Companion 3000
“Looks to me like you need longer arms,” he said, coming up behind her just as the round side of the ship rolled away from her reach once more.
Leita jumped. “Oh, Pierce—you scared the life out of me! I thought I told you to go back to sleep.” There was a smudge of grease on one of her cheeks and she looked tired and frustrated and absolutely beautiful.
“Wasn’t sleepy.” He smiled at her and reached down to grab a spare wrench. “Why don’t you let me do that?”
“Look, Pierce, I appreciate that you want to help me but I really don’t think your programming will support this kind of thing.” Leita smiled at him. “But it’s really sweet of you to offer.”
“I’m not offering,” he growled softly, getting in close to the ship so he could reach controls. “I’m telling. And don’t worry about my programming,” he added, seeing her open her mouth to protest. “I’m programmed to do whatever I can to help you and that includes repair work. After all, I wouldn’t be much use if I wasn’t good for anything but screwing all day, would I?”
Leita flushed pink and smiled at him. “I’ve got no complaints.”
Pierce grinned at her, liking the way she could be so wanton during the act of love and look so innocent and embarrassed about it afterward. Last night she’d been a little tigress in bed but today she looked like a naïve schoolgirl—albeit a slightly dirty one from rummaging around inside the droid ship. Leita was a woman of many layers and he found that he liked that.
“I’m glad you’re satisfied,” he said, bending to give her a quick kiss on the end of her nose that made her giggle. “But didn’t you tell me you had another ship that needed fixing too?”
“I do.” She brightened. “Hey, if you can really do this, then we might even be able to get both ships back into action before too long.”
“Let’s go, then.” Pierce turned his attention back to the ship bobbing in front of him while Leita moved down the bay to a similar craft that was also damaged. After a moment, Pierce realized she was humming as she worked.
It took most of the day with only a quick break for lunch, but they got both ships up and in good shape. By the time Leita closed the mech bay door and pressed the button to open the airlock so the ships could go back to collecting, Pierce was beat. His muscles ached and he was grimy and sweaty and tired, but it was a good kind of tired. They’d accomplished something, he thought with satisfaction. It made him happy to see the relief in Leita’s face when the ships had gone off about their business.
“Well.” She dusted her hands together and smiled at him. “That was great! It would’ve taken me three days at least to get both ships up and out to collect again without your help. Thanks, Pierce.”
He stretched, trying to loosen up some of tightness in his shoulders. “Glad to help. Goddess, I’m beat—even my bones ache.”
She smiled. “Well, that must be some ache since your skeleton’s made of titanium, huh?”
“Oh, uh…right.” For a moment Pierce had forgotten what he was supposed to be. Working side by side with Leita in the mech bay, it had been easy to just get into the rhythm of the work and let everything else slide out of his mind.
“What was it like?” Leita asked as they walked down the long gray metal corridor that connected the mech bay to the rest of the pod. “I mean, what was your life like before you came here?”
Pierce wished he could tell her, wished he could explain about the bounty on his head that wasn’t really his fault, his childhood in Star City on Titan, his life, hopping from world to world transporting goods and sometimes smuggling fugitives but he couldn’t. Instead, he shrugged awkwardly and said, “Not much to tell, actually. They grew me in a tank, stuck me in a box and shipped me out to you. And here I am.” He tried to smile at her. “So what about you? How long have you been living out here on the edge of nowhere?”
Leita sighed. “Well, my parents came out here from the inner system—the colony on Old Earth’s moon, you know? It was so crowded and polluted and my dad always said he wanted a place all his own. He saved every penny and had this place built by remote droids—took him years but he got it done. I guess I was about thirteen or fourteen when we finally moved out here.”
“Sounds like a lonely life,” Pierce said.
Leita shrugged. “Not so much while my mom and dad were still alive. Of course, the plan was for me to finish my schooling at one of the universities on Osiris, maybe find a man who wouldn’t mind the solitude to come back here and run the place. I was all set to go when they went out on a scouting trip looking for more ore and well…” She shook her head. “They just never came back.”