he knew he was in a small room lit by a blue light, it seemed to be a self enclosed atmosphere that he assumed was some kind of prison, he grinned as he walked to the back wall and his pak legs extended the four legs bracing against the wall as he launched himself forward slamming into the obviously reinforced wall, he landed on the ground and passed out again. He woke up a while later and opened one eye already knowing from the small amount of noise his antenna picked up that he was no longer alone in his cell, he saw the back of a creature in the blue light and reached up slowly to his pak pulling a small triangular section from part of his pak that was quickly replaced by another similar object, he lunged at the being but before he could touch her she spun around standing a good two feet taller then him, he had fought bigger, but she was like nothing he’d seen before, a tall metallic creature. His fear quickly dissipated as the creature giggled at him, his translator picked up as she spoke.
“Hello there, good to see you awake and not jumping into any walls.” She extended a hand. “I’m Jenny.”
He looked at her hand before stepping back eyeing the metal girl. Suddenly a horribly accented voice broke the now total silence of the room.
“XJNINE!” A woman about the size and by her looks age of Ace ran in pulling the robots hand back. “You can’t be so trusting of aliens.” Ace looked between the two and then asked.
“Am I to be executed?” the girl laughed and the older creature which Ace knew to be human responded.
“No, this is a decontamination chamber, we had to make sure you weren’t carrying any virus’s that could harm the populace.

Later after Ace had been checked for any detectable weapons Dr. Wakeman was nosily poking around his pak.
“What is this device, I am detecting several unstable elements within it.” Ace looked back and  responded.
“It’s a Pak, it supports me in any atmosphere, and translate everything you and I say so we can understand each other.”
Dr. Wakeman reached up and tried to pull it off, Ace spun around sending a hand across the older woman’s face sending her to the ground.
“Never touch that.” he was met with a punch from the seemingly feeble woman who stood above him.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to strike a woman you brute.” He got up and prepared to pull out a weapon before Jenny got between them.
“Stop fighting, you two!” she screamed several beakers in the room breaking from the sheer frequency of her voice. Ace stepped back moving over to the ship he had came in on and began digging through the rear capsule which fell out of the ship as he touched it.
“Bloody fucking hell, can’t anything ever work for me?” he kicked the capsule and it shattered, the materials obviously became frail from the decent through the atmosphere. As he looked down at the shattered capsule, as he picked it up he noticed something in a compartment he hadn’t noticed before he pulled a small pad out and looked at it astonished, it seemed his old love had put a prototype replacator in with the ship to help him when he awoke from his sleep, he activated it and panned through it, then looked to Dr. Wakemen who was throwing the broken beakers into the garbage, and cleaning up some of the chemicals that had spilled. Ace walked over and picked up a few shards of glass the contents coating it, he winced as they began burning into his hand and threw them across the room dropping the pad on the ground and dropping to his knees.

He closed his eyes before not making any noise, the next thing he knew someone was cleaning his hand, he looked to see Dr. Wakemen using a gel and tweezers to remove the glass and stop the acidic mix from burning  through his hand, she cursed him under her breath calling him an idiot for messing with chemicals without protection, “He spoke shallowly before pulling his hand away.
“Thank you, but what I could really use is a power source to power my replacator, the sooner I can find one, the sooner I can get off this spit planet.” he got a glare from Dr. Wakemen, as she got up and walked away.
“Even if I did have one I wouldn’t just give you excess to it.” He frowned and started walking off then suddenly a small robot popped up in front of him, he looked down at the atonamatron curiously. As it spoke Ace noticed it seemed to be having trouble speaking consistently.
“Hello, I’m robot boy.” Jenny walked over picking up the robot who looked up at her.
“Hello robot boy, this is Ace, he will be stuck here till we fix his ship.” Robot boy looked down and nodded. “Robot boy was in a sense a prototype of me, he was created a couple hundred years ago, mom found him when she was inspecting a test sigh for my weapons, he was scattered over a mile and a half, we repaired and upgraded him after we found his central processing node, he isn’t as powerful as me, but he can kick cluster butt as good as me.”
Ace was poking at the small robot before responding. “The cluster?” Jenny set him down and responded her voice synthesizers creating a upset tone.
“Well, not the cluster, the rouge cluster bots that still fallow queen Vexus, and the few under Smites, most of the cluster is ruled by my friend Vega.” she continued explaining about the cluster, herself, and the planet earth.

A few days had passed, he had been given a closet to stay in, it had a been and enough room for Ace to put the few salvageable things from his derelict ship, and put out some schematics he had drawn up from memory the human, and robots around had been very kind to him, but he still had a great distaste for all of them, but hid it. Suddenly a alarm rang through the lab, he looked out his door to see several hovering laser platforms zoom by firing lasers, then suddenly a robotic bug that looked like a praying mantic, then at least a dozen cluster drones. He closed the door as they went by, then remembered that upgrades on Jenny were commencing, and that she had been deactivated, he grabbed up a few things off the table and ran out the door, his pak legs carrying him as two swords emerged in has hands.
He cut down the first cluster drone that had turned to attack him, he cut one in half and sent a pak leg through the other as he ran along, he twisted through several corridors the mantice bot getting further ahead as he cut down cluster drones when they turned to fight, finally the mantice ran into a large dome room, and before Ace could enter, a shower of lasers rained down on the bot, Ace watched as it was cut into a smoldering pile a molten metal and sank into the growing hole the lasers were making. When Ace finally entered the room, he gasped as he saw thousands over the hovering laser platforms, they began firing at him not knowing him as a friend, he was his by several beams before they stopped firing, a door off to the side opened and Dr. Wakemen ran out and kneeled beside Ace.
“You fool, you should of stayed in your room.” Ace was on his knees and coughed up a bit of blood before kicking Dr. Wakemen, back and jumping against a wall, a huge metallic claw crashed down a fraction of a second later, out of the hole came another which went flew up quickly expanding into a circular dome which crushed the laser platforms against the roof, an even larger mantice bot emerged from the still burning hole where the first had been destroyed, it rose into the air looming over Wakemen and Ace from behind it rose Vexus grinning.
“It seems that all of your defenses proved futile against the power of the cluster.

Ace had regained himself standing picking up one of the swords that had landed near him, as he held it the blade changed moving further down as the handle extended, he ran at the mantice with the newly formed scythe a claw traveling at him. He jumped running up the arm of the boy and lunging at Vexus who merely raised a hand sending a huge pulse of electricity through the blade, which inherently made it to Ace throwing him back against the wall a robotic claw flew at him, a split second before Ace was hit, a large robot appeared in front of Ace catching the claw and ripping it off the mantice.
He pulled the arm back and swung it at the mantice like a bat easily taking off the mantice’s head and sending it plummeted to the ground, Ace looked on from the hole in the wall he had created when he hit as a wealth of weapons emerged from his protector and aimed at Vexus. Vexus was still looking at her mantice bot then looked to the robot who had held up an arm at her. She watched the arm change into a gatling cannon “Who…are you…” she said getting no answer the robot began to fire the gatling cannon several shots ripping through her, Vexus now opened a cluster portal jumped into it, the robot fired several missiles after her who passed through as it was closing the sound of an explosion could be heard right as it closed, Ace looked down, he was at least twenty feet from the ground before he even had to, the robot and grabbed him and flew him to the ground, he looked to Dr. Wakemen.
“I thought you said Jenny was the only active defense unit.” She chuckled. “That’s robot boy.” Ace looked to the huge robot then laughed.
“That can’t be him, robot boys…” He watched as the robot shrunk its heavy plates of Armour and weapons disappearing. Robot boy stood before him, before smiling and said.
“See…I ro-bot boy.”

After Ace had been patched up Dr. Wakemen brought Ace back with her, to a room where Jenny was strapped to a table there was another human in the room, he had seen him once a night ago and walked to the corner as Dr. Wakemen continued with the upgrades, it was another couple of hours before they finished, finally Dr. Wakemen walked over to Ace pushing him away from the computer he was messing with and reactivated Jenny who opened her robotic eyes looking around at the group looming above her.
“Uh hello everyone.” The boy was the first to respond hugging Jenny who seemed to be annoyed quite a bit by this.
“Jenny, I was so worried about you.” she rolled her eyes and responded.
“It was only a normal upgrade nothing that I haven’t done three hundred and seventy two times before.” Ace made the next comment picking up the inactive robot boy.
“Some fun friends dropped by, the little toy here had to stop them from saying hello.” Jenny looked confused.
“The cluster attack, somehow they got past the outer defenses, and got all the way to the training dome, then somehow were able to open two cluster portals inside the house.” She cast a accusing glare at Ace. “Someone must have given them the security codes and deactivated the dampening field around the house, and I wonder how they knew XJ9 was going to be deactivated today.”
Ace looked quite offended as he got up pointing a finger at Dr. Wakemen’s face almost touching her nose.
“You dare accuse me of sabotage! Old woman, not only was I almost killed, but I saved you, if I was really working with the cluster, I would of killed you myself.” she continued glaring for a second before turning and walking off Jenny watched her mom walk off, then looked to Ace saying nothing, Sheldon who had been clinging to Jenny let go and began cleaning up seeming to be oblivious to the fact that his mentor and an alien had just gotten into a fight

Later that night Ace exited his room looking around before exiting, he had the replacator, and a small scanning device in hand, it was bleeping quietly and he moved down the corridor the intensity and frequency of the beeping increasing as he did, he now found himself in the main lab where his ship was stored, he walked past it seeing a door, before he could open it he hard some shuffling and turned to see Dr. Wakemen almost buried in papers, the large stacks arching inward in her, he set his items down in the cockpit and walked over looking over her should, she hadn’t noticed him, and Ace watched as she drew using both hands simultaneously several detailed layers of XJ9’s new weapon systems. Ace watched in wonder as she drew perfectly straight lines without the use of rulers or any type of item to help her, finally after several pages he spoke out. “You have cybernetic implants in your eyes and arms don‘t you…” Dr. Wakemen jumped the pile of papers collapsing in every direction covering the floor in a thick white layer of paper, Ace looked around chuckling lightly under his breath, Dr, Wakemen turned around looking flustered before grabbing his neck and shaking his around by it. “Do you have any idea how long it will take or reorganize these!?” she finally released him and fall back into the chair she was in and began picking up papers. Ace began helping her, they talked sparsely as they cleaned up the ocean of papers finally a few hours later the papers  had been picked up and organized and shoved into a handful of boxes. Dr. Wakemen walked over to a couch and sat down looking tired. Ace walked over and spoke shallowly.
“you never did answer my question…” she looked up at him puzzled.
“There are several cybernetic implants in your hands, arms, and head…” She looked down.
“Yes  when I was younger I had a disease, it broke down my central nervous system, I was one of the first and last to a radical new procedure, it saved me, but what they didn’t expect was it to give me such an advantage over normal humans, they scrapped the project, they let me keep mine cause by then, mo body would of no longer been able to control my vital organs. They did of course allow me to excel in  life and I was one of the foremost scientists in the academic community by age twenty, and began working for sky patrol designing them ways to fight there enemies then I resigned here, and began work on a new type of global response unit, XJ9 is the culmination of my work.”
Ace had remained silent through all of this and began to walk off saying. “Goodnight Dr. Wakemen.” Before he was out of the room she responded.
“You can call me Nora.”

Description
As he had left the Irk system, the artificial life preserver, activated. To him, this long space voyage would only seem like a small nap, when in fact he would be drifting in space, he could of serviette trip, but freezing him like this was the only way to guarantee he wouldn’t be troubling the empire for a long time.

~~~Sol Several Hundred Years Later~~~

He had taken a beating in the asteroid belt. He was now heading towards the planet earth at a mind numbing speed, as he entered the atmosphere a few damaged hull areas began melting, he still hadn’t woken, usually he would have been awoken several hundred thousand miles from such a danger, but all the damage the ship had taken over the decades had taken its toll on several dozen important systems.

A small hole began to develop on the heat shield of the cockpit and it was burning through, the ship wouldn’t hold up against this kind of pressure much longer, but suddenly the ship slowed it halted mid air and slowly drifted towards the ground. As Ace began to wake up his vision blurred he looked up as the heat shield was ripped off, he looked to the side to see a blurry irkenoid form reaching for him, he was two weak to resist and as he was being carried off he blacked out still weak from the long ”nap” he had just had.
The next thing he knew he was in a small room lit by a blue light, it seemed to be a self enclosed atmosphere that he assumed was some kind of prison, he grinned as he walked to the back wall and his pak legs extended the four legs bracing against the wall as he launched himself forward slamming into the obviously reinforced wall, he landed on the ground and passed out again. He woke up a while later and opened one eye already knowing from the small amount of noise his antenna picked up that he was no longer alone in his cell, he saw the back of a creature in the blue light and reached up slowly to his pak pulling a small triangular section from part of his pak that was quickly replaced by another similar object, he lunged at the being but before he could touch her she spun around standing a good two feet taller then him, he had fought bigger, but she was like nothing he’d seen before, a tall metallic creature. His fear quickly dissipated as the creature giggled at him, his translator picked up as she spoke.
“Hello there, good to see you awake and not jumping into any walls.” She extended a hand. “I’m Jenny.”
He looked at her hand before stepping back eyeing the metal girl. Suddenly a horribly accented voice broke the now total silence of the room.
“XJNINE!” A woman about the size and by her looks age of Ace ran in pulling the robots hand back. “You can’t be so trusting of aliens.” Ace looked between the two and then asked.
“Am I to be executed?” the girl laughed and the older creature which Ace knew to be human responded.
“No, this is a decontamination chamber, we had to make sure you weren’t carrying any virus’s that could harm the populace.

Later after Ace had been checked for any detectable weapons Dr. Wakeman was nosily poking around his pak.
“What is this device, I am detecting several unstable elements within it.” Ace looked back and  responded.
“It’s a Pak, it supports me in any atmosphere, and translate everything you and I say so we can understand each other.”
Dr. Wakeman reached up and tried to pull it off, Ace spun around sending a hand across the older woman’s face sending her to the ground.
“Never touch that.” he was met with a punch from the seemingly feeble woman who stood above him.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to strike a woman you brute.” He got up and prepared to pull out a weapon before Jenny got between them.
“Stop fighting, you two!” she screamed several beakers in the room breaking from the sheer frequency of her voice. Ace stepped back moving over to the ship he had came in on and began digging through the rear capsule which fell out of the ship as he touched it.
“Bloody fucking hell, can’t anything ever work for me?” he kicked the capsule and it shattered, the materials obviously became frail from the decent through the atmosphere. As he looked down at the shattered capsule, as he picked it up he noticed something in a compartment he hadn’t noticed before he pulled a small pad out and looked at it astonished, it seemed his old love had put a prototype replacator in with the ship to help him when he awoke from his sleep, he activated it and panned through it, then looked to Dr. Wakemen who was throwing the broken beakers into the garbage, and cleaning up some of the chemicals that had spilled. Ace walked over and picked up a few shards of glass the contents coating it, he winced as they began burning into his hand and threw them across the room dropping the pad on the ground and dropping to his knees.

He closed his eyes before not making any noise, the next thing he knew someone was cleaning his hand, he looked to see Dr. Wakemen using a gel and tweezers to remove the glass and stop the acidic mix from burning  through his hand, she cursed him under her breath calling him an idiot for messing with chemicals without protection, “He spoke shallowly before pulling his hand away.
“Thank you, but what I could really use is a power source to power my replacator, the sooner I can find one, the sooner I can get off this spit planet.” he got a glare from Dr. Wakemen, as she got up and walked away.
“Even if I did have one I wouldn’t just give you excess to it.” He frowned and started walking off then suddenly a small robot popped up in front of him, he looked down at the atonamatron curiously. As it spoke Ace noticed it seemed to be having trouble speaking consistently.
“Hello, I’m robot boy.” Jenny walked over picking up the robot who looked up at her.
“Hello robot boy, this is Ace, he will be stuck here till we fix his ship.” Robot boy looked down and nodded. “Robot boy was in a sense a prototype of me, he was created a couple hundred years ago, mom found him when she was inspecting a test sigh for my weapons, he was scattered over a mile and a half, we repaired and upgraded him after we found his central processing node, he isn’t as powerful as me, but he can kick cluster butt as good as me.”
Ace was poking at the small robot before responding. “The cluster?” Jenny set him down and responded her voice synthesizers creating a upset tone.
“Well, not the cluster, the rouge cluster bots that still fallow queen Vexus, and the few under Smites, most of the cluster is ruled by my friend Vega.” she continued explaining about the cluster, herself, and the planet earth.

A few days had passed, he had been given a closet to stay in, it had a been and enough room for Ace to put the few salvageable things from his derelict ship, and put out some schematics he had drawn up from memory the human, and robots around had been very kind to him, but he still had a great distaste for all of them, but hid it. Suddenly a alarm rang through the lab, he looked out his door to see several hovering laser platforms zoom by firing lasers, then suddenly a robotic bug that looked like a praying mantic, then at least a dozen cluster drones. He closed the door as they went by, then remembered that upgrades on Jenny were commencing, and that she had been deactivated, he grabbed up a few things off the table and ran out the door, his pak legs carrying him as two swords emerged in has hands.
He cut down the first cluster drone that had turned to attack him, he cut one in half and sent a pak leg through the other as he ran along, he twisted through several corridors the mantice bot getting further ahead as he cut down cluster drones when they turned to fight, finally the mantice ran into a large dome room, and before Ace could enter, a shower of lasers rained down on the bot, Ace watched as it was cut into a smoldering pile a molten metal and sank into the growing hole the lasers were making. When Ace finally entered the room, he gasped as he saw thousands over the hovering laser platforms, they began firing at him not knowing him as a friend, he was his by several beams before they stopped firing, a door off to the side opened and Dr. Wakemen ran out and kneeled beside Ace.
“You fool, you should of stayed in your room.” Ace was on his knees and coughed up a bit of blood before kicking Dr. Wakemen, back and jumping against a wall, a huge metallic claw crashed down a fraction of a second later, out of the hole came another which went flew up quickly expanding into a circular dome which crushed the laser platforms against the roof, an even larger mantice bot emerged from the still burning hole where the first had been destroyed, it rose into the air looming over Wakemen and Ace from behind it rose Vexus grinning.
“It seems that all of your defenses proved futile against the power of the cluster.

Ace had regained himself standing picking up one of the swords that had landed near him, as he held it the blade changed moving further down as the handle extended, he ran at the mantice with the newly formed scythe a claw traveling at him. He jumped running up the arm of the boy and lunging at Vexus who merely raised a hand sending a huge pulse of electricity through the blade, which inherently made it to Ace throwing him back against the wall a robotic claw flew at him, a split second before Ace was hit, a large robot appeared in front of Ace catching the claw and ripping it off the mantice.
He pulled the arm back and swung it at the mantice like a bat easily taking off the mantice’s head and sending it plummeted to the ground, Ace looked on from the hole in the wall he had created when he hit as a wealth of weapons emerged from his protector and aimed at Vexus. Vexus was still looking at her mantice bot then looked to the robot who had held up an arm at her. She watched the arm change into a gatling cannon “Who…are you…” she said getting no answer the robot began to fire the gatling cannon several shots ripping through her, Vexus now opened a cluster portal jumped into it, the robot fired several missiles after her who passed through as it was closing the sound of an explosion could be heard right as it closed, Ace looked down, he was at least twenty feet from the ground before he even had to, the robot and grabbed him and flew him to the ground, he looked to Dr. Wakemen.
“I thought you said Jenny was the only active defense unit.” She chuckled. “That’s robot boy.” Ace looked to the huge robot then laughed.
“That can’t be him, robot boys…” He watched as the robot shrunk its heavy plates of Armour and weapons disappearing. Robot boy stood before him, before smiling and said.
“See…I ro-bot boy.”

After Ace had been patched up Dr. Wakemen brought Ace back with her, to a room where Jenny was strapped to a table there was another human in the room, he had seen him once a night ago and walked to the corner as Dr. Wakemen continued with the upgrades, it was another couple of hours before they finished, finally Dr. Wakemen walked over to Ace pushing him away from the computer he was messing with and reactivated Jenny who opened her robotic eyes looking around at the group looming above her.
“Uh hello everyone.” The boy was the first to respond hugging Jenny who seemed to be annoyed quite a bit by this.
“Jenny, I was so worried about you.” she rolled her eyes and responded.
“It was only a normal upgrade nothing that I haven’t done three hundred and seventy two times before.” Ace made the next comment picking up the inactive robot boy.
“Some fun friends dropped by, the little toy here had to stop them from saying hello.” Jenny looked confused.
“The cluster attack, somehow they got past the outer defenses, and got all the way to the training dome, then somehow were able to open two cluster portals inside the house.” She cast a accusing glare at Ace. “Someone must have given them the security codes and deactivated the dampening field around the house, and I wonder how they knew XJ9 was going to be deactivated today.”
Ace looked quite offended as he got up pointing a finger at Dr. Wakemen’s face almost touching her nose.
“You dare accuse me of sabotage! Old woman, not only was I almost killed, but I saved you, if I was really working with the cluster, I would of killed you myself.” she continued glaring for a second before turning and walking off Jenny watched her mom walk off, then looked to Ace saying nothing, Sheldon who had been clinging to Jenny let go and began cleaning up seeming to be oblivious to the fact that his mentor and an alien had just gotten into a fight

Later that night Ace exited his room looking around before exiting, he had the replacator, and a small scanning device in hand, it was bleeping quietly and he moved down the corridor the intensity and frequency of the beeping increasing as he did, he now found himself in the main lab where his ship was stored, he walked past it seeing a door, before he could open it he hard some shuffling and turned to see Dr. Wakemen almost buried in papers, the large stacks arching inward in her, he set his items down in the cockpit and walked over looking over her should, she hadn’t noticed him, and Ace watched as she drew using both hands simultaneously several detailed layers of XJ9’s new weapon systems. Ace watched in wonder as she drew perfectly straight lines without the use of rulers or any type of item to help her, finally after several pages he spoke out. “You have cybernetic implants in your eyes and arms don‘t you…” Dr. Wakemen jumped the pile of papers collapsing in every direction covering the floor in a thick white layer of paper, Ace looked around chuckling lightly under his breath, Dr, Wakemen turned around looking flustered before grabbing his neck and shaking his around by it. “Do you have any idea how long it will take or reorganize these!?” she finally released him and fall back into the chair she was in and began picking up papers. Ace began helping her, they talked sparsely as they cleaned up the ocean of papers finally a few hours later the papers  had been picked up and organized and shoved into a handful of boxes. Dr. Wakemen walked over to a couch and sat down looking tired. Ace walked over and spoke shallowly.
“you never did answer my question…” she looked up at him puzzled.
“There are several cybernetic implants in your hands, arms, and head…” She looked down.
“Yes  when I was younger I had a disease, it broke down my central nervous system, I was one of the first and last to a radical new procedure, it saved me, but what they didn’t expect was it to give me such an advantage over normal humans, they scrapped the project, they let me keep mine cause by then, mo body would of no longer been able to control my vital organs. They did of course allow me to excel in  life and I was one of the foremost scientists in the academic community by age twenty, and began working for sky patrol designing them ways to fight there enemies then I resigned here, and began work on a new type of global response unit, XJ9 is the culmination of my work.”
Ace had remained silent through all of this and began to walk off saying. “Goodnight Dr. Wakemen.” Before he was out of the room she responded.
“You can call me Nora.”