Something started beeping. Rarity turned her head sharply, then quickly flounced to a computer and examined the stream of alien text crossing the screen.
“What is that?” asked Kirk.
“Nothing of consequence.”
“You’re a bad liar. Nothing unimportant ever beeps. Beeps are always important. And always a bad thing.”
“It’s a proximity alarm.”
“Then it’s a bad beep. Like I said.”
“We’re in a swamp, darling, there are every possible manner of creatures here. Sometimes they set off the sensors. Why, last winter It would go off every hour from the winterchillas zipping by until I had the town’s weird animal-mare shoo them out.”
M’Ress stared at the screen. “It is not winter.”
Rarity looked at the screen. “Squirrels, then. The sensors aren’t detecting any lifesigns larger than a rat.”
“A rat is generally smaller than a squirrel,” noted Spock. “And, additionally, rats and squirrels are not highly similar animals.”
“While the second is true, you’ve clearly never seen the rodents in Equestria. Especially in the fire-swamp. They are of a very unusual size.”
“As in smaller than normal rats?” asked Kirk.
Rarity sighed. “No. I’m afraid to the other extreme, dear. They are quite large. That was implied by my statement. So large that some of the more chromosomally-challenged earth-ponies ride them about the swamp with various ‘hooting’ and ‘hollering’.”
M’Ress seemed greatly intrigued by this. “I would very much like to see these large rats.”
“Well then go outside. They’re likely wandering about my ship, chewing on my wiring. Going round and round, laying it down and coming back for more and all thing rats are apt to do.”
“Coming out of the cellar and invading your privacy, perhaps?” suggested Spock.
“There’s a cellar?” asked Rainbow Dash, looking around. “Where? Is there cider in it? Or that cider they make from grapes?”
“Wine, dear.”
“No I’m not, I was just asking! Celestia’s succulent rump, stop being so—so--”
“Irascible?”
Rainbow Dash stared blankly. “You know, with a coat that white, you’ll bruise like a banana. If I had a dictionary right now...”
“You’d beat me with it, surely.” Rarity picked Rainbow Dash up with her magic and reversed her. “I am not concerned with rats. At the moment. I am concerned with what we are meant to do about Flim and Flam, and by extension their boss and most-probably shared snuggling partner, Twilight Sparkle.”
“It seems that I do not fully comprehend the situation,” said Spock, raising a thin Vulcan eyebrow. “It would appear to me that there is no clear evidence of wrongdoing on their part.”
“Are you kidding?! They’re using alien technology, being secretive, plotting something terrible--”
“Again. I have yet to see any clear evidence that supports that accusation.”
Kirk frowned. “Spock, what do you mean?”
“I mean, Captain, that while they may indeed be utilizing alien technology to develop their warp-drive, this is unfortunately not an uncommon situation. Many cultures in the galaxy have developed warp technology either from archaeological sources or, in this case, from what appears to be a crashed vessel. Considering the proximity of this world to inhabited space and the empirical proof of at least one ship crashing here, it is entirely possible that they are doing nothing especially illegal.”
“Unless they are in league with aliens,” said Rarity.
“They are currently in communication with us. Would communication with another political entity be so unreasonable?”
“Spock, what are you saying? The dilithium, if any other race finds it, this planet could be torn apart!”
“Indeed, Captain. I recognize that possibility. However, contact with an alien race is not, for its own sake, intrinsically devious or harmful.”
Kirk sighed, knowing that Spock was technically right—although he had a gut feeling that the situation was far worse than it seemed, and was increasingly headed downhill toward something far more terrible.
“Of course a Vulcan couldn’t understand,” snapped Rarity.
“I agree with him,” said Lyra.
“Of course you would.”
“They’re a company. They built space-ships. Space-ships we need to find the aliens. Why would they be bad? Since when is a mysterious corporate entity ever evil?”
“If they’re keeping secrets, it’s a problem,” snapped Rainbow Dash. She looked at Rarity. “And I can’t say if they’re ‘evil’ or not, but if something is going on there and Celestia doesn’t know, then something smells rotten in Denmarek.”
Kirk nodded. “Either way, I’ve already taken steps to try to keep the planet from coming to any additional harm. Whether it’s from District 51 or from Klingon invaders.”
Rarity seemed confused by this. “Really? How?”
“I submitted an invitation to the Federation to the Princesses. Once they decide, I’m going to file an injunction and get ships out here to defend the plan--”
“You WHAT?!”
Kirk was suddenly thrown back by a telekinetic blast. It was not particularly strong, feeling something akin to a strong gust of San Francisco wind, but it caught him off balance and knocked him into a broken computer console. M’Ress immediately drew her phaser, only to have it yanked out of her hand.
“You—You filed an INVITATION? To the FEDERATION? You—you’re trying to steal this planet! You’re after the dilithium, and the Element Zero!”
“I’m trying to PROTECT this planet!” shouted Kirk, pushing back against her telekinesis and causing her to stumble. “Because it’s already being invaded! You know that! That’s what you were just saying!”
“I thought I could trust you! How dare you—you have no idea what you’ve done! You couldn’t possibly understand what this planet means to me, to US—and what the Federation will do it if they get their filthy hands on it!” She pushed harder, suddenly enraged, and Kirk and M’Ress were both knocked back. Rarity did not have enough force to attack Spock, who was watching the ongoing events quietly and with great interest.
Suddenly, Rarity's blue plasma shorted and was replaced by orange that wrapped around her horn, then her body, pulling her back. She tried to struggle, but this field was vastly more powerful than her own—a field that was emanating from Lyra’s horn.
“Unhorn me, you fiend!”
“I’d rather not, but I will if I have to.” Part of Lyra’s magic resolved into a single, brilliant blade, and Rarity immediately stopped resisting.
“You of all ponies should understand—what am I saying, of course you wouldn’t.”
“I don’t care if you’re secretly an alien, or if you have a cool spaceship, or if you’re trying to help. That was out of lines and you know it. Stop being uncouth and use your dang words!”
“UNCOUTH! How dare you, I am—I am—” Rarity’s eyes widened with realization, and she cleared her throat. “Ahem. I see your point. I have indeed lost my composure. My apologies. However, this human’s actions have been horrifically misguided and he has utterly betrayed my trust. I will therefore be escorting him, and the rest of you, off my ship.”
“No, I’m not leaving, my choice was--”
“Get. OFF.”
Rainbow Dash sighed. “Come on. There’s no sense arguing with a unicorn once she’s made up her mind.”
Kirk hesitated. Then, slowly, acquiesced. “Fine. But at this point I’m wondering if I was wrong. Whatever there up to, maybe it doesn’t really matter.”
“You mean maybe you’ve already fixed it? You haven’t. You are like every other Starfleet officer I’ve ever met. A damn fool.” Rarity poked him with her magic. “I will escort you and your friends out. Go back to your ugly ship, and I’m going home. I’ll need to throw my sister out a window before she ruins any more of my expensive fabrics.”
Kirk allowed himself to be forced back toward the exit. Neither Spock nor M’Ress seemed to need much coaxing, and Rainbow Dash was more than pleased to go. Lyra, though, seemed sad to leave. Kirk supposed he could make it up to her by showing her an actually intact ship. She was, after all, not unattractive. He quickly realized, though, that doing so would be a terrible idea.
It was overcast when he was forced out the door. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but when they did, he immediately stopped.
“Please move, dear, I can’t throw all of you out on your rumps if you’re blocking the door.”
“Um...Rarity?”
“Don’t say my name and don’t talk to me. We are not friends.”
“Rarity.”
“What did I just--”
“I don’t think they were rats.”
Rarity, severely annoyed, looked out at the area surrounding her ship—and she immediately blanched, to the extent that it was possible for an all-white unicorn to blanch.
They were humanoid, and they were numerous. All crouched, their head down and arms wrapped around their legs, all in the exact the same posture. Despite that fact and their superficial body-plan, they were most certainly not human. They were thinner, and almost feminine in appearance, save for the fact that they were covered in extensive, highly angular armor. Armor painted largely in dull green, save for linear feather-like motifs in a rusty maroon color. They appeared to be holding weapons, but not at the ready. Instead, they hung down, not pointed at anything in particular. Most held pistols of a sort, but a few had rifles.
“Oh wow,” said Lyra, walking out of the ship with Rainbow Dash with apparently no sense of their own mortality. “Eesh. I have a pretty severe hoomin fetish, but even these things are creepy as noots.” She looked over her shoulder at Rarity. “Weird choice of statues.”
“They weren’t here before,” said Rainbow Dash, approaching one closely. “Wait, are these the ones where you can’t stop looking at them or they get you?”
“What? Like the big spraypaint baby one, or those ones that look like Pegasi covering their faces?”
“Either. Either of those things are very, very...bad...” Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened and her wing floofed. “Oh no, I’m in danger.”
The central eye of the nearest machine suddenly lit, and it hummed to life, standing upright and shouldering its rifle. The others hummed and beeped, releasing strange mechanical and gurgling sounds as they each activated in turn.
“Definitely not rats! DEFINITELY NOT RATS!”
The nearest humanoid opened fire. In a flash of orange, Lyra projected a shield around herself. The projectiles from its rifle rebounded off the partial dome, cracking it on impact as though it were made of matter instead of telekinetic energy, but Lyra held firm.
“MOVE! I can’t hold this for--”
It cracked suddenly and with resounding force, just as a phaser beam struck the humanoid in the head. The phaser had been adjusted to its maximum setting, and the head exploded in a plume of sparks and metal. Lyra and Rainbow Dash both screamed and held each other, especially as the body—now with sparking wires and the severed components of its metallic cervical spine emerging from its neck—lifted the gun once again—only to receive another blast to its shoulder, liquefying part of its arm and causing it stumble back and finally fall.
“They’re robots!” cried M’Ress. She winced as she turned her phaser on another drone that charged her, vaporizing its gun and then slashing at its head with her claws, leaving only the barest of scratches in its heavy armor. The phaser was already scalding hot from firing at maximum without cooling, and M’Ress was fully aware that the power cell was not large enough to issue more than five or six more shots at that setting. She was also fully aware that she had the only phaser.
“Not hoomins? Just robots?”
Another pair of them fully activated and charged toward Lyra. Rainbow Dash attempted to tackle one, but instead the pair of drones were instantaneously sliced cleanly in half with a compressed blade of brilliant orange energy, assembled roughly into the shape of a sword. Lyra jumped forward, rolling and projecting a shield as well as a suit of translucent armor around herself, impaling another robot in the process. Another pair charged but were suddenly crushed by, of course, a pair of summoned hands. Small hands, though, but adequate to squeeze their heads into piles of circuit boards and plastics. The sword-spell then took their legs, and, as they fell, their arms—with Lyra gathering the hands as she disassembled them.
“All your hands! ALL YOUR HANDS!! All your hands are belong to LYRA NOW!” At this point, she was screaming, laughing, and probably crying at once as she charged head-long into the robots, absorbing bullets like a tiny pony sponge and severing hands left and right. “Hands for the Hand God! PHALANGES FOR THE PHALANGES THRONE!!”
This turn of events left little for Kirk and Spock—both unarmed—to do, aside from duck behind a conveniently-placed rock for cover. Kirk instinctively reached for his phaser, only to find that he did not have it. So instead he grabbed his communicator.
“Kirk to Enterprise! KIRK TO ENTERPRISE!”
All that came back was static.
“It would seem,” said Spock, calm over the sound of gunfire, “that our signal is, at present, being jammed.”
“What a keen observation, Spock, I would never have--”
Kirk cried out as part of the rock was shattered, spraying him with mossy fragments.
“There is no need for this excessive display of emotion, Captain,” said Spock, calmly.
“Like hell there isn’t!” A robot suddenly loomed over Spock, lifting its pistol in both hands, and the best Kirk could think of was to try to throw a rock at it. He did, and when the rock impacted it, the robot’s chest suddenly imploded in a plume of carbonizing robotics.
Even Spock looked somewhat surprised. Kirk looked down at the rocks, half expecting them to be special rocks of some manner. Instead, though, he saw Rarity holding a Romulan disruptor-rifle nearly as large as she was.
“I Celestia-dang hate Celestia-danged ROBOTS!” She fired the disruptor again, liquefying another robot. Then another and another, apparently with absolute accuracy and absolute disdain for their existence. “As if that idiot Soong wasn’t bad enough, now I have to deal with THIS!” She then proceeded to shoot the legs off one of them and bayonet it in the head.
M’Ress skidded into cover behind the rock, bleeding from a bullet-hole in her shoulder.
“You’re injured--”
“It’s fine! The shoulder is not a vital organ! Rarity!”
M’Ress was promptly tossed a second gun, a Federation-style phaser-rifle.
“Why does she get the gun?!” cried Kirk.
“Because I like her, you darn ninny! I don’t like you!”
She fired another blast into the crowd, projecting a shield around herself to deflect the incoming bullets. A process which was, apparently, difficult for her; although unlike Lyra, she was nowhere near strong enough to actually stop the bullets. Instead, she deflected them around her, sometimes within millimeters of herself. A few whizzed through her mane, leaving unfortunate holes, and some scratched across her body leaving thin wounds that bled silver. She did not appear to notice apart from wincing and becoming increasingly peeved.
At this point, Kirk realized that he was now being totally defended by females of various species—apart from the Trill symbiote, which he tended to think of as male despite it being a genderless slug-like creature. Kirk was not sure how to feel about that, but noticed that it left him somewhat more aroused than normal. He did not have much time to consider it, though, because two objects came plummeting down from above, tearing through the canopy of trees and landing on the smaller machines, crushing several of them.
They were the same color as the androids, and, as Kirk watched, they began to unfold. And continued to unfold. And as they did, Kirk realized that they were much, much larger than the smaller androids.
They stood nearly twenty feet high, massive armored tank-like bipedal machines coated in green and rust-colored plating, their single red eyes igniting as they took a combat stance. When they spoke, it was more than noise, but too deep and low to understand. Kirk heard it, though, and even through the universal translator he understood it to be Klingon.
“pegh'eghtaHvIS. BISo'Qo'.”
One of them pointed its arm toward them, its hand retracting to reveal the terminal end of a massive cannon. Kirk had barely a moment to think before he grabbed Spock and hurled him out of cover, jumping in the process and barely avoiding the distinct “sploink” of a projectile firing and immediately reducing the rock they had been hiding behind into sand.
Rarity charged, firing with the disruptor—and the beam was instantly absorbed by the force-field that ignited around the android’s body.
“le'be' jIvHa'wI'. BISuqqa'choHmoH.”
The machine moved forward, kicking Rarity full-force in the face and sending her careening backward with enough force that she shattered through two tree-trunks before going somewhere out of sight. The trees seemed softer than Earth trees, but not by much.
“Oh no. I think she--”
“She’s fine,” said Lyra, sliding beside Kirk and projecting a dome around him. She had threaded a piece of robot-sinew through a large number of robot hands, which she was now wearing as a necklace. “We’re basically indestructible as long as we don’t--”
The machine proceeded to punch her shield with so much force that not only did it shatter, but Lyra herself was shoved neck-deep in the swampy soil. Her translucent armor faded and disintegrated into small sparkly dust and glitter.
“--run out of magic. Well, buck. I guess I get to see Bonnie sooner than I thought...”
“I’ll get Rarity!” shouted Rainbow Dash, running past. “Cover me!”
“Are you blind?! I’m about to--”
The drone raised both its hands, both unfurling into a pair of weapons. As it prepared to fire, though, it was interrupted by M’Ress. Rather than firing at it, she had instead scaled a tree only to jump down on its head, grabbing its neck. The robot stepped back, releasing sounds of robotic surprise, and attempted to reach her. Its overly thick armor prevented its arms from reaching its own head, though, and it could not grab her. M’Ress held on as it attempted to buck her off, grabbing its head with one hand and pressing the barrel of her phaser-rifle directly against its shoulder, giving no space for the shield to absorb the impact. She fired, charring a hole directly into the robot and out the other side. Then, with a cry of rage, she grasped its head and tore it partially off before reaching her hand into the hole and repeatedly and wildly pulling out fists of wires.
One of the robot’s arms went limp, and with its head damaged, it was unable to target appropriately, allowing Kirk to start attempting to pull Lyra out of the ground.
“Why are you so heavy?!”
“I might have swallowed some hands, just pull me out! I don’t want to get eaten by robots!”
This, though, proved to be exceedingly difficult.
Several yards away, Rarity did her best to stand, woozy from having hit her head repeatedly. Her naturally resistant frame had protected her from any substantial internal injury, although as Rainbow Dash had previously suggested, she was going to bruise terribly. This thought distressed her horribly.
Rainbow Dash tackled her as several bullets sailed past.
“Are you okay? Stay in cover! I’ll protect you!”
“How in the name of Celetsia’s rump do you intend to do that, you skittle-scented fool--”
One of the smaller robots, one of the last of its kind remaining, lifted its rifle and fired repeatedly. Rainbow Dash did as she had promised, attempting to absorb the bullet with her body. Instead, though, the bullets struck her metal wing and immediately deflected, one shooting a nearby robot through the knee. Rarity, having overcome at least some of her vertigo, put a disrupted shot through the central processor of the robot with the rifle and another one through the chest of the one that was now writhing on the ground, trying to right itself without its knee.
Rainbow Dash seemed utterly perplexed at this, waggling her prosthetic wing and finding it totally undamaged.
“What the buck?”
Rarity stared wide-eyed, suddenly recognizing the distinct and exotic luster of the material “You absolute IDIOT, is that mithril?!”
“Um, yeah--”
“You fool, do you even know what mithril IS?!”
“I’m not an egghead, I don’t study metalology.”
One of the larger robots pushed through the trees, toppling them over as it moved, and pointed one of its cannons at the pair of ponies. Rarity quickly grabbed Rainbow Dash and pushed her in the path of the projectile, being sure to orient her properly.
There was an explosion, and a sensation of her magic breaking—followed by being smothered in the face with Pegasus fluff as Rainbow Dash was thrown backward onto her. They moved for several yards before Rainbow Dash managed to stabilize herself with her wings, dropping to the ground on her hooves while Rarity continued to roll, exacerbating her bruises and also becoming absolutely filthy with swamp dirt.
Rainbow Dash looked at her wing. It was undamaged, save for a white-hot portion where the projectile had just hit that rapidly cooled to orange and then normal silver without the slightest sign of injury.
“Wait a dang minute!” she cried, angrily. “Did I have superpowers this whole time and nopony friggin told me?!”
“Mithril is literally indestructible,” snapped Rarity, standing up and taking a small package from her pocket. “It can only be forged by a god, and you have an entire wing made out of it, so I’d say yes, you are possibly the thickest mare I’ve ever known.”
“Well then stop looking at my rump, you danged fool!”
“My point exactly.” Rarity sighed, unwrapping the glowing crystals. Rainbow Dash saw them, and her eyes widened.
“Wait, that’s eridium, you can’t--”
It was too late. Rarity had already eaten them. The drug immediately hit her, supercharging her brain and marrow with concentrated magic. She lit her horn, sending out a shockwave that not only drove back what was left of the smaller robots but shattered them at their joints. Rainbow Dash, likewise, was knocked down.
She rolled, pulling Rainbow Dash with her, casting a shield as the robot opened up with automatic fire. The shield sustained the repeated blows, but Rarity felt the world growing quiet. Partly because of the damage to her auditory nerve from having her neurons slowly disintegrating, but also from her ears filling up with silver fluid that was now dripping down onto her formerly perfectly-pressed shirt.
The effect of this drug was somewhat disastrous to pony biology. Cataclysmic, even. Taking it twice in such a short time would probably have been fatal for all but the most powerful class of unicorns. Rarity was of course among the weakest, but was fortunately relatively resistant due to having been introduced to this particular drug in Manehattan in the mid '90s when it was rampant throughout the fashion world. She had developed something of a tolerance.
The trick was keeping her skull inside her body. Which was harder than it seemed, because the pain of having her marrow start to cook itself from pure magic made it feel like her skeleton was about to crawl its way out and dance the Charleston. It probably would have if there was only one mind keeping her intact. Instead, though, she had two, and one was totally immune to the rage-inducing effect of the drug.
Her symbiote calculated that she did not have enough power to take down the android. Not through its shield and its armor. The other one, though, which was farther, was already damaged. Rarity could see her friend on its shoulders, tearing at it with the fury of an apex-predator, and she could see the hole she had made near its arm.
She took the shot, focusing everything she had into a single beam. She never saw it hit as the silver filled her eyes, and then as something burst inside her. Her magic flickered out and she collapsed. Although Rarity the pony became unconscious, her symbiotic was still aware—and felt a pair of hooves grab her as she fell. Then it proceeded to wait, and to do its best to ensure that Rarity would be able to eventually wake up.
The violet beam came out of nowhere, slicing through the android’s shield and striking its body with extreme precision. The resulting blast as its powercore overloaded and erupted knocked M’Ress back, but she had already jumped and landed on all fours as the android’s arm fell separately from it.
The android stumbled. “pIjHa',” it said, before suddenly collapsing. Something inside it fired, detonating in a plume of blue light, but the explosion was aborted as its internal organs were dissolved by the reave effect of the blast. It was unable to self-destruct.
“Captain, the arm!” cried M’Ress.
“I see it!” Kirk luched forward, causing Lyra to sink back into the mud with a loud squelch, and picked up the front of the arm. The secondary power-core was still running, and the wires were sparking with energy. The weapon was still active, and Kirk pointed it at the other android, desperately trying to fumble with the wires to attempt to find the one that would activate the beam. The other android might have understood this, or not. It turned toward Kirk, raising its dual cannons just as the gun began to cycle. Then, by a matter of milliseconds, Kirk shot first.
It was, admittedly, not the most recoil Kirk had ever experience from a weapon in his career with Starfleet. Considering that in a matter of two years, he would at one point--or had at some point--loaded a bamboo tube with lumps of coal, large pieces of sulfur, and saltpeater to form impromptu gunpowder in order to send a pile diamond through the chest of a raging gorn. That weapons had or would have more recoil. The severed arm of an android tank, though, would be a close second.
He was thrown back as a nearly microscopic fragment of metal was thrown through the air, instantly piercing the android’s exterior and passing through its body. His aim was imperfect, but his luck was strong; he severed most of its internal processor, and the program automatically fired its self-destruct protocol to avoid being captured alive.
It detonated with resounding force, throwing Kirk back, his body remaining intact only because Lyra had the foresight to use the last of her power to cast a shield spell. It promptly shattered, and Kirk was thoroughly singed, but when he landed he was certainly not dead. The pain of the impact was clear proof of that.
Eventually the world resolved enough for him to stand up. When it did, he looked up to see Spock standing over him, poking him with a stick.
“Spock, where did you come from?”
“Captain, I had thought it was quite obvious that I am Vulcan.” Another poke with the stick. “The fact that you are nolonger aware of this may be an indication of brain damage.”
“Why the stick?”
Another poke. “Diagnostics.”
Kirk sat up. It became apparent that he had been unconscious for at least a few minutes. M’Ress was standing near a tree, her fur standing on end and her pupils narrowed to tiny slits, attempting to regain her composure and go back to standing on two legs. Lyra, who had been freed from the mud, was attempting to light her horn and sever the hand of the android that was still intact. The android itself was still smoldering, the edges of its charred metal occasionally sparking and atomizing with pink-violet light.
Rainbow Dash approached them, carrying Rarity on her back. Rarity was dripping silver fluid from both half-open eyes, both ears, both nostrils, and her moth. Her eyes were cloudy and she seemed thin and even more pale than normal, but she was breathing and occasionally making coughing sounds that brought out more silver.
“Damn it, what happened?”
“She overdosed, that’s what happened. I don’t—I don’t know what to do about this! You! Harp pony!”
Lyra turned, her magic lit enough to be pulling on the hand slightly, with several android hands placed in a large sack. “What?”
“Do something!”
“I’m not that kind of doctor.” She still ran over. “Oh. Wow. This is bad. But her skull’s still inside though, which is good.”
“Oh, yeah, she has the jokes--”
Lyra looked up, an expression of grave seriousness on her face. “No. That’s literally a thing.”
“She’s...hurt,” said Rarity. Her voice sounded different, partly because of the silver in her lungs but also because it was quite apparent that Rarity was still unconscious. The voice was not hers. “Get her...to my sickbay...need to cool the body...not again, not again, I won’t lose another...I won’t lose another...”
Lyra looked up at Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash nodded, and the pair of them took her back into the ship.
Kirk attempted to right himself, then approached the dead android, half expecting it to stand up. M’Ress saw this, and also approached. One of her arms was hanging limply at her side, and as she passed Spock he grabbed it and shoved her shoulder back into place with a loud pop. M’Ress winced and let out a slight hiss.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You have several broken ribs and internal bleeding. It is in the nature of Caitians to hide illness, in a general cultural sense. I would recommend against this in the future.”
“I am aware of this. And do not generalize us.”
“Even when my generalization is at present accurate?”
“Don’t poke the bear, Spock," Sighed Kirk. "She just took the head off a robot like she was opening a can of beans.”
M'Ress smiled slightly. “Unlike your species, I have evolved from my planet’s apex predator. I am much stronger than either of you. There is also a certain degree of bloodlust. It displeases me that robots don’t bleed. Also, I am not a bear.”
“Are you sure you’re not part kzinti?”
“The kzin lost a war with the humans, Captain. The Caitians did not.”
Kirk nodded, and looked down at the android. The severed arm beside it was still twitching, but it slowed as its power depleted. Kirk crouched and looked more closely at it, and he saw a familiar symbol printed on its side. A symbol that made his heart sink.
“The imperial seal of the Klingon Empire, Captain,” said Spock, as if Kirk did not already know. “It seems that you were correct. And we now have a better understanding of who District 51’s benefactors are.”
“No.” Kirk stood. “No we don’t.”
Spock raised an eyebrow. “Captain?”
“You don’t see it? What’s wrong here?”
M’Ress saw it too. “The Klingons would never send robots into battle. It would be an unspeakable act of cowardice to send a machine to fight in their stead.”
“Unless their numbers were limited,” noted Spock. “And if they had battle-equipped robots at their disposal, this would be the most logical and efficient way to ensure victory.”
“If they were Vulcans, sure,” said Kirk. “But these are Klingons we’re talking about, Spock, they aren’t exactly known for being logical.”
“They are a warrior race,” added M’Ress. “Even if they won, this would be a victory without honor. And therefore not even a victory at all.”
Spock seemed to at least vaguely acknowledge this, even if he did not understand. “Which raises the question, then.” He looked down at the damaged android. “If this is intended as a deception, however crude, then who is the true owner of these machines?”
Kirk looked down at the robots. Robots in Klingon colors and with a Klingon insignia—but that were obviously not Klingon in the slightest. “I don’t know, Spock. But I think I know where we can find them.”