Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4)

by Martha Wells

I was having an emotion, and I hate that.

It could potentially get disastrously complicated, but I still thought it was doable. Then it got disastrously complicated.

In the shows, I saw humans comfort each other all the time at moments like this. I had never wanted that and I still didn’t. (Touching while rendering assistance, shielding humans from explosions, etc., is different.) But I was the only one here, so I braced myself and made the ultimate sacrifice. “Uh, you can hug me if you need to.”