Bonds of Steel (Law and Crucible Saga Book 3) by Ioana Visan Read Free Book Online Page B

ship receives equal shares with every
member of the crew after all costs have been paid for the trip ... and I’m in
charge of the ship.”
    A slight exaggeration, but Del didn’t comment.
Vee needed an excuse to soothe her vanity. They hadn’t given her that nickname
for nothing, as Vee was short for Vanity. After dealing with people for several
decades, he found her only a little more difficult than them.
    His optical sensors finished scanning the
instructions, and he stored them in his memory. Later, he’d have to do some
cleaning; too much data had accumulated and he hadn’t had the heart to delete
it after going rogue. Perhaps Vee would allow him to save an archive in her
memory if he asked her.
    “I need tools to remove the air filter,” Del said,
maneuvering the chair again towards the exit. “I will get them from Merrick’s
workshop in the hold.”
    “Uh-huh,” Vee said.
    Taking advantage of her silence, Vee was most
certainly busy with other things, Del stopped by the stairs. Even after the
changes made by Merrick, the chair remained light enough for him to lift it, so
he folded it and carried it down the stairs. It would have been much easier to
handle it if he sat in it, especially with the anti-gravity field working, but
Del had been conditioned not to use his patients’ belongings, especially
medical technology, and it was difficult for him to break the habit. When
catching a moment of rest, he really needed to reassess his priorities. For
now, he had a vague feeling Vee intended to keep him busy for quite a while,
and he still hadn’t asked her the most important thing.
    He found all the tools he needed in the hold,
including the console used by Merrick. After a brief hesitation, he checked the
ship’s trajectory. As far as he could tell, The Squirrel kept the original
course. So Vee wasn’t trying to steal the ship. Then what?
    He kept his thoughts to himself until he
reached the medbay and identified the faulty filter. He was standing on a table
with both hands shoved into the ventilation hole when he asked, “Why did you
insist on putting everyone in stasis? The danger is not so great...”
    One second, two, three passed until Vee said,
“Ah, you know...”
    Del removed the old filter and connected the
new one. The LEDs blinked on the edge, signaling it functioned within normal
parameters.
    “I put them in stasis because I too need time
to settle down,” Vee confessed. “You can’t imagine how nervous I was during the
contract with Etheros. I’m terribly afraid for them ... all the time! It’s
awful. We’ve already lost two crew members, and if I let them walk around on
their own, who knows what trouble they’ll get into. If it were up to me, I’d
keep them only in stasis ... so there is less chance something will happen to
them. Also, the asteroid field was the perfect excuse. Why? What did you
think?”
    “I did not know. But I thought you must have a
good reason.”
    More serious than this, but he felt relieved
it wasn’t serious, just one of Vee’s whims.
    “Thank you for not saying anything,” Vee said.
“If they caught me, I wouldn’t get away with it a second time.”
    “No problem.”
    Now he had something on her. He was starting
to think like humans. Should he worry? Was it a sign his circuits were
deteriorating?
    “Anyway, you can use a break, too,” Vee said.
“I see the way Thea bosses you around. Bring me this, give me that...”
    He’d also noticed the increased number of
requests for help. Normally, he would have warned the patient it wasn’t good
for her to depend so much on someone and refused to do the simpler tasks, but
his precarious situation didn’t allow him to be picky. It was better for him to
become indispensable so they wouldn’t abandon him on some planet. Another
reasoning unworthy of him.
    “I do not mind.”
    At least, he wasn’t lying.

2
     
    He should have gone offline during the two
hours needed to charge his batteries, to allow his