All right, everybody SHADDAP a minute! All this yammering on and on about loyalty and dead mutts when I’m trying to get the sleep that every fucking one of you needs to get before we ride tomorrow!
Knife, you gotta let it go. Plenty of people took their lumps in that tunnel, and you weren’t the only one who lost something near and dear to your heart. Nobody betrayed you, not according to all the reports and data I’ve received from everyone who was there. Your ride took more damage than she could bear, and for that we’re all sorry. But you could see the dog was no longer a threat. Gonville De’Ath fired the shot that disarmed it, and after that the dog chose to accompany De’Ath. I know some of that dog’s programming, and I suspect it’d have been pretty useful in the right hands. It was not your place to decide its fate.
And Jack, goddammit, you gotta let it go too. The dog. The fucking dog. It was more machine now than mutt, twisted and… okay, not evil, just horrifically uncomfortable in that stupid plastic suit, and the little guy didn’t know his own strength. Can’t really blame him for lashing out… But even though everybody is exhausted and grieving and not thinking straight, you gotta remember: that collection of titanium, fur, polystyrene, and wet-carpet-smell was a lethal enemy that caused real and permanent and lasting damage. The very idea that any of you could form anything like an emotional bond with the fucking thing mere months (let alone seconds) after it was doing its level and very competent best to turn you all into its personal chewtoys is beyond stupid… it’s in-fucking-sane!
In his grief and rage, Knife threatened the widdle snookums. And when De’Ath turned out to have the only rational response possible after it finally found something it really shouldn’t eat, he got to be the one catching all the shit.
I never should have let that thing come back here into camp, and do you know why, Jack Burton, Junior? Do you know why, Channing Hunter? Do you know why, Knife?
I’ll ask again, Jack: do you know why?! It’s because you’re not mature enough to take care of something like that without making a titanic mess of it! Never mind a cybernetically-enhanced guard dog trained and programmed to tear your liver out through your nostrils while preserving any sensitive data that might be recovered from your cerebrum after the fact. You couldn’t even take care of a BABY!!!
Now every last one of you get back in your bunks and forget any of this ever happened!
-(heavy breathing)-
Get to bed. All of you.
I’m gonna dig up that stinking pile of circuits and fur myself. He’s got something I still need.
