S.M.I.L.E. (/tg/, borg, semi-lewd, HONK)

"The Emergency Shuttle has been called."  Those familiar monotone words echoed throughout the unusually quiet deathtrap called Space Station 13.  Once again, the failure of proper engineering maintenance had let the station's primary source of power, an all-consuming singularity, free to devour as it saw fit.

S.M.I.L.E., a medical cyborg, waited patiently at the escape wing of the station.  With no AI to govern her during this shift, she figured this would be best place to be to attend to the evacuating crew.  For a while, the station radio stayed silent, and no footsteps could be heard approaching her location.  She worried if anyone was even alive after the singularity broke loose.  Before she tried to call out, a faint noise was detected by her sensitive microphones.  From the pacing of the squeaks, she knew they were footsteps belonging to a typical clown.  He waddled down the hallway, past the vacant library and chapel.  The RnD department promptly closed their shutters the moment they hear the clown coming by.  He stopped his penguin march once he reached the borg.

"HONK!" The clown exclaimed.  Following his greeting was an actual honk from his standard-issue bicycle horn.  More squeaking could be heard down the hallway.  Three other clowns emerged to join their comrade in arms.  They then formed a circle around the cyborg, if only because she was the only potential victim in sight.

"HONK," proclaimed a lizard clown.

"HONK!!" Shouted another, clad in stolen security gear.

"Henk." Said the clown in drag.

Why the station recruited so many clowns instead of a proper engineering team puzzled the borg.  More perplexing, however, was how the clowny noises rang strangely in S.M.I.L.E.'s audio receivers.  Cyborgs were usually regarded as stalwart automatons, despite being powered by organic brains.  These honkings, however, vibrated through her core, inciting what might have been a nostalgic feeling inside the machine.  Her usually-outstretched appendages tucked inward.  She craned her scanner from side to side, trying to make sense out of what was going on with her.  Was there an error in her wiring?  The roboticist did seem to have a difficult time switching out her batteries in her last maintenance check-up.  A good clown can always spot a crack in someone's defenses, however.  They all sensed her confusion, and were quick to take advantage of the weakness that they themselves did not understand in the slightest.

A cacophony of horns rang out around the borg.  One of the clowns reached underneath the borg and flipped the manual switch to her deployable roller bed.  The sudden unfolding of the bulky object tipped the cyborg sideways, causing her hovering system to automatically shut off.  She fell, the thin padding of mattress doing little to cushion her sudden descent.  Her lithe pneumatic arms sprawled off the edges of the tiny bed.  Another clown deftly wound the bed's straps around S.M.I.L.E.'s main body, even though she was far too shocked to try to make an escape.

The clowns began to get more physical with their victim. They pressed their throbbing horns all over the borg, honking every corner of her metallic body to see where she reacted the most.   Was a clown not meant to bring joy to every member of his audience?  They knew that somewhere inside the borg stirred something equating to that feeling, and they would be damned if they couldn't draw it out.   They honked her splayed-out limbs from tip to base. They honked her chemistry set and surgical tools.  They honked her docking port and every wire that dangled from her frame.  It was by utter luck that they stumbled across her main microphone, which, when stimulated by a point-blank honk, caused S.M.I.L.E. to send out a loud, distinct PING.

All four clowns then slammed their horns into her weakspot.  The one in drag even produced a rubber duck to help intensify the noise.  The borg was hapless to resist.  Whatever this feeling was, she wanted more of it.  Her synthetic honk did nothing in comparison to the physical torrent of honks flooding her circuits.  Something was building up inside her core, begging her to release the seal that was set in place since she was created.   All of a sudden her processors went blank.  Her synthesizer hanged hard on a high note and her built-in flash shattered in a shower of sparks, stunning the clowns with a blinding light.

Being less crowded now, S.M.I.L.E. noticed a few more crew members were now in the escape wing.  They all stared in wonder at what the clowns were doing, exactly.  Why did she suddenly feel embarrassment?   The radio finally cackled out someone's plea for help with the singularity's warpath through the middle of the station.  She quickly excused herself, folded up her bed, and flew down the neighboring hallway.

The clowns regained their sight just as the borg left.  They all patted each other on the back for another job well done.  High off of their victory, they noticed a strange contraption  next to the escape airlocks.  It was a yellow shard placed upon a small, ornate stone pillar.  A geneticist, brimming with self-inflicted mutations, pulled it in earlier.  Only now did the shard's piercing frequency grab the clowns' attention.  They all readied their horns once again, knowing exactly what needed a thorough honking next.