Velocity Weapon (The Protectorate, #1)

by Megan E. O'Keefe

“Are cats… real?” She bit back a laugh. “Yes, they are. Rampant on Earth. We humans have loved the furry murder machines since the time of the ancient Egyptians. Loved ’em so much we took ’em with us to the stars.”

She bit off her next stream of words, cursing the alcohol that lubricated the path between her brain and her tongue.

They’d taken it, rolled up the leg of her jumpsuit and pinned it in place instead. Couldn’t trust her not to use it as a weapon, they’d said, but they’d been happy as cats in the cream to give her a shoddy excuse for a crutch. She resolved to hit one of them with it, just on principle.

“The entity in question is not a human body.” Sanda counted backward, slowly, from three. “The chassis of the mind is irrelevant.” “You may feel that way. But in the strictest sense, in our code of law, this ship has no human rights.” “We must be better than a codified system,” Sanda pressed. “What good are our laws if they cannot be reexamined to better fit the needs of our present society?”