Introducing: S.W.O.R.D.

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

“Why… Won’t.. You… Budge!” A young man struggled to open the casing of a small orb.

Curiously enough, this orb was a droid--a mechanical being. The curious little droid was just the prototype, a design to be produced en masse with the sole intention of aiding its owner in combat operations, engineering, tactical insight, and various other tasks. The droid itself was a sphere with a 22cm diameter.

The young man continued to struggle, the grooves pushed into the soft parts under his nails resulting in bruises before finally the metallic casing snapped off, revealing exposed wiring, circuit boards, and other critical components.

“Finally,” he sighed with relief; looking down to his right hand he noticed a few broken nails and small droplets of blood forming where skin broke. Wasn’t the worst thing to suffer, considering he was an engineer working directly under the Primeval. Life with the Primeval wasn’t as hard as most people would assume. There was an honest living involved, and truly who wouldn’t want an opportunity to construct awesome inventions with their own creativity? Surely he didn’t answer to no one, but no one questioned his decisions so long as he came up with results.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

A day passed and the young man returned to his workstation where he left the disassembled construct overnight. His hand reached for the switch, the dim lights flickered on and began brighter gradually--an Umbaran design, considering the species had sensitive eyes. This man was human, however. His name was Jayne, born on Dubrillion, and the only son of two parents who worked in the same field as he. His father was a successful droid engineer, and his mother programmed them.

Jayne’s emerald eyes examined the parts, his hands picked up each component and slowly assembled the droid before putting the metal shell back on it, once again giving it a spherical form. “There we go,” he muttered.

On one side the droid had a rather large, rounded eye directly in the center. When activated this eye glowed faintly with white when passive, yellow when defensive, and red when aggressive. The settings were voice activated and calibrated to respond only to the droid’s owner.

“X-Five, turn on,” the droid came to life immediately in response to his command before fluttering around the room. Many spherical designs were capable of hovering and low-altitude flight. X-Five in particular could move at an upwards of 60km/h making it a particularly quick droid. And he could remain on with a charged battery for an upwards of eighteen hours.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

Another day passed and Jayne returned to his workstation. This time X-Five was ready to greet him, in order to recharge--which took two hours--X-Five went into standby mode, where its tiny reactor recharged the batteries; a reactor which needed changing only once every several weeks.

“Mornin’, Five.” Jayne had given the little droid a nickname. Many engineers were fond of their creations to the point of assigning it a humanoid identity, much like you would someone of your own species. This affection was particularly strong with humans who would even become emotionally attached to them. Although Jayne didn’t feel love for Five, he was particularly fond of the sphere.

By classification, X-Five was a Spherical Weaponized Operations & Reconnaissance Droid or ‘S.W.O.R.D.’ for short. Swords were intended as being a companion droid for anyone who needed it. Simply put, their entire purpose was serving generalized purposes; although they excelled in special operations and recon.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

X-Five greeted Jayne, “Hello, Jayne…” It wasn’t particularly creative with words, but it was able to communicate in countless languages, much like a protocol droid, only it wasn’t particularly well-suited to sentence structures due to the nature of its programming. For example; one couldn’t actually engage in conversation with a Sword. One could give it commands, ask it for feedback regarding a combat situation, or anything really that was relevant to the environment, task at hand, and supportive to the owner’s role.

But having an untalkative droid was preferable to most. Some droids were even programmed to have personalities, Swords could optionally have one installed; for example, X-Five is able to tell a few corny jokes.

Outside of those optional programs, Swords can be uploaded with tactical data, map and GPS data, target info, and other information of strategic value. As a recon droid it can also collect data relevant to the task at hand, as long as what it perceived was available in its database.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

Finally it came to a point where X-Five was not only fully operational, but ready to be replicated as well. With the final tweaks, Jayne was able to map out the necessary blueprints and instructions for Swords to be mass-produced. From Dubrillion he traveled to Bastion with X-Five and his data.

After arriving, he was escorted towards the Palace which was the heart of Primeval operations and where everything he created would be put into the first stages of production. A team of engineers would review his work, an operations leader would approve it, and a product manager would begin coordinating the necessary teams to begin the production cycle until automated production was available for that particular unit.

Soon X-Five would have many siblings.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

Mines across Primeval space began setting aside the necessary materials and shipping them off to the factories that will produce more Swords. Most of these mines were located in the Chiloon Rift, a bountiful field of asteroids and nebulae rich in natural and precious resources.

Due to their rather small diameter, each Sword didn’t need much to be constructed, but the amount that were to be constructed did mean it was particularly challenging to acquire the necessary resources to begin construction. It was a matter of time rather than effort, however.

In a few weeks the first batch of materials was sent off and ready to be used in serial production runs.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

Only within a few days after the materials arrived, more Swords were already available and ready for use. Not on the scale planned yet, but getting near. Factories on Dubrillion, Telos, Bastion, and Irn were hard at work trying to manufacture these constructs. Each droid was ran through a series of minor test runs in groups. Those that failed were deactivated and recycled, those that passed were sent to armories where personnel could acquire them.

X-Five itself had become little more than a relic, a personal trophy to Jayne who used several Swords as his assistants. In groups they were particularly useful, despite being intended for solo work. Simply due to the fact that any group coordination between Swords would require auxiliary programming.

Nonetheless, they did their job and well enough that Jayne couldn’t complain.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

Now another week or two passed and Swords were produced in the numbers expected, and many more were to be on their way. Exemplars of the Bleeding Sun and officers within their military had begun taking a particular liking to the droids; using them for various purposes.

Catalys Maijora, an Exemplar, was noteable for utilizing a Sword to slice into an enemy network and disabling internal defenses before asssaulting a compound. Executor Alet, a fleet commander, used his to cite reminders and tactical data acquired from the crew’s observation of the enemy fleet.

Some soldiers used Swords to distract enemies, or scout out sniper positions.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

With more field tests being conducted, the Primeval’s leadership is pleased with the final product.

Although some noteworthy flaws have come up…

Particularly, despite being equipped with a light blaster, the Droids have trouble aiming at fast-moving targets, and become easily overwhelmed by enemies who number greater than two. Although they’re not necessarily combat droids, their weaponized capabilities were partly the intention for its creation. Despite these shortcomings, the Droids do well in policing civilians and assisting officers in riot control.

So far no other major flaws have been discovered.

 

[Aleksandyr Gaillard]

With the field tests completed, the Sword is now available for service and can be requisitioned by Quartermasters at any armory in service to The Primeval. Several worlds also provide simulations and courses to help train soldiers, officers, and agents in utilizing their Sword to the best of its ability.

These courses, although only supporting a limited amount of people at one time, have been successful in integrating droids into the Primeval’s arsenal. Previously droids have been a rare sight in starships and on battlefields, but now the Sword is the most frequently seen droid within Primeval space.

Great expectations are placed on these floating spheres and perhaps advanced models will come to fruition in the future. Until then, these Swords will help the Primeval continue their Marches across the galaxy.