Page 4 of Salvation for the Alien Mercenary
Davis's expression shifted from disbelief to wariness. "That's just a programmed response to stimuli."
"Bullshit," she shot back. "Ask it a question. Anything."
"Fine." Davis's jaw tightened. "Robot. Are you damaged?"
The leg moved up and down twice—the same gesture it had used to answer Mira's questions. A low, mechanical sound followed, like a negative hum.
"What the hell?"
"See?" she said, voice softening. "It understands. I'm not leaving it here."
"We're not taking unknown tech back to the ship.” He shook his head. "Especially not active unknown tech."
"Then I guess I'm staying here too." She folded her arms. She wasn't backing down—not from this, not from him.
He studied her for a long moment, then sighed.
"You're just like my sister," he grumbled. "She was always rescuing hurt birds and bringing them home."
Holstering his weapon, he moved to help her, carefully shifting larger pieces of debris.
The robot watched them both, its functioning eyes tracking their movements with what she could have sworn was cautious hope. It hummed helpfully, as though encouraging them, trying to drag itself from the hole when it could get purchase.
She clicked her teeth at it. “Stay still, you’ll only hurt yourself even more.”
It stopped, looking up at her and chirping softly.
"Thank you," she said quietly, not looking at Davis.
He didn't reply, but the tension in his shoulders eased slightly.
As they uncovered more of the robot, she caught her breath. The unfamiliar tech was unlike anything she'd worked with before, but she could make educated guesses about which components might house processing units or power systems based on their placement and connections. Every inch they revealed showed more sophisticated engineering beneath the damage.
"Latharian tech," Davis said quietly, examining one of the exposed components with a frown. "And everything Latharian is military. This looks like some kind of specialized unit. I think this is only the base module. Look… here, it looks like other parts are supposed to attach to it. The legs as well. There are connectors on the end for something else.”
Her heart sank. Military tech meant danger—and danger meant he’d never agree to bring it aboard.
"It's not aggressive," she argued. "Look at it. It's scared."
The robot had indeed pulled its remaining legs in close to its body core, its visual array dimmed as if trying to make itself smaller.
Davis frowned deeply. "This could be a problem." He tapped his comm unit. "Tell to Ryke."
After a brief pause, the Reaper leader’s voice came through both their comms. "Go ahead."
She caught Davis's eyes, silently pleading. If he told Ryke that they'd found Latharian military tech, even just a little bit like this, then Ryke never allow it on the ship. She reached out, her hand on Davis's forearm, fingers pressing into the muscle there.
Davis held her gaze for a long moment, then sighed. "We found some additional parts for the secondary shield array. Buried pretty deep. We're extracting them now."
"Good. Finish up soon. We've got most of what we need." The comm clicked off.
Mira released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "You lied for me."
Davis's expression remained carefully neutral, but something shifted in his eyes. "I lied for the robot. Seemed like the logical thing to do."
A smile threatened at the corners of her mouth. "Of course. For the robot."
Working together, they used scrap metal to create a makeshift stretcher. The robot chirped occasionally, like it was offering suggestions even though they couldn't understand what it was saying.
