"I'm so glad you see things my way, officers. I know the boys in blue are busy, and a minor incident like this is better closed with expediency so you can get back to what matters."

  To Trigger, the pair of station security officers both look like they've taken a recklessly large bite of lemon, and the expression has remained unchanged since Eli and the primly dressed snow leopard at his side walked through the door. One would think it would have to do with the grizzled, hard-faced merc who threw the glass door open so hard that it rattled in its frame, but no. As soon as they spotted the woman behind him, any light in the guards' eyes died, crashing and burning harder than a fully fueled MiG-25 with a sheared off wing.

  'Which is impressive, really. Fourteen-point-one metric tons of JP-4 burns quite vigorously,' he muses.

  The one behind the front desk of the detention center lobby, a short, pinched-faced dog, clears his throat. "Think nothing of it, Missus Weissfeld," he forces out, the words careful and stilted. "It's like you said, it's better for everyone's time this way…"

  "...umb cunt…"

  The man looks down at the limp, drunken mink in his arms, who miraculously is getting away from all this without a charge. The knuckles of her right hand, which is clenching his flightsuit, still have little flecks of red on them from the beaver whose teeth she knocked out.

  He missed the first part of the conversation at the bar amid some overly harsh electronic band, but he definitely heard the "Too skanky to land anyone but a monkey, huh?" said loud enough for the beaver's friends to hear.

  The slurred "Bitch!" and the snap of Mila's fist breaking a jaw was even louder. By the time Trigger managed to pull Mila off her trio of victims, it was too late to slink past station security.

  The officer continues, each word sounding like it's being pulled from his tongue with fishhooks. "According to witness statements, Miss Minks was clearly provoked by hateful speciesist comments directed at her significant other." He adjusts his collar, eyes flicking to Catrina and then quickly away. "Given the circumstances, it would be in bad taste to pursue charges. We'll be issuing a verbal warning. That's all."

  Trigger notes what's absent from the summary. No mention of what the beaver called Mila, and no mention that the mink in his arms reeks of alcohol and can barely keep her eyes open. Whoever coached this man on what to say did so very precisely.

  The snow leopard tilts her head, one spotted ear angling forward. "And this verbal warning," she begins, her tone as light as a feather, "it will remain verbal, yes? Nothing logged into Miss Minks' station record?"

  The officer behind the desk slumps in his chair like someone cut his strings. "...Just verbal," he repeats, the resignation in his voice so total that Trigger almost feels bad for the man. Almost. "You and your associate are free to go, sir."

  Trigger inclines his head. "Thank you for your time, officers."

  He doesn't linger. Whatever spell Eli's companion cast over this place, Trigger has no desire to be present when it wears off. Shifting Mila's weight into a bridal carry and taking care to not step on her tail, he turns for the door and gestures for Eli and the snow leopard to follow.

  "Mmh... Trigger?" Mila stirs against him as the detention center's glass door swings shut behind them, her voice thick and slurred. One ruby eye cracks open, glazed and unfocused. "Did I win?"

  "You were almost put in a cell," he admonishes quietly.

  "So I won..." The eye closes, and she nuzzles into his chest with a content little sound. "'Cause nobody... Stoopid buck-toothed bitch… I fuggen…"

  She's asleep again within three steps.

  The corridor outside the detention center is wide and sterile, the fluorescent overhead strips casting everything in flat, clinical white. A few passersby give the odd quartet a wide berth, their eyes lingering and heads occasionally turning.

  "Captain Trigger, I presume?" The snow leopard woman falls into step on his left, her heels clicking a measured cadence on the linoleum-covered deck plating. Up close, she's taller than he expected, nearly his height, and carries herself with the straight-backed poise of someone who has never once questioned whether she belongs in a room. "Catrina Weissfeld. Senior Partner at Peron and Associates. I believe Mister Gunjar has briefed you on my application."

  "He mentioned you were the frontrunner," Trigger replies, adjusting Mila so her head rests more securely against his shoulder. "Though I'll admit, I expected the introduction to happen over a table, not outside a holding cell."

  The ghost of a smile touches Catrina's muzzle, there and gone. "Life seldom presents opportunities at convenient times. The wise seize them regardless."

  "Eli tells me you have extensive experience in Libret jurisdictional law," Trigger continues, keeping his tone conversational. Professional. "Corporate disputes, criminal defense, contract negotiation."

  "Among other things." Catrina adjusts the cuff of her blazer with a practiced flick. "Nearly forty years of practice across six legal systems tends to produce a diverse portfolio. I've represented frontier prospectors and Trade Union executives alike, Captain. The law doesn't care who signs my retainer, and neither do I." She pauses, her ice-blue eyes studying him with an attentiveness that reminds him of a scope's crosshair. "What matters is results. I trust the last twenty minutes have demonstrated that adequately."

  They have. Catrina walked into that detention center, dismantled whatever case station security might have built, and walked out with a clean record for Mila in less time than it takes Trigger to run a non-emergency preflight check. That kind of efficiency doesn't come from talent alone, it comes from knowing where the pressure points are and having no qualms about pressing them.

  It's impressive.

  It also makes his gut tingle.

  Trigger has survived as long as he has by trusting that instinct, the formless whisper in his hindbrain that flags something his conscious mind hasn't caught up to yet. It kept him alive over Farbanti, over Anchorhead, over the space elevator. Right now, it's murmuring, but he can't tell if the feeling is careful, this one has teeth or good, you need someone with teeth.

  Perhaps both.

  They reach a small tram station nestled between two commercial blocks, the platform already occupied by a handful of tired-looking dockworkers waiting for their connection to the lower levels. An overhead display ticks down the seconds until arrival.

  Trigger turns to face Catrina, shifting Mila to a more comfortable position. The mink mumbles something unintelligible and curls a fist tighter into his flightsuit.

  "Missus Weissfeld," he begins. "Thank you for your assistance tonight. I apologize that your first impression of Strider Squadron involves me collecting one of ours from a holding cell."

  Catrina waves a spotted hand, dismissive. "On the contrary, Captain. It told me quite a bit about your organization. You have loyal people willing to throw punches for one another, and a commanding officer who shows up personally to retrieve them." Her tail sways once behind her. "I've worked with worse foundations."

  Trigger holds her gaze for a beat, then nods. "Your showing tonight will be taken into consideration during the selection process. You can expect a callback within a few days."

  "I'll be waiting." She produces a slim business card from somewhere within her blazer and extends it between two claws. "My direct line. Day or night, Captain. Legal emergencies don't keep office hours."

  Trigger takes the card with his free hand and slips it into his breast pocket. "Noted. Have a good evening, Missus Weissfeld."

  "And you, Captain. Mister Gunjar." She inclines her head to each of them in turn, then pivots on her heel with the kind of clean, unhurried grace that suggests she's never rushed a day in her life, and walks back the way they came, her silhouette swallowed by the corridor crowd within moments.

  The tram arrives with a pneumatic hiss. Trigger and Eli step aboard, finding a pair of seats near the back. Mila, still dead to the world, ends up draped across Trigger's lap with her head against his shoulder, her tail dangling off the edge of the seat.

  The car lurches into motion. For a while, neither man speaks, the hum of the tram and the muted chatter of dockworkers filling the silence.

  Eli breaks it first. "Well?"

  Trigger pulls Catrina's business card from his pocket and turns it over between his fingers. Thick stock with embossed, silvery lettering. Not a single crease or dog-ear.

  "She's good," Trigger says.

  "Dangerous, I would say." Eli counters with a sniff. "I warned her that merc life is going to be a raw deal, that there might come times she's going to see corpses or be shitting in a bucket, but there was no reaction," he says, the edge of his beak pulling down. "Paperpushers always show something, a twitch of the face or a hitch in how they talk. This one is not normal."

  Trigger slips the card back into his pocket and looks down at Mila, who has started drooling on his flightsuit again.

  "Are any of us normal?"

  Eli turns his head, taking in Trigger with a narrowed eye. "You want her, then?"

  "She is an interesting candidate, is what I'm saying," Trigger replies with a nonanswer. "We'll review the others first before making a decision, of course."

  The eagle nods once, and the rest of the ride to the Aquila is silent, broken only by Mila's little snores.

  The fruit-flavored painkiller was supposed to kick in twenty minutes ago.

  "Nnnngh..."

  It hasn't, apparently.

  Mila groans into his thigh, curled up on the old rec room couch that now sits against the hangar's port-side wall, decidedly out of place amid tool racks and fuel lines. One arm dangles off the cushion, limp as a noodle. The other is draped over her eyes, blocking out the overhead lights that are, as she voiced in her very professional opinion, specifically designed to murder hungover people.

  "I'm dying," Mila announces to no one in particular.

  "You're not dying," Trigger says patiently as he scrolls through the static window projected by his comm. The fingers of his other hand absently work the base of her right ear. "I told you to drink some water before bed."

  "Water doesn't fix poison," Mila whines. "Someone poisoned me, Trigger. At the bar. There is no other explanation for why I feel so bad. I bet it was that fat bitch of a beaver."

  "I watched to make sure no one dosed your drinks. What happened is you drank four rum and cola's back to back."

  "...The barman was heavy-handed."

  "You told him not to be shy with the rum."

  Mila pulls the arm off her eyes just enough to squint up at him. Her mussed fur and the crust around her reddened eyes makes her appear all the more indignant. "Whose side are you on?"

  "Consider this punishment for almost landing yourself in a cell," Trigger says, and the fingers on her ear pause just long enough to make the point before resuming. "The hangover will pass. A station record would not have."

  Mila's indignation crumbles into a pitiful groan, and she flops her arm back over her eyes. "You're so mean to me… Everyone is so mean to me…"

  "Mm."

  When the mink's grumbling subsides into something closer to drowsy misery, Trigger returns his attention to the wristcomm screen balanced on the armrest.

  The forum thread has gained forty-three new replies about the new episode of Comet Tails since he checked it last night, and his drafted response to the most egregiously wrong detail has been sitting in the text box since before Mila woke up. He reads it over one final time, makes a minor adjustment to a decimal point, and hits send.

  3rdInLine: CosmicVelvet_88 This is incorrect on every level. A standard-output laserbolt from a Corneria City Arms C13 Generation 4 sidearm delivers approximately 1.1 kilojoules at the muzzle. The Acrowing's canopy is 30mm trilaminate composite with a rigid outer layer specifically engineered to disperse both thermal energy and kinetic impacts across the panel surface. Is the Acrowing inferior to the Arwing? Yes, considerably. Does that mean a sidearm bolt can punch through its canopy? No. Even at point-blank range, you are looking at surface scoring and localized delamination at worst. Furthermore, even in the hypothetical scenario where a bolt DID penetrate, sealing the breach with melted taffy from the glovebox would not maintain cabin pressure. A hole of that size in a pressurized cockpit would result in explosive decompression within seconds. Ryuha would be dead before he finished unwrapping the taffy. The scene is entertaining but physically impossible. The writers should have consulted someone.

  He sets his hand down and counts.

  Forty seconds. The first reply notification pings.

  CosmicVelvet_88: How long did you spend typing that?

  gladadorio: Uh oh here come the acrowing fanboys (poors) lol

  FalcoMyHusbando: WHO THE FUCK CARES

  St4rlight: nobody asked for a physics lecture you friendless loser

  Dernutcrackken: gladadorio A new Acrowing is like a million cc what the fuck are you smoking

  TuskTusk44: Dude you're stupid and not as impossible as you think it is. Let's break it down and I'll show you that it could work. See here are the docs on that trilaminate composate and…

  Trigger reads each reply, then he glances at the forum's header, where the site logo sits in garish, stylized font.

  ExpanseWars.

  'I am, without question, the only person on this site with a functioning brain,' he thinks, closing the tab and clipping the watch-like device back to his wrist.

  A heavier clank draws his attention to the hangar door, still open to the docking bay beyond. The pair of new labor bots, the same industrial humanoid models as before, march up to the hovering forklift dropping off the latest delivery. The optical sensors in their cam-like heads flash amber as they scan the shipment tag, verify it against the manifest in their memory, and then grip the crate in unison, ferrying it to the growing stack along the starboard wall.

  The bots were the first delivery of the morning, and their timing was fortunate. Lars and Jodie left early to get personal errands across the station done. Eli is running down the remaining lawyer candidates for due diligence. Eddy is off doing… whatever Eddy does in his downtime, which Trigger has chosen not to think too hard about. Hopefully no loansharks show up at the door as a result.

  That leaves Stella - who can't exactly stand in an open hangar where any passing spacer can see her - cleaning up the infirmary to her standards and moving supplies around as they come in, and Trigger and Mila on supply reception.

  Or rather, it leaves Trigger on supply reception. His contribution to the effort currently involves one eye on the manifest, one eye on the hangar door, and both hands occupied by a mink who couldn't sit upright this morning without turning green.

  Having the bots drag the couch out here was a pragmatic call. Mila refused to stay in bed, insisting through a yawn that she could help, and Trigger knows her well enough by now to understand that arguing would cost more energy than accommodation. This way, she's technically present for duty, and he can keep her from wandering bleary-eyed into a stack of crates.

  Another forklift hums into view outside the hangar door, and the labor bots pivot to receive it.

  Trigger watches them work for a moment, then looks down at Mila. Her breathing has evened out, and her ears have gone soft and slack under his fingers. Asleep again, or close to it.

  He resumes petting her ears and pulls the wristcomm back up with his free hand.

  Forty-seven new replies now. 'Morons…'

  A few more things are dropped off, like a desk-sized chem synthesizer for the infirmary, a new crate of food, batches of smaller bits and bobs ordered by Jodie, and then some.

  Then comes the one Trigger was anticipating most.

  Four upright cases roll into view on the forklift's platform, each one roughly the height and width of a person, boxy, colored dark, and sealed in thick industrial plastic. Under the wrapping, a logo pulses with a dim red glow: MWF, rendered in angular, no-nonsense lettering that manages to look aggressive even as a simple typeface.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The combat bots.

  Trigger watches the labor bots receive the shipment and pull the cases aboard, a small frown settling on his face.

  Finding quality security units on short notice had been an exercise in frustration. Most of what Tantalus' open market offered was Cheyat-brand garbage with response times that would get someone killed, or boutique models priced for collectors who wanted something pretty yet semi-useful in their foyer. Then Eli forwarded him a listing: four units, model designation RK-4 "Rampart," recently decommissioned from the high-roller floor of Tantalus' largest casino. The owner had purchased a newer lot and was auctioning the old guard in batches.

  The bots, despite being second hand, were not cheap, and anyone who knows the name stamped on those cases knows why.

  MWF, or Macbeth Weapons Factory, is the one of the few corporate entities in the galaxy that gives Corneria-founded Space Dynamics a genuine run for its money, both in technological advancement and in the kind of sterling reputation that turns customers into borderline cultists.

  During his reign of terror, Andross seized the mining and industrial planet of Macbeth in the Lylat system, and converted its continent-spanning industrial complexes into a war engine of staggering output. The machines that rolled off those factory lines were nightmares given serial numbers: autonomous tanks, walking siege platforms, even fighter craft that rivaled the fabled Arwing. The Cornerian military, hemorrhaging ships and personnel, was days away from authorizing an orbital bombardment of the planet's surface when Star Fox intervened. They liberated the factories and saved millions of lives in what is now considered one of the most consequential operations in modern military history.

  Years later, the name on those factory walls hasn't changed, and neither has the quality. Macbeth Weapons Factory still sits comfortably on its throne as the galaxy's premier weapons manufacturer. Their guns hit harder, their ships fly meaner, and their robots operate with a lethality rivaling seasoned organics.

  The parallels to Belka aren't lost on Trigger. A nation of brilliant engineers whose innovations shaped the face of war for generations, whose technology was both coveted and feared in equal measure. The comparison isn't perfect, Belka tore itself apart in nuclear fire, while Macbeth was occupied and freed, but the core truth is the same:

  The most dangerous weapons are built by those who understand war as a science, not some ephemeral, chaotic concept.

  And for the low, low price of three hundred and fifty-seven thousand credits, four of their last-generation models now belong to Strider Squadron.

  Trigger looks down. Mila has gone fully limp, one ear twitching in her sleep.

  "Mila." He gives her shoulder a gentle shake. "Up."

  "Mmfive more minutes..."

  "The combat units are here. I need to stand."

  One bloodshot eye cracks open, stares at him like he just asked her to perform the impossible, and then closes again, but she does move, sluggishly peeling herself off his lap and slumping into the corner of the couch, where her cheek presses against the backrest.

  "'M up," she lies.

  Trigger rises, rolls the stiffness from his neck, and signals the labor bots with a sharp two-fingered gesture toward the cases. They abandon their current task stacking cargo and march over, gripping the wrapped pallet and ferrying them to the open space beside the stairs leading up from the hangar floor to the bridge corridor.

  He follows, twisting his wrist and projecting a blue hardlight knife from his comm. The wrapping peels away in long, crackling strips, revealing a glossy black shell underneath, cool to the touch and stamped with an inventory tag, a serial number, and the red MWF emblem, now unfiltered and sharp.

  Trigger runs a thumb across the emblem, feeling the slight raise of the etching beneath his skin.

  'Let's see what three hundred and fifty-seven thousand credits buys,' he thinks to himself, dismissing the knife and pressing a thumb to the finger reader panel on the first case.

  The first RK-4 stands upright in its case, set into contoured black foam like a rifle in a gun case, limbs secured by padded clamps at the wrists, ankles, and waist. A thin film of preservative oil gives its plating a faint sheen under the hangar lights.

  Trigger gives it a slow, thorough once-over.

  It's tall. Not by human standards, but certainly by Cornerian ones. Five-ten, maybe five-eleven, which would put it at eye level with him and a full head above most of the crew. The proportions have some bulk to them, and where the labor bots are utilitarian in a blunt, boxy sort of way, the RK-4 is utilitarian in a way that whispers of violence. The angles of its armored body are set with deliberate intent, faceted so that almost no flat surface presents itself from the front. Every panel is a shallow wedge designed to send incoming fire skipping off at an angle rather than absorbing the hit square.

  'Same principle as sloped tank armor,' Trigger notes, crouching slightly to examine the torso. 'Simple physics, but effective. Whoever designed these did their homework.'

  The head draws his eye next. Vaguely reptilian, with a thick, abbreviated muzzle that ends in a blank, mouthless plate. No jaw, no grille, nothing to snag or pry open. Two horizontal slits of deep red sit where eyes would be, photo receptors recessed behind armored louvers. Above them, two straight, horn-like antennas sweep backward from the crown of the skull, flanked by a smaller pair of backups tucked closer to the head. Primary and redundant sensor arrays, if he had to guess. Kill the main horns and the bot doesn't go blind.

  The limbs are where the bulk sits. Thick with gapless, well-fitted plating, and the left forearm carries a noticeably denser plate along its outer edge that Trigger can see is hinged to fold outward into a shield. The hands are metal, unrubberized, five digits each but arranged in a configuration he hasn't seen before: three fingers forward and two thumbs opposing from behind, gripping from both sides. Zygodactyl, he thinks the arrangement is called, like a parrot's foot, built for locking onto weapons and not letting go. The feet mirror the arrangement, two broad toes forward and two back, giving the bot a wide, stable base. On both of its thighs are black and yellow caution stripes, labeled Magnets - Pinch Hazard - Do Not Touch.

  Every joint, the knees, the elbows, the ankles, the neck, is sheathed in a fine metallic mesh that flexes when Trigger presses a finger to it. Woven trininum, most likely. Enough to stop a glancing bolt from slipping into the gaps, though a sustained, focused shot would probably burn through.

  He straightens and reaches out, pressing his palm flat against the chest plate. The surface is cool and unnervingly smooth, with a color that sits somewhere between burnt orange and dried blood, depending on how the light catches it.

  Ogonite.

  Trigger knows the material by reputation alone, from the same deep dives into databases and digitized history books that often prelude bedtime. If trininum is the wider galaxy's answer to titanium, strong, lightweight, and desired for use in military applications, then ogonite is tungsten dialed up to eleven.

  Ogonite is the densest and toughest metallic element known to science. Found exclusively in the cores of dead stars that sit just a hair below the density threshold needed to collapse into strange matter, ogonite is both vanishingly rare and miserable to work with. Refining it requires gravity forges, specialized facilities that simulate the crushing pressures of stellar interiors, and the processes used to shape it into usable plate are closely guarded secrets held by a handful of foundries outside Macbeth itself.

  The plating on the RK-4 is only a few microns thick. A film, really, little more than paint to the naked eye, but those few microns alone add several kilos to the bot's weight and account for nearly a third of its price tag. For good reason, too, as a few microns of ogonite gives any surface underneath a handful of free shots before the trininum plate below is exposed.

  Two, three, maybe even four shots that the enemy has to waste hitting the same place before they even begin doing real damage. In a firefight, where seconds and shot counts are the difference between breathing and bleeding, that margin is worth every credit.

  Trigger withdraws his hand and takes a step back, regarding the inert machine with crossed arms.

  The RK-4 seems to stare back.

  'If you're half as fearsome as you look,' he thinks, looking up at the holoprojector in the hangar ceiling, 'then you'll do just fine.' Taking a deep breath, Trigger speaks aloud. "Nidhogg?"

  "Standing by," The AI answers immediately, both through Trigger's comm and the intercom overhead. He can almost feel the cameras in the corners of the hanger burning a hole into his head.

  "Begin configuration of the RK-4s. Do not constrain yourself," Trigger lets the words fly before thoughts of Belka can take root. "Do whatever you see fit to them to keep the crew safe."

  Just like with the group of pirates during the test of the MQ-99s, Nidhogg takes a half-second to formulate an answer, and when it comes, it does so with a strange, excited inflection.

  "Acknowledged. Beginning requested operation."

  A few seconds tick by, then ten, then thirty. At the fifty second mark, the bot lets out a bee-beep! and finally begins to power on.

  It takes Nidhogg almost a full minute to finish configuring just one unit, something Trigger notes with labor bots took seconds apiece when they arrived this morning, little more than a handshake between Nidhogg's systems and their rudimentary processors. A minute of dedicated processing time from an AI that can manage the Aquila's entire sensor suite while simultaneously cracking encrypted datapads suggests that whatever is inside the RK-4's chassis is significantly more complex than a forklift with legs.

  'Good. If the hardware was simple, I'd be worried about what we paid for.'

  The case emits a second chime. Then a low, resonant hum builds from somewhere deep in the RK-4's torso, rising in pitch before settling into a steady thrum. The red slits flicker once, twice, then ignite with a steady glow that casts faint lines of crimson across the foam lining of the case.

  The bot's head tilts, just a fraction. A calibration movement, cycling through its range of sensor input. Then the padded clamps release with a series of sharp clicks, and the RK-4 steps forward out of its case.

  The motion is smooth. Disturbingly so. None of the jerky, servo-driven stuttering that plagues cheaper models. The bot plants one zygodactyl foot on the hangar deck, shifts its weight, and brings the other forward akin to a living thing testing unfamiliar ground. It stops a meter from the case and begins cycling through function checks, rolling its shoulders in their sockets, flexing each finger individually, rotating its wrists and ankles through their full range. The mesh at its joints stretches and contracts without a whisper of friction.

  "Whoa..."

  Trigger turns to find Mila at his elbow, bloodshot eyes wide and hangover momentarily forgotten. She watches the RK-4 roll its neck in a slow circle, the horn antennas sweeping a lazy arc, and her ears prick forward in fascination.

  "I've never seen a bot move like that," she murmurs, her gaze tracking the machine as it extends its left arm and unfolds the shield plate, then collapses it back with a clean snap. "It's so…" Mila raises her hands and wiggles her fingers, "...fluid."

  She steps closer before Trigger can stop her, rises on her toes, and raps her knuckles twice against the RK-4's forehead plate. The bot pauses mid-check, its red slits angling down to regard the mink.

  "Niddy? You in there?"

  The response comes from the RK-4's chest, a small speaker grille recessed beneath the collar plating. The voice is unmistakably Nidhogg's, though filtered through hardware with less mass, it lacks the bass depth of the ship's intercom.

  "Negative. My primary processing core remains aboard the Aquila. This unit is receiving instructions via remote link."

  Mila puts her hands on her hips, cocking her head. "Doesn't it ever get boring, though? Just hanging out in the ship all day?" She raises a finger before the bot can respond. "And don't lie. I get not wanting to walk around in one of the clunky chore bots, but this one?" She gestures up and down the RK-4's frame with both hands, grinning. "This one is rad."

  The RK-4 resumes its function check, curling its three fingers into a fist and extending them again. There is a pause, barely a fraction of a second, but Trigger catches it. A delay that has no business existing in a machine that just spent a full minute being configured by a cutting-edge AI.

  "Monitoring for electronic threats and refining internal processes occupies operational cycles sufficiently," Nidhogg answers.

  "But is that fun?" Mila presses, tilting her head to mirror the bot's earlier movement. "That just sounds like you work twenty-four-seven. That's not healthy, Niddy."

  "Irrelevant to my function. RK-4 units are designated for the security of Strider Squadron. Utilizing one for recreational purposes serves no operational objective."

  Trigger watches the exchange in silence, arms crossed.

  Nidhogg is a program. A very sophisticated, very capable program with processing power that borders on frightening, but a program nonetheless. Programs don't get bored. They don't crave leisure. They execute tasks and await new ones, and the downtime between is no more unpleasant to them than the off-state of a light switch is to the bulb.

  "Nidhogg is right," Trigger says, drawing Mila's attention. "The bots are tools. They aren't for playing around in."

  Mila rounds on him, and despite the bags under her eyes, the look she levels at him carries genuine conviction. "Trigger, come on. Nidhogg isn't like a regular AI. You know that by now." She holds up a hand and starts ticking off fingers. "He has opinions. He gets excited when you let him off the leash. He hesitated just now before answering my question." She jabs a claw toward the RK-4, which has resumed its function checks as if the conversation isn't happening. "Normal programs don't do that!"

  She steps closer to Trigger, lowering her voice but not her intensity. "Would it really kill us to let him take one for a walk when nothing's going on? He keeps this whole ship running and never asks for anything. Really, he's way more of a crewmate than a tool, Trigger."

  Trigger reaches out and takes Mila by the shoulders gently. "We bought the RK-4s for the express purpose of defending the ship and keeping the backline safe," he says, holding her gaze. "Letting one wander around for leisure when it could be the difference between a living crew member and a dead one is a risk I'm not comfortable with."

  Mila's muzzle scrunches, her ears pinning back. The sourness in her expression isn't petulance, it's the look she gets when something genuinely bothers her and she can't articulate why.

  "It's not fair to him, Trigger." Her voice is quieter now, a hint of melancholy joining the indignation. "He's not some toy chatbot you download to entertain kids. He runs the ship and he watches our backs every second of every day. He deserves some freedom."

  Trigger opens his mouth and turns toward the RK-4. "Nidhogg, what is your-"

  "Don't." Mila catches his arm. Her claws prickle through the sleeve of his flightsuit, and when he looks back, her red eyes are sharp despite the hangover haze. "Don't ask him. You know he'll just say whatever you want to hear. A subordinate reading the room is never honest."

  The words hit harder than Trigger expects.

  Mila holds his gaze for a beat, then releases his arm and crosses her own, shifting her weight to one hip. The gears behind her eyes are turning, and Trigger recognizes the look. It's the same one she wears when she's about to try a new angle of attack in a dogfight.

  "Fine," she says. "What if I buy another one? Out of my cut."

  Trigger blinks.

  "Another RK-4," Mila clarifies, as if he might have misheard. "For Niddy. His own unit that isn't part of the security detail. That way you still have four on defense and he gets one to stretch his legs in. Problem solved."

  "Mila," Trigger says slowly. "A single RK-4 is over a hundred thousand credits used."

  "I know."

  She says it the way she says "I know" when he tells her a training exercise is going to hurt: with full awareness and zero intention of backing down.

  Trigger studies her face, studies the narrowed, bloodshot eyes and the stubborn set of her jaw. She'd burn through the better part of her earnings from the Farworth job without a second thought, for a machine.

  Except that's the whole point, isn't it? She doesn't think of Nidhogg as a machine.

  'He has opinions. He gets excited when you let him off the leash. He hesitated.'

  Trigger is quiet for a long moment. The RK-4 stands motionless beside them, its function checks complete, red slits seemingly staring at nothing, yet the man can feel more than Mila's eyes on him. The labor bots continue their work at the hangar door, metal feet clanking on deck plating, indifferent to the philosophical argument unfolding ten meters away.

  Then Trigger turns to face the RK-4, rubbing his chin as he thinks. 'I should shave after this.'

  "Nidhogg."

  The robot seems to perk up. "Standing by."

  "During downtime, and only during downtime, you may commandeer one RK-4 unit for personal use." He pauses, giving time for each word to land. "Only one. If there is even a hint of a threat to the organic members of this crew, all four units are to be redeployed to strategically appropriate positions. No exceptions. Is that understood?"

  One full second passes before Nidhogg answers, an eternity for a computer.

  "Acknowledged, Captain."

  Mila's hand finds Trigger's, and her face lights up.

  In a way, it was fortunate that the bounty hunters who stormed the ship cut the heavy rec-room table off its bolted down stem to use as cover, as it let the crew dispose of it for a larger one with a bit more ease.

  The new table is nothing special - a rectangular slab of metal alloy with rounded corners and folding legs, bought off a liquidation lot from a decommissioned frigate, but it seats the entire crew without any elbows bumping.

  Tonight, it seats seven, and the air in the rec room smells like heaven.

  Lars stands at the galley counter with a ladle in one hand that he dips into a large stockpot, doling out generous portions of a thick, rust-colored stew over beds of fluffy grain. Whatever spice blend he's used has been making the whole ship smell like a restaurant for the past hour, drawing crew members to the rec room like moths to a flame well before the rottweiler declared the food ready.

  Mila eyes her bowl with the narrow suspicion of a bomb technician. She picks up her spoon, sniffs, and squints at Lars as he settles into his own seat, the chair groaning under his bulk.

  "You didn't put that wild sauce in this one, did you?" she asks, pointing the spoon at him like an accusation. "Because last time I couldn't feel my tongue for two days, Lars. Two. Days."

  Lars clutches his chest with one massive hand, the picture of wounded innocence. "You insult me, minky. I used my special extra-mild recipe tonight." He grins, his tongue lolling just slightly. "For peque?as LOSA bebés who can't handle a little kick."

  "What did you call me?!"

  "Bah, just eat."

  Mila mutters under her breath, but a spoonful of stew cuts her retort short. Her ears shoot up, and the outrage on her face melts into something far more agreeable as she chews. "...Okay, this is actually really good, but I'm watching you."

  Lars just chuckles and returns back to his own food.

  Beside Trigger, Eli eats with the efficient, joyless precision of a man fueling a machine. Between bites, he speaks in a low voice pitched for Trigger's ears.

  "Ran down a few of the remaining candidates today," the eagle says, dabbing the corner of his beak with a napkin. "Mixed bag. There are one or two who might be worth a second look if the leopard falls through, but the rest?" He shakes his head. "Either the wrong kind of dirtbag or the type who'll be begging to be taken home before a week is out."

  "Define 'wrong kind,'" Trigger replies, tearing up a piece of bread and crumbling it into his food.

  "The kind who would sell our flight recorder to a tabloid for pocket change." Eli clicks his tongue. "One somehow picked up a warrant between applying and the interview. Nidhogg flagged it within thirty seconds of the interview starting. The look on his face when I brought it up was almost worth the time I wasted."

  Trigger nods slowly. "So Weissfeld remains the frontrunner."

  "By a parsec."

  A metallic clank from the corner draws a few heads. Eddy, mid-chew with his cheeks puffed out, jerks a thumb at the RK-4 standing in the shadow beside the stairs. The bot is motionless, its red slits dimly lit, facing the table with the stillness of a suit of armor in a museum.

  "Yo," the gecko manages around a mouthful of stew. He swallows and tries again. "What's the tin man doin' just standing there? It's creepin' me out."

  Trigger opens his mouth to answer.

  "Nidhogg gets to keep one!" Mila announces brightly, bouncing in her seat. "He's not just a voice in the walls anymore. He can actually walk around and hang out with us now!" She beams at the RK-4 like a proud parent at a school play.

  "That is... not exactly what happened," Trigger interjects. "Nidhogg is allowed to borrow one unit for personal use during scheduled downtime. The other three remain on security detail at all times."

  The reactions around the table arrive in quick succession.

  Eli's eye narrows, flicking from Trigger to the RK-4 and back. The look says we'll be discussing this later without a syllable leaving his beak.

  Jodie raises an eyebrow, but otherwise seems unbothered.

  Stella's spoon pauses halfway to her mouth. Her purple eyes study the bot in the corner with the guarded, uncertain expression of someone recalculating a risk assessment in real time.

  Eddy stares at the RK-4 for a long, uncomfortable moment, then turns back to the table with a grin that doesn't reach his eyes. "Oh, great. Real comforting to know the super murder AI can follow us around in meatspace now. I'll be sure to sleep real good tonight."

  Lars, casual as always, glances over his shoulder at the bot and waves a massive hand. "Metal man, don't just stand there staring at us. Come on."

  The RK-4's head tilts. Then, with smooth precision, probably down to the degree, it rotates one-eighty on its heel and faces the wall.

  Eddy giggles under his breath, and although Jodie shakes her head, her lips twitch upward.

  "...That's not what I meant," Lars says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Come sit with us. At the table."

  "Negative," Nidhogg's voice replies from the bot's chest speaker. "Occupying a seat at a dining table serves no functional purpose."

  "So? You can at least visit with the crew during mealtimes." Lars pats the empty spot beside him and Jodie. "Nobody's making you eat. Just sit."

  The RK-4 remains facing the wall for another moment. Trigger watches it carefully, noting the slight tilt of the horned head, the faintest rotation of one antenna. What the AI could be thinking in its core is anyone's guess.

  Then the bot turns and crosses the rec room in five measured strides, its zygodactyl feet clicking against the deck plating. The crew tracks its approach with varying degrees of enthusiasm, Mila grinning, Lars nodding in approval, Eddy scooting his chair a few centimeters further away.

  The only remaining seat is one of the mismatched leftovers from the Aquila's previous owners, a rickety thing with one leg shorter than the others that nobody ever sits in by choice.

  Jodie sees it first and is a half-second too late to do anything about it, her brown-furred hand reaching out futilely.

  "Hold on, Niddy, that chair ain't-"

  The RK-4 sits.

  There is a sound like a gunshot as all four legs buckle simultaneously, and the chair collapses into a flat pile of snapped particle board and plywood beneath several hundred kilos of ogonite-plated military hardware. The bot hits the deck with a resonant clang that rattles every dish on the table, its legs splayed out in front of it amid the wreckage.

  The rec room goes very quiet.

  The RK-4 looks down at the remains of the chair, then up at the crew. Its red slits betray nothing.

  "...Warning: splinter hazard," Nidhogg observes, standing.

  Eddy is the first to crack, wheezing into his stew. Mila and Jodie follow a half-second later. Lars' booming laugh shakes the dishes all over again, and even Stella hides a smile behind her hand.

  Eli just closes his eye and pinches the bridge of his beak.

  Trigger stares at the ruined chair, then at the bot standing placidly in the middle of the mess.

  "...We'll get you a crate for now," he says.