More Than a Woman

More Than a Woman


“Ladies and gentlemen!” the emcee announced, twisting his curled mustache. “Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for. This year’s winner of our Beautiful Bot Bonanza!” A dramatic pause then his arm swung wide. “...the last surviving synth of Relion Five!” The crowd cheered and he began to sing, “Isn’t she exquisite? Isn’t she top of the line? Her parts aren’t just fancy…”

“Is that her?” Sanchez whispered.

Tucked high into the shadows of the replicated Victorian theater, I peered through the electronoculars. She looked ridiculous in that gown. “That’s her, alright.”

“What the hell’s she wearing?”

“Told you they’d want to show her off, sell her parts to the highest bidder. Sick bastards.”

“You mean, like what I told you we should have done, when we found her?” He rolled onto his elbows. “I don’t understand you Captain, plenty of real girls out there – human woman. Hell, you could even get any Telaxian you’d like. I don’t get what you see in that machine.”

“You know damn well she’s more than that to me,” I scolded.

“I’m just sayin’, there’re lots of options out there.”

“Says the guy who stares at himself in the mirror for twenty minutes every morning.”

“Look at this face. Can you blame me?” he smirked.

In a way, he was right about Ellia. She was a synth, a biomechanical sentient - part organic, mostly artificial. But even from afar, her cybernetic eyes were captivating, though we certainly didn’t find her that way. We’d salvaged her fractured carapace from the ruins of her homeworld, and from the moment I installed a crude refurbished vocalizer, I knew she was something special. The kindness in her replies, the feeling in her regrets, the fact that she could accurately value stacked gold tektars on sight, were all more than factory-grade. Anyways, that was three years ago and, since then, each new job meant an upgrade. She meticulously selected humanoid components, I think to please me, and a few of them definitely did. I quickly discovered she had more passion in her electrosynapses than any other sentient I’d ever met. Sure, she could punch a hole clean through a duranium bulkhead, but that only added to her allure. Shame, her colony was caught in the crossfire, pummeled when the Bloviation Federation ambushed our armada, leaving Relion a smoking ruin. But those cowards were all talk, no walk…took off as soon as we shot back. “You ready?”

Sanchez nodded.

The crowd quieted and the emcee continued, “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s start the bidding at one million tektars!”

Virtual displays erupted with bids from all over the galaxy, more money than I’d ever seen. Then, Sanchez dropped the bomb. Tumbling end over end, it exploded above the crowd, a bioelectric pulse paralyzing every attendee and all tech instantly. It also had the unfortunate side-effect of causing complete loss of bowel control, making for a predictably uncomfortable stroll through the crowd. “Five minutes,” Sanchez explained, already over the side, down the riggings to the floor.

“About damn time!” Ellia exclaimed when we finally removed her restraints. She pulled me in and kissed me softly.

“Break it up you two,” Sanchez checked his antiquated pocket-watch. “Three minutes.”

“Right.” She went to work immediately, hacking the auction’s firewall and downloading what we came for.

“Sixty seconds.”

“Hold on!” she focused.

“Thirty seconds!”

“You’re killing me, Sanchez! Okay, got it!”

The room jumped back to life, security drones storming the crowd as terrified elites began to flee. We bolted through a nearby exit, into a lengthy side-corridor. Tossing an electronic snare, the charge caught the first few guards, but the rest kept coming. All the while, we returned fire, not really hitting anything but creating enough mayhem. Up ahead, the transparasteel of an old Victorian window separated our compartment from the vacuum of space. I grasped Ellia’s hand and hit the charges we’d set. The wall exploded, sucking us out into space and engaging our environmental shields.

In a burst, the Cursed Doubloon erupted from jump-space, our momentum carrying us cleanly into the ship’s waiting cargo hold. We hit the grav-decking hard. “See,’ I chuckled, pulse racing, “piece of cake.”

“And our haul?” Sanchez wondered, the crew beginning to gather.

Ellia grinned proudly, the virtual balance appearing over her open palm. “Nearly 500 billion tektars.”

They cheered and I kissed her deeply, sensing the victory in her lips. Then, Sanchez slapped me on the arm, celebrating, “I guess you were right, Captain! She’s a keeper!”