Alexander found it hard to care about anything for the few days. He simply went through the motions like he had back when he worked for Yuri. By shutting himself off from the outside world aing his body run automatically, he wasn’t stantly going over what had transpired. This was essentially his version of sulking. Not that he could truly sulk, it was more like just letting his mind go bnk.

  This wasn’t the same state he entered when he actally created ons. He had been able to pin that issue down to times when he was idle, but his mind was whirling with ideas. Now it was reversed. His mind was idle, but his body tio work.

  It was Yulia’s worried expression that finally snapped him out of this fugue state.

  “Alex, are you alright?”

  He gave the mental equivalent of a blink and turhe proje of his face to the girl. “I was just thinking. I’m fine now though.”

  “Oh… It’s just… you looked really scary just now.”

  The statement shocked him for a couple of reasons. The first was that there was no physical ge that should have shown his dition. And the sed was that this little girl had somehow still picked up on it.

  “How is your puzzle ing along?” he asked instead, trying to draw her attention away from his pse.

  “…OK, I guess.”

  “Oh, have you run into an issue?”

  She nodded slowly. “The math you gave me is really hard. I followed the instrus to e into the troller, but I ’t get it to wht.”

  He made his faod in uanding. “Why don’t you show me and we go over it together.”

  “Don’t you have work to plete?” she asked, looking at the parts strewn about his ter.

  “A little break won’t hurt. Now, let's see what you have.” The little robotic humanoid was his test puzzle for her. It tained a bunall parts and even gears along with a motor and troller.

  Alexander had designed and built the toy pletely from scratch. He eveed a simple roboti for it to run on. The only thing Yulia had to do was solve certain math problems to get the robot to perform an a. The problems started off simple enough, and then steadily got harder. He had even added some algebra problems towards the end. He was curious to see how far she had gotten.

  The girl pushed the button on the troller and the figure started to move around, and even walk. It tained some simple sensors, so when it got to the edge of the ter, it ko turn around instead of falling off.

  Soon it started to do more plex tasks, like bending over and stig its arm up in the air to approximate a wave. Yulia ughed and waved back. There ause, and the robot started to do the ‘robot’.

  “See! It gets there and starts doing weird stuff.”

  Alexander chuckled. “No, it’s dang. It’s a dance called the robot.”

  The young girl sched up her face, “That’s a dumb name for a dance. I’ve never seen a robot dance before.”

  “Never?” he asked, quirking his holographic eyebrow, thehrew down some killer moves.

  The girl burst out in ughter as he made his much more limber body mimic the stiff and jerky movements of the little robot until they were in syually, she tried to join in. The two ughed and danced and it was exactly what he o get his thoughts past what Omni and the station had done.

  Yulia was quickly being one of his favorite people, he was gd he hadn’t chased her off so many months ago.

  ***

  The Devil’s Bargain jumped bato Gliese 667. After the STO strike group had ehe system, they had quickly made themselves scarce. Captain Harn had no love for the gover. Simirly, the STO had no love for the many merary pahat plied their trade. A necessary evil he had overheard oO officer ent back when he was still in the fleet.

  “System’s clear, Captain,” the sensor officer spoke. “Looks like the STO finally packed up a.”

  “Bout damn time,” he muttered. Harn turo the two creere waiting off to the side of the bridge. It was because of them he was ba this system so soon. “Tell me again what you saw.” The pair had approached him with an opportunity after they pleted their st job.

  “Gino and I spotted this man on the sed ring. I swear on my mrave that it was the spitting image of Harlow himself.” The notorious pirate had gone missing years ago. But there was still a bounty out on him.

  “Uh, huh… And you say you saw this man in a small repair shop on the sed ring?” he let his skepticism sink into every word.

  “Well… ly him, Captain. I show ya. I got an impnt.” The mahe file to his s.

  A slightly grainy video showed the man walking into a repair shop, where a girl sat on a stool, and a rge robot was moving around inside a ste closet. The view quickly zoomed into the holographic face represented on the robot. It did look a lot like the infamous pirate.

  “The robot is Harlow? And why is the video so grainy?”

  “I asked my ta security about that. Apparently, all the cameras in that area are experieng issues. And no. Acc to some people we talked with, that’s just what he uses to i with people. His real body is in a med pod. Probably how he’s avoided getting caught for so long.”

  Harn grunted. It wasn’t the most outndish thing he had heard. Assaulting a station resident wasly legal. But if they were right, the risk would be worth it. And if they were wrong, he would simply pay the fine.

  “What about the girl?”

  Svadi shrugged. “Station ward. I figure we hit the pce te in the evening, and she shouldn’t be around.” They better hope she isn’t there. “And the med pod?”

  “Got the location from a guard we paid off.”

  It seems they had doheir homework. Harlow masquerading as some rich bastard who suffered from a disease that kept him locked away in a medical chamber certainly fit. His men had even paid off one of the guards to get the location of that chamber and found it was just ae room with no unication terminal anywhere nearby.

  The pn was simple. Shoot the robot to disable it, which going by how cobbled together it looked, probably wouldn’t be hard, then grab the med pod and hightail it back to the ship before station security caught on to the capture.

  Normally he wouldn’t sider aion like this, but he was close to retirement, bringing in Harlow would earn him enough to live a fortable life somewhere in the core systems and far away from this backwater filled with Coalition filth. “What about the on discharge sensors?”

  “My man in security says he scrub them from the sensors for a mihat should be more than enough time.”

  It wouldn’t be the first time his people had to perform a job on a station. The st time they were here, his people had stumbled upon another bounty. It had only taken a stuo subdue that target, and they had gotten him aboard the ship without anyone being the wiser. Harhat there were other bounties oation, but with the sensors, the two gunships, and the STO showing up, it had been too hot to risk taking anymore.

  He would like to cim a few more of these bounties along with Harlow. But if it was him, he was worth far more than some low-level criminal. It wasn’t worth putting one op at risk by running multiple other ops.

  “Fine. I’m giving this op the green light. Get suited up, and make sure to cover your faces.” He didn’t mention that if things went sideways he was cutting these two free. They may be good meraries, but it wasn’t worth taking a trip out an airlock for them.

  The ship floated into the dod touched down. Unfortunately, asking for a specific dock close to their target would be giving too much away, so they were forced to go with whatever the station assighem. That didn’t mean he couldn’t swiain factors in his favor.

  After telling the station attendant that he may o do repairs, the woman oher end assighe Devil’s Bargain a do the third ring. It was more than he had hoped for. Harn was a man who believed in luck, and it seemed dy luck was on their side for this mission.

  He had his crew disembark for some R&R while his meic took some panels off to make it look like they were iigating some issues. It was early m at the station, so the two would o wait until ter on when activity slowed to hit their target. By then, the ship would be topped off oion mass, the ‘repairs’ would be plete, and the crew would be back aboard. All he had to do was sit bad wait to collect his prize.

  ***

  “You think the Captain bought it?” Gino asked as they prepped their gear.

  “Quiet, you idiot,” Svadi hissed. “Of course the Captain bought it. It took me forever to doctor those images to make that holographic face look sort of like Harlow.”

  “But he’s bound to find out when we bring the pod in.”

  “We’re ning the pod in, stupid. We take out the robot, then snatch the guns and hide them. We rush back to the ship and tell him the op went sideways. Then we e back at our leisure after the old maires and collect our prize. Simple as that.”

  Gino smiled. “Simple as that!” The two smmed their armored forearms together.