The Big Damn Fight

Zaiza looked up from the computer. “Well I don't know about a simulation, but I just connected to the ship network’s database and it seems you’re right on the money as far as most things. What year are you from?”

“30XX”

“2016”

“Oh of course you are talking to the girl. My bad. Who cares about the poor ‘machine’ you’re abusing.”

Zaiza ignored WWW, “Well, This is apparently 200 years after your time, Nova. ”

Nova was relieved that Zaiza didn't seem to have much reverence for the Laptop. The fact that he didn't seem to think twice about it's apparent personality made her assume this kind of thing was probably a usual occurrence on the Linkwyrm homeworld. It certainly helped to sell her intentions to her audience regarding the thing.

“To paraphrase what you said earlier; that’s very interesting but doesn’t help us much.””

“Helps me even less, I have no idea how your time syncs up to the galactic standard, if it even does. There’s more information here though, schematics of the whole place, historical logs of humans dealing with the creatively named ‘Menace’, and... give me a second..” Zaiza clicked a couple times and calmly typed in a number of input commands. His relaxed demeanor portrayed that he was clearly in his element doing this kind of thing. “I even cracked into the ship’s feeds in real-time, it’s all networked! God the security sucks here, no wonder they’re losing.”

“That all sounds very useful. Download the information and let’s double time it to your vehicle, now that we know how to get there. Let’s leave the poor roomba here, the thing’s glitching out.” Her spirit lifted, she’d finally get rid of the thing. If she was lucky, it might even die in the hallway off camera. One less contestant to worry about.

“Download the information to what exactly?” Zaiza asked, puzzled.

“Can't you like... technopath it? You dont have a brain chip or some computer screen in that robot suit of yours ”

“Not really. I was dropped into this place with this thing and it’s capabilities are absolute shit. Honestly i’d be surprised if it was able to make it to my Multitech without overheating. We’re going to have to bring the computer with us.”

“Now I’m being kidnapped! Again! This day keeps getting better and better.”

“Hmm. Alright”

Nova wasn’t happy about the development but she supposed she could work with the optics. Her adjusted plan figured that the camera-man would probably focus on the more active and interesting looking members participating in this competition. She would subtly "encourage" them to kill each-other, and leave her and the laptop to duke it out at the end with Nova subsequently demolishing it without anyone shedding as much as a single tear.

Zaiza looked intently at the computer. “Hold on, there’s something that just appeared over the ship’s long range scanners. Multiple somethings.”

“What are they?”

“I’m not sure. They almost look like some of the larger Multitech models' battle form.. But significantly larger.”

Nova stuck her head around to look at the screen. Sure enough there were five blips coming around a large asteroid. Something was unsettling about their movements, it wasn't like any ship she had seen before, instead displaying a motion much more organic in nature.

“Whatever those are, they can’t be any any good. Let’s pick up the pace to your Multitech, see if you can find out what those are in the historical logs on the way.”