Torian tensed, her hand resting on the gun.
The first human shrugged. “This is what we’ve got.”
The second human hesitated, casting a glance at Torian. Their body language identified asnervous. But before they could open their mouth, the door slammed open and Amelia walked in.
Torian moved simultaneously. Her reaction time was decent, but she fumbled with her gun, managing to intervene only after Amelia passed her. She pressed the gun into Amelia’s back—and in 1.2 seconds, Amelia had spun around, twisted the gun from Torian’s hand, and shoved it under Torian’s chin.
Torian went still.
Amelia narrowed her eyes. “I’m Captain Perrosk. Stand down.”
Torian nodded.
Amelia handed her back the gun, then turned to the two other humans. She addressed the nervous human first: “Captain, I’ll take it from here.” Then she pulled out a second gun of her own, bigger than Torian’s, and fired a shot into the first human’s leg. The projectile—a jelly bullet, according to records—curled around the human’s kneecap with extreme force, and he buckled with a cry of pain.
“We heard you were thinking of double-crossing,” Amelia said while the other human whimpered. “You might manage that with a Luminas member, but not Fleet. Now. Will you sell what you promised, or are we going to have a bigger problem?”
The first human snarled. “Security!”
Torian closed the door, standing in front of it with her arms crossed. “I don’t think they’re coming.”
Amelia appraised her and smiled.
[Analysis: Humans operated on something they called “chemistry,” which was not inaccurate, considering the dopamine release associated with “falling in love.” I had never gauged “chemistry” before, but perhaps it applied here.]
The date stamp indicated Torian joined Amelia’s starship shortly after that exchange. After that, videos were mostly of Amelia’s starship landing on Colony 13, restocking, and traveling out again. One final recording caught my attention, dated six months earlier:
Torian and Amelia entered a nondescript office on Colony 13’s lowest level. Both had guns, and Amelia nodded to two other security humans behind them. “Wait here. We won’t be long.” She led the way inside. Torian followed.
There were no cameras inside, so the next footage was twenty-three minutes later. Amelia towed Torian out, firing her weapon into the office, and yelled, “Go, go!” Her othersecurity humans offered covering fire, and a bigger one slung Torian’s limp body over their shoulder.
[Why was Torian limp?]
They exchanged gunfire for several minutes, then ran into an alleyway. Various camera angles showed the four of them attempting to hide, with Amelia drawing up the rear to offer covering gunfire. Amelia glanced at Torian six times with something registering as 60 percentworry, 40 percentanger.
Torian did not move.
They found an unlocked storage room and ducked inside. Amelia was showing visible signs of distress now. “Is she—”
“Alive,” one of the security humans said gruffly. “What happened?”
“It went south. She—” Amelia cut off any emotion in her voice, narrowing her eyes. “She covered me.”
The other security human pressed their lips together. “Jelly bullet to the chest. She could have internal bleeding. Orders?”
“Back to the ship,” Amelia said.
“We didn’t get the package—” the first security human, the one carrying Torian, objected.
Amelia’s voice dropped in tone. “Back. To. The. Ship.”
I did not want to think of Torian as self-sacrificing, even though previous video evidence showed a history of that behavior. When I had been analyzing her personality for potential use, it had been a positive trait: prioritizing others.
Now, the moss covering my central system wilted. Torian was not a good security human. Her reactions were slower, her gun training abysmal, and there was evidence to presume she did not have any preservation skills.
