“Found another one, sir.”

43.4 swiveled his head around to the side, still holding a beam from part of the wreckage as he gazed down to look upon the lifeless body of yet another member of his crew. The man lay beneath a heap of smoldering steel, his flight suit torn and open to reveal a blood-streaked face. 43.4’s visual receptors contracted slightly, focusing on the face of the corpse and studying it to see that it looked serene, almost peaceful, now that the life had gone out of it.

“Are we sure he's not just sleeping?” 43.4 asked his first mate.

“Uhhh… I’m pretty sure.” Gentry’s expression was blank – humans were always so hard to read when they wore no esxpression. Then Gentry raised his eyebrows slowly and nodded to the large segment of debris that jutted depths of peaceful man’s chest. “None of ‘em are sleeping, captain.”

“Right.” 43.4 acknowledged. “What was his name, Gentry?”

His first mate sighed, his head falling into his hands as he rubbed at his temples. “Aren’t you a robot?”

“Gentry?”

“You have more processing power than the ship does, captain.” Gentry looked up briefly to survey the wreckage. “Than the ship did,” he clarified. “You know his name, sir.”

43.4 studied his first mate, who until this moment had always been such a willing and helpful asset. The man was acting … defiant? No that wasn’t it. Not entirely. He looked nervous, and beyond exhausted. Gentry was normally what the other crew members considered to be ‘friendly.’ He was quick to laugh, and the humans found him to be funny. Just now however, Gentry didn’t look like anything was funny. And for the first time the captain thought he might actually understand his first mate, because 43.4 never thought anything was funny. Nevertheless, insubordination could not be tolerated.

43.4 brought one of his clamps up to his visual receptors, a small compartment opening within them to reveal a grease pen extended out on a sturdy lever. He drew a thick black line above his visual receptors, simulating a human eyebrow. Then he lowered that brow to show his disapproval. “Mr. Gentry,” he said in his most authoritarian preset tone. “You are quite out of line, sir.” He sharpened his pronunciation by 12% but lowered his volume to ‘threatening whisper.’ “Why don’t we see if a week of half rations will steady your step?”

“THERE ARE NO RATIONS!” Gentry’s voice was defiant this time. There was no mistaking it. “It’s all gone, idiot! We’ll be lucky to salvage enough for a meal!”

The captain’s brow was still lowered, perfectly effecting the look of an angry, disappointed commanding officer – except of course that his mouth was a speaker box, and he had no nose. “Half… rations …. Mr. Gentry.” he repeated again. He kept his eye locked on his defiant first mate, watching the fight go out of him. “Now tell me- what was his name?”

“Whatever,” Gentry sighed. “His name was Davis Red.” Then his first stalked off across the smoky landscape, and out of view of his captain.

43.4 raised his greaseline brow and looked skyward, towards the heavens. “Davis Red,” he hummed, using a cocktail of his own chosen presets somewhere between ‘stately’ and ‘affectionate.’ “I remember him well.” The robot brought its foot tread upwards, resting it on a raised piece of debris so that one of his knee joints was in the air. “A good crewman, and a good man.” He would perform the necessary final words. Ships that did so were 27% more efficient in keeping up shipmate morale. Those numbers were undeniable. “He came to us with a dream in his heart, and a hope with in that dream. To steal as much-”

He stopped.

Just there.

Not there.

There.

There was a cat.

An earth cat, like the ones that 43.4 had seen in all the reels. Like the ones he read about in the evening hours, when the
course had been set, and the crew was at quarters, and he found himself alone at the helm of the ship, staring out into
the blankness of space with nothing but the possibility of what his own thoughts could conjure.
And the ship was gone now. And the crew. And it wasn’t 43.4’s fault. Not really.
After all, he’d done exactly what he was supposed to do. He always did.
He wasn’t made to navigate the surface of some barren, alien planet.
He was made to be with the ship. Oh god, his ship was gone now
But, here was this cat, staring at him with large yellow eyes.
And the people were gone. All of them.
The cat’s eyes were so yellow.
And it was all his fault.

.

The cat was standing on some of the smoking wreckage, picking its way carefully through the carnage. It turned and looked 43.4, regarding the robot with wide yellow eyes, before raising its back legs and preparing to jump down, out of the captain’s view. The robot took two quick steps and snatched the thing up in one of its clamps, holding it close to its chest plate, to stare down at its eyes. A long time passed as they considered one another. Then he put the cat quietly into his dorsal compartment, and went in search of Gentry.