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“I’m sorry, I really didn’t do it on purpose,” Cyburn said, looking genuinely apologetic. “It’s just…” he trailed off to web his fingers with mine. Then he gazed so devoutly into my eyes that I would have believed anything he said to me in the heat of that precise moment. “There was so much going on and—”
“Yeah.” I nodded, realizing he really hadn't had a chance to tell me anything. I gave him a warm smile in return. “I mean I totally get it. We were out there fighting for our lives against the evil killer robots. Literally.” I wasn’t being sarcastic, I honestly understood.
Cyburn’s shoulders relaxed with a bit of ease, and his lips finally curled into a smile of relief. “Yes — exactly.”
“What is going to happen to them?” I asked. “The other people like me?”
“Well, now that we are free from that danger zone sector, we are on course to drop them off at our closest planetary embassy. Right now, we have them resting comfortably and relaxing in another wing of the ship that is meant strictly for the humans. It’s a low stress environment. They are fed and assured that they will be taken to a place where they can get the necessary help to getting them eventually flown back to Earth.”
I exhaled slowly, feeling the tension releasing from my tightened chest. “Thank goodness. The extra work you do to help me, and my fellow humans is not lost on me.” I stroked his hand, giving him a shy smile. “You are wonderful.”
“Wait…what?That’s the first I am hearing about making any unexpected stops.”
The bedazzled Amada emerged from the hallway and stepped into the room with me and Cyburn. She was wearing a long flowing black dress and had an etherealness about her. Her petiteness was unusual for her race from what I'd seen, and I was still trying to get used to it. She was still larger than a human, but significantly smaller than Cyburn and the others.
“I was going to discuss it with you,” Cyburn said, looking particularly crestfallen at her entrance to the room.
“When? I’m the chief engineer, Cyburn. Don’t you think it’s wise to run these things by me?” The accusatory tone of Amada’s voice was undeniable.
The line in Cyburn’s structured jawline twitched. His eyes narrowed and he gave Amada a dark gaze — furthering my confusion about what the hell was going on between the pair. The tension was so thick in the room that it practically choked me.
“I was getting to it,” Cyburn said, his voice altered by the stiffness in his jaw.
Amada’s gaze was even more glacial. She folded her arms curtly across her chest and pursed her lips into a pencil-thin line.
“But you thought it was better to tell thehumanabout itfirst?” There was a thin slice of betrayal in Amada’s voice.
Cyburn sighed with exasperation.
I contemplated silently slipping out of the room to let the two of them duke it out with each other, but something told me that Cyburn would be insistent that I stay. It didn’t matter. I was so uncomfortable I felt rooted to where I stood, anyway.
Amada shifted her weight and huffed loudly, enough to get her point across with the simplicity of the annoying noise in itself.
“Well, what abouther?” Amada nudged her chin in my direction. “Willshebe dropped off at the local embassy as well?”
“You know we’ve already discussed this.” Cyburn talked methodically and patiently as if he were trying to reason with a stubborn toddler and not the ship's chief engineer. “Carmela will be staying with us for—”
“Indefinitely?” Amada shrieked as if that would be her worst nightmare of a situation for her.
Cyburn’s mouth opened and then he quickly clamped it shut again. His eyes skidded to me for a moment before reverting back to Amada.
He looked like he was at a loss for words.
I was seriously starting to get irked that she was speaking about me so viciously as if I wasn’t in the room and couldn’t hear every venomous word that dripped from her tongue.
“Even if we weren’t at liberty to use her skill and experience against these Belic robots, it wouldn’t be possible to just ‘drop off’ Carmela,” Cyburn said. “But I didn’t say indefinitely. You’re putting words in my mouth. Sometimes I like to live in the present and solve onepresentproblem at a time, Amada.”
“Why can’t she go back with the others?” Amada hitched a skeptical eyebrow and cut Cyburn a disheartened scowl.
Cyburn’s gaze reached mine for a second time before he looked back to Amada, looking somewhat on edge as if he was ready to explode like an unstable stick of dynamite.
My heart pounded. My stomach twisted into knots. Every time Amada came around, she brought with her a path of emotional destruction simply by opening her mouth and speaking.
More importantly, it made me severely uncomfortable to be the obvious source of their arguments.
Cyburn didn’t answer right away. He still looked like he didn’t know how to answer her.
“Can’t we just weave around and drop her back at Earth where she belongs?” Amada asked. “That seems safely far away enough from here. The Belic want her. It’s like we have livebaiton our ship with us!”
