Learning to Dance

of the Robot Wars was happening right now? She should be
out there with the rest of them – with him.
“Confined to quarters,” she muttered. She was going to
lose it if she had to stay in here much longer. Some way to
spend your birthday.
A knock at the door, and she paused mid-rep.
“Come in.”
Pedro poked his head around the door. “How are you
doing in here, Taz?”
“How’s it look like I’m doing, idiota?” she said,
continuing the crunches. “I’m killing time until Up se
despierta and realizes he needs me out there. What’s
happening, anyway?”
“The Commander’s been in meetings with all of the
other starship commanders since we arrived at the bunker.
They haven’t come out in a while, I don’t think it’s going
well.”
“What is there to meet about? We’ve got to go in and
destroy the hijos de puta.”
“That’s the problem, we’ve got to go in – you know how
hard it is to infiltrate Headquarters when it’s fully locked
down like this,” Pedro said, coming in and sitting on her
bed, wrinkling his nose at the trace of blood on her pillow.
Taz’s glass-shredded palms were wrapped in bandages and
hurt like hell, but the throbbing pain was only helping her
focus her growing frustration.
“The robots did,” she said. “We’ve just got to figure out
how.”
Pedro shrugged. “That’s the commanders’ problem, isn’t
it?”
Taz sat up and glared at him. “It’s everyone’s problem,
hombre.”
Pedro casually picked up her pillow by the corner and
moved it out of his way, stretching out on her bed like it