AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Okay. I’ll head out there first while you, ahh, compose yourself.” She ran her hands through her hair. “How do I look?”
“Beautiful.”
She tittered. “Thanks. But I mean, am I presentable?”
“I don’t understandpresentable.”
“That’s okay.” She went to the navigational screen, pulled up the camera feed of herself, and neatened her hair. “First order of business, we need to get an unbreakable mirror in here.”
Satisfied that she lookedpresentable, she stepped outside as I calmed my body.
“You convinced her to stay,” Pip said to me. “Good job! All that’s left is the mate bond. I knew things would work out between you two. I knew the moment I saw her that she was the one.”
I frowned. Wasn’t that my line?
“And don’t worry, I won’t be a cock block.”
“I don’t even know what that means.” Pip had clearly been spending too much time on the human internet.
“It means when you two do the horizontal tango, you won’t even know I’m here.”
“That does not help. What is a horizontal tango?”
“You know, making the beast with two backs. No? How about shaking the sheets? Knocking boots? Getting down?”
“None of those make any sense.”
“Sex,” Pip finally said flatly. “Fucking. Boning. Getting laid. Tapping that—”
“I understand,” I said quickly.
“Good. Oh, you haven’t had time to check yet, but the hunter this shuttle used to belong to left most of his weapons behind. He took a pair of his swords, but you prefer an axe anyway, and that is still here. He even left his medical device and his blaster.”
“That is peculiar.” A blaster was lightweight and versatile, so it would be my first choice if I had to travel light.
“Not if the shuttle no longer charged the devices, and he could not contact the mothership to get it fixed.”
I caught his meaning. “You think this shuttle belonged to a hunter from our contingent?”
“That’s the only logical and reasonable answer. He tried to use brute force to disable the computer, believing it would only prevent it from receiving and sending signals, but then, when the whole shuttle stopped working, he had no choice but to abandon it, bringing only the things that would serve him best, like the food bars. They’re all gone.”
“That makes sense. Do you think we can find out who owned it or whether he is still alive?”
“The probability that he is still alive is low. Very low. The humans in the area were willing to work with hunters. They would’ve taken him in if he wasn’t willing or able to approach the hunter group.”
I thought of all the hunters we’d lost from my contingent. Did I really need to know we’d lost yet another? The motherships never kept a detailed log of all of us. We were assigned numbers when we were first grown, but since the motherships were programmed only to have a set cohort of hunters, it reused the numbers again and again. It was the reason we’d adopted names, so we could distinguish between an older hunter number 51 and a younger hunter number 51. That had been my number.
We’d probably never know everyone who had been on my ship when it landed or find out what had happened to them all.
“If he was still around,” Pip continued, “the hunter group would’ve noticed a hunter living in the area. We only escaped detection for so long because we moved around a lot.”
That must have been why Pip had suggested hiding food and supplies at several locations and moving between them. I should go back to those locations, find my supplies, and bring them back here now that I planned to stay. I hoped the nomad group hadn’t found them.
“You never did tell me how those nomads realized you were a sentient Pip model.”
“I, err, might have mouthed off at them a bit. But it was for the best,” Pip said quickly. “I told them I’d behave properly if they spared your life.”
And I had yet to thank him for it. “Thank you, Pip, for everything. You’ve been a good friend, and I have not.”
