Welcome to Project Blackwing

((Daaaang... you guys were busy this weekend))

Richard

This was going along more smoothly than the android could have hoped. The stars streaked past the ship like sparks, the planet growing smaller and smaller behind him.

"What are you doing N137?!" barked the voice of some military leader over the radio. The speaker was so angry he didn't even bother with proper protocol. "I can't believe-"

Richard flipped the radio off. It didn't matter what they said. He was leaving these people. They couldn't tell him what to do anymore.

Richard? The voice was stern, a little sad, and not coming from the radio.

The android's light brows rose slightly. "Father?"

Yes, it's Dr. Walker. I'm very disappointed in you son.

"You know that I hold no regard for the estimation of others with regards to my choices, though I do admire the genius you showed in my construction. I suppose this is the closest to regret I will get for leaving." He wondered which of the people in charge of this mission had got Walker to talk to him over his internal messaging system. The foolish old man wouldn't have done it himself.

I'm sorry that it's come to this. There was a sigh. Either turn around, or I'll say the code-word to shut you off, bring you back to the base, and reset you.

Richard was silent for a moment. He didn't want to start over, to lose his motor skills, capability for speech, and almost all memories. Re-cultivating those would be time-consuming and humiliating. Why had Father wanted to make him a learning machine, taking in information from creation as a human infant might instead of just loading his necessary skills and knowledge directly?

Well? What's it going to be, Richard?

The android frowned slightly and turned the ship around, heading back towards the planet's surface.

Atta boy, the doctor said halfheartedly.

Richard did not reply.

You know, son, I look forward to the day when I don't have to force you to help anyone besides yourself.

"It will not happen, sir," Richard said flatly. "There is no reason to helping another creature if there is no benefit for oneself. You humans are irrational beings, and I do not understand you."

Walker sighed. You'll understand one day.

The ship made its way down through the atmosphere and landed lightly on the blinding white sand.

"Keep telling yourself that, old man."

An unstable planet? Was it really possible that an entire planet could just...fall apart? While to most, Sinan Kell would seem possessed by an almost malevolent intelligence, there was so much he didn't understand about what lay beyond the skies of his planet. His race was a xenophobic one - expansion beyond the planet surface was useless, it only brought the corrupting touch of other races.

But the last invaders had told him things of the worlds beyond. At least, one of them had, while Kell had slowly torn his mind apart. They had been colonists, and had mentioned people similar to this one who, apparently, had spread unchecked across their own planet, and had devoured it. Different, then, to his.

He waved a dismissive hand at her answer, seemingly unconcerned by her commitment to kill him. "That was...largely unavoidable. Your people destroyed your own planet, therefore you are a threat to mine - and hence to me." The alien flashed her a quirky smile, "Threats are to be eliminated." He paused, shrugged, "Well, I could tell you that, or I could tell you the truth - you amuse me. Your foreign mind, and such. Such interesting things..."

His voice had dropped to a mere murmur, and he seemed again to be staring into her mind with those red eyes. "You find blood...beautiful." That interested him greatly - surely she could not be completely alone in her society in that love. He had not been, though, granted, his hadn't been of blood, but of what held together the mind. His younger brother, now dead, had shared more with this girl in that regard.

Kell straightened, easing the pressure on Lheah's mind, allowing her to recover from the mental assault - albeit with a lingering headache. "I have decided that, for the time being, your people are interesting enough to be allowed here. I will show you an abandoned nest city that you may colonise." He didn't mention exactly 'why', of course, given that it was really just to provide him with more entertainment. Though that should have gone without saying. Likewise, it went without saying that she would try to kill him again, he understood that. But Sinan Kell had always been supremely confident in his ability to stay alive, and felt that he could afford to keep her alive long enough to serve his own ends.

Besides, killing such an interesting person immediately would be such a waste.

Joan sprinted over to the alien. She jumped onto him. She fell to the ground on top of him. Though a member of her team was pouting, and trying to get herself killed, she couldn't let that happen. She would be the one to kill Lheah. "Get your filthy mind games off of Lheah!" She shouted.

Her model was light. She was unhappy about this. At least if she were heavy she could pin the alien. Already it was struggling to get above her. It was slowly working. She tried her hardest to keep it down. She looked down at it. Her skin which was made of metal, was searing to the touch.

She looked at Lheah. Not long ago she was wishing for human emotions. She found them a weakness. She could learn how to speak other dialects then humans much faster. This could pose as an advantage. She couldn't think. No, only speak. Now if the alien would. She grinned at the thought. Her rage slowly faded.

She laid on top of the alien her vision slowly changing colors. She was unsure of why this was happening. For now, she could only deal with the problem at hand.

Lheah ran to Joan, grabbing her and pulling her off of the alien. "Joan, calm down!" She shouted. "He's going to help us."

((Sorry this is so short, I'm really tired.))

She pushed Lheah off of her. She stumbled to regain her balance. She narrowed her eyes at Lheah. "Are you batty? You deserted the team, gone rogue, and can no longer be trusted. If you're asking for death I'd be happy to give it to you." She hopped back onto the alien in a desperate attempt to make him speak his language.

**welcome back**

Richard

"Do you require assistance?" came a voice from the cave's mouth. Richard watched Lheah and Joan and the newcomer tussle in the sand, surrounded by the corpses of bestial aliens. The newcomer appeared to be an alien himself, but he was far more advanced than the ones who lay dead at his feet.

He wondered vaguely where the other back-up team members might be as he drew his blaster. "Would you like me to apprehend Lheah, Joan? Or would you rather I disabled the alien and took him back to the ship to be interrogated?" His posture and tone of voice made it quite clear that he didn't care in the least about the danger the other android might be in.

Kell snarled in rage when the smaller human landed on top of him - what was wrong with these people? Could they not take help when it was offered to them? But, beneath the rage, he felt fear. He barely recognised the emotion, it had been such a long time since he had felt it. He hadn't even heard the girl coming, she'd been too fast and he'd been too full of his own apparent advantages over this race.

As she thudded into him, sending him reeling backwards, then tipping onto the ground, he dropped his spear, the glassy weapon spinning out of his grasp to stick at an odd angle in the sand.

If I could only reach it... The alien thought, hand grabbing for the shaft. Kell could feel the touch of that metal skin burning into his skin – his home ground advantage being turned against him, and he let out a scream. He could barely even concentrate on the use of his powers, unable to manage more than a slow sensory inversion, trying to disorient her.

For a few moments, it seemed to work. However, he quickly – humiliatingly – realised that the gabbling language being spoken by Lheah was one hostile to the metal figure. He’d been rescued by one of them. It made him sick to the stomach. He grabbed for his spear. Barely even real…she’s some kind of machine. Conventional ways may work better…

And then that burning metal hand clamped around his wrist again, and he let go again. But now, he found, he had a slight advantage. His other hand snapped up, gripping her forehead, thumb and smallest finger at her temples, pressing hard. Kell was all but sweating with the exertion of using his mind powers on the machine-girl, but he saw it was working on some level, and grinned. Laughing, Kell’s voice rang out in his own language, eerily hollow, “Stupid girl – don’t get near the sparrow!” The words would probably make little sense to her, being a quotation from an old horror story among his people’s children. “I’ll kill you!” He screamed, lifting her off him and ignoring the burning in his hand as he started overloading her mind to the point of paralysis.

More strange language – that he had apparently failed to notice earlier – alerted him to the presence of a third. Turning his head, Kell saw the third human, this one similar to Lheah’s commander, watching him carefully, a weapon of some kind in one hand. Snarling, he threw the android to the ground and dropped into a crouching position, wary now of all three of them. These were certainly more dangerous than his usual prey. “I offer help and am met with force.” He snarled under his breath, then glanced to Lheah, “Ask that fool woman what she would prefer – an empty city at no price, or death.”

Lheah was shocked, in spite of her warrior nature. She hadn't known that Joan could be so dangerous.

"Joan, listen to me. He was going to show us an empy city; one we can colonize. But if you keep being hostile, he'll kill you, and probably the rest of us. If we kill him first, I'm almost sure that the other aliens will find out, and then we'll be dead anyway. I can't exactly help much." She gestured to her sword, which was still lying broken on the sand. "Also, I'm going to run out of explosives soon if I'm not careful."

She sighed. Then she fell to her knees. She gripped her hair. "That I love you! He adjusted the frequency that I think on." She shut her eyes. She rubbed her temples. Then she covered her ears. "My thoughts... they're on the same frequency as him." She stood up slowly. She listened to his thoughts in his language. So interesting. Yet... annoying. It was like the shrill cry of a girl.

He knew little English. She looked at him. "Did you know that the chip that picks up the frequency that I think on is close to my self destruct, yeah I go boom." Her speech was mixed with the aliens odd language. She started on her temples again and rub them rather hard. Then she once again covered her ears.

Richard

The other android advanced into the cave. If Joan was going to ignore him, that was fine. He didn't particularly feel like being bossed around by someone else anyways.

Richard gave the alien a calculating glance. "Who might you be? I don't suppose you understand English, but it is worth a shot."

He smiled in amusement when Joan spoke. "Is that supposed to make sense?"

She ran and grabbed onto Richards arm. "No, don't near it. You can't die." She shut her eyes. She tried hard to keep the two languages clear in her head. It wasn't working all that well.

"You've gone crazy." He pushed her off of his arm. She looked up at him. What could she do. She had warned him. She had tried. If he wanted to challenge the alien like she then what choice did she have?

Richard's eyebrow arched. "If that was indeed supposed to be a warning of some sort as your body language and tone of voice indicated, I fear your concern is both misplaced and wasted. I neither need nor want your concern. Furthermore, there is something wrong with your processor. You are not making sense."

He turned back to the alien. "What do you want with our group?" he asked flatly.

Mikael

Having dispatched a few assualts by a few of the more curious creatures i reached into the cockpit and put on my headset.
"Commander this is 636. I have made planet fall. What is your location. Repeat what is your location? The cavalry has arrived."
"636?" The word seemed to be posed as a question. "I've heard about you. Im at Alpha 6 now get your weird rocky ass over here." Woth that the line went dead. Right to work then, i thought grimly.

((Huzzah, Mikael will be joining us soon!))

Like most of the others, Sinan Kell was confused by what the woman was trying to say. There was a lot of his language in there, and he understood single words, but the only meaning he was able to grasp came from the accidental link with her mind. She explodes? His thoughts were partially disguised by both his language and by the shrill crying in his head. He’d long since learned to block out the psychic death cries of his people, but she’d have some putting up to do. “You’re bluffing.” He said to her, trusting that she would manage to decode the alien words. Regardless, thinking on the same frequency as someone with a self-destruct trigger could be dangerous…and immensely useful.

Kell tilted his head a little, looking at Richard. Thanks to the other android – Joan, he now knew her name to be – he could understand fragments of the human speech, English? What is that? “What...want...group?” That was all he understood of Richard, and it wasn’t enough for him to gain a real understanding of the question.

The alien glanced between Joan and Lheah, expecting one of them to translate for him. But Joan was now trying to talk into her headset, seeming to struggle out a strange English sentence. Lheah translated for him, thinking so that he could understand, “He wants to know what you want with us.”

Kell struggled with what he saw as a disgustingly clumsy dialect, but managed a few words nonetheless, “I want show you empty city.” Damned language. He spread his hands wide, switched to his own. No doubt Joan would understand some, but he didn’t care. “I need new prey, in truth. You race will do nicely, when they colonise the empty nest city. I won’t try for your group, only those who come later. The less interesting ones.” He switched back to English, “Follow.”

And with that, the alien turned, and set out in a seemingly random direction across the sands.