Starsight (The Skyward Series Book 2)

“Resigned sigh.” I looped us after an enemy ship. “Did you just say the words resigned sigh?” “I find human nonlinguistic communications to be too easily misinterpreted,” he said. “So I’m experimenting with ways to make them more explicit.” “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?” “Obviously not. Dismissive eye-roll.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with humans. I find their frail, emotionally unstable, irrational natures quite endearing.”

“Dramatic trailing-off of speech,” M-Bot added, “laden with implications of your irresponsible nature.”

“Jorgen really hates talking to me!” M-Bot said enthusiastically. “I can tell by the way he says so!”

When you’re young, you can assume that everyone older than you has life figured out. Once you get command yourself, you realize we’re all just the same kids wearing older bodies.”

“Likely,” M-Bot continued, “I regard humans as I do only because I’m programmed to do so. But hey, that’s no different from instinct programming a mother bird to love the twisted, featherless abominations she spawns, right?”

“We have initial evidence that the planet’s cytoshields are, despite long-standing assumptions, insufficient. The delver has heard our communications, and followed them to us. Repeat, the delver has returned to our station and…”