Action Hero?

It was certainly slow going mapping out the Dwarf. Kenneth had mapped most of the habitable areas used by the human crew and had moved onto the areas used by the non-human crew. He had received a few angry glares and decided to skirt Huzzard territory for now, after being stabbed at with a tribal looking spear a few times too many. That said, the arboretum was not all that bad, deep within the heart of the jungle sized deck was a small grove of trees. Kenneth paused by them to rest, whilst he didn’t feel any pain, his systems did need time to process the gathered information. The small glade was picturesque, handfuls of trees and saplings in an odd green colour with a pinkish hue I the right light surrounding a small pool. He didn’t spend too long there, despite the beautiful nature of the area. The trees rustled in an ominous way, almost as if they were talking, he could have sworn if his processing time wasn’t already at maximum with the mapping routines, that a few of the trees had even moved.

He was currently heading down a maintenance access corridor after leaving the arboretum rather swiftly, when the trees had started shedding seeds on him he decided to leave rather quickly via the nearest exit. Deep within the Dwarf, in an uncharted area, he roamed, as the others were asleep in their beds, working his way back towards the other crew. Radio static interrupted him and he paused, the sound of voices filtering from around a corner.

“Signal detected. Time drive located. One should be just around this corner.” A masculine voice said in a slight Austrian accent, bringing to mind images of rippling muscles and bare chested heroism.

“Christ… How many do these guys have!? No wonder they are priority targets.” Another said, eliciting images of a middle aged, balding, New Yorker.

“Don’t say that name! He might be listening.” A third, sounding slightly cocky, jar-head marine type.

“Bullshit, he’s just a myth. No one’s that good.” The first man said. Rounding the corner and stopping in his tracks as he came face to groin with Kenneth.

“It that…” The second, Bruce, said. Kenneth noted their name tags, Arnold, Bruce and Sam, he shook his head and looked up at the man who was backing up and reaching for his gun.

“Yep. Looks like that’s the source of the signal.” The third, Sam, said.

“Give me the time drive.” The first said, leveling what looked to Kenneth suspisiously like an X-ray laser shotgun from the year 3079 at the Ai’s groinal region.

“Now that could be an issue. Besides, its shorted out beyond repair, as is the dimentional drive in the ship.” Kenneth replied honestly with a shrug, making his whole body shift up and down. The three STCP enforcers shared a look and all readied and leveled guns at Kenneth.

“Surrender the time drive. Orders are orders, broken or not we bring it in.” The third said, clicking off the safety.

“Now, this will not end well for you if you shoot me. I can assure you that.” Kenneth said, mentally disengaging the mapping software and initiating his combat routines.

There was a small stand off, as the three goons waited and Kenneth eyed them up, scanning for weak points and sussing them out. Then all four of them moved at once. The first dropped to one knee, tightening his grip on the shotgun and aiming for a gut shot. The second whipped a small sub machine gun out of it’s holster, the third was not fast enough and Kenneth pushed off with his hands, landing a double barelled kick to the man’s face, breaking his nose with a crunch. She shotgun blast went wide, gouging holes into the deck plating seventeen coridors through the Dwarf and the machine gun chittered a burst of fire that bounced off Kenneth’s holographic body.

“I did try to warn you.” He mused, springboarding off Sam’s face and tackling Bruce. His momentum slamming them into Arnold and all three of them crashing through the shotgun damaged wall into a heap of man muscle. Ten seconds till the nanites in the suits kick in. Six seconds until Sam is back on his feet he processed, grabbing Bruce’s temples and slamming his head into Arnold’s face beneth them. The big hulking meat wall pushed the balding dazed man off and thumped Kenneth, scoring a lucky hit and through sheer force slamming him sideways into a coolant pipe, which burst open coating them all in freezing cold gasses.

Before his sensors could adjust, Arnold grabbed him through the artic mist and threw him back into the maintenance coridoor. Kenneth twisted in mid-air, aiming the fall as best he could, slamming bodilly into the recovering Sam and causing him to once again, hit the deck. This time, the short haired man cracked his head of the deck plating and Kenneth calculated that the force was enough to knock him out for the duration of the conflict.

“Surrender the time drive.” The meat wall barked in his strange accent.

“It is an intigral part of my systems. Surrendering would mean my destruction.” The Ai said, sliding the unconscious man out of the way with a heavy shove.

“This can be arranged.” Bruce said, aiming the machine gun at Kenneth and emptying the clip into the figure. Kenneth remaining slightly prone, protecting the falen STCP soldier.

“Now, I do not like killing people. It so adversely affects the time line.” He shook his head standing up and brushing off the shell casings. “I think this time though, a degree of mutilation would be acceptable”

He flung himselff at Bruce hwo was in a shooting stance, one knee slightly bent to brace against the recoil. Twenty puonds of force to break the knee. Apply more to dislocate and shatter joint . Kenneth brought his foot down squarely on the man’s knee, mustering his artifical strength onto the joint. Bruce screamed in abject agony as the knee dislocated, the extra force shattering the joint completely.

"The odds are not in your favor. I suggest you leave." Kenneth said, turning to face Arnold.

"I suggest you eat this." He said, swinging the xaser shotgun up and unloading two rounds into Kenneth. The blast seared through the holographic outter shell, being X-ray and all, and managed to cause damage to the little broadcasting ship inside. Kenneth howled, as his internal diagnosics went haywire, his sensors scrambling into a hazy account of the surroundings.

"Error. Critical syatem damage. Shutdown imminant." Came the artificial voice of the diagnostics.

"Surrender the time drive." Arnold said quietly, reloading as the scrambled Ai stumbled backwads and fell over the broken body of the still screaming Bruce.

"N...N...N...N...N...N..N. Voice processing disabled. Initiating reboot sequences." Kenneth's holographic projection flickered to black and white as he shuffled backwards.

"Enough." Aarnold fired the Xaser again jsut asd the holographic projection flickered out. The little Black Nebula flitting down through the new holes deck plating and away to safety.

*****

The little ship buzzed down the halls, re-tracing out his route and as soon as his sensors picked up another human he floated towards them, the blue light bobbing about outside engineering.

<TAG>

OOC - Kenneth is damaged, but will recover given time. He's not in any shape to be accessing exploding reactor cores but can stil offer limited diagnosic and sensory advice. Pretend he's an old Windows 3.1 Pc and you get the idea...

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