Reaching out tentatively with a single, misshapen and grubby digit, she gently prodded the object that had fallen from the sky. It was cold to her touch and she recoiled instantly, crouching to the ground several feet away with her fists balled ready to run or to fight, whichever she deemed necessary.

For several moments she waited, her breaths almost silent as she watched, waiting for the object to make some kind of move, to show its true colours and attack her and when it did no such thing she scampered over to it and studied it once again.

When she touched it for the second time with the tip of the same finger she did not recoil. It did not appear to be any threat to her and she stroked it gently.

Still there was no reaction of any kind from the object and so, confident that it was going to do her no harm, she wrapped her fingers around it and picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy and unbalanced yet her strong fingers held it tightly. She turned it over and over in her hand, cocking her head this way and that as she did so until she realised that a small part of it was different. The vast majority of the object's surface was dull and boring yet a small section was quite the opposite; it was shiny and reflected back at her more colour than she had ever seen.

The object emitted a strange noise, unfamiliar to her primitive ears. She tried to release the item, to drop it, yet she found that even though that should have been a simple enough task, it was quite impossible for her to do so.

Panicked, she realised that her fingers were gripping even more tightly. Every single fibre of her being told her to run, to get away from the object as quickly as possible, yet her feet were firmly rooted to the ground.

A light, more focused than the colours that the object had until that point shown her, shone directly into her eyes. Her ocular organs wide with terror she released an incoherent wail as she saw unfamiliar images in her mind and her ears filled with strange, unusual sounds.

She lost all concept of time and had no idea for how long the light shone into her eyes, however when the object fell free from her grasp she staggered forwards, the weight of her own body temporarily too much for her to take.

"That was..." She stopped mid-flow, shocked by the sound of her own voice making noises that it had never made before. "Whoa... head fuck..."

...and then she fell heavily forwards, her body hitting the ground with a dull thud and there she lay, unconscious.

***

She awoke and without even opening her eyes she could tell that she was somewhere different. It was the smell, unlike anything she had ever experienced. She could hear words, too. More to the point, she could hear words that she understood quite clearly.

"She's awake."

"You sure?"

"Yes... look at the screen. That's not the readout of one who's still sleeping."

"It seems our girl learns quickly."

"She's not our girl though is she, Banks?"

"She's what we've got to work with, Sir."

"If you had been more careful with the time capsule then it would have done as it was supposed to and buried itself half a mile below the surface of the planet to be discovered sometime around two-thousand five which, as both you and I are well aware, would have been ample enough time."

"I wasn't entirely my fault, Sir."

"You were in charge of the operation, Banks. The buck stops with you."

"Yes Sir..."

"And now, we're left with a... a... primitive female with the knowledge of the entire of human history floating around inside her head. That is not the way this was supposed to go, Banks."

"No Sir..."

"Terminate the subject and try again, Banks."

"Yes Sir."

"And Banks."

"Sir?"

"Don't even think about fucking it up for a second time."

The voices ceased and she waited until she could hear only one person breathing within the room. Her senses told her that it was only Banks who remained, and that he was approaching her whilst holding something in his hand.

She did not move a muscle until he was directly beside her and the next thing she knew she was on her feet behind him, holding a needle to his throat. Banks was scared, she could tell. He was sweating profusely and his heart was beating so loud that she could hear it.

"Where am I?" she whispered, ignoring the fact that her own voice sounded strange to her or at least, the sounds it was making did. "Answer me before I inject whatever the fuck this is into your jugular."

"Y... You're in a secure Government facility," Banks stammered in reply, trying his best not to gulp lest he do himself a mischief without the girl moving another inch. "It's twenty-two twenty-nine and you've absorbed everything we know up until this point."

"Why me?"

"It wasn't supposed to be you; it was supposed to be the entire human race. The Time Capsule contained everything, including how to prevent the planet falling into the state it's currently in. But one person shouldn't be able to hold all of that information. It was supposed to be shared amongst the entire human race. It doesn't make sense."

"What state is the planet in?" She was asking questions that she had no business knowing the answers to, not really. The most exciting thing she was supposed to do all day was collect berries and maybe submit to her mate, but now... "Tell me!"

"The usual!" Banks yelled in reply, calming instantly when he realised that probably wasn't the best course of action. "Earth is in a whole mess of trouble, ever since they arrived."

"And who, pray tell, are they?"

****

It took her a while to sort through the information contained within her mind but with Banks' help and guidance she slowly but surely, over the course of several weeks, learned how to access a given piece of information at any given time.

All the time he was helping her, Banks was under pressure from his bosses to renew the project. As he had been ordered to terminate the girl and start afresh it was not a viable option for her to remain in his laboratories and so with that in mind he'd taken her home. It's not as though he had family to worry about, as the Government discouraged such a thing due to overpopulation.

It was almost three months later when Banks realised that there was no longer any need to teach her. She possessed every piece of knowledge ever collated but that, Banks knew, was not the most remarkable thing about her.

Her genetic make-up was different to his, different to anyone else, for she was not human. From her appearance one probably would not be able to notice for other than the fact her eyes were well above average size and of an incredibly bright blue, she was as human as anyone when in truth, she was a Neanderthal/Homo-Sapien hybrid.

She looked, Banks thought, like she belonged in an animated Japanese show.

"I don't understand these word and phrases... So many numbers."

"You possess the knowledge," he said.

"Knowledge is not understanding," she replied, by now quite comfortable with the words that came out of her mouth. "But what I do know, what I do understand, is that your Time Capsule project has an end game and even though it didn't run as smoothly as you might have hoped, that end game must be played out. They must be destroyed."

"I agree," said Banks. "However, the knowledge you absorbed was intended to create a different set of circumstances in the hope that they would be deterred, that they would look upon this world, the human race, without thinking of us as weak-willed pushovers."

"But they are here," she said, calmly. "They are here and I can destroy them."

***

"Honey!" She glanced around upon hearing her name. It was actually her name, of course, but it was the moniker she had been designated. She didn't mind it at all, either, in fact she thought it was a rather nice name. More to the point, it was a name that held great meaning and responsibility. There had been many 'Honeys,' before her, and she knew there would be many more that came after she met her end.

Most were born into it and succumbed to their birthright, normally, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-nine.

Honey was older than that; in fact although she did not look a day over twenty-one she was actually closer to forty years old. Banks had speculated, over and over again, that her youthful appearance might have had something to do with the fact she was a hybrid, a congruence of two similar yet distinctly different species.

"Duck!"

Honey did exactly that and just in time, too, for the red laser zipped over her head and instantly burned a hole into the wall behind her.

She glanced up and nodded a thank you to Ingrid, before her she pushed off with her incredibly powerful legs, massive amounts of adrenaline flowing through her body as she descended upon the mechanical menace.

Ingrid was what Banks called one of the second generation. She, amongst others, had adopted a relatively sizeable proportion of the information contained within the second Time Capsule when it had been unearthed, as was the original intent, in two-thousand five.

Honey reached out and grabbed the robot's head, twisting it around and off as her momentum carried her over the alien invader. She landed on her feet and spun around instantly, as the now-headless robot staggered towards her. With a shrug she released the head and when it was but inches from the ground she punted it with such force that it created an enormous hole in the machine's torso, a hole amass with sparking wires and cables.

She had missed the motherboard by a mere fraction of an inch and as such, the mechanoid was still advancing. Not for long though for Ingrid leapt and caught the still-rising metal head, turned a somersault in mid-air and flung it, making an even larger hole that did, this time, destroy the motherboard.

Honey caught the head and with a chuckle, said, "nice shot."

"Thank you," Ingrid replied, her accent one with a thick Norwegian twang.

She and Honey glanced at the ground around them, littered as it was with dozens of mechanical corpses, all of whom had proved incapable of defeating the two defenders of Earth they had been tasked to kill.

"You think there are more on the way?"

"I imagine so," Honey replied. "But I suspect you and I are in the clear for now. Next time though, you can bet there'll be hundreds perhaps thousands of them, just for us."

"Well..." Ingrid chuckled. "I suppose that's fair, I mean they have to give themselves a fighting chance, after all."

"Exactly," Honey replied as the two women high-fived. Their celebrations were cut short, however, as their communications devices sounded in unison, causing both to immediately place their index finger to their respective right ears.

Moments later, once the transmission had been cut, they shared a glance that said everything it needed to say.

These bastards are gonna' pay.

***

"...and in breaking news, the Evil Robots have obliterated major cities on every continent. Despite the Defenders of Earth scoring minor victories across the globe, it seems that our mechanical aggressors are far from finished in our corner of the Galaxy. Firing projectiles from orbit, their starships lay waste to Washington, New York, London, Munich, Beijing, Perth, Tokyo, Wellington and Cairo to name but a few.

"If there was ever any doubt about the fact that the human race is at war, that doubt has now passed."

***

Honey turned and glared at Banks, a look that definitely sent shivers down the man's spine. She felt Ingrid's hand as her friend gently gripped her forearm.

"Get Ingrid and I onto that fucking mothership, Banks," she said, her voice unintentionally dripping with menace. "We can end this war, but not from down here."

"There's no way to get up there," said Banks, shrugging helplessly. "Any of our objects in orbit are blown out of the sky when they get to close whether they pose a threat or not, and it's not as though we have a fleet of battleships on hand."

"But we could have," Ingrid said, quietly. "You've already proven you can travel through time, I mean look at Honey; look at me, and everyone else you brought forth from two-thousand five."

"This is a fixed point in time," Banks explained. "Until this point has passed, to travel further down this time-line is impossible. This event, this invasion... Hell, this bloody war has to run its course."

***

It had taken a great deal of effort and more than a few dealings with numerous demonic entities but as Honey and Ingrid rolled out the other side of the portal that had opened up on to one of the mothership's engineering levels, they instantly knew that those deals had been worth whatever price Banks had paid.

Demons were of Earth, or at least they shared residence between there and whatever Hell dimension in which they spawned, and therefore had as much stake in the planet as their human counterparts.

Of course, being demons... Shit don't come for nought...

Ingrid grasped the package tightly. It was a nuclear device with a yield of epic proportions. The Defenders of Earth had discovered a few months prior that if the link between an Evil Robot and the mothership was terminated then said invader lost all power and entered a shut down mode of sorts. Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that destroying the mothership would, in fact, cause the Evil Robots on Earth and those in orbit, to do the same.

"This way," said Honey, leading the way along the engineering level. On all sides they were surrounded by vast, sprawling engines that hissed and fizzed as coolants ran along pipes and cables, keeping the necessary equilibrium that enabled the mothership to remain in orbit without overheating. "Follow the pipes; the source of that coolant has to be around here somewhere."

"Think we're going to get this done without being discovered?"

"I doubt it," Honey replied, looking ahead as she heard the unmistakable sound of heavy metallic footfalls upon a metallic floor. "Get the job done; I'll deal with these Evil Robot bastards."

"But..."

"Go, Ingrid. The most important thing is that we cut the link from the mothership and blowing the coolant is the way we're gonna' do it. I'll buy you as much time as I can."

Ingrid reluctantly scampered past Honey and followed the pipes around to the right.

"Over here you robot fucks!" Honey yelled with as much volume as she could, hoping – and succeeding – to distract the aforementioned Evil Robots from the fact that Ingrid was heading away from them. "Well, shit... Y'all are a whole lot better armoured than those metal fuckers on Earth..."

Added to the fact that there were at least twenty of them, the thought crept into Honey's mind that perhaps she had bitten off more than she could chew. That thought did not remain for long though, and within seconds she was running full pelt towards the steadily advancing squad of Evil Robots.

She shouldered several out of the way, scattering them to the side as she aimed for the robot she had targeted. Realising that she was heading straight for it, the Evil Robot lifted its arm to reveal that it already had its primary weapon primed. Honey was far too fast for it though, and before it had chance to fire any kind of projectile from the raised portion of its forearm she was upon it, contorting her body in many an inconceivable way as she wrapped her limbs around the metal man. Once it was successfully subdued Honey wrenched its arm free from its housing, dropped to the floor, and proceeded to use said limb to beat the Evil Robot into something not too dissimilar to scrap metal.

One down, Honey turned and threw the arm with great precision, impaling not one but two Evil Robots with it, and both sagged to the floor.

At her back coolant hissed, reminding her of Ingrid's quest. Such reminiscence proved to be a distraction though, for Honey did not manage to get entirely out of the way as an Evil Robot riddled the air with bullets.

Honey took five, thankfully all to her left arm and all through and through.

"You're gonna' pay for that you metallic piece of shiaaaaargh..!"

Again, Honey was not fast enough, and a laser pierced her shin, tearing bone and muscle as it sought an exit. She dropped to the floor in a considerable amount of pain, the hole in her leg at least two inches in diameter.

Sucking it up, Honey struggled to stand, her good leg having to support the majority of her weight.

"Ingrid, hurry!" Honey yelled as she lunged forwards on her uninjured leg, grasping the arm of the nearest Evil Robot as she did so. Despite her injury she still possessed considerable strength and skill, and as such she was able to wrench the arm around whilst at the same time she used the robot as a pivot, easily lifting herself so that her legs wrapped around its neck.

Pain seared through every inch of her body as she swung, using the robot's momentum to get into position and then its weapon to destroy its fellows before, and with no small amount of effort, she was able to force the machine to turn its weapon upon itself.

She dropped to the floor, breathless. With a glance at her wound she was pleased to see that it was not bleeding, the laser clearly having cauterised it as it went through.

Footsteps, lighter than those belonging to the Evil Robots, reached Honey's ears and moments later, Ingrid crouched beside her.

"Your leg!" she exclaimed.

"Is it done?"

"Your leg, how did you..?"

"Is it done, Ingrid? Did you plant the device?"

"Yes, it's done. We've got about..."

"Don't tell me, I don't want to know how long I haven't got left," said Honey, smiling weakly. "But we did it, Ingrid. We saved the fucking planet."

Staring deeply into Honey's enormous, brilliant blue eyes, Ingrid returned that smile.

"Yes, Honey," she replied, exhaling deeply as elsewhere on the engineering level, the timer ran its course. "We..."