“Woof. Woof.” As he rounded the corner, heading for the mess hall, he cocked his head. Did he hear barking?
“Woof. Woof.”
Canine barking? Someone had brought a dog on board? Orders from Alliance Command had been to rescue the humans on Verde Omega, not other lifeforms. Animals, even domesticated ones like dogs, were known carriers of disease. They could easily be infected with alien microbes that could sweep through and decimate a contained population like the crew of a warship. A warship had no animal quarantine facility. Given that Verde Omega had been invaded by Tyranians who carried who-knew-what, an animal aboard could pose a health hazard.
About a dozen New Utopians congregated outside the mess hall. In the center of the group a dog jumped around, wagging its fluffy tail like a metronome.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Who brought this animal on board? Explain yourself!”
The colonists cringed in fear, and belatedly he remembered his first officer’s admonition. “It’s the captain! Stone Cold!” someone whispered, but his cyborg ears heard it as if they’d shouted it.
“It’s my dog.” A young woman stepped forward. “Sparky, sit!” she said, and the animal quieted and settled on its haunches. The clean civvies the crew had rustled up hung sack-like on her scrawny frame. Stringy, dull brown hair drooped around a face sunken from malnutrition, but he rocked back on his heels as if he’d been sucker punched. His chest constricted, and his stomach flip-flopped. A heat totally inappropriate for the situation surged through him. He sent a rush of nanos to calm his racing pulse.
“What is your name and position?” he said.
“M-Miranda Lowell. I’m the archivist for New Utopia.”
“Why did you bring this animal on board?”
“I couldn’t leave him behind!”
“You have potentially endangered your fellow colonists and my entire crew.”
“Sparky poses no threat.”
“Where is the liaison?” He diverted his attention from her, away from his disconcerting physical reaction.
“Here.” A civilian employee stepped out of the crowd. “I’m Warren Ochoa.”
“Remove the canine from this ship. Animals are not allowed.”
Miranda Lowell recoiled.
“Captain, we’re a parsec away from the nearest life-sustaining planet,” Ochoa said. “The only way to remove him would be to…airlock him.”
“No! You can’t do that!” The woman rounded on him, horror flickering in eyes too large for her gaunt face. She couldn’t have had much to eat while running from the aliens. Surviving colonists had fled the invading horde with only the clothing on their backs. Her mongrel appeared in much better shape, healthy and well-fed, its short coat groomed and shiny. She hadn’t been giving her limited sustenance to the dog, had she? “Please, don’t airlock Sparky.”
Rules were rules, and while he might have been inclined to bend them after what she’d been through, he had to put the health of the people first. He had a crew of one thousand and two hundred-plus refugees. The latter, physically compromised and half-starved, were in no condition to fight off an alien contagion. Who knew what they might have already been exposed to? He couldn’t let himself be swayed by beseeching eyes and a rush of heat.
“I would not airlock an animal. It could be placed on a bullet pod and shot on ahead to SSO15.”
Her eyes flashed, and she jutted out her chin “No! He stays with me. He’s all I have left. I won’t let you take him.”
He sympathized, but the safety of the passengers was paramount, and he couldn’t let a slip of a girl undermine his authority. Insubordination would spread. He turned to the liaison. “Get with Lieutenant Commander Brack and remove the animal. That’s an order.”
He shouldn’t have come. If he hadn’t known about the animal, he wouldn’t have been forced to deal with it. But now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t.
Brack had warned him. He wasn’t cut out to deal with people. The colonists who weren’t outright terrified were shooting daggers of anger at him. Disgusted with himself, he pivoted, preparing to return to the bridge, when the woman leaped in front of him.
“I’m keeping my dog. You try to take him, and…and…you’ll be sorry!” Anger animated her entire face, giving him a glimpse of what she looked like when she was healthy.
That inappropriate, unwelcome sexual heat flared low in his abdomen. “Do not threaten me.” Dante leveled a stare that caused those under his command to quake in their boots. “The order stands. Now, move out of the way.”
“No.” She planted her feet wide apart.
Gently, he grasped her arms to shift her out of his path.
Behind him, the dog growled.
“Sparky’s not a live animal! He’s a K9-500 bot!” She wrenched away, and in her weakened condition, lost her balance. He lunged to catch her before she fell.
The mongrel snarled, charged, and latched its teeth onto Dante’s ankle.
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, tried to pry its mouth open with his bare hands.
“Don’t hurt Sparky!” The cyborg 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 Sparky up and clutched him 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 to the space station, 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 frigid now. She’d never seen such a chilling expression.
Blood stained his pants leg, and he pulled it up to reveal a lacerated ankle. Though small in size, the K9-500 had a jaw like a vise and sharp metal teeth. If the bot had attacked an ordinary human, damage could have been severe. Dante Stone was a cyborg, a computer-enhanced human with biomimetic parts. She’d heard cyborgs were immune to pain and practically indestructible. In her short time on the ship, she’d also heard the captain was one cold S-O-B.