Spike - Aeon's Legacy

This story first appeared in the 2016 science fiction romance anthology Pets in Space. When frantic preparations for an unprecedented deep-space rescue mission are threatened by sabotage, the young roboticist Ten Jaxdown has to deploy and possibly sacrifice the swarm of investigative robots he invented and cares for more than anything else. But the intrepid young electrical engineer Anastasia Steed has an idea to improve the odds.
These two learn that a pet can even be from space-yet humanize the space between two hurting and alienated human beings.