Chapter Text
Ratthi
I glared at the Station Security Officer in front of me. They glared back, hand on an energy weapon that honestly wouldn’t disable me - or really do much beyond sting a little.
“Woah, woah,” called a familiar voice. Ratthi, hands outstretched appealingly, wandered over. Unfortunate, since I’d had my perimeter drones set up several distractions to try and lure him away to safety when I’d noticed his approach.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that he was unintelligent. According to the Preservation Alliance, he was a prominent scientist who had already won many awards. But I had really thought the limping drone with a sadly whirring broken motor would have drawn his attention. I queried it for a status check and found it in his pocket. I sighed. Loudly, over the feed, to make sure he heard.
“Everything is under control,” I told him. The security officer spluttered and drew his weapon. He must be new. Mensah was going to hear about this, though Pin-Lee might manage to sue him first on my behalf.
“The hell it is!” he snapped. “The SecUnit was wandering around an active crime scene!”
Investigating, I didn’t say, because I’d said it twice already and I didn’t feel like talking to him any more.
“Oh, you mean the SecUnit who has a job as a security consultant for Dr. Mensah was checking local security?” Ratthi asked, a new and biting note of sarcasm in his voice. I was almost impressed.
There was action on the perimeter of the crime scene, so I split my attention between drone feeds as they dispersed to cover more area.
The next few things happened very quickly.
The police officer took a step forward, so his face was out of visual range of my local drone. Annoyed and distracted, I re-established visual contact with my eyes. Unfortunately, this meant I whipped my opaque helmet around to look straight at him. Startled and unprofessional, he fired the energy weapon at me. And finally, managing to catch me entirely off guard because it was such a stupid thing to do, Ratthi jumped in front of me and took the pulse.
He collapsed instantly, shuddering into unconsciousness, and I threw his vitals up on my screen even as I closed the distance between me and Target 1 and crushed his energy weapon in my grasp.
“You’re the suspect we’re looking for,” I told the imposter, lifting him off his feet by his collar. “Even Station Security knows better than that.” Ratthi was fine, pulse steady, and watching his stable vitals flushed a little of the biological alarm materials from my bloodstream. Possibly just now understanding what he was up against, Target 1 went limp in my grasp and dropped the sparking remnants of his gun.
I kind of still wanted to crush him, but Ratthi wouldn’t appreciate it when he woke up, and he hardly needed a more stressful day at this point. I restrained Target 1, sending a quick message to Gurathin and Pin-Lee to look into how Station Security had been hacked into verifying the credentials of the phony officer. Then I added a note to sign Ratthi up for another self-defense class. If only there was a self-preservation class.
Station Security came quickly and took Target 1 away while I guided the medic to Ratthi. He confirmed what my readouts had told me (which I was glad of, since my ability to independently confirm health information beyond dead/not dead was terrible), and helped me move him to a soft couch in one of the mild biome-squares in the public plaza.
He stirred as the medic settled him against me, and I upped my body temperature in my usual shock-response procedure.
“SecUnit?” he asked, staring up at me blearily. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” I repeated. My expression must have done something, because the medic next to me flinched and left. “I’m not the human who jumped in front of a machine that disrupts organic parts.”
Ratthi patted me on the shoulder, then winced.
“Sorry,” he said. “Forgot you hated that.”
“The others are on their way,” I told him. Mensah had threatened to leave some kind of important meeting, but the others had reassured her they were on their way and I’d sent a no-danger message across our personal secured chat.
“Uh oh,” he said. “Did Mensah leave her important meeting?” I was struck by a sudden sharp emotion of some kind. I replayed my expression on the drone footage. In a serial, that would indicate fondness. Fuck.
“No,” I told him. “You got stuck with the others.” He laughed, then winced slightly.
“You are still injured,” I said, preparing a message for the medic.
“No, no,” he said, curling more into my shoulder’s warmth. “Just sore. It’s okay. Don’t traumatize the poor medic.”
I slowly erased part of the message.
“Why did you do that?” I asked him. “Why did you jump in front of me? You know that those weapons don’t do permanent damage to my systems.”
“They hurt you,” Ratthi said.
“I can adjust my pain sensor levels,” I replied.
“You shouldn’t have to.”
I blinked.
“Clarify,” my buffer replied before I could think of anything better.
“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” Ratthi said. He saw my expression and shrugged. “I didn’t want you to feel pain.”
I paused all of my systems for 6.2 seconds and started playing the intro sequence from Sanctuary Moon on a backburner. When my performance reliability had recovered somewhat, I responded.
“Okay,” I said.
“I’m sorry that I scared you,” Ratthi said, sitting up so that he wasn’t touching me anymore. I felt a completely baffling pang of emotion at that, which I maturely decided to ignore.
“Thank… you,” I said, unsure what response to give to that. Corresponding lines in serials usually were answered by hugging or kissing, which was horrible and disgusting and off the table.
“Okay,” Ratthi said, standing and cautiously stretching out his muscles. “Let’s go get something to eat while we wait for the mob of overprotective scientists to descend on us.”
“Ratthi.”
“Yes?”
“You are an overprotective scientist.”
Ratthi laughed.
“What, I can’t be self-aware?”