Page 4

Ryke slid a sideways glance at Rann. They moved together, circling around the cargo bay to flank the robot. He'd seen them operate on the battlefield like this moving as two halves of the same whole.

He watched them, trying to keep between them and Mira, but it was no good.

If he covered one, the other was at his back.

So he whirled around and pulled her clear.

She hissed at him, trying to stay with the robot, but her struggles were as effective as a week-old kitten's.

Wrapping an arm around her waist, he hauled her up against him to keep her out of the way.

Rann moved closer, his weapon trained on the robot. "Drakeen are always dangerous," he growled, his voice low and serious. "But yes, this one looks like just the central unit."

Davis nodded. "The mounting points I saw. It's designed to have armor and armaments bolted onto it, right? This is just the brain?

Yeah. Rann didn t take his eyes off the drakeen. But it s still as dangerous as draanth.

Jex stepped forward, his Scorperio suit making the deck plates vibrate. The robot cheep-chirped as it looked up at him, its optical sensors widening.

"It was damaged and thrown away," the ex-cyborg said, his voice through the speakers of the Scorperio unit sounding almost... sympathetic. "It's frightened and just wants somewhere safe."

"It's just a machine. It s not alive," Ryke argued, his weapon lowering slightly.

Jex looked up, the blank faceplate of his helmet trained on Ryke. "Am I just a machine as well then?"

The cargo bay went silent. All of them knew what Jex had lost. His body destroyed, his mind was now housed in a small onboard unit deep within the Scorperio suit. But he had once been human, or at least as human as any Zodiac cyborg could be.

Ryke sighed and holstered his weapon. "All right, it can stay. But if it becomes dangerous or tries to hack into the ship's systems, I'm spacing it."

Mira let out a squeal of joy and spun around, throwing her arms around Davis in a hug. Then she whirled away, rushing to help Jex with the small robot.

He stood frozen in place. The warmth of her touch lingered, spreading through him like wildfire.

"You all right there, Davis?" Covak asked, fangs visible in a wide grin as he holstered his own weapon.

Yeah. Fine," he replied automatically.

"Yeah, sure you are," the big Vorrtan chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. "She's cute. Smart too."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered, turning away to check the cargo manifest on a nearby terminal. The screen blurred as his mind replayed the feeling of Mira's arms around him again.

Covak snorted.

"Of course not. He leaned in, voice low. "Remember, I'm Vorrtan. I heard your heart rate spike the moment she touched you."

"Don't you have something to lift?" Davis growled, glaring at him.

"Sure do. Covak grinned wider. If he grinned any wider, the top of his head would fall off. "But teasing you is much more fun."

Asshole.

Davis sighed and headed over to where Mira and Jex were examining the drakeen.

The small machine was perched on a crate, its optical sensors swiveling to take in everything around it.

Up close, he could see the extensive damage to its outer casing scorch marks, dents, and what looked like laser scoring across one side.

"So what are we going to do with it?"

Mira looked up, eyes bright with excitement. "First, I want to run some diagnostics. Figure out how damaged it really is."

"We should check its programming," Jex said. "See if its combat protocols are still active. And de-activate them if they are.

Davis folded his arms. They were both sensible suggestions. "Remember that Ryke threatened to space it if it tried to access anything. Let's stop that happening, shall we?"

because he was fairly certain that if that happened, Mira would dive out the airlock after the damn thing.

The robot chirped, tilting its optical sensors to look up at him.

"I think it likes you," Mira grinned up at him and his heart lurched a little. She had a beautiful smile.

Somewhere behind him, Covak chuckled. Hopefully he'd wander off soon. Or get fleas or something. Did Vorrtan get fleas? They should do with all the damn hair they had.

"Great," he muttered. "Just what I need a combat-bot with a crush."

The robot made a small, indignant sound.

"I don't think it appreciated that," Jex said, and he could have sworn there was amusement in the ex-cyborg's voice.

Sighing, he crouched down to the robot's level. "Look, no offense, but I've spent enough time around advanced tech to be cautious. You understand that, right?"

The robot's optical sensors blinked once, then again.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, straightening up. "Mira, you and Jex bring it to the secondary engineering bay. I'll move some shit around for you to work in there.

"On it," Mira said with a nod. She carefully picked up the robot and he shook his head as it chirped and cuddled into her arms like a damn pet.

As they headed for the door, Davis caught Ryke's eye across the cargo bay. The captain's expression was unreadable, but Davis recognized the subtle nod for what it was proceed, but if things fucked up, it was on his head.

He nodded back and followed Mira and Jex out of the cargo bay.

If this was a drakeen core, they needed to be extremely careful.

There were a lot of warning stories where a drakeen pilot had been finished off.

Only for the empire to have the last laugh when the drakeen went on a rampage and killed all those responsible for its pilot's death.

"Davis, you coming?" Mira called from up ahead, the robot peering over her shoulder at him.

"Yeah. I'm right behind you," he answered, picking up his pace.

The last thing he needed was a mechanical murderous killing machine aboard the ship, along with all the other biological murderous killing machines. But he was the de facto engineer aboard. Which meant this was his job.

And if that meant spending more time with Mira... well, that was just a perk of the job, wasn't it?