Page 21 of Taken By The Alien Warrior Pirate

Even thesoundof her smarmy voice made my blood boil. I immediately wanted to march into the room and start arguing with her to defend myself, but I practiced restraint.

Besides, she wasn’t theonlyone on the bridge who apparently had a problem with me. To say that I was devastated to hear the crew members discussing me like this was an understatement, but I was also extremely angry about it. They didn’t know me. Who weretheyto discuss my validity without any proof either way?

“You stillarein love with him,” Silver cut dryly.

There was a pause, and no one said anything. My heart did a giant leap like an Olympic diver plunging into a pool.

“I’mnotin love with him. It’sdisgustingto watch him fawn all over thathuman.” The words dripped from her mouth as if they felt like poison on her tongue.

“I won’t argue with you there,” Silver said. “However, I still think it’s important for us to give her a chance.”

“Who? Thehuman?” Amada asked.

“She has a name,” Silver said flatly as if she, even as an AI, was just as sick and tired of Amada’s bellyaching about everything as everyone else was.

“I don’t care what her name is,” Amada declared dismissively.

Hot tears stung in my eyes, but they were more from being furious than anything else. Don’t get me wrong. I still felt hurt and betrayed. I debated whether to mention any of this to Cyburn. He had so much on his plate to deal with already. Maybe it was better to just keep it to myself and try to deal with it on my own. I’d been dealing with pressures by myself for my entire life. Why should this be any different? It just went to show that it didn’t matterwhereyou were. The drama would always follow you around. There were always going to be others who couldn’t wait to see you fail.

“Well, I haveotherreasons to be skeptical,” Marver mentioned. “And it has nothing to do with any love triangle drama.”

“Spill it then,” Amada said begrudgingly. “It’s not like you don’t want to, anyway. You always tell your opinion whether others care or not.”

“And so doyou,” Marver barked back and began again. “Well for starters, how can we evenknowthat she hasanyability whatsoever to deal with these Imperial robots?”

“Cyburn vouches for her,” Silver mentioned. “He told me that she has experience working on and constructing robots back on Earth.”

“How convenient,” Amada said snidely. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe she waslyingto get in his good graces and stay with him so she wouldn’t have to be carted off and dropped off at the local embassy?”

“I haven’t wagered either way to be honest,” Silver said in her cool, robotic tone. “It sounds like you are jealous of her, at any rate.”

“Well, your opinion doesn’t hold much weight anyway,” Amada said. “Especially not to me.”

“I don’t have time for this bickering,” Silver fired back sharply. “I actually have a lot of work to do, and I take my job seriously.”

“That’s what you are programmed to do,” Amada declared in a condescending voice and began heckling the A.I.

I stiffened when it dawned on me that Silver was on her way to exiting the bridge. In a flustered attempt to scurry away before she caught me, I ended up inadvertently bumping into her as soon as she shuffled out the door.

Mortified, I pressed my finger to my lips and shook my head in a silent plea to keep her discretion.

Silver narrowed her steely eyes on me and glanced over her shoulder, back in the direction of the bridge.

“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t tell them I was here. I didn’t mean to listen. I just inadvertently walked through here at the same time. I stopped when I heard them mention me.”

Silver paused to reflect while staring at me and making me feel extremely uncomfortable. I stiffened and held my breath, waiting to see what she would do. I was at her mercy. When she opened her mouth, I flinched.

“Fine, but you owe me,” she hissed begrudgingly.

I exhaled slowly and my shoulders relaxed. “Thank you,” I breathed out. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

Silver narrowed her eyes again, clearly contemplating. “Then maybe you can prove it by helping me with something.”

“Sure,” I said eagerly as we began to walk away to ensure that the rest of the crew on the bridge especially Amada didn’t hear us talking. “Anything. What did you have in mind?”

“Will you calm down?” Silver asked, cutting me an impatient scowl.

“Oh.” I literally felt the blood draining from my face. “Yes, sorry.”

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