Chapter Two
“Sparky, no!” Miranda grabbed her robotic dog and tried to pull him off the captain. This was awful. Stone would airlock him for sure. “Release, Sparky, release!” she cried, but the companion-model robot hung on. “Let go!”
The captain bent, and gripping the dog’s upper and lower jaws, began to pry its mouth open with his bare hands.
“Don’t hurt Sparky!” He was all she had left, and the captain could break him, dislocate his jaw.
“Hurt him?” He peered up at her. “Might I remind you its teeth are imbedded in my leg?”
She reached under the collar for the power switch on the dog’s nape. He jerked, released the captain’s ankle, and fell over. Still. Silent. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized, wringing her hands. “He’s programmed to protect me, and he perceived you as a threat.” Maybe if she’d explained at the start her dog was a canine artificial intelligence model, all of this could have been avoided—but at the captain’s edict, she had panicked.
She scooped him up and clutched him protectively to her chest, stroking his soft synthetic fur. He looked and acted so lifelike, sometimes she forgot he was a robot. They’d have to eject her from the ship before she’d allow them to remove him. If they put him on a pod, how could she be sure she’d get him back?
He hadn’t been bothering anything.
Well, not until he bit the captain.
If Stone’s eyes had been cold before, they were positively flinty now. She’d never seen such a dark scowl.
Blood stained his pants leg, and he pulled it up to reveal a lacerated ankle. For all its small size, the K9-500 had a jaw like a vise and sharp metal teeth. If the bot had attacked a human, the damage could have been severe. Rumor had it Dante Stone was a cyborg, a computer-enhanced human with biomimetic parts. She’d heard cyborgs were immune to pain and practically indestructible.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It doesn’t hurt much, though, right?”
“Of course, it hurts!” he snapped. “Why would you think it doesn’t?”
“Don’t you have those nano thingees?”
Her fellow colonists were staring, watching the interchange, waiting to see what would happen. Would the captain toss her into the brig? Airlock poor Sparky?
“All of you, disperse!” He waved at the gawkers. They shuffled away, heading for their shared cabins where space was tight, but safe. Anything beat being hunted by aliens.
She tried to sneak away, but he stopped her. “Not so fast. I’m not done with you yet.” Captain Stone regarded her from his immense height, muscles bunched and corded under his uniform, his stern, masculine features as hard as his name suggested.
Her anger had faded, and without fury to give her courage, her knees shook. Staring eyeball to eyeball with him was almost as bad as facing down the Tyranian in the greenhouse. No—no one was that bad. The alien had been hideous. Its red eyes had glowed with malice. And it stank.
Sparky had saved her. The K9-500 had leaped into the air and attached itself to the creature’s scaly arm. As the Tyranian had attempted to shake off the bot, she’d decapitated the alien with a scythe. Then, she’d grabbed her dog and fled. She’d been on the run for a month, scavenging for whatever native flora she recognized as edible, which wasn’t much, and hid wherever she could, until the Crimson Hawk had arrived, fought off the aliens and rescued the survivors.
She shuddered as remembered terror clogged her throat.
A muscle twitched in the captain’s cheek.
“I did not realize the canine wasn’t a real animal,” he said, and if she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn he sounded apologetic. “But I can’t allow a bot to run amok and attack people.”
“You’re the only one he bit.” Other than the alien who didn’t count. She hugged the robot tighter.
“You’ve only been on the ship since yesterday afternoon.” He raked a hand through hair as black as space and buzzed military short. “If you’ll agree to keep the bot deactivated, I’ll allow you to keep it.”
“I will. I promise,” she said.
“You should have it reprogrammed when we reach SSO15.”
“I’ll take care of it.” She would do no such thing. The aliens had destroyed everything else she owned. The K9-500 had been a gift from her father, who died when she was a teenager, and it was all she had to remember him by. She wouldn’t change so much as one synthetic hair on his little fuzzy doggie body. Forget it. Sparky wouldn’t be Sparky if he was reprogrammed.
She fidgeted and shifted him in her arms. Due to his mechanical and computer innards, the bot was heavier than he looked. She’d never had a real dog, never had seen one other than in vids, but imagined they were just like him, except for his electrically charged metal teeth. He’d probably given the captain a jolt.
“You can set the bot down.” Stone’s mouth twitched. “It’s safe from me.” His token amusement vanished when he asked, “Have you eaten? You’re too thin.”
She blinked at the about-face. “I, um, had breakfast this morning.” After six weeks on the run with little sustenance but a few roots and sour, unripe fruit, she’d lost nearly two stone. Food had been one of the first items the crew had offered the survivors, but she’d been in no condition to eat. The horrors of Verde Omega had left her wary of everyone, even her fellow colonists. She huddled in her quarters for half the night until a restless sleep had claimed her. But in the morning, she’d ventured out and binged until her stomach pooched out, and she couldn’t force down another morsel.
Growing braver, she’d taken Sparky for a walk. And encountered the captain.
“Good. If you require anything else, contact Mr. Ochoa or Lieutenant Commander Brack, my first officer. You’ll see her around the unit. She’s here to make your transition easier.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” she said, feeling an unusual and inappropriate pang of disappointment. No one would expect a warship captain to fetch and carry for a ragtag group of refugees. Besides, why would she want to see him again? She would do better to have a fresh start with someone Sparky hadn’t bitten.
“By your leave, then. Remember, the bot is to remain off for the remainder of the journey.” Captain Stone limped away.