Pure Wildchild of Sara Scorpion's Crew

Robot in Space

Sara Scorpion, resting her head on her right fist, looked at the stars, and they looked back at her. And even, as it seemed to her, winked, which was quite unusual for outer space. Shaking her head to forget about it, she directed her gaze to the ship's control panel. Opening a star chart, she began to study it out of boredom. Not finding anything interesting there, Sara minimized the chart and switched to the radar. This time, she received information in the form of a signal, the source of which was the moon of one of the nearby planets.

"Good afternoon, boss," a male voice sounded behind her, forcing her to turn away from the radar and face the doorway.

"Afternoon, Hans," Sara nodded toward the first officer's chair, offering him a seat. After waiting for her subordinate to carry out the silent order, Scorpion turned his attention to the radar.

"Signal? On the moon?" Hans asked skeptically, looking from the captain to the radar.

"I find it strange too," the blonde admitted, tuning the radio equipment to the signal wave. She soon succeeded.

"SOS. Help needed. The situation is critical. I can provide information," as soon as the message ended, five seconds passed before it was played again.

"A looped message? This looks even more like a trap," Hans expressed his opinion, slightly pulling up the sleeve of his uniform.

"I share your position," Sara agreed with him, opening the star chart again and studying the moon on it, "But there is always a chance that it is true. I think we should send a small detachment for reconnaissance."

***

It took the detachment about five minutes to reach the moon. Finding the source, which turned out to be a small transport shuttle, was also not difficult. Problems began only at the stage of penetrating inside: the shuttle landed unsuccessfully on the door, blocking access from the outside. In the end, the squad decided not to bother, and simply cut a door in the hull with laser cutters. The search of the shuttle, at first glance, seemed a failure, due to the lack of living people on board. However, before they had time to report the situation, one of the pirates turned his attention to the robot sitting in the pilot's chair, which everyone unanimously ignored.

"Captain, this is Giles," one of the pirates reported into the communicator, "Reporting the situation: there are no living people on board, only some kind of robot."

"A robot?" Giles could not see Sara's face, but he was ready to swear that at that moment she raised an eyebrow with curiosity, "Bring him to the ship, we'll decide what to do there. Oh, and don't forget to dig into the onboard computer files."

"Aye, Captain."

***

Scorpion did not have any expectations regarding the robot. Most likely it was some kind of drone programmed to repair the shuttle or something like that. In principle, if it could be repaired, the drone could either be kept for herself or sold on the black market. However, what she saw definitely did not fit into what she had assumed.

The robot looked like an animal, or more precisely a kangaroo, which distinguished it from most of the robots she knew, which had a humanoid appearance. Although the body was damaged by rust, one could tell that it was painted pink with yellow, brown and red areas. The robot itself was short, somewhere just below Sara's shoulders. Its mechanical face was frozen in a stony mask of indifference.

"What are the chances of a successful repair?" she asked the ship's mechanic Liam.

"50-50," he admitted honestly, studying the robot, "I can't give a more precise answer yet, too little information." The blonde nodded in response and headed to the main deck of the ship, instructing him to report the results.