Page 13 of Argurma Warrior (The Argurma Chronicles #1)

K aylar’s vibrissae puffed, the tips lifting and moving as he tested the air around him for the hundredth time. Despite what his scans told him, he could not seem to entirely trust them, though it defied logic. His scans were never faulty and yet something felt off—more shadows in his processors he was sure, making his mind operate illogically but it was not enough to terminate his sense of unease.

He could reach out to Veral and get a second opinion, but he immediately rejected that idea. His cousin was busy with his breeding mate and the worries that would come with having her there on their home world. The last distraction he required was Kaylar intruding just because his malfunction was playing havoc with his mind. And though he knew that his mother would protect them, he also knew her ambitions enough to know that she was not making it easy for them either. His lips twisted ruefully.

No, there would be no help from that quarter. Even if his cousin wished to, and did not have other, more important things, occupying his attention, it would be impossible to launch from Argurumal and arrive in this far-flung sector of space to aid him within a tenable time frame. There was little that the male could do to help him over the distance. If their private comm link even established within a reasonable amount of time—that alone was an unknown variable since Veral had not communicated any details on that matter when they last spoke. That was if anything could even get through with all the tech barriers in place to control communication traffic to Argurumal and its people. It was illogical to even make the effort. There was nothing his cousin could truly do to help him, anyway.

If he even required help. There was no sign of danger. Not even a trace of the biotech E302 hunting within distance of his bio-scans. Aside from the phantoms haunting his processors, this laboratory was secure. The human, Meg, doubly so, locked in her room as she was. There was no logical reason for concern. He could not process why he even considered disturbing his cousin over it. His handler certainly would have no patience for it, even if it was considered a minor malfunction and not one severe enough to get him pulled from duty—the more the pity. He could use some down time.

He grunted as he ran another scan of the corridor before turning down it, his vibrissae puffing out wider in caution. What was it about this place that triggered his processors? He had been on numerous retrieval missions for the council and never had such a reaction before. His malfunction had never been more than a nuisance and certainly nothing that kept him from accomplishing his assignment expediently. He paused to peer along a long, dark hall, his brow ridge dipping in confusion as he drew up the hologram and studied the schematic again, highlighting and magnifying his current zone.

And where was the systems room in this mess? It was on the schematic, but he was not able to get a visual on it. He growled to himself, a soft clicking trembling in his throat, betraying his unease as he conducted another visual sweep. It was right here… somewhere.

He stilled as a shadow flickered along a wall, his head snapping toward it so that his vibrissae rattled softly around him. That had not been his processors… had it? A growl rumbled in his throat as he stepped toward the wall. Was he to start doubting his own visual receptors now? One of his eyes was even modified rather than wholly organic, but did that make it more vulnerable to his inner phantoms? He ran an internal systems scan and played back what his mechanical eye had captured. There was no degrading of his systems and there he seemed to catch a hint of the shadow in his captured playback. Something was there. It appeared to be a light shift on the structure of the wall that caused an artificial shadow. He was not suffering visual hallucinations.

An approving sound rattled in his throat. Good. He was still capable of carrying out this mission. He could still protect and care for the human. She was fragile, vulnerable and entirely dependent on him. He could not bring himself to fail her any more than his programming would allow him to fail the council. It was a strange distinction—even that she held such a position in his regard comparable to the council—but he dismissed the line of thought as one that did not warrant his undivided attention as he moved in closer upon the wall. The closer he got, the more distinctly he could see the ridge along the side of the wall where the shadow had momentarily caught during one of his passing scans.

Strange. Why would the entrance to the systems room be hidden?

He eased up along its side and ran an inquisitive hand along it. His claws tips slipped over it, questing until they suddenly caught, and the door slid open with a yank of his arm. A heavy cloud of dust expelled with the sudden movement of the door and Kaylar immediately sealed his nostrils against the particles. He blinked into the darkness and initiated the light in his optical implant so that a faint, glowing trail extended ahead of him.

The tread of his footsteps echoed slightly as stepped through and made his way along a narrow hall that terminated at another metal door. Using his claws, he used the same perfunctory method of opening it as he had the entrance door. It was not worth exhausting his own depleting energy supply to power. Only Meg’s room. If the entire laboratory collapsed in on itself into ruin, so long as her room was whole and safe that was all that mattered. So long as she wasn’t harmed.

Kaylar paused, his head cocking at the door in front of him in surprise. He was startled at his train of thought but grunted and shook his vibrissae in annoyance. He was not restraining his methods for any reason of sentimentality, he reminded himself. It was his duty to see to her protection. Giving his vibrissae a dismissive flick, the muscles of his arms bulged as he forced the door open and stepped into a room dominated by numerous dark monitors coated heavily with dust, as was the system station in front of them. Clicking low in his throat, he approached and brushed his fingers over the keys, his eyes scanning over the symbols until he found a large green button with a bold symbol marked upon it. He cocked his head again as he peered down and pressed it.

A static hum immediately filled the room as lights along towers built into the walls and along the keys lit up with the start of the system’s initiating sequence. As power flooded the system, he linked his own internal system into it, rejuvenating his own depleted systems until they grew flush with energy as he became one with it. It hummed through him, drawing him deeper into its current until the entire lab felt like an extension of himself as imbedded as he was at that moment.

Promptly the screens flicked on one at a time, showing him the various rooms of the laboratory, including downward looking views of the lab rooms themselves, but the one that drew his attention was a small residential room with a female curled up on a bed. A purr rattled in his throat as he watched her. Seeing her that way—so vulnerable and peaceful did strange things to him. It stirred a protective feeling within him that he scarcely recognized, and with it a prickling sensation that ran beneath his scales. It was a heightened awareness that he seldom experienced and usually only in the midst of his malfunction when the phantoms invaded his processors—reminding him that he was not simply a machine.

His civix twisted as it tightened in its sheath tucked between his thighs, the feeling so entirely unexpected that he gaped at her image in shock. He was stirring… for a human. And not just any human but the one he absolutely could not have. The council would have his head if he dared to act on it—they would make an example of him—and his handler would be quick to see to it that it was carried out in the most public manner possible to send a message to the rest of the elite warriors. He expelled a long breath. He was malfunctioning again, his processors seizing hold of those phantoms to make a connection with the female that did not exist.

What he felt as he watched her sleep was merely an illusion, a biological instinct programmed into his psyche that wished to protect her as a male answering the primitive call of protecting a potential mate, though she slept on unaware. Truthfully, he processed that he was violating several intergalactic monitoring and privacy laws by what he was doing. He should be terminating the cams in her room. He mentally reached for the system patch that would disconnect the surveillance in her quarters but hesitated. What if she should need him? If he disabled the surveillance system in her quarters he would not know if she was in need of aid or had an emergency situation. How would he be able to properly perform his duty in that case?

He withdrew from the system patch that connected her room to the rest of the security mainframe. He would leave it in place… just in case.

A growl rattling in his throat, he turned decisively away from the image of her quarters, his gaze lifting to inspect the rest of the images scattered over the security screens. The large room for food stores and preparation was on the first floor—the cafeteria, he recognized. Perhaps they would find something still edible among the supplies. Without access to the replicators, it would be far superior to the nutritional ration bars he brought with him.

The more he studied the various screens, drawing them up and enlarging them, the more satisfied he became there were places within the lab that would potentially yield the supplies he needed to repair his ship. The lab rooms alone had significant amounts of metal and wiring. If the gods favored him, he would have repairs done quick enough and be far from this planet and the creature he unleashed onto this island.

At least there E302 was trapped. It would feed on the plentiful game that inhabited the island, and do as wild creatures did, before eventually dying on that bit of rock long after Kaylar and Meg were gone. It was a simple plan. There was no logical reason for it to not succeed. He would begin that night and then tomorrow, after seeing to it that his human was fed and secured once more in her quarters, he would continue to scrap in earnest and begin his repairs. The likelihood of difficulties he calculated to be minimal. This would be easy. After all, was this not how his cousin survived away from Argurumal? Logic dictated that this would be a task that a lone Argurma could accomplish easily enough. Kaylar would be far from Earth in no time, and then he would be able to escape his malfunctions’ pull toward Meg.

That was what he wanted. It was what would be for the best—for both of them.