“Dante! Dante! Get up, please!” she begged.
But he wasn’t moving. The Tyranian advanced on Miranda. Green fluid seeped from the busted eye socket. The other eye glowed red. Disgusting breath and body odor fouled the air.
She screamed. So did the alien as the dog clamped his jaws around its ankle. Miranda scrambled away, but the alien came after her, dragging the bot.
Miranda fell against the wall. Tears streamed down her face.
The Tyranian raised his clawed hand preparing to deliver a killing blow.
A uniformed forearm hooked around the Tyranian’s throat. The good eye bulged, and then its neck popped as Dante snapped it. The alien went limp, and Dante tossed the body to the floor.
Blood covered his torso, and his uniform hung in tatters, revealing angry, gaping wounds, but he gathered Miranda’s shuddering form against his bleeding chest.
“It’s okay, now. It’s okay.” He rubbed her back.
She buried her face against his wet, sticky shirt and cried. “I th-thought you were d-d-dead.”
He stroked her hair. “I’m a cyborg. I’m too stubborn to die.”
“You’re hurt bad,” she said.
“Not so bad,” he denied.
Keeping his good arm around her, he reached for the commlink with his injured one. She felt him wince. He tapped it. “Security! Where the hell—”
“Here, captain!” A petty officer bounded into the room with a security team.
Medical appeared next, swarming over her and Dante, who issued orders and shook off the doctor’s attentions.
His furry muzzle stained green with alien blood, Sparky continued to gnaw on the alien’s ankle. They had to deactivate him to get him to let go.
“Take her to sick bay. Make sure she’s okay.” Dante handed Miranda off to the medical officer. “Put two bodyguards on her until we’re certain the ship is safe.” He looked at Sparky. “The K9-500 was damaged in the attack. Get an AI repair tech on it, stat.”
“What about you?” Miranda asked. “You’re injured!”
“I don’t have time for treatment. I have a ship to secure. My nanos will heal me.”
“You should let me take a look at you,” the doctor said.
“Not now. And that’s an order.”
They started to lead her away. She hated to go, didn’t want to leave him, but she had to. He had to see to the safety of the crew, passengers, and the ship, and she would only get in the way.
“Miranda?”
She met his gaze, dark and serious.
“We’ll talk later. I promise,” he said.
Chapter Seven
One week later.
“Who is it?” Miranda called.
“It’s me,” Dante said outside her quarters, eager to hold her, to present his proposition. Would she agree? It would be a big step.
“Woof,” added the repaired K9-500, held in his arms.
The door opened.
“Sparky! I missed you so much!” She reached for her dog, who wagged his tail enthusiastically as if he was glad to see her.
He handed him to her.
“Woof. Woof,” the bot barked as she kissed him.
“Captain.” She nodded at him.
She’d called him Dante before. Kissed him heatedly. Cried in his arms. Now she called him captain and gave him a cool nod. This wasn’t the reception he’d hoped for.
A week had passed since the attack. Tomorrow afternoon the Crimson Hawk would dock at SSO15, and all the colonists would disembark. Dante had been tied up in meetings with the admiral and had personally overseen the sweep for aliens and the identification of every crewmember and New Utopian. Though Miranda had been ever-present on his mind, he hadn’t had a spare moment to see her, and what he needed to say required more than a moment.
“I’m sorry. I intended to come sooner, but I had duties…”
“I understand.” She hugged Sparky tight, her affection for the robot as obvious as her lack of affection for him. His gut tightened, and his heart panged. He’d expected too much.
“I thought you’d want an update,” he said.
She stepped aside and beckoned him to enter. “How have you been?” she asked stiffly.
“Fine. I have been very busy.”
“You had a lot to contend with,” she agreed.
“How are you?” he asked quietly. Having received her medical report, he knew she had recovered from the ordeal physically, but he needed to hear from her own lips she was all right.
“Fine. Not so busy.”
They sounded like two strangers making small talk. Had she decided he was too old, too cold, too machine-like, too warrior-like to love? That she obviously adored the canine robot had given him hope that maybe she could come to care for him, too. He scrutinized her face for signs she was glad to see him but he saw only impersonal politeness.
“You look healed,” she commented.
“A benefit of being a cyborg.” One of the few. Other times being part machine was a curse. Only at times? When had it not been?
She set Sparky on the floor and pointed to his pad. “Sit,” she ordered. He trotted over and docked himself. “What can I do for you, captain?”
Captain again. Their kisses in the lab had led him to believe the attraction was mutual, but then came the gruesome discovery and the attack by the Tyranian. Dante had failed, and she knew it. As a result, people had died, and she’d been attacked and almost been killed. It was ludicrous to think she still could have feelings for him.
“I owe you an update on what we discovered,” he said. It was the least of what he owed her, and the information wouldn’t improve her opinion of him.
“Have a seat.” She gestured to a bunk and then sat opposite him.
“We found the bodies of twenty New Utopians, and four crewmembers including Warren Ochoa. Lieutenant Commander Brack’s body was not found. She was probably killed on Verde Omega so I suspect her remains are there, along with those of three colonists listed on the passenger manifest who are most definitely not on the ship.” The admiral had dispatched an armed vessel to the planet to recover the bodies so the families would have closure.
“Oh my god!” She clapped a hand over her mouth.
“And, we captured and destroyed three more Tyranians.”
“There were four of them?” she gasped. “Are you—are you sure you got them all?”
“Yes. The identity and species classification of every individual aboard the ship has been confirmed.”
“How did they get on board? We were scanned!”
“I believe when the Crimson Hawk arrived on Verde Omega and the aliens retreated, a few of their comrades got left behind. The Tyranians killed Lieutenant Commander Brack and three colonists and adopted their forms. With one of them posing as my second-in-command, they were able to walk on. If an initial bio scan occurred at all, the results were falsified.”