The Third Book of the Alienbutt saga. Emperor of the Universe. Part 50.

Guerick Tackful sat looking at the sensor array screen, waiting for the next contact with the ship that was lurking at the edge of the sector. The new arrival was invisible to normal scanning but he was able to follow its path using a refined scan. He smiled, knowing the newcomer had to be Blackarachnia, there to prevent the droid forces from capturing the prisoners on Zachia. The droid fleet was advancing into the asteroid field that hid the prison and taking heavy losses from the automated defence system, yet Guerick knew there would be a secret way in and sat waiting for Blackarachnia to show him the way. After leaving The Fixer, he had continued with Emperor Fluffy’s orders to the prearranged location where he would be met by the droid fleet; then he would secure the prisoners for cybernetic upgrading. Emperor Fluffy had set the trap that would bring Blackarachnia, the only known living bounty hunter with the security clearance to enter the prison. Once he was shown the way in, he could kill the bounty hunter and retrieve the prisoners. Guerick had gathered up a group of hired guns to work with him, their skill wouldn’t match that of the bounty hunter but they would cause enough of a distraction to give him the edge. As the ship moved off, Guerick gave a smile; the hunt was on and this time, Blackarachnia would die.

Emperor Fluffy studied the updated droid fighter-ship. In the tests it had performed more than seventy percent better than the original. He looked down at the scientists before him, they were the exceptional minds of the Coffee House Cybernetic and Android Advancement team. He had discovered that prerequisite of their placement in the team, apart from brilliance, was a total lack of morality when it came to pushing the boundaries of their science. There was a group that needed no mind control or threats, he just told them to push the boundaries and do whatever it took.
Since capturing the facility, he had given them one job; he wanted his droid army to perform better, to be better able to think in a battle situation and he wanted the improvement to be a quick update to his existing fleet and not a total recall of it. He hadn’t expected a solution as it was a problem that he had personally struggled with, but it would keep this team active until he found another job for them. To his surprise, he had received a message saying they had the answer.
“How have you achieved this?” Emperor Fluffy demanded.
“It’s an extension of a project we’ve been working on for a number of years, Emperor,” one of the scientists stepped forward and said.
Emperor Fluffy could tell the scientist wasn’t human but had no idea what species it belonged to and didn’t really care enough to enquire.
“We’ve been working on a way to closer meld a living brain with cyborg technologies. The idea was to remove the brains from one body and transfer it to another. The problem we faced was with the more intelligent species, the shock would drive them insane and we needed to wipe large sections of the brain to prevent that.”
“I am not here to listen to failures and overblown stories. Give me the edited version on how you achieved the droids’ increased performance. I will review your full report later,” Emperor Fluffy cut in.
“Right, well we’ve taken a test subject and given it extensive brain reprogramming to avoid any sort of mental break; then we linked it into the processing unit of the droid using our interface. This gives us the programming of the battle droid but with the ability to adapt and learn, even act on sentient instinct. You have the full ability of the droid program but also the intelligence of a living pilot,” the scientist said.
“How long did the upgrade take?” Emperor Fluffy asked.
“Once the brain is prepared, it takes about half an hour to open up the droid and connect the two units together with the appropriate upgrade to the droid programming. The problem is the brain preparation; you have to condition it so it believes it is normal to be a part of a robot. It can take up to a year to achieve this so the brain doesn’t reject it. You have to make the brain want to be the droid,” the scientist said apologetically.
“Why use only the brain and not the person?” Emperor Fluffy asked.
“If the brain is still in the body, the shock of its connection to a droid would be lessened.”
“Our original project was to perform brain transplants so people could change bodies if they were damaged or grew old, so our interface system is designed for just the brain,” the scientist answered.
“Re-design your interface system to incorporate the whole body and I will get you the subjects for conversion,” Emperor Fluffy ordered. “The removal of the brain is an unnecessary and time consuming step for what I need.”
“But what about the brain conditioning? Finding themselves connected up to a droid fighter will still cause a major rejection issue, their minds will snap,” the scientist insisted.
“Not if they choose to have the process done to them; that would take much less conditioning of the brain,” Emperor Fluffy insisted.
“But where would you find so many people willing to do this? It would be the end of their life as they knew it,” the scientist said with a degree of scepticism.
“How would a religious fanatic who is willing to do anything to serve his Emperor in defeating the heretics cut down the preparation time?”
“But to get that sort of fanaticism would…” the scientist began.
“That is why I have my pet High Priest. He has ways of ensuring blind obedience, the priests have been giving their substance to millions of subject as they convert them. Added to that, there have been subliminal messages in all media transmitted across the Inner Systems to reinforce the message of devotion to me,” Emperor Fluffy said cutting the scientist off.
“I think if you chose human subjects you would have a much higher success rate as they are far more susceptible to this sort of manipulation and would adapt faster. If you shipped the volunteers to the units, we could start conditioning ‘in flight’ and as they are already willing, it would drastically cut the time. We may suffer a slightly higher rejection rate than the year-long conditioning we use now, but if we enforce the religious duty aspect in the conditioning, we can keep that to a minimum,” the scientist replied, excited by the prospect.
“Good, I will get you the bodies. Prepare the conditioning program for their re-programming by the end of the day and ensure we have sufficient resources to do the upgrades of a million to start with,” Emperor Fluffy ordered.

To be continued.
All images are mine.