Tinker, a lizard-like species from the planet Gator, scratched his fat stomach with a whip-like tail while his four clawed hands fiddled with a set of tools. Everything about the Calypso's engineer was posed for the next step in their plan. Goop, the other crew member, a scientist, changed its form nervously from a ball, to a box, then a puddle. The fluid based shapeshifter was desperate to fit in with the surroundings and hide, but Scrap didn’t think it made much difference given Goop’s constant yellow fluorescence glow. Something sparked in Scrap’s complex web of circuitry. Was it feeling nerves like Goop? Robots don’t feel emotions or at least, that’s what everyone said. 

Scrap touched the circular communicator on its neck and pointed forward. Clear! The trio quietly approached a single unassuming blast door. The robot pulled off the mask he used to hide its face and scanned the surface, a strip of purple light moving up and down in a horizontal line. Nothing. No control panel. No lock. No indication of what lied beyond. Tinker huffed then jammed a screwdriver between the frame and door and pushed. The tool screamed under the Gator’s strength then bent. Tinker hissed in frustration then moved aside. Goop produced tendrils from its body and felt around the edges then vibrated and made a series of high pitched humming noises. Scrap and Tinker’s  communicators flashed then translated what Goop was saying. 

‘It’s completely sealed with some sort of field. It tingles like when you touch it like a battery cell. I can’t get through.’

‘We’re sure this is the right door?’ Tinker crossed both sets of arms then glanced back down the corridor. ‘It’s not an airlock? I really don’t wanna get spaced. It’s nasty. Your blood boils, you freeze, then get the pleasure of floating around forever like a poo in space.’ 

Scrap opened the image from his memory bank. This was it. Then the robot noticed the loose panel on the floor in the image and looked down while Goop placed a tendril over the Gator’s shoulder. 

‘It’s unlikely you’d float around forever. Another object would smash you to bits once you were in its gravitational pull. You’d more likely be poo dust.’

Tinker shook him off. ‘Yeah, thanks mr science blob. It’s still a bad way to go. Come on tin can. Haven’t you found the image yet? I thought you were fast. Hurry up.’ 

‘The lock was embedded in the floor,’ Scrap replied. ‘I’m attempting to break the code. It’s a polymorphic algorithm. My central processor is running 3 billion calculations.’ 

‘And?’ Tinker raised an eyebrow. 

‘I am …’ Scrap turned his head 180 degrees and looked down at the Gator. ‘Hurrying.’

Intruder detected. Please provide authorisation to deactivate defensive measures.