As the beast made it's way through the alien terrain, Amara left the command centre and made her own way to a quiet and isolated corner of the craft. There was one last job she had to to before they set off. She had left it to the last minute to avoid him causing chaos aboard the beast. As she reached her destination, she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was around. Satisfied that she was alone, she moved closer to the several crates full of supplies. One of the crates stood out, looking more like a cage than the others.
As Amara approached the cage, she heard a shuffling sound from inside it.
"Great, he's awake." she thought to herself, slowing her pace. She peeked through the bars on the small window as she said "Hey there. I'm going to let you out now but you have to promise to be cool, okay?"
There was no response.
"Okay." said Amara to herself as she began typing a code into the keypad lock with some trepidation. As soon as she pressed the last digit a light on the lock turned to green with a loud buzz and the door suddenly swung open with more speed and force that Amara had been prepared for and it knocked her backwards onto her ass.
Before she had time to react, he had pounced on her. Knocking her onto her back, he started licking her face...
Amara made a long sound of disgust as she pushed the
dog away and tried to sit up but he was quickly on her again, putting his whole body on top of hers and cuddling her with an affection that only dogs seemed capable of. Eventually, Amara relented with a sigh and wrapped her arms around the mutt. He seemed to appreciate this and settled slightly. Amara threw several completely unintelligible words his way as she hugged her canine companion.
She didn't really have time for this now though and she didn't want anyone to see that she wasn't completely emotionless after all. She had a reputation to protect.
"Stand at attention, soldier!" she informed him and he immediately leaped to his feet, twirled around and plonked himself down on his butt. He blew three puffs of air from his nose and relentlessly wagged his tail, obviously still very excited. But Cody was always excited. Relentlessly happy and absolutely adored everyone he ever met. Amara often worried that he would have a heart attack if he didn't calm the hell down every now and then. It was why she had make him wait in his cage during the flight to the planet. With so much excitement in the air from everyone else, if Cody picked up on it, he may have exploded.
Amara got back to her feet and collected herself, standing with her hands behind her back in a military stance. "Code Blue." she said, addressing the dog by his somewhat official, somewhat jokey name. "We have a new mission. To protect the lives of the crew of this vessel. We find ourselves in a new and potentially hostile environment. There's no telling what kind of threats we may face but it is our sworn duty to protect those in our care. Are you up for the challenge."
Cody offered a small bark by way of acknowledgement and his tongue slid out the side of his mouth.
"Good." said Amara. "We're almost at our destination. Let's get ready."
Fortunately, Cody was already wearing his specially fitted suit. All Amara had to do now was fit his helmet, which made him look even derpier than usual and she tried her very best not to smile at how silly he looked once it was in place. She than led him out towards the the ramp where they were to meet the rest of the team. She had half expected him to go bounding off to try and lick everyone else through his helmet but he stayed by her side the entire time until they stopped moving. Then he did a quick lap around her legs and sat down at her side, slamming his now armoured head into her thigh as he did so. Amara looked down at her companion to see him looking back at her with that stupid
"I'm so happy!" expression he constantly had plastered on his face. Amara rolled her eyes at him. If she had to deal with a person like Cody, she would probably hate their guts but for some reason she loved this mutt.
Probably not as much as he loved her though. That would be impossible.