“Hey, big guy… who pissed on your parade?”
He looked up to find Red, the Warborne’s engineer, on the other side of the cargo bay, looking at Eris’s suit with a gleam in her eye.
“Talent’s patching Eris up. I… she’s hurt. I don’t like her being hurt,” he explained gruffly as he walked over, trying to shrug his anger off like a second skin.
Being snippy with Red was never wise. Not unless he wanted to spend the next few weeks with a temperamental shower unit in his quarters, or his lights permanently on disco. The rest of the crew had quickly learned what not to do from watching Fin, who regularly rubbed the half-Krynassis female the wrong way.
He was currently on week four of the food prep units deciding he liked his morning coffee “superchill” or “lava hot.” In Zero’s opinion, the tall Navarr was sweet on Red and did it on purpose to get a rise out of her. But he’d never say it within earshot of either of them. Sucking vacuum the wrong side of an airlock wasn’t his idea of fun.
Red slid him a sideways glance, arms folded over her chest. She was a tall female, nearly the same height as he was, so she didn’t have to crane her neck. “Huh. Yeah… Another one bites the dust.”
He frowned. “What was that?”
“Nothing.” She shrugged and then waved an electro-spanner at the suit. “Humans built this?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Impressive.”
Red wasn’t effusive with praise. He’d expected a derisive comment, something about humanity being toddlers when it came to higher-level tech and space exploration, so the comment caught him off guard.
“Yeah?”
She nodded, her lips pursed as she considered the suit. It was upright now, and she’d already plugged it into a power module to charge. He winced at the damage it had taken. Some of the armoring had been torn loose and there were bullet holes everywhere. His blood ran cold as he realized just how close Eris had come. All to save him and Sparky.
“For saying the humans built it, yes. It’s some advanced-level thinking right there. I mean, yeah… the execution is a little shoddy. Servos and wiring are rudimentary at best, but the idea of it?” Her lips quirked as she looked at him again. “It’s nearly as impressive as you are, Toaster.”
He groaned. “What will it take for you to forget that stupid nickname?”
She grinned, twirling her spanner. “How about you help me fix up this little beauty for your girl? I’ll bet she won’t like seeing those holes in her.”
“No. She really will not.”
He stepped forward, eager to have something to do. For the next hour or so, he and Red crawled over the armored suit, mending panels and sorting out damaged wiring units. As always, he and Red worked in companionable silence. The comfortable rhythm soothed his soul.
Then Red sighed and dropped her wrench into her toolbox.
“Okay, big guy,” she said, arms resting lightly on her knees as she sat on a gantry next to the suit’s shoulders. “Out with it. What’s bugging you?”
He looked up to find her studying him with a gaze as unblinking as a snake and twice as dangerous. Since she actually did have scales some of the time, the analogy was unerringly accurate. With a sigh, he put down the welding gun and faced her. It was pointless trying to argue with her. She’d just keep going until she got the answers she wanted.
“It’s Eris,” he said bluntly. “She’s so delicate and beautiful. And I’m...”
He grimaced and waved a hand to indicate himself—from his crooked nose where it had been busted in a cage fight in some dingy bar he couldn’t remember the name of through his metal arm to the implants under his skin. “I’m more metal and circuitry than man. How could she want someone like me? I’m just a machine.”
The lack of self-confidence was new and totally unlike him, but he’d never met anyone like Eris before. Someone who made him think, made him feel... made him want to be better than he was.
From the moment he’d met her, he’d wanted her, and he just realized it was more than him wanting to get her into the sack. He wanted more from her than to get his hands on her gorgeous body. Although, he’d be lying if he tried to claim that wasn’t a consideration. He wanted her as a person. And he wanted her to like him. Maybe more...
“You listen to me, Zero.” Red’s voice was firm as she dropped off the gantry to stand in front of him. “I’ve known you since T’Raal pulled you half-dead out of that gods-damn wreckage. You are not just a machine. If you think that, I’ll happily go a couple of rounds in the ring with you and give you enough bruises to prove you’re a living, breathing, feeling being. Okay?”
She hooked her hand into the back of his neck, bringing his forehead down to rest against hers. “You’re no more a machine than I am a cold-blooded lizard.”
Then she sighed. “I’m not good with this emotional shit, but you are one of the best men I know. You’re sensitive and caring, and I love you like a brother. Which means I have no problems putting the beat-down on you if you keep talking crap like this. Okay?”
His lips quirked. “So your way of dealing with my existential crisis is to threaten to kick my ass? You do see the irony in that, right? Your way of showing familial love is an expression of violence.”
“Affectionate violence,” she corrected. “And I promise not to kill you.”
“Gee, thanks,” he muttered hoarsely past the lump in his throat.
“You’re welcome. Any of us would do the same. We’re Warborne, remember? Warborne first. Warborne always.”
“Warborne always.”
The instant Zero got the notification from Talent that he was releasing Eris from Medbay, he put down his tools
