It's far too late/early for me to write any kind of proper AN. Here's the next part. goodnight.

Chapter 2

A Nearby Planet

The first thing I remember is being rather unceremoniously dropped on my head.

After the rather bumpy introduction to life, I sat up to try and get my bearings of, well, anything at all.

My built-in knowledge told me I was in the kind of room one would expect a robot to find himself in after activation. At least more or less. It was large and circular, with every inch of its walls covered with controls, buttons, blinking lights, and the occasional computer screen. The floor was mostly taken up by a large hole, which seemed to be the opening to a tunnel or chute of some kind. Behind me, presumably where I had come from, was a conveyer belt, currently stopped. There was no-one else in the room besides myself.

I stood up, taking note of my surroundings. The room was as expected for a newly activated robot, and yet at the same time I found myself immediately with several questions. There were several things I knew, for lack of a better word, instinctively. The first was that, as a robot, I had been built to serve a function. The second was that it was not normally for me to have no idea what that function was suppose to be. A robot is built because it is needed to do something, so logic would dictate that robots are built prepared and knowledgeable in what it is they are expected to do.

I was standing in a room with not even the slightest idea why I was there. This was not normal. A brief thought occurred to me that perhaps I was defective. That would be rather sad. And yet, apart from not having the slightest idea of why I was, I did not feel defective in any particular way. Was I suppose to go down the chute in the centre of the room? Somehow, that didn't feel like the wisest decision. I instead opted for looking over the immediate area to try and get a better idea of what I was suppose to do now that I found myself there.

As if expecting me, a smaller, more primitive robot peered from around one of the corners of a large computer tower. 'Infobot' was the word my thoughts offered me. They were not particularly sentient, but they were widely used for communication and, as the name would suggest, general information. It seemed a good place to start.

It opened its display and, rather surprisingly, showed a video recording that had obviously not been meant for me. I had expected perhaps some instructions, but decided there had to be a reason for the message to be left around, so paid attention nonetheless.

The man on the screen was short, wore a pin-striped suit, and had a rather tasteless pony tail which seemed to heighten the top of his bald head more than it distracted from it. The message must have been part of a mass broadcast, because as soon as he greeted me as 'Citizen of Novalis', a simple picture of the planet in question was shown to substitute for the fact that he had not actually spoken the name himself. Chances are this recording was going to be used for more than one planet's broadcast.

"My race, the Blarg, have a small problem," the man continued. "Our planet has become so polluted, overpopulated, and poisonous that we are no longer able to dwell here. But I, Chairman Drek, have a solution. We are constructing a pristine new world using the choices of planetary components available. So, what does this mean to you, you might ask? Using highly sophisticated technology, which you couldn't possibly understand, we will be extracting a large portion of your planet and adding it to our new one."

I balked at this. Surely the man wasn't being serious?

"Unfortunately, this change in mass will cause your planet to spin out of control and drift into the sun where it will explode into a flaming ball of gas, but, of course, sacrifices must be made. Thank you for your co-operation." There was a call to 'cut' from off screen but the message kept playing. "And if you don't like it, you can take your whiny snivelling snot nosed populations, form a line behind me and you can kiss my-!" He stopped mid-sentence, seemingly to address the same person who had called cut. "We're still on? Well turn it off, you idiot!"

The message cut off.

For one very brief second, I was utterly mortified at what I had just heard. However, my horror was short-lived as the infobot's screen folded back in on itself and I realised I was looking into the kneecaps of a very large, very aggressive looking robot. He did not seem particularly interested in discussing what I had just seen, making a swipe for the infobot to grab it. But I was faster.

I grabbed the smaller robot which folded up into its compact travelling mode as I broke into a run, slipping between the sentry-bot's legs. Precious seconds were saved as he had to turn to try and follow me, giving me, and the message I'd secured in the compartment on my chest, time to spot an open ventilation pipe. I didn't stop to think of where it may lead, I merely took it at a jump, not looking back.

My feet slid out from under me on smooth steel and I plummeted down the chute. I threw my arms over my face instinctively, half expecting to suddenly crash into spinning fan blades. Instead, the chute came to an abrupt stop several feet above rocky ground. I landed, rather hard, but didn't dare slow down. Behind me I could hear sirens start to blare. It was starting to seem I had not been created by choice on their part.

I snapped my gaze over the immediate area, trying to find somewhere I could hide or run to. My plans changed, however, when I noticed I had been dropped outside of a very large facility, right onto a landing strip for spaceships. Several of them stood lined up, ready for use.

I had no idea if I knew how to fly. I didn't think about it. I ran towards the nearest one, the sound of yelling spurring me on. I jumped onto the ship's wing and opened the cockpit just as I heard the first blaster shot go off. I fell into the driver's seat, hoping with all I had that the cockpit's glass could endure a few shots. Scrambling over the controls in front of me, I used my ignition switch to turn the thing on. Lights and readouts sprang to life as I grabbed the wheel and forced the ship forward, not bothering to check how flight-ready she was.

Hot blasts of energy chased me as I got her off the ground, pointing her upwards and towards space. I broke the stratosphere in seconds, causing the engine to groan and strain at me. It seemed flying was not something I was readily programmed with.

The ship's scanners started to blare at me as several blips appeared far too close to my tail than I liked. I had no idea what to do. I was sure the ship probably had weapons but I didn't dare let go of the wheel to try and find them. I just pushed the engines harder, forcing them to go faster. Empty space swallowed me from every angle as I searched the dark for somewhere, anywhere I could go. One of the stars looked far larger than the rest and shone with an orange tint. I zeroed in on it, focusing on nothing else but getting to what I knew was a planet as fast as I could.

The blips on the scanner kept pace with me. There was a shrill beeping as a red dot appeared and streaked towards the point I knew represented me. I tugged the controls as hard as I could, the white streak from a missile cutting through the dark just on my left.

The planet I'd been aiming for loomed in front of me. If I could only get to its surface. I could make a run for it. I could hide myself away where they'd be too big to follow me. I could try and find help.

My ship bucked wildly as one of its thrusters exploded. Whether it was from shots fired by my perusers, or if it had simply given out from the strain, I did not know. Lights and warnings blared at me from every side as my hands trailed uselessly across the controls, trying to find something that could correct my flight.

Nothing helped. And I felt my ship roll as another explosion rocked my thrusters. I threw my arms around the wheel and gripped it as hard as I could. Trying to keep myself from being thrown against the cockpit's glass and fighting to pull the ship's nose up. But the wheel wouldn't budge.

The swirling orange landscape spun closer and closer towards me as my engines screamed. Nothing I did seemed to stop it from inevitably crashing full-force into the ground. I pressed buttons senselessly, I tugged at the wheel, I slammed a fist down on the dashboard. I might was well have been trying to pick a fight with a boulder. I was close enough to make out tall canyons and endless sand below me. There wasn't even so much as a shrub to cushion my fall.

I was going to die. And no-one would even know I'd existed.

As what I realised were the last few seconds before impact dragged out, I panicked. I squeezed my eyes shut and curled myself shut, realising with detached bemusement that I could fold myself closed into a box if I wanted. For all the good it would do me.

I do not remember the crash or the explosion that followed.

Leave me feedback and stuff 'right guys?