There was something about how her eyes were set apart, with a button nose upturned at the end. Today they were yellow green orbs inside a thin blue ocean. Her lips curled into a smug grin that said, if I'm happy, I won't tell you, but she had the kind of face that made people take another look. Despite the secrets she was hiding inside, people would follow her to hell and back.

She turned to go and Griff stood awkwardly, his basic training still engaged despite the laid back atmosphere of the ship. She gave him a quick nod of approval, knowing how important it was to encourage a rookie and turned to leave the bridge. Jitter followed on padded feet and she did a mental check of her equipment. Blaster fully charged and set to stun. She pushed her hair back over her ears and behind her shoulders. The Ion sword sat easily on the wide belt she had cinched around her waist, while new boots clicked softly on the deck, half for style, and half for function. There was a knife tucked into the back of her belt and a handheld device in case the galactic network was blocked. A person never knew when they might run into trouble.

She'd learned that from Jet. He always picked at a worn spot on his holster when he felt like things were about to go bad. Her own instincts felt no such warning today so she continued down the ramp.

"You're staying on the ship," she ordered Jitter who had been skulking silently behind her.

"But..."

She turned and gave him a stare, causing the Milnet to stop in his tracks. He could be a seductive killer if he didn't have his monkey blood, but her wrath had a deep seated origin. She ducked under the ship which was almost on its belly and jumped clear when the entire space port tower began to rock on its stilted legs. She ignored the man with goggles waving frantically from a distance and looked up at her ship. From the outside it was big. Here at the front the nose came together in a squat triangle shape. The total thickness was only four decks, flat by space standards. Towards the back two box like drive motor nacelles were mounted on the side. The two stubby wings fanned out at the end, giving the ship its miserable atmospheric flight characteristics.

But that's where any similarity to a standard space ship ended. The entire surface was made of tiny cubes pieced together in random patterns. This was where the shielding against solar flares and white hot plasma originated. When the ship danced across one star after the next, it continually went deeper into the troposphere in order to gain velocity. The energy absorbed was converted into momentum through strong nuclear force repulsion. The energy stored inside atoms propelled the ship far beyond light speed.

The Marangetti green ships were designed and engineered to stringent energy efficient standards as not to leave a footprint across the Subdivision. The rest of the Galaxy could only dream of the freedom faster than light travel offered. They were relegated to the Fault-line's which naturally occurred between some star systems.

Pon-shea walked towards the flattened nose of the ship, running her hand along the guide wires stretched between hundreds of poles and antennae. It looked like a drunken spider had tried to wrap the ship for feeding and she could see two of the masts were snapped off. The spaceport rocker wildly on its stilted platform and she knew they were above the weight limit. Now she was stuck for at least a few days while she got her butt reamed by the port official and waited for repairs.

Her trepidation wasn't at facing the fat man with goggles. She could handle a diplomatic issue. It was the prospect of committing to a personal bot. She always imagined it would be like everyone said. A fairytale beginning that marked the most important moment in a young person's life. For Pon-shea, she had imagined herself walking with her father down a long line of freshly graduated bots. They would all be eagerly vying for her attention. Each one would be beautiful in its own right. Unique and highly sophisticated, she would be waiting for the magic moment. Everyone at school had talked about it. That moment when your eyes meet the bot you were destined to take home. There would be no doubt when you found the right one. Some said the moment was magic, like an unseen bond formed between man and machine.

She stood clinging to her spaceship, frozen in time. She remembered the words her best friend, Ketty Mc'kee had told her. 'When the right one comes along, you'll know.'

Pon-shea Sedona had ruled seventy trillion people with her charm and intelligence. Baird aliens had died at her hand. She had watched close friends die, but now she was terrified.

For the young Pon-shea, that bonding had never happened. When her father had died in front of her, his hollow eyes had stared back and all she could think was, 'if I had a bot, none of this would have happened.' Now she had to face those fears and at least see if Ketty was right.