PIxEL
Isn't it strange,
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The machine whirred to life as the blaster fire drew closer. Its eyes moved within the hollows of its face but the lids would not open and Ulrich watched with an unmatched intensity as his colleagues scrambled around him. This was the moment. The culmination of more than a dozen years of work, the vast majority spent withering beyond the view of the Galaxy at large. Hidden in the recesses of this, his asteroid laboratory. There was a shake, small at first but crescendoing into a cacophony of seizures that tore through the droid's chassis and threatened to ruin the entire machine. Was it rejecting the new processor? Ulrich hadn't done enough tests, the system was going to fail and it would corrupt his beautiful creation! His fears were visceral and overwhelming but he was rooted firmly in place, unable to move closer and unwilling to move away.
Over the course of a few seconds, the shakes subsisted within the droid, followed closely by a violent explosion that rattled the lab around them. Ulrich couldn't peel his eyes from his creation, he would die here if it came to that even as his associates pawed and clawed and tried to move him, their animalistic fear gnawing at the sanity of their consciousness and preventing them from any actual coherence. Combat had drawn to the final bulkhead: a massive reinforced durasteel door that had drawn shut with the advent of hostilities effectively shuttering the lab from the rest of the complex. One more strong blast and the- There! The eyes shifted around once more, and the lids blinked open then shut in a movement so fast that Ulrich thought he'd dreamt it. Then, brilliant hazel eyes, searching and foreshadowing a wealth of intelligent thought met Ulrich's own blue orbs as their foreheads touched and hands from each searched the others face, warm skin on cool synthetic flesh and their consciousness bridging the gap in between.
"Good morning, Pixel,"
"Good morning Doctor," The droid's voice was a heavy contrast to Ulrich's own, soft and light without years of heavy metal particle abuse and rang through the doctor's memories like a blast from a long forgotten past. One of Ulrich's closest peers had watched the droid spring to life and knew that the end was coming whether the two were ready to flee or not. He stepped forward, grasped Ulrich's bicep and gave it a tug to emphasise his point.
"Ulrich, we need to leave now my friend. They're about to breach the door," Behind his mask of elation at his successful port of PIxEL's mind into this droid frame now rose a shadow of fear and Dr Hart cast a look over his shoulder at the bulkhead where silence had befallen the other side. There was really no time, their defences were failing all around and they had only one chance for escape.
"Yes, yes you're right," Mimicking the motion that his associate had used on him, Ulrich reached under Pixel's biceps and peeled her forward and out of the small chamber she had been fitted to. Dainty steps met the floor, her synthflesh missing but the woven metal stepped lightly and made no sound. She stood more than a foot shorter than Ulrich, being that he was a towering giant of a man, and she was unsure of herself as she took her first few steps, working out the details of movement in her frame rather quickly as the two scientists ushered her away. Towards the back of the lab they moved, away from the bulkhead behind them and the shadow army beyond it, their soldiers toiling in silence to tear apart the being from her creator, for dissection and destruction respectively.
A ship awaited them behind another bulkhead, this one open to permit the exit of the scientists who were still scrambling around madly, but as Ulrich passed the door he gave the order to seal the lab. Incredulous faces of those who were already in the hanger met his own - a veil of fear overtaking his features now that his prized possession was mobile and safe. He knew that those who lay siege to his lab were no friends of his, knew too that they had no plans for him beyond a swift death. Some would've rathered a slow and excruciating end for the once bedazzling and now defunct scientist, their millions of credits squandered at his devices could never be brought back and his flesh was worthless in their eyes. Torture would appear as entertainment to some, justice to others.
"Do it I said!" He shouted over the rising voices who made their oppositions, and in short order, the bulkhead began to shut. A wail of screams rose up from within the lab, those who could hear their superiors defiant voice, they echoed a call to stop his demand. Scientists and engineers still inside made mad dashes to the doorway and those who couldn't quite make it in time came up against the steel and pounded madly in meagre protests. Ulrich and Pixel were stepping foot onto their getaway transport when a massive blast shook the foundation of the lab, sending debris fluttering down from the ceiling and turning the heads of every person within the hanger towards the last bastion of defence.
Blaster fire crisscrossed with screams and pleas of mercy as the team Ulrich had sealed met their fate at the hands of his enemies. Pixel watched with horror and shame, for she knew it was her presence that had brought such violence, that her creator had ordered the lives on the other side to be cut short, and that she would survive no matter the outcome from this ruthless slaughter. First created as the mainframe for this very lab that lay besieged, Pixel's own sensors had picked up the ships approaching and engaged the security measures that inevitably brought the lab enough time to get her loaded into the droid chassis she now called home. The fact that she had been unable to prevent the deaths of so many of Ulrich's colleagues, of so many people who depended upon him for their livelihoods and survival, this was what really hurt the intelligent machine the hardest.
"Don't worry about that, let's go," The massive scientist that had programmed her said, his heavy body pressing her own forward into the ship as the rest of his colleagues frantically tried to board their own, painfully aware of what happened now to those who took their time. Once sufficient numbers were met within each ship, they lifted from the docks and made to take off from the hanger door, an entrance hidden away by a cleverly designed exterior and it's placement in a shadowed crevice of the asteroid. No one knew, not even Dr Hart, what lay beyond those reinforced hanger doors, but the pilots of the various ships knew their missions and were prepared to take off as Ulrich prepared the controller to open the door.
At his signal the massive doubled sided entrance peeled away, it's heavy motors whirring to life with exaggerated speed as the rock face front slipped inside and disappeared into a slit on either side of the door. First ships out of the lock were lightweight fighters with heavy torpedo loadouts and bomb bays laden with enough firepower to take down a Star Destroyer if given the right circumstances, cannons alighting almost as soon as they had ventured out where the engagement came quick and dirty. A stray fighter deployed against the asteroid flew inside the newly revealed blast doors as Dr Hart's ship was preparing to exit, and Pixel watched in horror as it burst into flames just meters in front of them, it's blazing hull wreaking havoc on the hanger as it crashed into one of the docks, sending fire, shrapnel, and debris across a swath of individuals who had been madly scrambling for one of the last transports.
People too close to the impact were swallowed by the flames while others were coated in the fuel of the ship then lit by the aftermath as the destruction reaped a bountiful harvest. Watching human beings literally immolated before her, Pixel found it hard to stand and fell to her knees in devastation, eyes wide and empty as she stared down at the durasteel floor, unable to bear witness to the violence any longer and opting instead to resign herself to her fate. Was she really worth this bloodshed?
Beyond the entrance, the battle raged and losses were heavy for both sides of the conflict. Realizing now that Dr Hart meant to flee from their noose once again, his enemies diverted all of their ships to deal with him once and for all, but found that their efforts were for not, his ship just barely edging out beyond the blast gates before it punched into hyperdrive and disappeared in a flash of light. Of course, ships went to follow, but none were successful in catching him. He had triumphantly dodged the hangman once again.