Andy - 'Like a paroxysmal Phoenix'

<SNIP>
Andy didn't know what to say, but he didn't have much time to do so as
Rosette, Mk10 and Phil quickly jumped through the purple field.
Captain Jed jumped in last, throwing himself onto his back and firing
with his two pistols down the corridor.
"They're right behind us!" Yelled Phil.
<SNIP>
Andy's head snapped up as blood-red weapons fire screamed through the
field. The Cleaner didn't have time to stop and ponder his fate. His
eyes rested upon a particularly large crate, his muscles spurred him
into action. Kicking off with his right foot he sprinted towards the
crate and immediately began to shift his weight into it.
To his credit, the captain immediately caught on that the man wasn't
trying to simply take cover.
"Give the boy covering fire!" The gnarled man roared as he stood and
fired wildly into the narrow corridor. The Phil immediately took up
his sidearm and joined the pot shots while periotic, pulsating blasts
of energy rocketed from Mk10's cannon.
Efof appeared at Cleaner's side and began to strain along with him.
Six arms all pushing the ridiculously heavy crate along with him. Andy
could barely hear Efof's encouraging words over the screaming energy
blasts.
With a final grunt they two sealed the narrow entrance half closed.
"Cease fire; everyone git down!" Jed commanded in such a tone that
simply demanded compliance which luckily, for their sake, they all
did. "Mk... whats'er-face, frag 'em!!"
The Blue mechanoid, which Andy noticed had more than a passing
resemblance to a Skutter, tore the clip from the bottom of its rifle
and lobbed it into the corridor. Within a few seconds the robot gave
off an electrotonic screech and deep in the corridor a rocking
explosion erupted.
Soon only heavily breathing filled the silence that ensued.
"Everyone alright?" Phil was the first that dare to speak, looking up
form the prone position. "I'm fine… I think." Andy replied, thought
obliviously shaken. "I'm okay too." Efof added. "Okay, everyone stay
away from that gap." Jed added gruffly as he crawled over to the side
of the room. "If you can see down the corridor then that means that
they've got a free head shot."
"Urgghh… still hurt here… now…been shot." The ravaged man groaned
painfully.
"I thought he was unconscious?" Efof stated as he pointed at the
bleeding lump.
"You try sleeping through getting shot." Jed retorted as he dug around
in his coat pockets. "Here bluey, take this morphine syringe and shut
him up; Andy, git over here."
The Cleaner quickly duck-walked over to the huddle of two men and a
'bot. "No other way of saying this; we're in deep." Phil started
emotionlessly. "This room had no other ways out, the corridor is
swarming with lasers that can tear through armour." Jed scratched his
stubble-lined neck as he thought. "We can just wait for the crew to
find us then. Dante 'll tear through 'em."
"Not much chance of that…" Andy admitted. "This room has a scrambler
on it. It's why we couldn't find it in the first place." "Then I guess
can only hope that there's someone on board that likes us enough that
they'll come looking for us." The blue robot finished.
"Fat chance of that. That ponce Seymour will declare us dead and move
on. Yer kids won't have much say in the matter Phil." The captain
stated angrily. "Those damn aliens will be waiting for us for weeks
and the crew won't wait for a more than a few hours without a signal.
Today, tomorrow or a week from now, it looks like they've-."
"-Surrendered." Andy mindlessly stated as he stared down the corridor.
A grizzled hand immediately pulled the twenty-year old down to the
floor. "Git DOWN you idiot! They don't want to surrender, they want to
kill us!!" "We wish to call a truce, we don't want anymore blood
shed!" A wispy alien voice called out from the corridor. The captain's
hand latched back onto the cleaner's head and turned it back to face
him. "Dammit boy, can't you see it's a trap; they're armed to the
teeth!" "It's not a trap, I'm unarmed!" The Alien added in its unsure
sing-song voice. "Don't you understand!? They shot at us! They killed
your little robot-thingy! They're monsters! They're killers!
They're-." "-Looking right at me…?" Phil cut off the captain in an
uncertain voice.
The room was instantly stilled as the long, silverly skinned gangly
alien whom looked down at the Captain; still holding Andy in a firm
head-lock. "Oh… hello, I believe we got off on the wrong foot." The
captain looked down at the cleaner, who looked back up at him.
Within a span of two seconds, Jed shoved the man away and took aim
with his pistol. A small red dot materialised upon the alien's head.
"Oh, what odd customs you pirates have for accepting surrender."
"We're not pirates!" The blue robot replied angrily. The others looked
at him, giving a look of half-hearted support. "…Well… I'm not!"
Efof looked back at the alien who now stood over the crate. Their eyes
made contact and it gave him an uncertain wave. The multi-limbed
humanoid stood, giving his own knees a small shove, and walked over.
"You've been the ones that were attacking us; Centaurians?" The Blue
skinned alien asked in disbelief. "Centaurs?" Andy asked in confusion.
"Centaurians- they're merchants mostly. But, well, let's just say that
they were so well known for their pacifist ways that on Ffionia
children don't call each other chickens. They call each other
Centaurians."
"…That's… well… ouch." The cleaner admitted, who had the privilege of
getting a glimpse of Ffionia's culture first-hand… or perhaps second-hand.
The alien simply took the insult in his stride and gave an absent
smile; which didn't last for long when it realised that it had a job
to do. "You have something of ours, something that we couldn't allow
anyone to have."
"We don't, you vaporized everything." Jed replied; his pistol still
aimed at the alien's forehead. "Vaporized? Oh dear no! We'd never do
such a thing; we merely transported it aboard our ship. But when you
began to attack us we have no choice but to return fire."
"'Transported'?!" Andy snarled. "You TRANSPORTED half of my best
friend you bastard!!"
"Half? That's impossible. The beams are keyed in to teleport all of an
organic life form or none at all. Your friend couldn't possibly-" Andy
glared back at the alien. "Oh… he was a robot wasn't he? Aww-kward…"
The Centaurian realised uncomfortably.
"Nicka! Have you got back the Nano-master yet?!" Another alien voice
yelled down from the corridor. "Oh yes! Listen, we know that you've
got it. Not sure how you got it out in time before we transported it
aboard. Hand it over." The Centaurian's large dinner plate sized hand
folded out to the cleaner.
"Hand WHAT over?!" The angry Australian man replied. "The
nano-master!" It repeated. "You know, small grey thing, size of a
walnut, controls all the nano-bot leaders in a kingdom."
The cleaner looked to everyone else in the room; they all slowly shook
their heads. "Ergh! I KNOW you have it! The nanobots in the crate have
gone dormant because it had connected with a machine that-… wait you
said that you friend was a robot?"
The second the words left its mouth, a high-pitched screeching sound
rattled through the room. A heavy crack came from the right. All heads
(and pistols) aimed moved towards the sounds. A second and final crack
issued and like a bat out of hell came 001, practically flying out of
a ventilation shaft. Its treads dragged it across the floor like a
tank on Prozac before finally coming to a halt in front of the
cleaner. The robot twisted back and forth like an overjoyed Chihuahua
with a mass of firecrackers tied to its tail.
But while the others saw an overjoyed Skutter, Andy saw Frankenstein.
The bottom half of the robot remained its deep blue while the top,
indeed the whole area that had been 'blown away' by the beam was
replaced with a dark grey colour.
"001…? What happened to you?" The Cleaner asked the robot numbly
before leaning down to embrace the excitable creature.
"Oh… no…" the Alien groaned in frustration."Yeah… you'd think that
they'd at least get a room or something." Mk10 added in disgust as he
stared at the two. "No, it's not that! The nano-master, it's melded
into the sentient machine! Not only is it only going to listen to him
but it can't possibly produce any more nano-leaders! This is a
disaster!!" The Centaurian moaned, covering its face with its massive
hands. Before it did though Efof noticed that it looked almost close
to tears.
"Damn you pirates! It was a special order that we had to wait over
twenty years for! You might as well have the rest of that bloody
crate. Fat lot of good it'll do us!!" The Alien began to wave its arms
in frustration as the intergalactic hissy fit continued. Finally
turning it began to walk back down the corridor. After a few metres it
stopped for a moment before turning and presenting the whole room with
two impressively long middle digits. "You all suck!!"
Then it stilettoed, then it finally disappeared.
"…Wow…" Efof mumbled in a surprised tone. "Well… I don't know about
you guys but I found that was somewhat refreshing."
<Tag! Dangers over, and we still have a whole ship left to loot… or
has the captain had his adrenal fill for the day?>
PS. Whoops, just looked back at the snippet and saw that I forgot
about rosette. I'm Sorry!