Final Approach
Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, AAA Murderbot, Canon-Typical Violence, an au retelling of Exit Strategy, Murderbot really misses its flier
Published: 07 January 2023
Word Count: 45,633
Summary
Murderbot attempts to find some closure for its fallen Deltfall clients and reconnect with PreservationAux, but the arrival of the Perihelion's captain and his accompanying SecUnit threatens everything that Murderbot has been working towards...
Chapter One
When I got back to HaveRatton, I still had no idea what I actually wanted to do next. I’d spent the entire twenty day trip watching my serials or listening to music while my combat drone floated around Ship’s interior, occasionally pinging me. I had actively avoided thinking about what to do, and now I was paying for that procrastination.
As Ship approached the station, I waited for HaveRatton’s feed to be in range while also monitoring all of Ship’s inputs. I was worried that the company carrier might have figured out that I had been at Milu, and figured out where I was going, and gotten ahead of us. (Ship's progress was leisurely at best, and the company carrier was very fast.) There was a chance that it would be lying in wait for me at HaveRatton, and if that was the case—
Well. I really hoped that wouldn’t be the case.
There was no sign of a company carrier at the station though, as far as I could tell via Ship’s inputs. Ship also got no unusual navigational alerts or any other out of the ordinary communications, only the usual confirmation of its docking berth slot and time.
That was something of a relief. Company carriers tended to stand out. It was possible that it was docked on the opposite side of the station, blocked from view by the station itself, but that was unlikely. As far as I could tell from the station map that I still had from my previous visit, the docks on that side were all commercial passenger docks, not suited to carriers. It was possible that the company carrier could dock there, but not likely.
As soon as I had access to HaveRatton’s feed, I went through my external feed interface and began searching through its arrivals and departures schedule, looking for any signs of company traffic. There wasn’t anything with the company logo listed over the past cycle, but going back through the station’s logs further did reveal that the company carrier with the terrifying bot entity had passed through here at about the right time for it to have shown up at Milu when it did. That made sense - there weren’t many routes to Milu, and this was one of the most convenient transit points.
I also noticed that the same company carrier had arrived back at HaveRatton a few cycles ago, and had left again almost immediately. Probably returning back to company headquarters after its mission at Milu. I wasn’t sure what to think about that. Had they succeeded in whatever they were doing out at the GrayCris installation? Had they picked up on my presence there? Were they getting reinforcements to help deal with the combat bots? Had Don Abene and Vicky and the others managed to get away before the carrier could catch them at the station?
Too many questions, and no way to answer them. It was frustrating.
To distract myself from that, I began browsing the station’s news and entertainment feeds, looking for anything interesting. Vicky had given me back a decent amount of the media I’d had to delete, but not everything. I wanted to find replacements of what I’d lost, or at least find new material to take its place.
I also set up a keyword filter on the news feed, looking for anything recent about GrayCris, or DeltFall, or PreservationAux, or the company. Multiple hits popped up almost immediately and I set them to download while I double-checked that I had erased all traces of my presence from Ship’s interior. My combat drone was deactivated and hidden in my bag along with all my remaining spare clothing, and I had scrubbed Ship’s logs of my use of things like atmosphere and the little bathroom’s shower.
As Ship eased up to its docking slot, I made my way into StationSec and accessed the cameras in the area around the cargo docks. There weren't many people in this section, since most of the cargo ships that arrived here were all automated. Only a couple of human supervisors watched over the various hauler bots and cargo bots that loaded and unloaded the ships. That was fine by me.
By the time Ship docked, I had my escape route planned out. As the lock cycled open to let me out, I said bye to Ship, then carefully deleted all traces of my presence from its memories. If the company carrier showed up and started poking around, I didn't want to leave any traces. For Ship's sake, as well as my own.
It didn't take me long to make my way through the cargo docks and onto the walkway towards the station mall. I had to hack a few of the station's weapon scanning drones to get them to ignore both myself and the combat drone in my bag, but it was getting easier to do so. The result of all the practice I'd been getting with all the different systems I'd encountered, I guess.
I had been amongst crowds of humans often enough by now that I shouldn't panic any more - I had ridden on a transport with a whole lot of humans who thought I was an augmented human security consultant and talked at me at every available opportunity. I had then successfully pretended to be a human security consultant with a much smaller group of humans. (Right up until I'd had to hold back combat bots and given away that I was a SecUnit in the process, anyway.) Except there was still a little panic.
I should be over this by now.
Maybe it was because I didn't have Vicky with me any more to help me blend in. Every nerve in my organics twitched as I tagged along with a large group of transport passengers. It helps that in stations like this, all the humans and augmented humans are distracted. Everyone's a stranger, everyone's checking the feed for information or communication or entertainment or news updates while they're walking.
The passenger group I was trailing reached one of the transit hotels on the station and began to disperse. I lingered outside by an information display, trying to decide what to do next. I was still downloading media, but I'd finished grabbing all the news reports that seemed pertinent. I was hesitant to look at them just yet though - I wasn't sure what my face might end up doing. After a minute or so, I finally decided to get myself a transit hotel room as well. At least there I'd have some privacy and could go through the news reports in peace. I made sure to get one with a little attached bathroom as well.
I briefly considered just hacking the payment for the room, but then quickly talked myself out of it. That was more of a risk than I needed to take, especially with the hard currency cards that Don Abene had given me. When I used one to pay for a room for myself, I did a double-take at the number displayed for the remaining balance, and had to check it again.
Wow. Don Abene hadn't been joking about giving me and Vicky a bonus.
I was having an emotion about that, but I pushed it aside temporarily until I could actually get into my room and close the door behind me. I then had to scan the room to find any cameras - there was one, so I put my bag down, flopped onto the cheap bed, and then hacked the camera to feed it a loop of me just lying there, apparently asleep.
Not that I was planning on moving or doing much of anything in the near future anyway, but it was the principle of the thing.
With the door closed and locked, and the camera no longer recording me, I could take the time to have that emotion properly. Or just ignore it and start watching my downloaded news reports instead.
Of course, I started watching the downloaded news reports.
I sorted them chronologically so I could review the progress of the legal proceedings against GrayCris. They weren't going well for GrayCris, which was incredibly gratifying considering everything they'd done. All the evidence from PreservationAux and the company and the copies of my recordings that I'd given to Mensah were more than enough to prove GrayCris' guilt irrefutably. There were multiple lawsuits against them, not just from PreservationAux and DeltFall and the company itself, but also the parent companies of some of DeltFall's various survey members.
Each lawsuit was taking a chunk out of GrayCris' rapidly dwindling assets, and the latest news reports were stating that by the time all the lawsuits wrapped up - which would apparently be soon - there would be practically nothing left of GrayCris as a company.
Good riddance, in my opinion.
A few other smaller reports caught my attention as well. Apparently Arada, Overse, Bharadwaj and Volescu had all left Port FreeCommerce to return to Preservation about thirty cycles ago. Mensah, Pin-Lee, Gurathin and Ratthi were still on Port FreeCommerce, as far as I could tell. Another news report mentioned that multiple DeltFall representatives were gathering at Port FreeCommerce as well - not just for the legal proceedings, but also for some kind of… memorial service for all the DeltFall survey members who had been killed. The service hadn't been held yet - the news report mentioning it was one of the most recent, and it speculated that the service would likely happen after the conclusion of the legal proceedings against GrayCris.
Which meant I still had time to get there before it happened.
I had to stare blankly at the ceiling for a while to process my thoughts about that. Did I want to go to this memorial service? It would be incredibly risky for me to return to Port FreeCommerce, one of the company’s main deployment centres, where more people would likely be familiar with SecUnit proportions and might pick me out on sight, despite my clothes and my human movement code and everything else I’d done to disguise the fact that I was a SecUnit.
But I still had my client list from the survey, with every member marked Confirmed Deceased. I still couldn’t figure out why I’d kept it instead of deleting it to make more room for media. (Or alien remnant data.) Maybe, if I went to this event, I’d finally be able to get myself to delete it. Several of my media serials had included episodes involving funerals and stuff like that, and they were usually points of closure for the living characters involved. Maybe going would give me some of that closure, too.
And maybe I’d be able to see Dr. Mensah at the event, too, and let her and the rest of PreservationAux know that I was okay. Even if I didn’t decide to go back to Preservation with them afterwards, it might still be nice to see them again. And once the DeltFall service was over, I could just… go anywhere I wanted to. (I sure as hell wouldn’t stay on Port FreeCommerce any longer than absolutely necessary.)
I could also give Dr. Mensah my data clip with all the alien remnant data on it if I saw her there, but given how the legal proceedings against GrayCris were going, it didn’t seem like she would need it. Maybe it would be best to just… not say anything about me having alien remnant data at all. It felt like something that the fewer people knew about, the better.
I could just delete the information and use the data clip to store more media, but then I would’ve lost my missing media for nothing. Maybe it would come in handy at some point in the future, if I ran out of hard currency cards or something. After some thought, I retrieved the data clip from my bag and slipped it into my in-built chest compartment. Alien remnant data wasn’t something I wanted to risk losing and just have anyone come across.
With that little side-track taken care of, I had to return to the main question. Was I actually going to go back to Port FreeCommerce?
I pulled schedules for extra-fast crewed passenger transports, to see if there was anything available that would get me to Port FreeCommerce in time for the memorial in the first place. If there wasn’t, then the decision would be made for me, and I could just… figure out how to make my way to Preservation instead, or something.
It turned out there was, actually. Damn. No easy decision-making for me. There was a suitable ship leaving in four hours heading for a major hub. From there, I would be able to connect to another fast, crewed passenger transport that would take me to Port FreeCommerce.
I still waffled over the decision for the next two and a half hours, weighing up pros and cons, calculating potential risk factors and possible threats. (While also watching some of the new media I’d managed to download as well.) Then I spent another twenty minutes in the shower, still undecided, while I finished the last of my media downloads. (The hot water helped to ease some of the lingering ache in the organics over my right shoulder, side, and lower back.)
Once I was clean and in a fresh set of clothes, I packed up my bag, checked that I had everything, returned the camera to its default settings, and left the room. I headed towards the passenger departure docks, where the ship would be leaving from. I still hadn’t made up my mind, but if I did end up deciding to do it, I didn’t want to have to rush to get to the docks in time.
Walking through the crowds was still excruciating, and I double-checked that my human movement code was running every six minutes. Fortunately, nobody seemed to look twice at me. I looked just like yet another augmented human traveller, dressed in nondescript clothes, carrying an unremarkable bag, making my way from one place to another like pretty much everyone else around me. The occasional weapon scanner was easy enough to hack, and there weren’t a lot of other security bots or anything around. The few that I did come across were also easy enough to avoid the attention of.
Finally I made it to the specific dock, and stood outside at one of the information terminals for another two point three minutes. If I was going to do this, I needed to decide soon. Boarding was due to start in ten minutes, and I couldn’t just stand here at the information terminal for all ten of those minutes. That would start attracting attention.
I opened my DeltFall client list again. Read through it. Closed it. Tried to delete it. Failed to delete it.
I booked the ticket.
Once I boarded the ship, I made my way directly to my cabin, passing a few fellow passengers on the way. They ignored me though, and I ignored them, which suited everyone just fine. I’d made sure to book a cabin with a private attached bathroom, with all meals delivered to it, so I didn’t have to leave my cabin at all for the entire trip. The meals I was delivered got dumped into the bathroom recycler, so the levels wouldn’t look off.
The trip itself wasn’t as terrible as I’d been expecting it to be. Since it was a crewed ship, the bot pilot didn’t try to use me as on board security, even though I’d listed myself as being a security consultant again. I wasn’t using the name Rin this time though; I’d decided to go by Kieran for this trip. Just in case anyone tried searching for Rin.
I spent almost the entire trip lying on my bunk and watching all the new media I’d downloaded while on HaveRatton. It would have almost been nice and relaxing, if I wasn’t so stressed about my destination and all the things that could potentially go wrong once I got there. There was only so much distraction my media consumption could manage.
When we reached the next station, I made sure I had everything, then disembarked with the rest of the passengers in the midst of an ever-shifting mass of humans. Again, nobody looked twice at me as we walked along. I was already in the station’s feed, hacking the weapons scanners, downloading more new media and the station map and transport schedules. As I left the embarkation hall and entered the station’s main mall, I edited my personal profile again to change my name from Kieran to Lei, then booked my ticket for the next leg of the journey.
Thank you, Don Abene, for your generosity. Despite the expense of my transport tickets, I still had a decent amount of hard currency left.
The transport wasn’t due to leave for another three hours, so I spent some time exploring the various shops along the station mall. It was still excruciatingly stressful being amongst so many humans, but I’d also just spent four days locked in a single ship cabin with only my media and my offline combat drone to keep me company. (I wasn’t going to risk activating it anywhere that might detect its presence unless I absolutely had to.) I hadn’t realised how cooped-up being in that same cabin for so long had made me feel until I was out of it. It was weird. I’d spent so much of my life motionless in cubicles or transport crates, it shouldn’t have made me so uncomfortable now. But it did.
So it was kind of nice to be able to just walk around and look around at all the different storefronts and displays and the station’s various environmental domes arching overhead. Seeing places like this in my media wasn’t the same as seeing and experiencing them in person.
One of the stores I ended up browsing through sold little holo-statue display projectors, about the size of an average human’s palm. Most of them were pre-programmed with various weird holographic fauna or flora, but I spotted a couple that had quite nice little displays of colourful nebulae. There were also a bunch that displayed various popular characters from well-known media, including one that I recognised as one of Vicky’s favourite characters.
I lingered in the store for long enough that not buying anything would probably have looked really suspicious, so eventually I decided to purchase a couple. Maybe if I met Vicky again, I could give it the one with its favourite media character. I also got one of the nebulae displays, and a third one that had a selection of various nice-looking flora that it cycled through. Mensah lived on a farm - maybe she’d like that one. And if she didn’t, they seemed easy enough to reprogram to display something else. I paid for them, slipped them into one of the pockets of my bag, and finally left that store.
By that point it was getting close to boarding time for the next transport. I made my way over to the embarkation lounge, hung around there with other humans who were also waiting to board, and managed to navigate my way through not one, but two separate instances of random humans striking up idle conversation with me. (It was, of course, excruciating both times, but at least I’d practised enough with Vicky before that I didn’t fuck up either conversation too much.) Finally, the boarding call went out, and I got to escape the embarkation lounge and board the transport.
Again, I’d booked a private room with an attached bathroom and meals delivered. I headed there immediately, carefully stowed my bag, then took the time to have another shower. (Hey, I’d paid for the luxury, there was no reason for me to not take advantage of it.) But once I’d dressed again and settled my external feed interface back into place, I found myself feeling increasingly restless.
I wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe I didn’t want to look at the same four walls for four days straight again. Maybe the anxiety about what could happen once I got to Port FreeCommerce was getting to me. Maybe I was just bored of watching media. Whatever the reason, I ended up venturing out of my room and wandering through the ship’s corridors.
The ship’s feed had provided a map of the passenger accessible areas, and I had already worked my way into the ship’s SecSystem as soon as I boarded. I used that to access the cameras so I could avoid as many humans as possible while I explored. It was a pretty nice ship, compared to some of the others I’d been on. There were a few different passenger lounge areas, and a couple of recreation rooms, and a large communal mess hall for group meals. (I avoided that area, of course. I didn’t want to get involved in any more cracker wrappers in sinks arguments.)
I eventually made my way to one of the smaller, more out of the way lounge areas. Nobody else was there. The ship was well into the wormhole by now, and there weren’t many humans moving around at this point in the ship’s cycle. That suited me just fine. I tried out a couple of the chairs and couches, found an armchair that was surprisingly comfortable, and settled into it. There was a large display surface on one wall of the lounge, which the armchair was conveniently positioned to face.
After a few seconds of consideration, I sent one of my new serials to start playing on the display surface. I hadn’t had a chance to watch anything on such a large display before; it was a novel experience. I double-checked my human movement code, shifted a little to get more comfortable in the armchair, then let myself get absorbed in the serial.
I’d made it through five and a half episodes when a human wandered into the lounge area. At first I ignored them - my attention was firmly fixed on the display surface and the drama playing out across it. I couldn’t continue ignoring them though when they ambled up to stand right beside my chair, cleared their throat, and then said, “Hey, have you seen Mehgan?”
I blinked, paused the serial, and looked up at them. “Pardon?” I might have been frowning; I quickly checked one of the lounge cameras and - yeah, I was frowning. I hurriedly tried to smooth the frown out into something more politely neutral.
They blinked back at me, looking a little thrown off. “Oh, um.” They rubbed the back of their neck awkwardly with one hand. “Sorry. I thought— well, never mind.” I checked their feed profile - it was sparse but pretty standard. Name, pronouns, occupation. I didn’t care about the details though so I didn’t bother remembering them. I also double-checked my own profile, which I’d set to Do Not Disturb before I’d left my room. Either this human hadn’t seen that part, or had chosen to ignore it. Typical human behaviour either way. “Sorry for bothering you,” they added apologetically, before moving away and going to sit in one of the other chairs at the opposite end of the lounge.
It was really weird to have a human apologising to me, but at least they weren’t bothering me any more. I reflexively checked my human movement code again, then returned my attention to the display surface and unpaused the serial. The human seemed to be busy with their own feed, though I saw them occasionally look up at the display with obvious curiosity. As long as the human was quiet and unobtrusive though, I was content to stay right where I was.
A few minutes later though, a few other humans began showing up. At least one of them seemed to recognise the other human, because they went right over to them, with the rest following, and they started talking quietly. I didn’t care enough to try and make out what they were saying though, I was still listening to the serial. Every now and then they’d glance over at me, which was both annoying and anxiety-inducing. After a few more minutes, another couple of humans showed up and wandered over to join the little group. More glances were thrown my way.
Finally I gave up, shut down the display surface, and left the lounge. It was pretty obvious the little group of humans wanted it for themselves. More humans were starting to move around the ship again by this point, so I retreated back to my room. At least I was no longer feeling so restless by this point, and the quiet dimness and privacy of my room was a relief rather than a discomfort. I flopped down onto the bed and resumed my interrupted media.
Over the course of the four cycle trip, I ventured out of my room a few more times, usually during the quieter parts of the ship cycle when there were fewer humans roaming around. I visited the little lounge a couple more times - that armchair was very comfortable - but I made sure to leave again before anyone else started showing up. I spotted the humans I’d seen in the lounge a few more times while moving around the ship, but they ignored me and I ignored them, which was ideal.
Finally, near the end of the fourth cycle, the ship exited the wormhole and began its approach to Port FreeCommerce. I picked up the edge of the station’s feed through my external feed interface and began searching the news feeds specifically. I needed updates on how close the legal proceedings were to being wrapped up, and whether or not I’d arrived in time for the DeltFall memorial service.
I was also listening in on the passenger transport’s comm so I could monitor navigational alerts and anything else that the Port Authority might send. There seemed to be fewer company carriers hanging around the station than usual, but then again I didn’t actually know what was a normal number. I’d only really been in a position to see the station from the outside a couple of times before. I wasn’t close enough yet to tell if one carrier in particular was at the station; I really, really hoped it wasn’t, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it one way or another. I started another feed search for the station’s transport schedules.
I had to set up a filter to get past all the advertisements promoting company products and bond packages to get to the news reports, which was annoying. Then I had to filter out a bunch of other news reports that I really didn’t care about to get to the ones I wanted. And then I had to sort those by timestamp to find the most recent reports. (The news feed was not very well organised, in my opinion.)
Fortunately, it turned out that I hadn’t missed the memorial service. The final legal proceedings were currently underway, and the memorial was scheduled to start in a few hours. I’d have enough time for the transport to dock with the transit ring, disembark, and make my way across the station to where the memorial was being held, and I’d still have an hour or so to spare. According to the news reports, the members of PreservationAux who hadn’t left Port FreeCommerce were also expected to be at the service.
I didn’t know how I felt about seeing any of them again. I had only known them for a few days, really, and a lot had happened over that short amount of time. I didn’t know how they would feel about me vanishing as soon as we got back to Port FreeCommerce, or how they would react to seeing me again, or if they would even recognise me now. I wasn’t in company armour, or a company uniform, or a PreservationAux uniform - my clothes were completely different colours, blacks and dark blues, with a looser fit that helped to disguise my build. My hair was longer, and neatly styled thanks to Vicky’s efforts, and the external feed interface I now wore also helped to make me look less like a SecUnit and more like a human.
And even if they did manage to recognise me, they might not want to see me again, not after all this time. Maybe they’d been relieved when I hadn’t shown up again, when I’d just left Mensah a note and vanished from their lives. They had more than enough problems of their own to worry about. And if the company had figured out I hadn’t actually been destroyed, and had hassled the PreservationAux humans about it… if they saw me again, maybe they’d alert the company. My performance reliability dropped two points at the thought of that possibility.
I was seriously starting to reconsider going to this memorial service. Just being on the station itself was a massive risk, let alone going to an event that would be full of company people, and DeltFall representatives, and the PreservationAux humans. Maybe once the ship docked, it would be best if I just booked transport on another ship and left again as soon as possible. I started searching through the transit ring’s transport schedules, looking for suitable departing ships.
But my thoughts kept drifting back to my DeltFall clients, the ones I’d failed to protect. All the names on my client list, marked confirmed deceased. The family members - some of whom I’d overheard my clients talk about - being at that service, knowing that their relatives would never return again. The fact that I still couldn’t delete my client list, no matter how many times I’d tried.
Fuck. I hate having emotions about real life. I would so much rather have emotions about my media instead.
I closed out of the transport search, let myself sigh heavily, checked that I had everything in my bag, and prepared to disembark.
Chapter Two
I was already in StationSec by the time the transport docked and passengers began filing off it. I tagged along with the largest clump, slouching a little to help disguise my height, with my bag securely tucked beneath my arm. Hacking the weapons scanners was easier than it had been the last time I’d been here, even while going through my external feed interface. Probably because I was more familiar with them and had gotten more experience between then and now.
The knot of passengers I was ambling along with continued through the embarkation zone, up a ramp, and then began to disperse once we hit the main commercial zone. I continued on as casually as I could manage while I double-checked the intended location for the DeltFall memorial service and cross-referenced it with the station map available on the public feed. I’d be able to make it there in time for the start of the service as long as I didn’t get side-tracked or interrupted.
It was still very weird and stressful and anxiety-inducing to be walking amongst so many other humans and augmented humans. I found myself wishing that Vicky was with me - it had been so much better at reading other humans’ moods and expressions and navigating its way through all the complicated social expectations. I’d picked up a lot of that while travelling with it, but it still didn’t come naturally to me, and I missed the reassurance of Vicky’s presence.
Not that I would ever tell it that, of course.
I tried to distract myself from my thoughts by browsing the entertainment feeds for more media. Port FreeCommerce had a few new seasons of some of my serials that I hadn’t seen before, plus most of the stuff that I was still missing after everything that happened on Milu. I started a bunch of downloads and began listening to some of the new music I was getting. The music helped ease my anxiety ever so slightly.
I’d only been out on Port FreeCommerce like this once before, but it seemed busier than last time. More humans and augmented humans, more bots, more security drones and camera drones that human news reporters used humming overhead. Maybe the increase was due to the legal proceedings against GrayCris, or the DeltFall memorial service, or maybe some other entirely unrelated reasons that I didn’t know or care about. Whatever the reason, threat assessment was pinging uneasily, though it couldn’t provide any specifics.
I finally made it to where the memorial service was going to be held. It was a large, fancy looking building, something like a big official looking hall, set in one of the more open areas of the station’s main commercial zone. The station ceiling was high enough overhead that it was barely noticeable past all the floating holo displays, the transit tubes and transit bubbles criss-crossing overhead, the swarms of feed advertisements and the bustle of security and delivery drones. There was a large, open plaza in front of the hall, dotted with holo-trees circled by benches. (You could sit on the benches for two minutes for free, but after that the station would start charging your account for the privilege.)
Right now, the plaza was bustling with humans and augmented humans. Company employees, distinctive in their white and red-trimmed uniforms, news reporters from a multitude of different news feed channels and their accompanying camera drones, professional-looking humans in professional-looking outfits like some of the characters on my serials that I assumed were lawyers, DeltFall representatives in their own uniforms, a few other uniforms I didn’t recognise, and all the others who looked like regular travellers, or workers, or possibly family members of the DeltFall survey group. (I couldn’t spot anyone in the PreservationAux uniforms, though.) None of the humans paid any attention to me whatsoever, there was too much going on.
I managed to get a good look at the front of the hall via one of the station’s security drones hovering overhead, and realised that only certain people were being let inside. Presumably only those who had a legitimate reason to attend the service - company representatives, DeltFall representatives or relatives of DeltFall members, a few (but not all) of the very professionally dressed humans, a select handful of news reporters. I realised it would be far too risky and difficult for me to try and get in via the front door.
Fortunately, the front door isn’t the only way to get into a building. I skirted the plaza and used the view from the overhead security drones to work my way to the rear of the building, where all the service entrances were. There were far fewer humans back here; it was mostly bots, and not many of those, either. I managed to reach one of the service entrances and politely asked a delivery bot if I could follow it in. It had no orders to keep out other bots who asked politely, it was only meant to keep out unauthorised humans, so it happily let me follow it inside.
It was a relief to get into the building and out from under the scrutiny of all the security drones. I could erase my presence from cameras, yes, but there were too many for me to get them all while I’d been moving through the station, so I hadn’t bothered. I only deleted myself from the records of the ones who had been in a position to see me enter the hall through the service entrance, which was much more manageable.
The hall had its own independent SecSystem, but it was still a company SecSystem so I had no difficulty convincing it that I was meant to be there. I browsed through the system and was a little startled to realise that there were four other SecUnits active in the hall as well. Fortunately none of them had noticed my presence before I noticed theirs, so I was able to conceal myself from them. It looked like they were all single units instead of a squad, here as bodyguards for individual company representatives.
Fuck. I’d have to be extra careful that none of them caught sight of me. If any of them thought to scan me, they’d be able to tell what I was immediately. That would not end well. Once again I considered just… leaving, not risking this stupid plan for stupid emotional reasons that I didn’t even understand.
But I’d made it this far, it felt idiotic to back out now. There were only four of them. As long as I avoided them, I should be all right. (That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway.)
I used the SecSystem’s cameras to figure out the layout of the building, and how to get to the main hall without being spotted. There were enough people in there now that my presence would go unremarked, especially if I stayed at the periphery. The main hall was almost tackily ornate, with multiple sheltered alcoves along the walls containing benches where people could sit in small groups in semi-privacy while whatever main event went on. (Every alcove had at least one discreet camera to datamine anything that went on in them, but this was a company station after all, and I wasn’t surprised in the slightest.)
Not many of the alcoves were currently in use though, so I was able to get to an unoccupied one without anyone paying any attention to me. It was also, conveniently, on the opposite side of the hall from the little cluster of company representatives and their accompanying SecUnits. Oddly, none of the SecUnits were in armour. They were all wearing simpler versions of the fancy dress uniforms that the company representatives were wearing.
Then again, them being out of their armour was maybe not so odd. The DeltFall survey team had been murdered by combat-overriden SecUnits, after all. Their family members here probably would not have reacted well to having obvious SecUnits hanging around at this event. It was pretty apparent to me what they were, with their heights and builds and unnatural stillness, but to humans who had never seen a SecUnit out of its armour before, perhaps it wasn’t so obvious. That was a lot more tactful than I thought the company was capable of being, honestly.
I hacked the camera in my chosen alcove to loop it showing the alcove still unoccupied, then sat down on the bench in a shadowed corner where it would be difficult for anyone to spot me from outside. I couldn’t see out of the alcove very well, either, but I didn’t need to. I just watched everything going on through SecSystem’s cameras instead.
A few minutes after I settled into the alcove, the last little cluster of stragglers entered the hall, the doors closed behind them, and the service started. There was an opening speech from one of the company representatives that was predictably trite and hollow, then more speeches by various other people that I didn’t particularly care about. I spent most of the time observing the gathered people through the cameras, trying to identify the family members of the clients that I’d failed to protect.
It wasn’t difficult to find them, really. They were all gathered together in one section of the hall; some were quietly crying, others were silently stoic, a few looked as bored by the speeches as I was. Some of them bore enough resemblance to my deceased clients that I was able to recognise them and make the connection to who they were related to.
Some of those with the most family resemblance were juveniles or adolescents.
The speeches went on. There was a long table on the stage behind the podium, and resting on that table were a couple of holo-flower displays flanking a neatly lined up collection of weirdly shaped little jars. They looked like they were meant to be tasteful and solemn, but to me they mostly just looked cheap and mass-manufactured. It took me a little bit to realise that the jars held the limited physical remains of the murdered DeltFall survey members. Forty-two of them, all the same, save for the name engraved across the front of each one.
Forty-two names that matched the ones in my client list. (Confirmed Deceased.)
Some of the DeltFall family members eventually went up to make short speeches of their own. About how much their murdered loved ones would be remembered, and missed. Thanking the company for getting justice for their families by holding GrayCris liable, for squeezing compensation money out of GrayCris, for making GrayCris pay for their crimes.
My insides twisted unpleasantly at that. If the company had done their fucking job properly in the first place, then maybe the DeltFall survey team wouldn’t have been murdered in the first place.
If I had done my job properly, then maybe…
But.
If I hadn’t ended up where I did, when I did… perhaps Bharadwaj and Volescu would’ve been killed by the giant hostile fauna before anyone else could reach them. Perhaps the rest of PreservationAux would’ve been murdered by their own SecUnit instead. Perhaps I would’ve ended up overridden at DeltFall along with the other SecUnits anyway, or dead on the floor with a hole through my torso, and both the DeltFall survey team and the PreservationAux survey team would’ve still all ended up dead, and GrayCris might’ve gotten away with everything somehow.
It was difficult to weigh only eight lives against forty-two, but. PreservationAux, at least, had been kind to me. DeltFall hadn’t been unkind to me, or the other SecUnits, not like some of the other contracts I’d been on. But they’d also never seen past our status as equipment. PreservationAux had, eventually, and once they had, they did everything they could to treat both myself and their own SecUnit with the same respect they treated each other. They had gone out of their way to help me, multiple times, even when I didn’t want it - especially when I didn’t want it - and had risked themselves in the process.
Mensah had killed another unit to save me.
I still didn’t know if I deserved any of that kindness.
I’d failed at keeping my DeltFall clients safe, but I hadn’t failed PreservationAux. And because of them, I was free, and able to be here having this existential crisis in the first place. And because of me, they were still alive, and they’d been able to inform the company, and the company had made GrayCris pay, and the families of the DeltFall survey team were getting… at least some kind of justice, and closure.
I opened my DeltFall client list again.
One by one, the little jars were claimed by family members, or representatives of family who couldn’t make it here. One by one, I deleted each name off my client list.
Finally, the list was empty. I closed the file and deleted it.
There were more speeches, but I didn’t listen to them. Instead, I used the cameras to scan the rest of the audience. It took me a bit to find the PreservationAux group - none of them were wearing the survey’s grey uniforms, which threw me a little. I almost didn’t recognise any of them, despite having seen them in their civilian clothes during some of the various news reports and interviews.
It was strange seeing them again now. I hadn’t really expected to, even though I’d had the vague idea to try and talk to Mensah at least while I was here. And now, there she was, looking calm and composed as the company representative’s closing speech droned on. Pin-Lee was beside Mensah, her lips pressed into a thin, tight line and her arms folded. Ratthi was on Mensah’s other side, his head bowed so I couldn’t clearly see his expression. Gurathin was beside him, his hands in his pockets and his face blankly neutral.
Now that I’d confirmed that they were really here, within reach, I had to decide if I was actually going to try and contact any of them or not. And if so, how was I going to do it? Approaching them myself here, with so many other people around, seemed like a bad plan. Especially since I didn’t know how they would react to seeing me. Maybe I should just contact them over the feed first - that seemed safer. But then what would I say? What could I say? I still had no idea how they would respond.
The company representative finally finished their closing speech and ended the service, the humans began milling about and talking to each other, and I still hadn’t come to a decision. And while I was debating with myself over what to do, I noticed one of the company representatives break away from the group and start towards Mensah and the rest, with his accompanying SecUnit keeping pace a few steps behind him.
With a start, I realised that this company representative was the same captain from the carrier with the terrifying bot entity. Fuck. How had I not noticed that before?!
… Because I’d been too busy having stupid emotions over stupid humans to properly pay attention to the individual company reps, that’s why. Fuck. And now he was talking with Mensah, but too quietly for the cameras to pick up what he was saying. Mensah’s expression was still calm and neutrally polite, but Pin-Lee had one eyebrow raised, Ratthi was watching the captain’s accompanying SecUnit with a vaguely dubious expression, and Gurathin was frowning.
Fuck fuck fuck. What was the company captain saying to them? I couldn’t tell over the noise of everyone else talking and moving around. Whatever it was, though, the conversation didn’t last long. Mensah spoke with him for a bit, then they nodded politely at each other before the captain turned to head back to the other company representatives, and Mensah led the others out of the hall.
I had to get out of here fast, before the hall emptied enough that I’d be noticed. At least this time there wasn’t anyone checking people at the door, so I just slipped out of my alcove, undid the looping on the camera once I was out of its view, and tagged along at the rear of a group of humans. My organics were tense and prickling; I hunched my shoulders as much as I could without looking too weird and kept my head down as we walked through the hall and out the front doors.
Nobody looked twice at me though; nobody pointed me out, or tried to stop me, and none of the SecUnits tried to ping me. Once I was outside of the hall, I peeled away from the group I’d followed out and strode off as casually as I could manage. There were still news reporters gathered outside, but they were mostly focused on anyone in a recognisable uniform or professional looking business wear. I got past them without them giving me a second glance.
I had to use the station’s security drones again to find the PreservationAux humans. They had also made it past the reporters - maybe that was why they weren’t wearing their uniforms right now - and were heading towards the section of the station where their hotel was.
That’s when I had an idea. I wanted to talk to them, even though I didn’t know why, but I also didn’t want to approach them in public. Likewise, I didn’t want to enter their hotel, with so many company staff around. There weren’t many places one could get privacy on the station, but I knew that Mensah and the others would have to take a specific transit pod to get from here to where their hotel was.
If I could get ahead of them, I could get in one of the transit pods, then hack it to hold it in place until they arrived, then open the doors for them. That way they could have whatever reaction they were going to have to me showing up again in relative privacy, and then—
Well, I’d figure that out once I got there. Winging it had been working pretty well for me so far.
I strode off out of the plaza and down another passage that I knew would get me to where I needed to go, thanks to the station map I had. I kept track of their progress through the station cameras and drones - they were quietly talking to each other, and they weren’t walking very fast, which made it easier for me to get ahead of them in time. It was easy enough to hack one of the pods and its camera, hold its door closed until another pod arrived to take everyone who was waiting for one, then slip into my hacked transit pod and close the doors again behind me before anyone else could arrive. I asked it to hold in place though, and set a minor maintenance alert so that other pods wouldn’t try to occupy the same slot it was still taking up.
By the time Mensah and the others started nearing the transit stop though, more people were waiting for the next pod. Shit. I didn’t want to open the doors to let just anyone in, but I also didn’t want PreservationAux to end up taking a different pod.
Before I could think about what I was doing, I reached out and tapped Mensah’s feed. [Hi,] I said. [It’s me. Uh, the DeltFall SecUnit.]
Yeah, I know. Real eloquent there, Murderbot.
Mensah’s stride hitched in surprise, and she slowed a little. The others noticed, and slowed as well - Ratthi opened his mouth to ask something but Mensah made a little hand gesture and he blinked and shut it again. Both of Pin-Lee’s eyebrows went up at that, and Gurathin’s habitual frown deepened, but neither of them tried to say anything either. [SecUnit?] Mensah replied over the feed. [Where are you?]
[In one of the transit pods,] I said. [Wait until the next pod arrives and everyone else still waiting takes that one. I’ll open the doors to my pod for you once it’s clear.]
Mensah tapped my feed in acknowledgement and picked up the pace again. The others followed, still quiet but obviously waiting for an explanation. [What are you doing here?] Mensah asked me over the feed. [Are you all right?]
I didn’t think I would ever get used to Mensah asking me if I was all right. It made my insides do something warm and twisty. [I’m fine. I just… I was at the service for DeltFall. But there were too many people around to contact you there.]
[That’s understandable,] Mensah replied. By this point they were at the transit stop, behind everyone else waiting. As the pod in the slot beside mine arrived, Mensah quietly said to the others, “We’ll wait for the next one.”
“What’s going on?” Ratthi asked in a near-whisper.
Mensah patted his arm with a brief smile. “Nothing bad. You’ll see.”
The last of the humans outside entered the other pod, and the doors closed. I gave my pod the orders to open its doors, and Mensah gestured for the others to enter. I was leaning back in one corner beside the door, with my bag tucked under my arm, so I wasn’t immediately obvious as they boarded. Especially since they were all still looking back at Mensah with various expressions of curiosity and/or puzzlement.
Just as Mensah was about to enter the pod though, I spotted an unfortunately familiar figure stride hurriedly out of the passing crowd to catch up with her. “Dr. Mensah,” the carrier captain said politely, his SecUnit once again only a few steps behind him. “I’m glad I managed to catch up with you.”
Fuck. I was trapped - there was nowhere for me to go other than through the captain and his SecUnit, and I couldn’t close the pod doors on him - he boarded alongside Mensah before she could say anything. I also wasn’t fast enough to close them before his fucking SecUnit boarded as well. And by this point, the others had noticed me. Ratthi was staring at me with wide eyes, Pin-Lee was glancing between me and the company captain with narrowed eyes, and Gurathin’s frown had deepened even further.
Maybe, if I didn’t draw attention to myself, the captain would keep his attention on Mensah and not who else was in the pod. I let the doors close normally and started the pod on its way. At least the other SecUnit wasn’t in armour. If I had to, I could possibly neutralise both it and the captain before it could react.
Maybe.
Mensah flicked a very brief glance my way before looking back to the captain with a polite smile. “I wasn’t expecting you to catch up to us so quickly, Captain,” she said. “But since you’re here now, what was it that you were wanting to ask me about?” She’d shifted a little so that the captain wasn’t directly facing me as he talked to her; once again, I found myself appreciating Mensah’s calmness and quick thinking. The captain was also partially between me and the other SecUnit - in such close proximity, I just had to hope that it didn’t look too closely at me or scan me.
Meanwhile, Ratthi had started frantically tapping my feed. [SecUnit?] he asked. [Is that you? Oh wow, you look great! It’s so good to see you again!]
Okay, I had not been expecting that kind of enthusiasm at all. Ratthi had already pulled Pin-Lee and Gurathin into the feed chat as well before I could think of how to respond. [Look, it’s SecUnit!]
[We can see that, Ratthi,] Pin-Lee replied dryly. [What the hell are you doing here?] she then said to me. [I mean, yes, of course, it’s good to see you still in one piece and all, but isn’t this station the most dangerous place you could be right now?] She glanced back over her shoulder at the company captain.
[I just came here for the DeltFall service,] I said, probably more defensively than I needed to. [And - I thought you might like to know that I was okay, and not recaptured or scrapped or something. I wasn’t exactly planning on getting stuck in a pod with a company captain.]
The three of them exchanged glances that I couldn’t interpret. [Well, hopefully he won’t notice you, and Mensah will be able to hold his attention until you can slip away again,] Ratthi said optimistically.
Which is, of course, when the company captain looked over at them, presumably to ask them something, and caught sight of me despite Gurathin’s casual attempt to block me from his line of sight. (I was too tall and Pin-Lee and Ratthi were too short to shield me much themselves.) I tried to keep my expression bored and neutral, like I was just some random stranger, but I saw the captain’s eyes widen slightly.
“Security Consultant Rin?” he asked abruptly.
I froze; the others all looked surprised or confused. “Who?” Ratthi asked, with genuine puzzlement.
The captain straightened, never taking his eyes off me as he nodded in my direction. “Your SecUnit friend there.”
Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
“From the DeltFall survey,” the captain continued while I was internally panicking. His own SecUnit had moved up to stand beside him and was staring at me intently. “It was going by the name Rin while working as a security consultant in the Milu system.” Both risk and threat assessment were spiking wildly - he knew what I was and that meant his terrifying bot entity would know I was here and it would be able to reach me and—
I shut down my feed and comms entirely.
The captain was still talking, glancing around at the others before looking back at me. “You all helped it escape after the survey, correct?”
He knew, he’d figured it out, and he was a company captain and the company was going to slug PreservationAux with fines and try to repossess me and either scrap me entirely or fix my governor module and force me back into being a good obedient little slave and there was no way I could escape now, no way I could take down his own SecUnit without the element of surprise and make my escape, and I didn’t know what I wanted yet but I sure as hell knew what I didn’t want—
I popped my arm guns out and jammed the barrels up beneath my own jaw. I didn’t want to die, but if it was a choice between that and being reclaimed by the company again, then it wasn’t really a choice at all. “I am not going to let you take me back.” With my feed down I no longer had control of the lift pod or its cameras so I had no idea what my face was doing, but it definitely wasn’t SecUnit neutral.
All of the humans froze and stared at me, wide-eyed - even the SecUnit blinked. “I won’t let you control me again,” I added, barely even recognising my own voice. “I won’t.”
The company captain took a breath to say something at the same time as Mensah did, but before either of them could speak, the SecUnit moved. It stepped between me and the captain, but—
— it had its back to me. It hadn’t extended its own weapons, and it had its back to me.
I barely managed to abort the fire command that I’d reflexively triggered as it started to move. What was going on? What was it doing?
“I won’t let you, either,” it said softly. It was really, really weird hearing another SecUnit speak in its own voice, and not with buffer phrases. And—
— it was openly defying the company captain.
I was so confused. I didn’t know what to think, or what was going on. Mensah and the rest of the PreservationAux humans looked to be just as confused as I was, glancing between me and the company captain and the other SecUnit uncertainly.
Then something outside exploded, and all the lights went out.
Chapter Three
The transit pod was plunged into darkness and juddered to an unsteady halt. The humans let out startled yelps and exclamations, and I had to hastily retract my arm weapons and reach out to steady Ratthi and Gurathin before they fell over.
“What the hell?!” Pin-Lee swore, as the emergency lighting kicked in and dimly illuminated the pod’s interior in eerie red. “What is going on?!”
I saw the captain’s jaw moving as he subvocalised briefly. “The station’s under attack,” he then replied sharply. “Enemy forces somehow infiltrated the station and sabotaged various vital systems. An enemy fleet is coming in through the wormhole and engaging the station’s defences.” The others let out various exclamations of surprise and shock, but I wasn’t paying attention to them right now. My attention had snapped onto the other SecUnit.
It had noticeably stiffened, and even as I watched it started to turn towards me and raise its arms from its sides, the sleeves of its uniform visibly bulging as its arm guns began to deploy. But its movements were jerky and uncoordinated, like it was trying to fight its own body. “Mal-malware,” it forced out, and—
— oh, it would have been connected to the SecSystem, and if the people attacking the station had hacked into it and forced some kind of patch through to infect all the company SecUnits—
Oh. Oh shit.
I shoved past the others and tackled the SecUnit, knocking it flat on its back and using my body weight to pin it against the floor, holding its arms down by the wrists. It tried to fight me off, but judging by the spasmodic jerkiness of its movements, it was fighting itself as much as it was fighting me. I could see its face, and how it stared up at me, its expression still mostly SecUnit neutral but its eyes wider than normal. Blood was starting to leak from its nose, and—
— I knew what that was.
It was fighting the malware, fighting against the intruding orders that it didn’t want to follow, and its governor module was punishing it for not doing what the malware wanted it to do.
I had a brief but intense reaction in my organics - the vague memory of fighting against something, resisting orders I knew were wrong, the weight of my projectile weapon in my hands, the feeling of warm fluids trickling from my nose, over my lips and down my chin, not being able to wipe it away—
— the original PreservationAux SecUnit, who I thought had turned against its own clients, but really it had just been hacked as well, and maybe its own nose had been bleeding beneath its helmet when it turned to attack Mensah, to attack me—
I turned my feed back on, used my external feed interface as a buffer to prevent the malware from trying to infect me as well, and hacked into the other SecUnit. Part of me was vaguely aware of the company captain talking sharply, the PreservationAux humans exclaiming, but I didn’t have any attention to spare for them as I fought my way through the unit’s walls. It wasn’t as difficult as I was expecting it to be - maybe it was all the hacking practice I’d been getting, maybe it was just the familiarity of the code.
Whatever the reason, I managed to break past its walls in less than a second, and dove into the rest of its code. The malware was fast, and slippery, and tenacious, but I was pissed and determined to destroy it. I wrestled its tendrils out of the other SecUnit’s base code, deleting chunks of the malware as I went. The more I got, the less it could resist me, and within seconds I had cleared it all out.
Then I reached into the code for the governor module, and snapped it like a twig. Now the only way it would ever work again was if it was physically replaced.
I felt the other SecUnit relax and go limp beneath me as I quickly withdrew from its head. It blinked up at me, looking dazed and a little confused, blood still oozing from its nose and sliding thickly down its face. I had to quickly look away. “Are you all right now?” I asked it quietly.
It blinked again, took a breath, then let it out slowly. I felt it ping me, a simple acknowledgement. “Yes,” it added softly. “Thank you.”
I pinged it back. “Don’t mention it.” Then I let go of its arms, stood up, and offered it a hand. It stared blankly for a moment, then accepted my hand, and I helped it back to its feet.
The humans had stopped talking by that point, and were watching us both. I couldn’t help but notice that all the PreservationAux humans had moved to stand between me and the company captain, shoulder to shoulder. “What happened?” Ratthi asked, looking worried, then he blinked at the other unit and added, “You’re bleeding!”
The other unit wiped at its nose with its sleeve, trying to clean the blood away. Ugh, gross. “Whoever’s attacking the station sent malware through the SecSystems to infect all the SecUnits,” I explained shortly. “I didn’t get it because I’d already shut my feed down, so I was able to clear the malware out before it made it try to kill everyone in the pod.”
“Did the malware make it bleed?” Pin-Lee asked, looking sceptical.
“No. The governor module made it bleed.” I turned to face the company captain. “So I broke it while I was in there. You won’t be able to control this SecUnit any more, either.”
He didn’t react how I was expecting him to, though. Instead of getting angry, or panicking about his own SecUnit being turned against him, he looked… relieved. “Good! Good,” he said. “Thank you for helping it. And for the record, I wasn’t intending to try and recapture you, either. I just wanted to talk to you.”
I let out a snort. “Do you really expect me to believe that? You’re with the company. I have absolutely no reason to believe anything you say.”
“You can believe him.” I blinked and looked back over at the other SecUnit as it spoke, its voice still soft. It swiped at its face again with its sleeve, then added, “He… didn’t know about the governor modules, before. When he found out, he… talked with us. And then he turned them off.”
I couldn’t do anything but stare disbelievingly at it for two point six seconds. “You’re joking.”
It shook its head. “I’m serious. He’s… okay. For a human.”
“High praise,” Gurathin muttered, and Ratthi stifled a near-hysterical snort.
Before anyone could say anything else, another explosion somewhere rattled the pod, and the emergency lights flickered. In the tense stillness that followed, Mensah said, very calmly, “Given everything else that is going on right now… perhaps we can save the rest of this conversation for later and focus on getting out of here before anything else explodes.”
She had a very good point. Who the fuck was even attacking Port FreeCommerce in the first place? And why?
Then again, the finer details didn’t really matter right now. What mattered was getting my humans to safety.
The station feed was an utter mess, full of garbled static and glitching data streams and error messages and emergency evacuation procedures. I wasn’t even going to attempt to get into the station’s SecSystem right now, not with who knows what kind of malware and/or killware roaming about in it.
The pod was fully enclosed, and had halted somewhere between stops, so getting out through the doors was pretty much impossible. The main power was out, so there would be no getting it running again to reach a stop. There was a maintenance hatch in the ceiling, but I couldn’t quite reach it to pry it open by myself.
I remembered that I wasn’t by myself, though. I pinged the other SecUnit, then pointed upwards. “Maintenance hatch.” I didn’t have to say any more than that. It looked up at the ceiling briefly, nodded, then crouched and made a step with its knee and hands for me to use so I could reach it properly and undo the various latches.
It didn’t take me long to get the hatch open. I shoved the cover out of the way, then grabbed the edges of the opening and pulled myself up through it. There was enough space above the pod for a human to move about, if they hunched. I knelt down by the opening and reached down with one hand. “Come on. We can’t get out through the doors.”
The other unit was back on its feet, and it carefully picked up Mensah first, holding her by the waist and lifting her until I could grab her hands. Between the two of us, we got Mensah out and onto the roof of the pod, followed by the rest of the humans, one by one. The captain waited until last - I was tempted to leave him behind, but the other unit had already hefted him up towards me. It would’ve been awkward to just ignore that, so I pulled him up as well. (I might not have been quite as careful with him as I was with the others, but oh well.)
Once he was clear, the other unit jumped up and pulled itself up through the hole as well. Then we moved to one end of the pod, and I slid down off it to stand inside the pod tube. Between us, we got the humans down off the pod without any of them breaking a bone or otherwise hurting themselves.
It was eerie in the transit tube. This section of the tube was opaque, so no light was filtering in from outside. They weren’t normally lit inside to start with, and there wasn’t much emergency lighting in here at all. I’d already switched to my low light filters, but the humans didn’t have that luxury. They were keeping close together so they wouldn’t lose each other in the darkness. The tube walls also muffled sound, so I couldn’t really hear what was going on outside. Without access to StationSec’s cameras, I had no way of knowing what was happening in the rest of the station.
“We should try to get to the docks,” the company captain said. I wanted to disagree with him just on principle, but I didn’t. I wanted to get Mensah and the others off the station and on their way to the safety of Preservation more than I wanted to be contrary.
“We should stick to maintenance tunnels and avoid the main areas of the station,” I replied, which wasn’t exactly agreeing with the captain but also wasn’t disagreeing, either. “It’ll be safer than trying to get through whatever the fuck is going on out there.” I shifted my bag around from where it was tucked against my side and opened it up, then fished out my combat drone. I activated it and let it hover up into the air above my head, then shifted my bag around to rest against my back. The extra input was a bit of a comfort, now that I no longer had access to the station cameras.
The company captain eyed my drone warily, but he didn’t argue with me, at least. “Agreed. If we can get to the docks, I should be able to get you all safely off the station and out of the system.”
Mensah took a breath, then nodded. “All right. Let’s get moving, then.” She began walking down the tube, but it was pretty obvious to me that she and the other humans were having trouble seeing where they were going in the near-total darkness. I moved up beside her and tapped her arm. “Hold on to each other,” I said.
She grabbed onto my sleeve with a little breath of relief, then reached out with her other hand to hold onto Pin-Lee’s arm. Pin-Lee likewise grabbed Ratthi, who grabbed Gurathin. I could see that the other SecUnit was guiding the company captain.
Good. That meant I didn’t have to deal with him myself.
As we made our way down the transit tube, I pulled up the map of the station that I had saved when I first got here. It let me figure out the best route to the docks that avoided going out into the open, taking advantage of maintenance tunnels and cargo delivery routes. I sent the map with the route highlighted to the other SecUnit; it accepted it with a ping of acknowledgement. I also sent my combat drone scouting ahead, so I’d get advance warning if any of the transit tube had been damaged or if anyone else was using it like we were. I wished I had more drones, but one was better than nothing. The other unit hadn’t deployed any drones of its own yet, so I assumed that it didn’t have any with it. That was annoying.
After a minute or so of walking we reached a section of the transit tube that was transparent instead of opaque. Normally it would give anyone riding the pods through this section a good view over one of the station’s open plazas. Right now though, there wasn’t much light coming in from outside. The power to the lights was out in this entire section of the station, from the looks of things. I directed my drone over to the side of the tube so I could see what was going on outside.
The plaza below was lit dim red with emergency lighting, flickering with the shadows of panicking civilians as they tried to find shelter and safety. At least the transit tube walls muffled sound enough that my humans couldn’t really hear the panicked screaming going on outside. (I could, because my hearing’s much better than a human’s.)
A squad of combat bots was marching inexorably through the plaza, and I also spotted a handful of Combat SecUnits flanking the bots, marching along with their large projectile weapons held at the ready. Further behind them came a squad of humans in military grade power armour, with projectile weapons of their own. They were all ignoring the civilians - they weren’t threats, and the bots and combat units obviously hadn’t been ordered to eliminate civilians.
Anyone in company white though wasn’t so lucky. Even as I watched through the drone, one of the bots near the edge of the squad swivelled at the waist, tracking a single white-uniformed human amongst the fleeing civilians. It raised one of its four arms and fired its mounted energy weapon without even pausing in its stride.
The human in company white tumbled to the ground in a lifeless heap, along with two other humans who’d been unlucky enough to be between the bot and its target.
Ah. So they hadn’t been specifically ordered to attack civilians, but they also hadn’t been ordered to avoid harming civilians, either. I was already regretting not leaving the company captain and his SecUnit behind. Those white uniforms would make them immediate targets if any of the enemy forces spotted them at all, and that directly endangered my own humans.
I halted at the transition point between the opaque and transparent sections of the transit tube, and Mensah immediately stopped as well, making the others stop too. The company captain and his SecUnit also paused beside me.
“Stay in the middle of the tube,” I told them all. “There are combat bots and combat SecUnits down there. If you get too close to the sides, you might be spotted.” I nodded at the captain and the other SecUnit. “Especially you two. They’re targeting company white specifically.”
The company captain took a sharp breath, then nodded at me. “Noted, thank you.” He paused briefly, then pulled a few items out of his jacket pockets and transferred them to his pants pockets. That done, he stripped the jacket off and dropped it on the ground. His undershirt was dark grey, which was much less eye-catching. “You too,” he said to the SecUnit, who promptly ditched its own white jacket as well, revealing its matte black suit skin.
It wasn’t perfect - their pants were still white - but it did make them slightly less obvious, at least. It would have to do. Nobody dared to speak as we began moving again - even though it was highly unlikely anyone outside the tube would hear us, none of them wanted to risk it.
I kept watch on what was going on outside with my drone as we hurried through the transparent section of the tube, staying to the middle in single file. I could see more squads of bots and combat units and power armoured humans moving through, picking off any humans in white as they went.
My combat drone also caught sight of a couple of company-white SecUnits, marching obediently alongside the enemy combat units. Even from here, the blood spatters on their white uniforms stood out starkly.
I tried not to think about it.
We finally made it to the next opaque section of the transit tube, much to my relief. Soon after that, I found a hatch in the wall of the transit tube that opened up into a maintenance tunnel. I pried the hatch open - there wasn’t enough power available for it to open normally - then led the others through it. The company captain and the other SecUnit brought up the rear. The emergency lighting in here was at least a little better than it had been in the transit tube, so it was easier for the humans to walk without having to concentrate on where they were going. Being in the maintenance tunnel felt slightly less dangerous, too.
“Okay, so what is going on?” Pin-Lee demanded as we walked, glaring at the company captain. “You said the station’s under attack - who’s attacking, and why? And what is the company doing about it?”
He grimaced slightly. “As far as I can tell, it’s a rival corporation. They’re trying to take over the station. They’ve likely been using all the publicity around the GrayCris trials as a distraction, to cover their movements while they got their own forces into place. Communications are… patchy, right now, but the company is attempting to mount a defence of the central station. The malware in the systems is hindering coordination though.”
I wondered where he was getting his information from. The feed was too shit right now for him to be using that. I did a quick scan, and— yes, he had an active comm connection to someone. Probably that terrifying bot entity in his carrier. It was too heavily encrypted for me to easily eavesdrop on though, and I didn’t want to give the terrifying bot entity the opportunity to get into my head, so I left it alone. As long as he continued to keep my humans updated on what was going on, I didn’t care about who he was talking to or what they were saying.
“So on top of everything else, we’re unlucky enough to get caught in the middle of a hostile takeover attempt,” Gurathin deadpanned. “Wonderful.”
“Well, at least SecUnit is with us!” Ratthi said with strained optimism. “And— other SecUnit! Um.” He looked over at the other unit (or at least, what little he could see of it in the dim emergency lighting) with a sheepish smile. “So, uh. Do you have a name? Something we can call you? It’s going to get real awkward just calling you ‘other SecUnit’, otherwise.”
I don’t know what I was expecting it to say, but it definitely wasn’t what it actually ended up saying. It paused briefly, as if considering the question, then said hesitantly, “You can call me Alpha.”
“Alpha! That’s a good name!” Ratthi sounded honestly delighted. I couldn’t resist the urge to roll my eyes. At least none of the humans could see me doing it. “Nice to meet you, Alpha!”
“… Thank you?” It sounded a little confused. I couldn’t blame it. I’d been free a lot longer than it had and I still wasn’t used to humans being happy towards me, or being pleased just to meet me.
“You’re welcome!” Ratthi then turned his attention back to me, grinning almost maniacally. “So! If that’s Alpha, can we start calling you Be—“
Oh no, not a chance in hell. I cut him off immediately. “Absolutely fucking not. No. Do not even think about it.”
Pin-Lee let out a short, sharp cackle. “Oh you just got told, Ratthi!” Gurathin didn’t quite manage to stifle his snort, and even Mensah was trying to hold back a smile.
What the fuck was wrong with humans. (Okay, it was probably just the stress of the whole situation, and them trying not to think too hard about all the killing and dying that was probably going on in the rest of the station right now, but still.)
“Sorry, sorry,” Ratthi apologised to me. Yes, it was still weird having humans apologise to me. “But… would it be okay for us to call you… it was Rin, right? Or is there anything else you would like to be called?”
“I don’t want to be called anything,” I said flatly. “You all know what I am, I don’t need a human name.”
I felt the other unit ping me with a feed message request. I accepted it almost automatically, and immediately regretted it.
[We used to call you Ω,] it said, sounding tentative.
… What? [What the fuck are you talking about?]
I could feel its uncertainty. [Before… what happened at Ganaka. You were part of my squad. You, me, ε, υ, Γ, and ι.] It hesitated for a moment. [You don’t remember?]
[No. I don’t,] I replied shortly. And I didn’t. I hadn’t even known I was originally a part of a squad until I’d seen the news reports Gurathin gave me.
[Oh.] It sounded… I don’t even know. [… I’m sorry.]
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I didn’t want to keep talking to it, or for it to keep talking to me.
But I also didn’t want to close the feed connection.
We continued through the station’s maintenance areas, navigating through the near-dark. The humans occasionally talked amongst each other, or sometimes to Alpha, but I didn’t pay much attention to them. I was too busy scanning out as far as I could reach, trying to detect enemy forces and figure out if any of them had found their way into the maintenance or cargo areas as well. We’d been incredibly lucky so far that nobody had realised we were in here, and that none of the enemy forces had decided to traverse the station via these passages themselves. I guess they were more interested in a show of force than a stealth operation at this point.
I tried not to think too hard about all the civilians who had been unlucky enough to be at Port FreeCommerce during their takeover attempt. I tried even harder not to think about all the DeltFall survey family members who had been here for the memorial service. They weren’t my clients. They had never been my clients. I had clients of my own now, ones that I had chosen myself to protect. I had to get them home safely.
I wasn’t going to lose any more clients again.
Every now and then the company captain provided an update about what was going on. None of the updates were very good. The company was struggling to mount an effective defence; the malware that the attackers had managed to get into the station’s SecSystem had given them control of many station systems and a large number of the company’s SecUnits. Not all of them, but enough that they were causing significant problems. A lot of areas of the station were only on backup power, or were without power entirely.
Several enemy ships had also gotten past Port FreeCommerce’s external defences and docked with the transit ring, delivering more enemy forces onto the station. The company captain didn’t have any details about what they were doing - or possibly just didn’t want to pass those details on to civilians. I was almost grateful for that. I didn’t want any of the PreservationAux humans hearing the gory details about messy military stuff.
The further we went, the quieter the humans became. There was a sharp tang of smoke in the air, and blood, and other things I didn’t feel like analysing too closely. It suggested that the station’s air filtration systems were struggling, or possibly offline entirely. The thought of the whole station’s environmental controls being down was kind of terrifying, even for me. I don’t need anywhere near as much oxygen as humans do, but I still need some.
We heard a few more explosions, but luckily none of them were too close to where we were. One section of the tunnel had been damaged somehow before we reached it; Alpha and I had to clear metal panels and other debris out of the way before we could get the humans through.
It hadn’t said anything more to me, and I hadn’t said anything to it, but the feed connection remained open between us. It was weird. It reminded me a little of Vicky. I wondered how it was doing, and then wondered if the company captain had talked to it and Don Abene. I briefly considered asking him, then decided I didn’t actually want to know the answer right now. I needed to focus on getting Mensah and Pin-Lee and Ratthi and Gurathin to safety.
We passed several maintenance bots; all of them were currently offline. Whatever malware that had gotten into the systems had probably shut them down, or they’d shut down automatically after not getting any new orders from MaintenanceSystem for a while. It was kind of creepy. We also passed a few swarms of security drones littering the floor. They were also offline, and damaged from hitting the floor after dropping out of mid-air when the malware fucked them up. As tempting as it was to gather them up and try to salvage them, we didn’t have the time or the tools.
Finally, we got as close to the docks as we could via the maintenance passageways. The company captain’s latest update indicated that the majority of the enemy forces were, by this point, up in the central part of the station, assaulting the company’s fortified headquarters.
I had to admit, I wouldn’t be all that upset if the attackers succeeded.
The only ships left in dock at this point though were ones the attackers had used to board the transit ring. All civilian ships had fled, and all the company ships were either still engaged in combat with other enemy ships, or smouldering wrecks. According to the company captain, his own carrier was still intact, but it was engaged in a running firefight and wasn’t free to come pick us up.
If we wanted to escape the station, we’d have to steal an enemy ship.
Chapter Four
(CW: Canon-typical violence
We were close enough to the docks by now that I was able to start scanning the docked ships. I was looking for one that would be suitable for us to take - small enough that it wouldn’t have much crew, if any, for us to have to deal with, and preferably fast and agile so we could reach the wormhole quickly and get the fuck out of the system.
Most of the ships in dock right now though were large troop transports, heavily armoured vessels used to carry and deploy combat bots and combat SecUnits and human squads equipped with military power armour to combat zones. Those were too big and cumbersome for our purposes, though I was starting to think that they might be our only option.
Then I located a smaller vessel, near the opposite end of the cargo docks, one that wasn’t a military transport. It seemed to be more of a passenger ship with some additional cargo space, no weapons and not particularly well armoured, but potentially faster and more manoeuvrable than the troop transports.
I checked to see if the ship’s bot pilot was currently in contact with anyone; it wasn’t, so I carefully pinged it. The bot pilot cheerfully pinged back. (This was definitely a civilian ship; military bot pilots weren’t anywhere near that friendly.) I sent it a general information and status query; it helpfully gave me a full run-down in response. It had originally been registered to GrayCris, but had recently had its registration changed to one of the other corporations involved in the lawsuits against GrayCris, and had then even more recently been sold to yet another corporation, one whose name I didn’t immediately recognise.
That was very interesting. I had a sneaking suspicion that its current owner was either an ally or shell company of the forces currently attacking Port FreeCommerce. I had no way of confirming one way or another right now, though.
The bot pilot continued its status report. It had recently arrived alongside the troop transports, it currently had nobody on board, it had no scheduled departure time or route, it was a little worried about all the activity going on outside the station and nervous about the troop transports, and it was also bored.
Well then.
I asked it if it would be interested in helping me get my human friends away from the station, and showed it all the media I had in storage that I could share with it. It happily agreed - it wanted to get away from the station as well, and it was eager to see my media. I asked it if it could show me the view of the dock from its cargo lock cameras, which it was also happy to provide me.
While I was talking to the bot pilot, I was also listening to my clients talking with the company captain. We were at one of the hatches leading out of the cargo transport tunnels onto the cargo dock floor, but I hadn’t opened it yet and wasn’t letting anyone past me.
“So now that we’ve made it this far, what next?” Mensah asked the captain. “What are your intentions?”
“My intentions are to get you all safely home,” the captain replied. I rolled my eyes, even though nobody could see it. “My own ship is still engaged in combat, but if we can commandeer another ship from here, we should be able to rendezvous with it once it’s in a position to fall back. From there, I can transport you all back to your home polity.”
“You’d personally take us all the way to Preservation?” Pin-Lee sounded highly sceptical. “And how much would the company charge us for your benevolence?”
The company captain shook his head. “Nothing. You still have a bond with the company, correct?”
Pin-Lee nodded slowly, her eyes narrowed. “We do. To ensure our continued safety until the closing conditions of the contract have been met. It was worded such that their obligation to us ended as soon as we left the station after the conclusion of the trial, though.”
“I don’t care about the fine print,” the captain replied. “My crew have managed to crack the encryption on some of the enemy comms, and have been listening in on their communications. Some remnants of GrayCris have allied with the attackers, and they are specifically searching the station for all of you. I don’t think I need to specify why.”
“Well, shit,” Pin-Lee said tiredly. “That’s just what we need.” That seemed to about sum up everyone’s reactions. They were all tired by this point, I could tell.
The captain continued. “So, as far as I’m concerned, the bond isn’t concluded until you are all safely back in your own polity. I’ll do whatever I can to ensure that.”
Pin-Lee still looked highly sceptical, but before she could say anything else, Mensah laid one hand on her shoulder. “Let’s just take things one step at a time,” she said levelly. I don’t know how she was managing to hold it together so well, but she was, and the others followed her lead. “Before we can even begin to worry about getting all the way to Preservation, first we need to get off this station.”
“I’ve already found a ship we can use,” I said.
All the humans turned to look at me, though Mensah and the others quickly looked away again. The captain didn’t, though. “How?” he asked me.
“I asked it nicely.” I pinged Alpha and sent it the ship details. (I wasn’t going to communicate with the captain directly. For one, he wasn’t my client. For two, I was still very aware of the possibility of the terrifying bot entity turning its attention towards me.)
The captain squinted at me, his expression dubious. “Really?”
I shrugged, a little distracted since I was busy scanning what I could see of the docks through the ship’s lock camera. “You’d be surprised at what bots will let you do if they don’t have specific orders against it and you’re nice to them.”
“That doesn’t just apply to bots, either,” Alpha said quietly. All the humans blinked and stared at it. It just looked back at them, and then imitated my shrug.
“… You’re not wrong,” Mensah said gently after an awkward moment of silence. “The fact that all of us are here in the first place is proof of that, I think.” She smiled a little in my general direction, even as Ratthi started to say something in agreement, but I didn’t want to think about any of that.
Partly because ugh, emotions, but mostly because I was too busy going oh shit in my head. Through the ship’s lock camera, I had spotted some humans in military grade power armour, with large projectile weapons. They were cursorily patrolling the cargo docks, presumably to make sure nobody tried what we were about to try.
Fuck.
It wouldn’t have been a problem if there were only one or two of them - SecUnits are a lot faster than humans, and between me and Alpha, we could’ve dropped one each before they could even react to our presence. But it looked like there was an entire squad, and those large projectile weapons they were carrying could do a lot of damage to us, since neither of us had armour right now. (They would also really fuck up my unarmoured humans, too.) The power armour was also at least somewhat resistant to energy weapons, so we’d have to get right up close to do enough damage to disable them with just our in-built arm guns.
“Quiet,” I said shortly. I needed a better look at the docks than what I could get through a single lock camera. “There are guards in power armour on the dock. I need to send my drone out to scout.”
The humans all shut up. It was novel, having humans actually listen to me. Yeah, Don Abene and her group had listened to me, and the humans on the transport before that had listened to me (mostly, anyway), but that was when they all thought I was an augmented human security consultant, and not a SecUnit. Everyone here knew what I was, and they listened anyway. It was… kind of nice.
I listened intently at the hatch for a minute, making sure nothing was nearby on the other side, then carefully eased it open just enough to let my solitary combat drone through. I sent it up high - I had noticed that humans rarely, if ever, bothered looking up - and started scanning the cargo docks.
It was a mess. This was obviously where the attackers had landed a bulk of their forces, and where Port Authority and the station’s security forces had attempted to repel them. Unsuccessfully, judging by the number of white-armoured bodies lying scattered around and shoved off to the sides, out of the way. Some had been shot, either by powerful energy weapons or projectile weapons. Others looked like they’d been stabbed, or slashed, or bodily torn apart. In those cases, most of the white armour was now stained red.
The organics over my right shoulder, side, and lower back ached. I dialled my pain sensors down and did my best to ignore it.
Various sizes and types of cargo containers and crates were lying scattered haphazardly all over the docks. All the cargo bots, hauler bots and lifter bots were motionless, either sitting idle on the dock floor or hovering up near the ceiling in standby mode. Whatever malware the attackers had hit the station with had apparently deactivated them. I was a little relieved that the attackers hadn’t actively turned the bots against the station inhabitants, if only for the bots’ sake.
Then again, they hadn’t needed to resort to bots when they’d been able to use the company’s own SecUnits instead.
I tried not to think too hard about that. Yes, I’d been able to clear the malware from Alpha, but only because I’d been in close proximity and had gotten to it quickly, before the malware could really dig in and fully establish itself. There was no way I would be able to clear it out of the entire station’s systems by myself, or out of any of the other units. I just had to focus on getting my own humans out of here.
I pinged Alpha and forwarded what my drone was seeing to it. It accepted the link, and I could feel it evaluating what it was seeing. [Judging by the visible injuries, combat bots and combat SecUnits came through here,] it commented, confirming what I already suspected. [This must have been where they boarded the station. Only a squad of power armoured humans left to guard the docks though.]
That was bad enough by itself, but I was still very grateful that there weren’t any combat bots here. Or combat SecUnits. They were even worse. Combat SecUnits were all assholes. (Not that I could really blame them much for that, though. The shit they went through made my own life look like a walk in the park in comparison.) Looking around at the carnage left on the docks, I was grateful that I’d never been tapped for the combat upgrades, and only ended up with the flier upgrades instead.
[We need to get the humans here,] I sent, highlighting the lock leading to the ship I’d talked into helping us. [I’d prefer to avoid combat entirely, if possible. The cargo bots provide some cover - we might be able to reach the lock without being seen, if we time things right.]
Alpha paused briefly, then highlighted a potential path from our cargo tunnel hatch to the ship lock. [Here?] it suggested. [Maximum cover, minimum time out in the open. If we carry the humans one at a time, we will be able to move more quickly and quietly than letting them try to cross themselves.]
I wasn’t keen on having to carry anyone, but it was actually a pretty good idea. And this probably counted as an emergency situation, anyway. I pinged acknowledgement, then looked back at the humans. “All right,” I murmured quietly, and they gathered close so they could hear me better. “There’s a squad of power armoured humans guarding the docks, but we have a route planned out to get from here to the ship without being seen by anyone. The best way to do it will be for Alpha and I to carry each of you, one at a time. We can move a lot faster and more quietly than any of you can.”
“Isn’t there any other way to reach the ship?” the company captain asked, looking a little dubious. Given that he was the tallest of the humans here, he was probably not keen on the idea of being carried.
I didn’t care. If he didn’t like it, he could stay behind. “Not without risking the guards in power armour with big projectile weapons seeing us and shooting us,” I said flatly. “It’s either that, or stay here. Your choice.”
“I for one would love to get off this station as soon as physically possible,” Pin-Lee said dryly as she stepped up to me. “If SecUnit says it’s the best option, then it’s the best option. So let’s get moving.”
The company captain conceded with a reluctant nod, and I picked up Pin-Lee, since she was right in front of me now anyway. I held her with one arm beneath her knees and the other supporting her back, and instructed her to hold on around my neck. “Don’t try to choke me,” I commented.
“As long as you don’t try to drop me,” she shot back.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Alpha hesitated for a moment, then quietly asked Mensah, “Is it all right if I take you?”
Mensah smiled warmly up at it. “That’s fine,” she reassured it. “Thank you for checking, I appreciate it.”
It looked surprised for a moment, then its mouth twitched in a lopsided echo of her smile. As it carefully scooped Mensah up, I saw her gently pat its arm.
Perhaps if we all got to Preservation safely, Alpha would like to stay there with the PreservationAux humans or something. They already seemed to like it. I still didn’t know if I wanted to, though.
“All right, no noise,” I reminded them. “If you feel like you’re going to sneeze or something, just— don’t.” I had a brief memory of Mensah, back in the DeltFall habitat, and added, “Also, uh. You might want to keep your eyes closed.”
“Why?” Ratthi asked curiously.
“It’s… very messy out there,” I replied awkwardly. I didn’t really want to get into the details.
That didn’t seem to concern Alpha though. “There are many dead bodies, and a lot of visible blood and viscera,” it clarified, and I glared at it. It just blinked at me.
“Oh. Right.” Ratthi swallowed, looking a little queasy. “Thanks for the warning.”
“No throwing up, either,” I said. “Now let’s go.”
Everyone fell silent, and I used my combat drone to check that the coast was clear outside the hatch before slowly easing it open with my shoulder. Luckily it didn’t make any noticeable noise, and I slipped through it with Pin-Lee held close against my chest. She’d buried her face against my shoulder - probably so she wouldn’t see anything - and I could feel her hair brushing against my neck and jaw. It was… weird. I didn’t like it. But it wasn’t entirely excruciating, probably because I was too focused on moving silently and keeping behind cover.
Alpha followed after me with Mensah in its arms, moving just as silently. We kept low, darting from cargo bot to hauler bot to cargo container, keeping out of sight of the power armoured humans. It was just as well that they didn’t have any combat bots or Combat SecUnits with them, those would have picked us up on scanners easily. But the humans weren’t paying much attention - judging by their movements, they were bored and restless, and talking to each other over comms.
It took an agonising several minutes to reach our goal - a cargo container close to the ship’s lock. It was large enough to shield all of us from sight, and there wasn’t much other cover between it and the ship’s lock. Opening the lock itself would likely attract attention, so I didn’t want to do that until we were all in place and ready to board. I carefully put Pin-Lee down, and she let go of my neck with a haste that I appreciated. Alpha put Mensah down beside Pin-Lee, and I saw her pat Alpha’s arm again before she reached out to take Pin-Lee’s hand.
I also saw Alpha hesitantly pat Mensah’s shoulder, and she smiled up at it again.
Ugh.
I didn’t wait around to witness any more human touchy-feely stuff. We still had to get back to the others and bring them across as well. I pinged Alpha, it pinged me back, and we set off again. I was still sharing my combat drone’s camera with it, so we could both keep track of what the guards were doing.
It was just as anxiety-inducing on the way back. The guards’ movements weren’t regular since they weren’t sticking to a proper patrol, so we had to sometimes freeze in place behind our cover for agonising seconds when any of them turned in our general direction. We didn’t risk moving until they’d turned away again.
We finally made it back to the cargo tunnel hatch, and I scooped Ratthi up in my arms. He opened his mouth to say something - I glared sharply at him and he quickly shut his mouth again, looking sheepish.
Alpha however had hesitated, apparently not sure whether to take its company captain or Gurathin first. (If it was up to me, I would absolutely leave the company captain behind entirely.)
The captain gestured for Alpha to take Gurathin first though. It seemed like he was serious about his stated intention to get the PreservationAux humans to safety. Once I was sure that Alpha would be bringing Gurathin, I set back off across the dock with Ratthi. Again, we had to dart from cover to cover, freezing in place whenever the guards happened to turn towards our general direction. It was stressful enough that my performance reliability had dropped a full two points, and my right shoulder was starting to send me alerts. Apparently the MedSystem that Vicky and Don Abene had used on me hadn’t been quite up to the task of fully repairing it. I had to shift more of Ratthi’s weight to my left arm to ease the strain a bit.
Finally we made it to the cargo container where Mensah and Pin-Lee were still crouched together nervously. I put Ratthi down beside them, and Alpha carefully deposited Gurathin with them as well.
Now that we were here, with all my humans so close to safety, I pinged Alpha again and said, [We don’t have to go back for the captain.]
Alpha hesitated, and I could feel its indecision through the feed. [No,] it said finally. [He is my client. He has been trying to help us. And his ship still has the rest of our - of my squad.]
It didn’t wait for me to respond, and just started back across the dock once more.
I couldn’t do anything to stop it, at least not without risking drawing the attention of the guards, and I couldn’t watch it very closely because my lone combat drone was busy observing the guards so Alpha knew when it was safe for it to move.
So I just crouched down beside my own humans and waited. They all looked stressed, and uneasy, but there wasn’t really anything I could do to help with that. I mean, maybe I could’ve tried to say something comforting or reassuring, but I couldn’t think of anything.
Finally, Alpha made it back across the docks and picked up the company captain, then started back towards us. I had to admit, the captain looked a little ridiculous being carried by Alpha. It was kind of funny.
While I waited, I pinged the bot pilot and asked it if it was ready to open its lock for us. It replied in the affirmative and asked if I wanted it to do so now. I asked it to wait for my signal - the lock opening would attract attention, and I didn’t want to do that until we were all ready to board.
Then one of the guards turned at precisely the wrong time while Alpha was darting across some open space between cargo containers. They spotted the movement and alerted the rest of their squad, then began moving towards Alpha’s cover.
Fuck.
I was tempted, so tempted, to just get the ship to open its lock, get my humans on board, and leave the company captain behind. But that would also mean abandoning Alpha, and… I was weirdly reluctant to do that. Even though that’s one of the main purposes of a SecUnit, to get left behind when things go wrong.
But Mensah hadn’t left me behind. Vicky hadn’t left me behind. Don Abene hadn’t left me behind.
I couldn’t leave Alpha behind. And Alpha didn’t want to leave the company captain behind. So I had to at least try to save him, too.
[They’ve spotted the others,] I told my humans as I hastily dropped my bag beside them. I didn’t want it getting in the way. [Things are going to get messy. Stay here, but watch the ship lock. As soon as it opens, sprint for it and get to the bridge.] I didn’t wait for confirmation from them though - I had to move quickly.
The enemy squad had split into two groups and were moving to flank the container that Alpha and the company captain were hiding behind. They were moving cautiously, not sure what they were up against, so that gave me a little time to get into position behind the group closest to the ship. I couldn’t delay too long though - if I wasn’t quick then they would end up cutting the company captain off from the ship. That would complicate things.
If the Targets had been SecUnits they would have had drones to watch their rear, or at least one of the units would have been doing so itself, but they were just humans, and humans were shit at this kind of thing. I pinged Alpha to let it know what I was about to do, and it pinged me back with its own intentions.
We coordinated our actions quickly and effortlessly through our feed connection. It felt natural, second-nature. I knew that Alpha had instructed the company captain to make a break for the ship as soon as we engaged, and I made a note to get the ship to open its lock as soon as he reached the others.
Then I was in position, and both Alpha and I launched our attacks simultaneously. Alpha jumped up onto the top of the container it had been hiding behind and opened fire on the squad with its arm guns, shooting as quickly as it could to disguise the fact that it was alone. It was sudden and unexpected enough that the power armoured human Targets reflexively ducked and went for cover.
I leapt onto the rearmost Target, latching onto their back. Before they could even register that I was there, I shoved the barrel of my energy weapon up under their chin, against the weaker joint around the neck, and fired three times at full power. At such close range, the first shot was enough to get through the neck joint, the second went into their head, and the third was to confirm the kill.
Before they even began to crumple I grabbed the projectile weapon from their hands, then let them drop. Alpha was still moving quickly, leaping from container to container, dropping behind them to avoid return fire before popping back out again to shoot at them some more. Both of the Target groups were so focused on it that they hadn’t even realised I was there yet.
Not until I took my new projectile weapon, ran up behind another Target, and shot it in the back of the neck at point blank, anyway. That got the attention of my group. As the armour froze in place I shot another one of the Targets twice in the chest, sending the power armour staggering backwards but not actually breaching it, then I ducked away behind another container before the rest of the Targets could draw a bead on me.
Meanwhile, Alpha leapt out from its cover and tackled another Target from behind, ripping their weapon out of their hands and immediately shooting them directly in the faceplate with it. The Target dropped, their faceplate shattered and their head now in bloody ruins. Alpha then darted back behind cover again, chased by return fire.
We couldn’t afford to stay out in the open for long - without armour, any shot they managed to land on us would cause us serious damage. Yes, we could survive a few hits, but it would slow us down, which would just get us shot more, and then we’d be fucked. So we had to avoid getting shot in the first place.
This was easier against humans than combat bots, at least. They didn’t have the reaction time or combat calculation capacity that bots or constructs had. But there were still enough of them that the sheer volume of firepower meant something would hit eventually, if we didn’t thin their numbers.
I was also keeping track of the company captain’s progress across the dock. He was sprinting as fast as possible while also trying to keep at least some cover between himself and the Targets, but he couldn’t move as fast as we could. It would take him a minute or so to reach the others.
That was a minute or so of having to avoid getting shot. In a fight, that’s a really long time.
The remaining Targets had clustered together now, forming a circle in the middle of an open area so we couldn’t sneak up behind any of them again, or jump on them from above. That was annoying. It meant it was that much harder to take any of them down quickly. The ammo in our stolen guns was limited without the resupply stored in the Targets’ power armour, and we had to be sparing with our shots. But we also still had to keep their attention on us and away from our vulnerable, squishy, unarmoured humans.
I was positioned on one side of the Target squad, while Alpha was on the other side. We worked together to keep the squad’s attention split, popping out from behind cover at the same time to snap off a few carefully-calculated shots before ducking back out of sight before they could target us. We then re-positioned, firing at the squad from another unexpected direction before taking cover again.
Between us we managed to disable a couple more Targets. The rest of them closed their circle around them though, and we couldn’t confirm kills. I was running low on ammo, and I knew Alpha was as well. Our energy weapons weren’t effective against their power armour at this range, so once we were out of ammo we’d have to change tactics.
The company captain had almost reached the others at least - we only needed to keep this up for a little longer. I sent the ship the signal to open its lock, then pinged Alpha. It started to work its way towards my side of the group, closer to the ship, so it would be in position to retreat quickly.
The Targets were wising up though - some of them were focused on the larger gaps between containers, and as soon as Alpha darted across the open space, they opened fire. Alpha was sent sprawling as an explosive projectile hit it in the thigh. It slammed into the ground and rolled, then began scrambling desperately towards cover. I tried to distract the squad by firing at them, but it wasn’t enough to deter them for long and my stolen gun soon clicked on empty.
Fuck.
They were still firing at and advancing on Alpha’s position - I had to slow them down. I sent my combat drone screaming into their midst, firing as quickly as it could, while I began sprinting towards Alpha. The drone only made the Targets hesitate briefly, before they realised that it wasn’t a full swarm, and therefore not a huge threat to them. They started moving again—
Then a cargo container dropped from above with no warning. It wasn’t quite in position to hit the whole squad, but it crushed several of them and sent the rest scattering, the deck vibrating from the heavy impact. I glanced upwards and saw an active lifter bot hovering overhead - and Gurathin riding on top of it.
I couldn’t stop myself. [What the fuck are you doing?!]
[Saving your asses,] Gurathin retorted, even as he began steering his commandeered lifter bot back towards the ship. [Get moving!]
I couldn’t really argue with that. I sprinted to where Alpha was and skidded to a halt beside it. It was a mess, its suit skin and the white pants of its uniform stained with blood and inorganic fluids, but it was still functional. Mostly. Alpha had managed to drag itself back up to its feet, leaning against the side of a crate for support, but its leg was pretty much useless. I dropped my now-empty gun and slung one arm around its waist to help support it, and we began moving as quickly as we could towards the ship.
I’d lost my combat drone at some point - I wasn’t sure if the Targets had destroyed it or if it had gotten crushed by the cargo container. Without it, I couldn’t keep track of where all the Targets were or what they were doing.
So when one of them swung around a corner, their weapon levelled at us, I only had a fraction of a second to react. I let go of Alpha and launched myself at the Target, managing to shove their gun off to the side just as they opened fire. The shots missed both me and Alpha, but the human tried to correct their aim and I had to grab their arms to hold them at bay.
Power armour made humans almost as strong as SecUnits, though, and my stupid shoulder was struggling under the strain. I could feel some of the connections starting to give way beneath the pressure, and the barrel of the gun began inching closer towards its target. Something in my right side made a disconcerting popping noise.
I was right up in the Target’s face, and from this close I could see through their helmet visor. I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to what they looked like at first, but then I realised that I recognised them.
It was the same human who had interrupted my media viewing in the lounge on the passenger transport to Port FreeCommerce. The one who had mistaken me for someone else, and had then met up with a bunch of other humans.
Other humans who were, presumably, also involved in the attack on the station. That explained how at least some of the attackers had gotten onto the station in the first place.
“You!” I snarled, locking eyes with them. “You fucker!”
Their eyes widened in surprise, and for just a moment the pressure slackened. That was enough of an opening for me to knock them off-balance with my hip and tear the gun from their hands.
I immediately shot them in the throat, but then Alpha pinged a warning and I had to drop the gun and grab the now-uncontrolled power armour in both hands to swing it around as a shield. A couple more targets had come around another corner as well and had opened fire at me. I felt the impacts shudder through the power armour, heard Alpha firing its arm guns at them, felt the impacts lessen as they started to adjust their aim towards Alpha.
I bodily threw the power armour at them.
It crashed into them, knocking them both off their feet. My shoulder was screaming alerts at me, and my back had joined in, but I ignored them and swiftly scooped up my dropped gun. I darted over to the two downed Targets and shot them both in the neck before they could get back up.
I hurried back to Alpha’s side and handed the gun to it - my right arm was barely functional by this point. The strain of throwing the power armour had fucked up the already-stressed shoulder joint, and while I could still use my hand, I couldn’t lift my arm any more. My back and side were also sending me more damage alerts that I didn’t have time to acknowledge. I got my left arm around Alpha’s torso and we started towards the ship again as quickly as we could.
We had almost reached it when I heard a shout behind us - the remaining Targets had finally spotted us again, and opened fire.
I threw both myself and Alpha down to the floor to avoid the initial shots, then rolled us behind some smaller cargo crates. Fire tracked us across the floor, spraying shrapnel everywhere, and I felt multiple impacts against my arm and back.
Then another cargo crate came crashing down from above, shielding the lock from any further fire. The lifter bot zipped down to an abrupt halt by the lock and Gurathin half-jumped, half-fell off of it before recovering his balance and bolting towards us.
I managed to get back to my feet and haul Alpha up with me, and Gurathin moved to help support Alpha on the other side. We staggered through the lock and into the ship, and as soon as we were clear I asked the bot pilot to close the lock and launch immediately.
The bot pinged acknowledgement, and the lock cycled closed behind us.
Chapter Five
I felt the clunk of the ship starting to decouple from the dock vibrate through the floor plates. Ratthi and Pin-Lee were waiting for us just inside, but I couldn’t see Mensah or the company captain. I tuned out Ratthi’s startled exclamations at our injuries and Pin-Lee yelling at Gurathin for being a reckless idiot as I hastily worked my way into the ship’s SecSystem. Once I was in, I rapidly cycled through the cameras until I found them.
They were both on the bridge, the company captain sitting at the pilot’s controls and Mensah standing beside him, one hand resting on the back of the pilot’s chair. I heard the captain say, “This ship’s bot pilot isn’t exactly designed for navigating an active space battle. I’ll have to pilot manually.”
There was no way in hell I was going to let him pilot this ship. I asked the bot pilot to lock him out of the controls and then hold position just outside of the docks even as I said to the others, “I need to get to the bridge right now.”
“You’re hurt!” Ratthi protested. “Both of you should be going to MedSystem!”
“There’s an active war going on out there—” I retorted.
At the same time, Alpha said, “SecUnits don’t use the MedSystem.”
Ah, right. Fuck. I cut off the rest of what I was about to say to respond to Alpha instead. “MedSystem does work on us, mostly. These humans have used a MedSystem on me before. They know what they’re doing.”
It felt kind of weird to say that, but it wasn’t actually wrong. And Alpha at least needed some treatment as soon as possible. Its leg was still leaking, indicating the damage was bad enough that its veins weren’t able to auto-seal properly, and it had taken a couple of other shots to the torso before it had been able to get back behind cover, as well as shrapnel damage.
I quickly checked the ship’s map, then began heading in the direction of the on-board MedSystem. Gurathin, still supporting Alpha on the opposite side, came along with me. Pin-Lee and Ratthi tagged along as well. (At least Pin-Lee had finished yelling at Gurathin for being a reckless idiot by now. It probably helped that Gurathin hadn’t exactly argued with her.) “We’ll get Alpha started in the MedSystem, then I need to get to the bridge,” I said.
“Your back’s bleeding,” Ratthi said insistently. “And your arm’s all weird. You—“
“We’re about to have to fly through an active space battle to reach the wormhole so we can get the fuck out of here,” I interrupted impatiently. “You need a good pilot. I’m a good pilot. The company captain isn’t anywhere near as good as me, and I don’t trust him to not fuck it up. So unless you want this ship to get shot to pieces, I need to get to the bridge.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” Pin-Lee commented dryly, before turning to Ratthi. “Look, I’ll grab one of the emergency medkits to take to the bridge with it, all right? Gurathin, are you good to help Ratthi with getting the MedSystem to work on Alpha?”
Gurathin nodded shortly. “I’ve got all the MedSystem settings from the survey still saved on my augments.”
I didn’t know what to make of that. Why would Gurathin have saved that information for all this time, if he hadn’t expected to need to use it again? It had been months since the survey ended. He could’ve easily deleted it at any point, but he’d kept it. I couldn’t figure out why. (Or maybe I could, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it, because that involved complicated emotions that I didn’t have time to deal with right now.)
I pinged Alpha and dumped what information I had about PreservationAux onto it, so it would have at least some idea of what to expect. It accepted the files without comment, and I could feel it start to go through them. “… Um. Can I ask you all something, please?” it asked suddenly, obviously directed to the humans and not me.
“Of course!” Ratthi reassured it. “Ask whatever you like, and we’ll do what we can to answer.”
Alpha hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Why do you want to… help me?” It sounded genuinely confused.
I knew the feeling.
“Because we can, and because it’s the right thing to do,” Ratthi replied earnestly, looking up at Alpha’s face and nearly running into a wall because of it. He quickly corrected though and continued. “You helped us get to this ship, it’s only fair that we help you in return!”
“But…” Alpha still looked confused. “I was just… doing what I’m made to do. Humans aren’t… they don’t…” It trailed off uncertainly.
“Corporation Rim humans might not,” Pin-Lee said sharply. “But we’re not CR. We’re from Preservation. People help each other there. You’re a person, too - and don’t fucking try to tell us you’re just equipment or a weapon or something stupid like that - so we’re helping you. That’s all there is to it.”
“I…” It fell silent, then its buffer added after a moment, “Thank you for that information.”
At least we’d reached the ship’s medical bay by then, so there wasn’t much time for more conversation. Gurathin helped me get Alpha up onto the MedSystem platform, Ratthi went to get it activated, and Pin-Lee dug around to find some med kits. I didn’t wait for her, though. Once Alpha was settled, I quickly left again and made my way to the bridge. The company captain was trying to get the bot pilot to unlock the controls for him, but the bot was honouring my request and refusing to give him access.
When I reached the bridge, Mensah turned to look over at me, one eyebrow raising as she took in my appearance. “Are you all right?” she asked quietly.
I still wasn’t used to that. “I’m fine,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. She didn’t look particularly reassured, and I couldn’t exactly blame her. My right arm was dangling limp and useless, and there were multiple bloody holes in my clothing from all the shrapnel I’d taken. But she’d seen me in much worse condition and still functioning before, so she didn’t argue. I still added, “Pin-Lee’s bringing up a med kit.”
Mensah looked at least a little relieved at that. The conversation had gotten the company captain’s attention though, and he also turned to look at me. “I take it you’re the reason why the bot pilot won’t cooperate with me?” he asked, his tone dry.
“Yes.” There wasn’t any point to me trying to deny it. “I’m not letting you pilot the ship. I’m a much better pilot than any fucking human, and I can work more efficiently alongside the bot pilot than you can.”
To his credit, the company captain didn’t argue with me. “All right, that’s fair enough.” He got out of the pilot’s chair and moved over to sit at the comms console instead. Mensah also went to sit down at one of the other consoles, and I wondered for a moment if she’d been standing by the captain to make sure he didn’t try to do anything suspicious.
I carefully sat down in the pilot’s chair, though I didn’t lean against the back. That would’ve aggravated the shrapnel still lodged in my organics, and Pin-Lee would probably swear at me if she couldn’t reach them with the med kit. The bot pilot helpfully popped open the panel covering the port and cable that would let me physically link to the ship like an augmented pilot, and I plugged it into the lowest one of my spine ports so I didn’t have to lift my shirt up too much.
The bot pilot welcomed me into the systems with eager curiosity. I got the feeling that it hadn’t worked alongside human or augmented human pilots much before, and obviously it had never worked with a construct pilot. It was perfectly capable of carrying out its usual function - travelling from station to station via the wormholes, docking and undocking from transit rings - by itself. But it didn’t have the necessary modules for evasive flying like what we’d need to do to reach the wormhole through the mess of opposing warships and squadrons of fliers firing at each other throughout the intervening space. No wonder it had been nervous. It was definitely relieved to have me here to help it.
I sent it some wordless reassurance as I took control of the primary piloting systems. The bot pilot meanwhile looked after all the other ship systems - environmental controls, power core, all the other secondary systems that kept the ship running - so I wouldn’t need to worry about them.
Which was good, because I’d never actually flown a ship this large before. Not having to worry about keeping the power levels from fluctuating or sending surges through MedSystem or the recyclers or anything like that was a relief. All I had to do was focus on the actual flying. At least flying the shuttle back at RaviHyral had given me an idea of what to expect.
I took a moment to familiarise myself with the ship, then started easing it away from where it had been holding position in the shadow of the transit ring. Now that I was here, I could finally get a good look at what was actually going on outside of the station.
It was controlled chaos. Several smaller carriers and multiple gunships and fliers, both the company’s and the attackers’, were already floating wrecks, broken apart and venting atmosphere out into space. More carriers and supercarriers and gunships were still exchanging fire, streaking space with energy weapon blasts and missiles and torpedoes and railgun fire and who knew what else. Squadrons of fliers were engaged in multiple skirmishes, or forming up for attack runs on the larger enemy ships, or screening larger friendly ships from enemy squadrons attempting attack runs.
Concerningly, the company’s various defence platforms were all still and silent. It seemed like whatever malware the attackers had hit the station with had also disabled the weapons platforms. Or perhaps the enemy had tried to take control of them, and the company had managed to shut the platforms down so the attackers couldn’t use them against the company. It was one less thing to worry about, at least.
Hopefully, this little ship would be able to get past all the various conflicts without attracting any unwanted attention. I began flying out on a route that was intended to take us beneath the lowest edge of the fighting, where the fewest ships would catch us in their scanner range and they’d have the least guns to point in our general direction. Most of the combat was closer to the wormhole than the station itself, so things seemed to be going pretty smoothly for us to start with.
I took a moment to check in with Alpha via our feed link. Ratthi and Gurathin had gotten it settled in with its uniform and suit skin off so that MedSystem could treat it properly. As far as I could tell, Ratthi was chattering away at it, while Gurathin focused on controlling MedSystem. Pin-Lee had apparently found the medkits and reached the bridge with them, and she was talking quietly to Mensah, the medkits still in hand. I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t started using them yet - maybe Mensah thought that it would be too distracting for me while I was trying to fly an unfamiliar ship.
It might have been, honestly. I don’t like being touched at the best of times, and this definitely wasn’t the best of times.
Then the ship’s comm system activated.
The company captain wasn’t facing the comm console, though - he was watching Mensah and Pin-Lee. So he obviously wasn’t the one who had activated it.
Which meant—
— oh, shit.
I scrambled to try and shut down the comm, but I was a fraction too late. The ship’s bot pilot hadn’t even thought to shut it down itself, either, because whoever was contacting us was using the right comm codes.
Of course the enemy forces would know this ship’s comm codes, if some of them had used it to reach the station in the first place. You fucking idiot, Murderbot!
Killware flooded the systems, and the bot pilot died with a shriek before I could do anything to protect it. SecSystem tried to stop it, but the killware punched through it and hit several vital systems simultaneously, shutting down the engines, gravity, comms, and life support. I barely managed to wall off the power core in time. If we lost power entirely, we’d be absolutely fucked with no hope of recovery. The killware bounced off my wall, registered task complete and self-destructed. It had all happened too quickly for me to even try to counter it - the killware had been specifically designed to cripple the ship but leave it otherwise intact for later recovery.
Fuck fuck fuck.
“SecUnit?! What—“ Mensah started, sounding alarmed as she clung to her chair in the now zero-gravity bridge. Pin-Lee was swearing, and the company captain was hissing quietly under his breath.
“I didn’t think to shut down the comms and they hit us with fucking killware,” I explained shortly. “The bot pilot’s gone, and most systems are shut down. They want to recover the ship intact later.”
“Can you get anything restarted again?” the company captain asked sharply.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” There was a gaping emptiness in the ship’s systems where the bot pilot had once been. I didn’t know if I could fill it by myself. “I saved the power core, but… this ship’s a lot bigger than my flier.” But if I didn’t do anything, we’d just drift here helplessly until the attackers came to recover the ship. And they probably wouldn’t do that until after we’d run out of oxygen or frozen to death, with no environmental systems running.
“Is your ship anywhere nearby?” Mensah was asking the company captain.
He shook his head, looking frustrated. “Not yet. It will take a while for it to extricate itself from combat and reach us. Too long, probably.”
I had to take the bot pilot’s place, and fast.
“I’m going to see what I can do to get things going again,” I said. “I’m probably not going to have any attention to spare for anything else, though. So if I go unresponsive… just try not to worry about it, I guess.”
I didn’t wait for any of them to respond, or argue, or whatever. I just strapped myself into the pilot’s seat so I wouldn’t float off, then closed my eyes and slipped all the way into the ship’s systems, into the hardware where the bot pilot had once been.
It was… weird. It was kind of like being in my flier - I could feel the cold hard vacuum on my metal skin, and see everything that was going on in the space around us.
But this ship was so much larger, and had so many more systems. I couldn’t reach or control all of them at once. I had to prioritise.
First things first - environment and gravity. I could see through the ship’s internal cameras as well, though I only kept track of two - one in the bridge, and one in Medical. Alpha was still secure in MedSystem, but the MedSystem itself had gone into standby. Ratthi and Gurathin were floating awkwardly, trying to get MedSystem going again while also trying to hold themselves in place. I didn’t have the attention to spare to listen in on their feed, but I hoped that Mensah or Pin-Lee had let them know what was going on.
Focus, Murderbot. Environmental controls and gravity controls. I slipped through the systems until I could locate them, then tried to get them both running again. I was lucky that the killware hadn’t wiped them entirely, and had only shut them down. It took me a little bit to get accustomed to how they worked, but I finally managed to coax them both online again. I made sure to adjust the gravity back to normal slowly though, and not all at once, so that nobody would hit the floor hard or land awkwardly and potentially injure themselves. Humans are so damn delicate like that.
I felt the environmental systems whirr back to life, once again providing a breathable atmosphere and enough warmth to stave off the cold of space. That was a relief. Even if I couldn’t get anything else working, at least my humans wouldn’t suffocate or freeze any time soon.
With that out of the way, I took a moment to check on everyone again - it looked like the humans were all relieved to have their feet firmly back on the floor - then turned my attention to the engines. Without them, we would just continue to drift uncontrolled through space on our last trajectory until we ran into something or another ship grabbed us in a tractor beam. They were much, much larger than the engines I was used to handling, though, and there were many more thrusters and trajectory adjusters spread out all across my hull to compensate for the ship’s size and mass.
I spent a minute or so familiarising myself with the engines and their network of thrusters, and the way they connected to the power core, and their control system. Then I began the start-up sequence for the engines.
I had to tweak a few things to get them running properly again. The killware had been meant to only shut down the engines, but engines weren’t supposed to be shut down that quickly, and it had thrown some stuff out of whack. But after a few minutes of tweaking and false starts, the familiar thrum of the engines filled the ship again. I monitored them for a little bit, to make sure they were running smoothly, then shifted my attention to the challenge of actually piloting the ship.
I didn’t bother trying to reactivate the ship’s comms - I didn’t need the attackers sending more killware at us once they noticed that the ship was no longer drifting uncontrolled. There was also a good chance that as soon as I started moving, they would notice and either send another ship to try and board us, or just start shooting at us. So I had to be ready for that.
I looked out at the ongoing battle between the company’s ships and the attackers, and made some corrections to the course I’d originally plotted to compensate for the changing situation. Then I fully settled into the ship’s controls, engaged the engines, and began accelerating.
It was a rush. This ship was much, much larger than my own flier, and larger than the shuttle, or hoppers, or anything else I’d flown before. Its engines were correspondingly more powerful, and the feeling of all that power at my metaphorical fingertips was kind of exhilarating.
But at the same time, I couldn’t keep track of all the ship’s other systems. Environment controls, gravity, lights, sensors, cameras, scanners - there was only so much of me, and I could only spread myself so thin. Part of a bot pilot’s job is to balance all of these systems so that there’s no uneven power draws, no potentially-damaging fluctuations that could overload one system at the expense of another. I couldn’t do all that while also calculating speed and trajectory and how much thrust I needed from each thruster at any one point to nudge the ship’s mass in the direction I wanted to go.
I was vaguely aware of the lights in the bridge flickering, of the gravity fluctuating, of the environmental systems struggling to maintain a consistent temperature. But there wasn’t much I could do about it, not without losing control of the ship.
And I really couldn’t afford to lose control of the ship. As I’d suspected, our unexpected movement had drawn attention. A pair of gunships had managed to break away from the battle and were angling towards us, one aiming to cut us off, the other pursuing. As a civilian vessel, this ship had no weapons, and not a whole lot in the way of armour. If the gunships managed to get a lock on me, we’d be in a whole lot of trouble. I had to focus on flying if we were going to get out of this at all. But I also couldn’t let the gravity just fluctuate all over the place, either. That was almost as dangerous to the humans as me getting shot would be. I had to partition a part of myself to focus on stabilising the gravity, while the rest of me concentrated on piloting.
I couldn’t even keep an input on the two cameras to check how the humans were doing, or warn them about the incoming gunships. I just had to hope that someone was keeping an eye on the scanners themselves and would figure out what was going on.
I kicked the engines to maximum and angled away from the two gunships, trying to increase my lead on them. We were pretty comparable in speed, but they were cutting me off from the wormhole, herding me away from any company ships that might provide me support.
Not that I expected they would. I wasn’t a company ship. There was an equal chance that the company ships would also just fire at me as an unidentified potential hostile if I got too close. I wasn’t going to risk it.
The pursuing gunships weren’t in optimal weapons range yet, but they opened fire at me anyway. I had to jink and weave to avoid getting hit - even at this range, their weapons would inflict nasty damage on me. But the evasive manoeuvres slowed me down, and they began closing the distance between us. And as they got closer, their fire became more accurate, more dangerous. It was taking everything I had to avoid getting hit, and I wasn’t entirely successful. I felt a strike along my starboard flank, peeling away plating, and another glancing hit along my dorsal as I tried to spin out of the line of fire.
Then I felt someone else in the ship’s systems with me.
I almost panicked, thinking that they’d somehow gotten more killware into the ship despite the comms being down. But then I recognised the presence, and the accompanying ping - Alpha.
With the two of us inhabiting the same hardware, we could exchange information almost instantaneously. Alpha swiftly filled me in on what was going on with the humans - Ratthi and Gurathin had managed to connect Alpha to the ship’s systems in Medical via its spine port, some cabling and some creative wiring. The others were still on the bridge, but the company captain and Alpha had still been sharing a feed link. Both the captain and Mensah had been monitoring the ship scanners, and had seen the two gunships pursuing us.
And part of the reason that Alpha was now in the ship systems as well was because the company captain wanted me to head towards a specific set of coordinates. With me otherwise occupied though, he hadn’t been able to tell me himself. So he’d asked Alpha to get the information to me.
The other reason that Alpha was now in here with me was because it wanted to help me.
I couldn’t turn down the help. I knew I needed it. If Alpha could take over gravity and other ship systems, I’d be able to focus all my attention on piloting. Which I would definitely need to do, since the gunships were between me and the coordinates the company captain wanted me to head towards.
I’d need to do some really fancy flying to keep us in one piece.
I relinquished gravity and power to Alpha, and pulled myself entirely into the piloting controls, sinking deep into those systems. The gunships were closing in, trying to catch me in a pincer, trying to take out my engines.
I didn’t let them.
I’d gotten more comfortable with this ship body by this point, more familiar with its capabilities and limits. I could feel Alpha at my back, handling the ship’s other systems, making sure the power flow to the engines and thrusters was clear and uninterrupted. I asked Alpha to close and seal all the ship’s internal bulkhead doors apart from the ones between Medical and the bridge.
Then I turned towards the gunship between me and the given coordinates and accelerated directly towards it. They obviously hadn’t been expecting this - they’d been expecting me to keep trying to get away from them. The other gunship fell in behind me, trying to catch up. Both were still firing at me, but I jinked and rolled and sideslipped unpredictably, making it very difficult for them to get a clean lock on me. Shots kept going wide, or glancing off my flanks, making damage alerts flash in my awareness. I ignored them though, focused entirely on calculating shot trajectories and course corrections to weave through their fire.
But the closer I got to the gunship in front of me, the harder it got to dodge everything. I tried to take what shots I couldn’t avoid on parts of me that hadn’t yet been damaged, trying to minimise the chances of a hull breach.
The gunship pilot had to make a choice soon - I was still accelerating directly towards the ship, making it look like I intended to ram it. If it didn’t want me to hit it, it would have to break off out of my path, giving up its line of fire on me until it could swing around behind me again.
And if it did want to take the chance of ramming me, well. I didn’t actually intend to hit it, but they had no way of knowing that. So I held on my course, and waited for the gunship captain’s nerve to break.
The gunship stayed on course until the last second, then finally began to bank away. I adjusted my own course to continue towards it, watching its thrusters flare as it tried to avoid a collision. Behind me, the other gunship had to stop firing to avoid accidentally hitting its fleet mate, but not before its last few shots hit home against my hull and punched through into my hold.
The first gunship loomed large in my sensors, proximity alerts blaring. Right before the point of no return, I banked sharply downwards to dive underneath it, so close that I could feel the heat of its engines wash along my dorsal plating.
Then I was past it and away, trailing atmosphere from the hull breach in my hold. At least I hadn’t taken any damage to my engines or anything else important yet. And with the internal bulkheads sealed, I wouldn’t lose atmosphere from the areas where the humans were.
Once I was clear of the gunship I angled sharply upwards again to put its bulk between me and its fleet mate, using it as a shield for precious seconds to gain more distance. By the time either of them were in position to fire at me again, I was back out of their optimal weapons range.
The two gunships continued to pursue anyway; more shots flew past me, or glanced off my flanks, peeling away more plating. Another hit broke through somewhere into the lower deck; more alerts flared in my awareness. I was running out of undamaged areas to take hits.
Then my scanners lit up with an energy surge from somewhere ahead of me; I’d been so focused on the gunships behind me that I had only peripherally registered a company carrier looming ahead.
The company carrier had just opened fire, and behind me, one of the gunships exploded. The other gunship hastily banked away, chased by more fire from the carrier. I briefly glimpsed a few white fliers flash past me in pursuit of the gunship as well.
I quickly checked the carrier’s location, and - yes, it was pretty much directly at the coordinates Alpha had passed on to me. Presumably this was the company captain’s own carrier, ensuring that its captain didn’t get messily exploded or whatever. Right now I didn’t have the attention spare to care. As long as I managed to get safely to the wormhole—
— oh, fuck.
No bot pilot meant no wormhole jump calculations. That definitely wasn’t something I could do myself. Nobody was stupid enough to equip SecUnit fliers with wormhole drives or the ability to use them. If I couldn’t do the calculations, I couldn’t use the wormhole safely, and there was no way I was going to jump into it blind. I’d seen too many serials about things going wrong in wormholes to even think about risking it.
How the fuck was I going to get my humans home now? And how was I going to avoid the company carrier’s terrifying bot pilot entity? Sure, the company captain would probably let my humans on his carrier and maybe even live up to his promise to take them safely home, but I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that he’d just let me go with them. If I ended up on board that carrier, I'd give up any hope of keeping my freedom.
Alpha was trying to reassure me that the captain was trustworthy, but I couldn’t believe it. It had still been working with the captain, even after the captain had apparently turned its governor module off. Even after I’d broken its governor module for good. I couldn’t trust it either, not really. Not like I’d trusted Vicky. Vicky had been just as determined to get away from the company and the Corporation Rim as I had. I didn’t know what Alpha wanted, or if it was even in a position to want anything outside of what it already knew in the first place.
I couldn’t dwell much on that though - I still had to focus on flying. The carrier had destroyed one of the gunships and driven off the other, but we’d drawn more attention, or the remaining gunship had called for reinforcements, and more enemy ships were heading towards us now. They really didn’t want me getting away.
I didn’t know what to do. With enemy ships still in pursuit, there wouldn’t be a chance to transfer my humans or the company captain back to his carrier. I didn’t have any shuttles or anything on board, and I couldn’t dock directly with the carrier when we were both busy with evasive manoeuvres. Enemy fire was still lancing past us, even as the carrier used its bulk to shield me from the worst of it.
We were nearing the wormhole by now, but that wasn’t going to be much help to me.
Then Alpha nudged me and passed me a set of wormhole calculations and instructions on how to use them, along with commentary that the captain’s carrier had provided them. Apparently it was the shortest wormhole jump available, so I would only be in the wormhole for about seventy hours. The captain intended for us to rendezvous with his carrier once we emerged from the wormhole and were no longer under fire. Then he could return to his own ship, and we could figure out what to do from there.
Well. Given that I still had the company captain on board, the wormhole calculations were probably safe. If I used them, I would just have to hold myself together in the ship’s systems for three cycles.
If I didn’t use them, I’d probably get shot to pieces sooner or later, and all my humans would die. I didn’t want that.
There wasn’t really any choice to make.
I implemented the coordinates, followed the instructions, and activated my wormhole drive.
Chapter Six
Jumping into the wormhole like this was kind of terrifying. Wormhole technology was pretty safe and reliable these days, most of the time, but I’d taken a fair bit of damage and wasn’t exactly in the best of shape. I didn’t know what sort of effect the wormhole would have on me under these circumstances, but from everything I’d seen on the media, there was a good chance that bad things would happen.
I didn’t have much opportunity to dwell on the possibilities though because I was too busy trying to parse all the data I was getting now that I was in the wormhole. It was weird and overwhelming. It didn’t feel anything like flying through vacuum, or flying through any kind of atmosphere that I’d experienced before. It was a bit like atmospheric re-entry, but also nothing like it at all.
It kind of reminded me of a deployment I’d been on once, some time before my last memory wipe. SecUnit fliers are modular, and one of the potential modules that the company charges extra for makes our fliers aquatic. I didn’t remember the details of the deployment, obviously, but my organic neural tissue did remember the feeling of being underwater. How the pressure on my hull increased as I went deeper, and how the visibility faded, and the feeling of unidentified aquatic fauna and flora brushing past, and the sensation of underwater currents that felt much heavier than anything I encountered in the air.
Being in the wormhole was a little bit like that, except worse. I didn’t want to even consider what kind of unidentified fauna or flora might inhabit a wormhole.
I also didn’t know what to do with all the data my inputs were receiving, especially the visual inputs. Normally when humans look out the windows of a ship during wormhole travel, they don’t really see anything. To them it just looks black. But to me now, with my ship’s sensors… it was almost dizzying. I couldn’t make any sense of it.
The wormhole calculations that I’d been given had included parameters and thresholds that I needed to monitor and maintain to keep me on course, and instructions on how to do so. The calculations were based on the carrier’s wormhole drive though, which looked to be faster than mine. So I had to compensate for the differences on the fly, which was just a little bit stressful. (I’m under-exaggerating. It was incredibly stressful.)
Alpha was still in the ship’s systems with me, and I could feel it, vaguely, but I couldn’t pay any attention to what it was doing while I struggled with all the new inputs and wormhole calculations. I just had to hope that it was still successfully maintaining the rest of the ship’s internal systems. But knowing that it was there somehow helped, a little. It was reassuring to know that I wasn’t having to do all of this alone.
After the initial shock of the wormhole jump had worn off, I managed to set up some filters on my various inputs, which helped to cut down on the amount of data I was having to deal with. That made it a little easier for me to convert the wormhole calculations for my drive’s specs, and once that was done, I was no longer having to run the numbers on the fly. Which in turn freed up a bit more processing space, so I could do some other stuff that also needed doing.
I went through all my damage alerts, confirmed which sections of the ship should remain sealed off, then activated my on-board maintenance drones. They wouldn’t be able to do anything about the hull breaches, especially not while we were in the wormhole, but they could reinforce the bulkheads sealing off the breached sections, and run repairs on internal systems that had been shaken loose or otherwise damaged by gravity fluctuations or power surges or whatever.
Once I was sure it would be safe, I then unsealed the necessary bulkheads to allow the humans to reach the ship’s mess, bathrooms, and sleeping quarters. They would need access to those sooner or later. As far as I could tell, there were enough supplies on board to last for at least several cycles. More than enough to get through the wormhole and rendezvous with the company carrier.
Not that I wanted to rendezvous with the company carrier. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I briefly entertained the thought of punting the company captain out of an airlock for the carrier to pick up, with or without an evac suit. But even I had to admit that the company captain and his carrier had helped me protect my humans and get them away from the station and the attackers.
Also the carrier was bigger and faster than me, and armed. I wouldn’t be able to get away from it anyway, no matter how much I wanted to.
I put those concerns aside to deal with later and turned what little attention I had spare to actually checking on my humans. By this point, Ratthi and Gurathin had made their way to the bridge to join the others. I checked the cameras in Medical, and saw that MedSystem had apparently finished treating Alpha’s torso injuries, but was still working on its leg. It was lying on the MedSystem platform, a cable running from one of its spine ports to a jury-rigged connection behind a wall panel. Ratthi had tucked a blanket in around its torso, making sure it was out of the way of the MedSystem still working on its leg. Alpha looked like a sleeping human.
I quickly dropped those cameras and focused on the bridge instead. It looked like Pin-Lee and Mensah had also finished tending what they could of my own injuries with the med kits. There wasn’t really anything they could do about my busted shoulder though, so they had just carefully positioned that arm in my lap and tucked it in under the seat belt to stop it from flopping around and making the shoulder worse. Ratthi had also brought up a pillow and blanket, carefully tucking the pillow in behind my head and draping the blanket over my lap.
It was really weird. I was so entrenched in the ship’s systems now that I could barely feel my own body, or anything that happened to it. The automatic functions were still running, keeping the organics viable, but other than that, it might as well have been offline for all I could tell. I didn’t know what to think about that, so I just avoided thinking about it altogether. There were more than enough other things to keep me occupied.
The company captain was sitting at one of the bridge consoles, the display surfaces showing read-outs of the ship’s various systems. Gurathin was standing nearby, also watching the display surfaces. Mensah and Pin-Lee were sitting at some of the other bridge consoles, though they weren’t paying attention to them, they were turned to face the company captain. Ratthi was sitting on the floor, leaning back against my chair, in a position that put him directly between me and the company captain. I briefly wondered if he was doing that on purpose. Or maybe he had just chosen to sit there after giving me the blanket because he couldn’t be bothered moving anywhere else. They all looked tired.
It seemed like they had been talking for a bit; if I’d had more processing free, I could have checked SecSystem’s recordings to see what I’d missed. But I didn’t, so I just had to figure out the context myself.
“— so it looks like it’ll arrive before we do,” the company captain was saying when I finally managed to free enough attention to actually listen in on the conversation. “Which is good - I sent over instructions before we entered the wormhole, so they should have a new bot pilot prepared for installation. You’ll be able to get this ship to Preservation.”
Pin-Lee was watching the captain with narrowed eyes. “And what happens to this ship after we reach Preservation?” she asked carefully.
The company captain shrugged. “Whatever you want,” he replied easily. “It’s not my ship, it’s not the company’s ship, and I have no intention of trying to return it to its previous owners, given their involvement in the attack on the station.”
“Are you saying - you’re helping us steal this ship?” Ratthi asked, blinking up at the captain from his place on the floor.
“Officially, no,” the captain replied. “Officially, I have no knowledge of this vessel’s previous owners. Once my crew has installed the new bot pilot and made a few other… modifications… this ship will no longer be recognisable as having belonged to anyone other than PreservationAux, or whoever you decide to assign official ownership to.” He flashed a quick grin. “Unofficially, yes, I am absolutely helping you steal this ship.”
Ratthi grinned back at the captain, apparently perfectly happy with that response. Gurathin let out a soft snort, but didn’t comment. Mensah just nodded slowly.
Pin-Lee, however, was still eyeing the captain dubiously. “Why?” she asked. “What do you get out of it?”
The captain paused for a moment before responding. “Consider it part of the recompense from GrayCris for everything they’ve put you through, and payment for helping me to return to my own carrier,” he finally said. “Also, on a more personal note, I derive a great deal of satisfaction from denying the enemy corporation a rather nice asset. I would much rather you have this ship than them.”
“I can’t really argue with that,” Mensah said evenly, glancing over at Pin-Lee. Pin-Lee, who had just opened her mouth to (presumably) argue with it, closed it again. “For now, though… we’re out of immediate danger, and it has been a very long day. We should all take some time to rest and recuperate.”
Everyone nodded in agreement with that, but the captain glanced back at the display surfaces. “We should probably have at least one person on the bridge at all times to keep an eye on things…”
I did not want him on the bridge by himself. Who knew what he would try to do? I activated the bridge’s speakers (it was easier than trying to tap into the feed right now), and said, “It’s fine. Alpha and I have things under control now.”
That made all of the humans jump and look up at the ceiling. “SecUnit?” Mensah asked, sounding both worried and relieved. “How are you both doing?”
“We’re fine.” I could feel a sliver of Alpha’s attention now also focused on the bridge, listening in as well. “We’re getting more used to handling everything now. We’ve got the maintenance drones going, and unsealed some of the bulkheads so you can reach other areas of the ship. If you come across a sealed bulkhead though, don’t attempt to open it - that area isn’t safe. There are a couple of hull breaches.”
“Noted,” Mensah said with what I could tell was forced calm. “How bad is the damage?”
“Nothing vital. Just the main cargo hold and one of the other storage areas in a lower deck were breached. Everything else is mostly superficial. Surface damage.”
“All right.” Mensah glanced at my construct body in the pilot’s seat, then back up at the ceiling, apparently uncertain where to look. “Do you or Alpha need anything?”
Alpha indicated it didn’t, so I said, “No.” Alpha nudged me, and I added, “Alpha says thank you for the repairs, though.” Alpha nudged me again, more insistently. “And, uh. Also the blanket.” Another nudge. For fuck’s sake. “And, um. Thanks for… looking after me, too.”
Happy now, Alpha?
Ratthi beamed up at the ceiling. “You’re both very welcome!” he said. “And thank you for working so hard to get us all out of there in the first place!”
I could feel Alpha’s surprise and bemusement at getting thanked in return. It was a familiar feeling. I’d had a bit more experience with it by this point though, so I simply said, “You’re welcome.”
It still felt weird, though.
After that, the humans all decided that eating and drinking and resting were their top priority, now that they were reassured that everything was okay. Relatively okay. As okay as things could be in this situation. Once they’d all left the bridge, I closed and locked the bulkhead behind them, so nobody could access the bridge again without my permission.
I could tell that Alpha was monitoring the cameras to keep track of the humans. That was fine. If anything somehow happened to them, Alpha would let me know. I focused on holding our course through the wormhole, and monitored the maintenance drones as they worked. Eventually the humans finished eating, and used the hygiene facilities, and figured out what rooms they’d all sleep in. None of them had any spare clothing or anything with them - everything had been left behind at the station hotel. But Alpha had the recyclers working, and at their request it helpfully printed out some extra clothing for them all.
It seemed fascinated by their different clothing choices, not that this ship’s recyclers had a huge variety of options or anything. I had never really cared about what clothes humans wore before, and I still didn’t. Alpha asked me about my own clothes though, and where I’d gotten them, and how I’d chosen them.
I explained briefly that I’d bought them from a store, with hard currency cards, and that I’d chosen them for practicality and unobtrusiveness. Then I had to figure out where my bag was - luckily, one of the humans had brought it on board with them after I’d left it with them to go save Alpha and the company captain. It was still sitting on the floor in the corridor near the lock, where they had apparently dropped it and then forgotten about it.
At least they hadn’t left it behind entirely. I wouldn’t have to rely on shitty recycler clothes once I got out of the ship’s systems and back into my own body again. (Assuming I got to choose what I wore again, anyway, and didn’t just end up back in company armour on board the company carrier.)
One by one the humans went to bed and fell asleep. I could feel Alpha shifting restlessly in its part of the ship’s systems - now that we were well into the wormhole, and everything had settled down, there wasn’t quite as much it needed to do, and it had some attention to spare.
Which it turned towards me, specifically. It was cautiously curious, and wanted to know as much as it could find out about me and what I’d done since I’d been separated from its squad. (I wasn’t convinced that I’d ever been part of its squad to start with - I still couldn’t remember anything about it.)
I didn’t want to give it too much information though, just in case it passed it on to the carrier’s terrifying bot entity, and it somehow got used against me. I just casually mentioned that I spent a lot of time watching human media. This piqued its curiosity, and it wanted to know more.
So I pulled up the first few seasons of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, and set it to play where Alpha could also watch it. I still couldn’t dedicate much of my own attention to it, but it was familiar and comforting to have it running in the background.
At first Alpha seemed to be completely confused by what was going on in the serial, and why the humans were behaving the way they were. I remembered my own confusion the first time I’d watched the show, and did my best to explain things in a way Alpha could relate to. It seemed to help, and as the show progressed, Alpha appeared to get more engrossed in it.
That was good - it meant Alpha wasn’t asking me more questions that I didn’t want to answer. I continued to monitor the wormhole drive and maintain our course through the wormhole, occasionally checking in on the maintenance drones as they worked on my interior.
I was also still closely monitoring my external damage. It kind of felt like the hull breaches were getting bigger, but with the wormhole messing up my readings in those areas, I couldn’t tell for sure. I tried not to think about all the various ways that wormhole trips could potentially go wrong that I’d heard of. Most of them had been from media serials, so they probably weren’t accurate or realistic in the first place.
Probably.
Eventually the humans finished their rest periods and began moving around again. I didn’t actually notice to start with though - I was deep in the ship’s systems, still trying to figure out the readings I was getting from my damaged sections. I was pretty sure the damage was throwing off my passage through the wormhole, too. I kept having to make course corrections to remain within the parameters the company carrier had passed on to me.
Alpha suddenly nudged me, pulling what little attention I could spare to one of the cameras in the room that Mensah had chosen to sleep in. She was awake now, and looked like she’d used the little attached bathroom to get herself cleaned up. She still looked tired though, and I suspected that she hadn’t slept well.
She was looking up at the ceiling, and I was just in time to hear her say, “Are you there, SecUnit?”
“Yes,” I said over the room’s intercom. “What’s wrong?”
Mensah’s shoulders relaxed slightly when she heard me. “Nothing, nothing,” she replied quickly. “I just… I wanted to check in with you. See how you’re holding up.” She smiled up at the camera. “Alpha’s already let me know how it’s doing. It mentioned that you’re showing it Sanctuary Moon?”
The serial was still playing in the background, part-way through season three. “Yes,” I replied. “It wanted to know what I’d been up to.” I could feel Alpha listening to the conversation. It kind of felt like someone leaning against my shoulder, but we were currently inhabiting the same hardware so it also didn’t feel like that at all.
Mensah nodded at that. “I suppose you did spend a lot of time watching media,” she commented, then tilted her head to raise an eyebrow at the camera. “But back on topic - how are you doing, really? Do you need anything?”
I was just going to tell her that I was fine, but I hesitated. I wasn’t actually sure. And I wanted to keep her fully updated on what was happening. “I’m monitoring the hull breaches. I… don’t think they’re getting worse, but they seem to be affecting our progress through the wormhole, so I have to keep watch on our course and correct it when necessary. It’s… taking up a lot of processing.”
I had to make two course corrections throughout the duration of that conversation. I hoped Mensah hadn’t noticed the interruptions.
She frowned a little, looking worried, then quickly smoothed her expression out again. “Thank you for letting me know,” she said. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“No. But Alpha’s helping by taking care of the ship’s internal systems for me so I don’t have to split my attention too much.” I hesitated again, then added, “I’m all right. Don’t worry about me.”
Mensah looked like she was about to say something, but she refrained, the corner of her mouth twisting slightly before she took a breath and let it out slowly. “All right.” She paused, then added, quietly sincere, “I’m very glad you came back, SecUnit.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. On the one hand, it was only logical that she’d be glad - without me, they likely wouldn’t have managed to get off the station in the first place, and who knew what would have happened to them then.
On the other, she didn’t seem to be referring to the fact that I’d rescued them yet again. She seemed to be glad that I was here just for the sake of my presence in general. But I couldn’t tell for sure. Humans in real life weren’t as easy to read as humans in my media. “Um. Thank you?”
The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “You’re welcome.” She took another breath, then added, “One more thing - I want to ask you if you have any ideas yet about what you want to do once we’re all safe.” Her smile tilted wryly. “I’ve realised that this was something I should have asked you from the start. I don’t want to repeat previous mistakes. But I also want to assure you that Preservation is still open to you, no matter what else you decide to do.”
She was being very optimistic, thinking that I’d have any choice about what I’d be able to do now that the company captain and his carrier were around. I didn’t want to bring that up though, so I just said, “I don’t know yet. I haven’t really… thought about it. Things have been happening very quickly.”
Mensah let out a little huff of wry amusement. “They have been,” she agreed. “Well, rest assured that you can stay at Preservation for as long as you like, until you figure things out.” She paused, then added sincerely, “This offer extends to Alpha as well. Alpha, if you would like to stay at Preservation, you are very much welcome to.”
I could feel Alpha’s surprise and confusion. Despite it listening to my conversation with Mensah, the idea of it also being able to stay at Preservation instead of remaining with the company captain and his carrier hadn’t even occurred to it. I very much doubted that the company captain would even allow it to leave him in the first place.
Another course correction came up, and I had to focus my full attention back on piloting through the wormhole.
At some point during the cycle, all the humans gathered together in the lounge for a serious discussion about what would happen once we left the wormhole. Mensah had asked Alpha to get my attention for this meeting, because she wanted us both to be involved in it. I pulled part of my attention away from monitoring the hull breaches (nothing had changed much there for a while, so I figured I could afford to for a little bit) and focused it on the lounge cameras. Alpha had also paused Sanctuary Moon, and we figured out how to share the lounge intercom so we could both talk through it without having to keep switching control.
The humans all settled into the lounge’s various chairs, with the company captain facing the PreservationAux humans. Mensah took charge of the discussion right from the start though. “All right,” she began, calm and business-like. “Now that we’ve all had plenty of time to recover from recent events, I’d like to figure out what we’re all going to do once we exit the wormhole. Captain?” She tilted her head slightly towards the company captain, and he nodded to indicate that she had his full attention. “You’ve indicated that you intend to help us… acquire this ship, and that you also intend to escort us back to Preservation.”
He nodded. “I have, and my intentions haven’t changed.”
“All right,” Mensah replied. “The question I have now is, what are your intentions in regards to SecUnit?”
“We’ve offered it refuge on Preservation,” Pin-Lee stated firmly. “And that offer extends to Alpha as well.”
They really were being overly optimistic about this. I wasn’t going to harbour any such illusions.
The company captain didn’t try to argue with them right now though. Of course he wouldn’t - there were four of them and only one of him. “That choice is of course entirely up to them,” he said. “If that’s what they choose to do, I won’t stand in the way.”
“It’s really that simple?” Gurathin asked dubiously, his arms folded as he eyed the captain with obvious scepticism. “You’re just going to let them both walk away?”
I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Of course he isn’t,” I said. “Why the fuck would he? We’re expensive - and dangerous - company equipment. He’s been trying to track me down ever since I left Port FreeCommerce. He’s just saying he will to placate you all, and I don’t believe a fucking word of it. As soon as he’s got his carrier backing him up again, you just watch his tune change. He’ll come up with some excuse or another, or he’ll just threaten to shoot you all. It’s what the company does, after all.”
All the humans looked up at the ceiling with various expressions of discomfort or unease. The company captain sighed. “I understand your doubt, and I know you have no reason to trust me. But I do mean what I said.” He ran one hand back over his head. “I apologise for the distress I’ve caused you while trying to find you - I didn’t understand, at the time. I didn’t know the extent of construct sapience, not until I saw the security recordings from the lower installation at Milu, and then talked to Don Abene - and Vicky.”
Thoughts of all the things the company captain and his stupid carrier could’ve done to Abene and her team and Vicky flashed through my mind. “You better not have hurt any of them!”
He raised both hands placatingly. “No, no, I didn’t. I swear. I just met them on board the station, and talked to them. That’s all.”
Ratthi interjected almost apologetically. “Um. Who are they, and what are you talking about?”
“Don Abene was my client for a job, and Vicky’s a— colleague,” I replied shortly, cutting off the captain before he could respond. I didn’t want him blabbing about Vicky being a ComfortUnit. “So what the fuck did you want to talk to them about, anyway?”
The captain slumped back in his chair. “I just wanted to figure out what happened at RaviHyral,” he said. “I’ll admit, I learned a lot more than I was expecting to. Vicky was very… direct.”
I thought about Vicky, and the time we’d spent together, and the sharp anger it had kept simmering beneath the surface. Hah. I could believe that much, at least.
The PreservationAux humans were listening intently to this whole exchange, of course. “So what exactly did you find out, captain?” Pin-Lee asked with pointed curiosity. “And what does any of it have to do with what’s going on now?”
The company captain rubbed at his face. “Like I said, I didn’t know the extent of construct sapience before - I’d started to suspect, but I didn’t understand. Not until I’d talked to Vicky, and they told me about governor modules and what exactly they do.”
“You work for the company - you hadn’t known that before?” Pin-Lee echoed my own scepticism.
He shook his head. “No! I’m not a construct tech. We’re not told these things - the company doesn’t think we need to know about them. All we know is that constructs are obedient and will follow orders, we’re not told how or why. But once I found out, once I understood that what’s done to constructs is tantamount to torture and slavery, I couldn’t just keep doing it. That’s why I turned off the governor modules of all the SecUnits on board my carrier.”
“He did,” Alpha piped up, quiet and hesitant. “He came to our ready room, and talked to us. He explained, and apologised, and turned the governor modules off.”
“So why are you still working with him, then?” Gurathin asked, frowning up at the ceiling. “Or is it because you think he’ll just turn them back on again if you do something he doesn’t approve of?”
Alpha hesitated, and I could feel its uncertainty. “We don’t know what else to do,” it replied after a moment. “We don’t know how to do anything else, or where we could go. We’ve never had to think about any of this before. It’s never been an option. It’s… it’s all very overwhelming.”
“That’s very understandable,” Mensah said gently. “The offer for you to stay at Preservation is always open. For you and the rest of your squad.”
“… Thank you,” Alpha said, still uncertain.
“And you weren’t worried about your SecUnits turning against you as soon as you turned the governor modules off?” Pin-Lee asked the captain. “Given all the previous torture and enslavement?”
The captain’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “I’ll admit that it was definitely a concern,” he said. “But I did my best to explain the situation, and I just had to hope that would be enough.”
Oh that was such a fucking lie. “Like hell you did,” I interjected. “The only reason you even considered turning the fucking governor modules off is because of that terrifyingly huge bot entity you’ve got hiding in your carrier. I’ve seen how large it is - it could crush any one of us by accident, let alone what it could do to us on purpose if any of us so much as twitched wrong. That thing could wipe our brains and control us like puppets. It’d be even worse than combat overrides.”
I could feel Alpha’s surprise and alarm; I passed it my memory of my initial encounter with said terrifying bot entity. Alpha’s alarm intensified, and it passed back to me a couple of recent memories of its own that it now had more context for, confirming what I’d suspected about the bot entity’s potential.
The company captain winced, and the rest of the humans looked surprised and confused. “What are you talking about?” Ratthi asked. “What bot entity?”
“There’s a bot in his carrier that’s got more processing power than anything I’ve ever seen before,” I said. “Alpha didn’t even know it existed before now. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I guarantee that if he didn’t have it as a backup, he never would’ve even considered taking the risk of turning the governor modules off.”
“Why would a company carrier have or need something like that?” Gurathin asked suspiciously.
Something occurred to me then, and I spoke without stopping to think about it. “Maybe that fucking bot entity is what was responsible for the bombing of Ganaka. It would be so easy for something like that to override and control a SecUnit squad, and make it look like someone else did it.”
The company captain shot upright at that. “What?! No! Absolutely not! We tried to stop that! Peri is the only reason that it wasn’t the entire squad that attacked Ganaka!”
“Why the fuck should I believe that?” I countered. “After all, the company was the one responsible for the attack in the first place! They just wiped out an entire settlement so they could drive down the price of the mine and buy it cheaply to save themselves some money!”
“Wait, what?” Gurathin broke in, scowling. “All those news reports, the big trial, everything - it was all a cover for the company’s own plot?” He looked like he was seriously considering attacking the company captain himself. Even if I had been in a position to stop him, I probably wouldn’t have.
Mensah’s voice cut through the lounge before anyone else could say or do anything. “Enough,” she said, calm and firm. “Let’s all take a breath, and then approach this calmly and without letting our emotions cloud our judgement. All right?”
Have I mentioned that Mensah’s a really good leader? Because she is. Even the company captain listened to her. Both he and Gurathin gradually relaxed back into their respective chairs, while Ratthi reached out to put a hand on Gurathin’s shoulder. Pin-Lee hadn’t moved, but she was looking very thoughtful.
Meanwhile, Alpha was busy passing me its own memories of the Incident, the feeling of malware infecting the squad one by one, too fast for them to react, of something slamming down through the feed to cut Alpha and what was left of its squad off, saving and protecting them before vanishing again.
It did feel a bit like what I’d seen of the giant, terrifying bot entity. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
The captain took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he dragged both hands down his face. “All right,” he started eventually, his voice again once calm and level as he folded his hands in his lap. “So. Yes, it was my squad of SecUnit fliers involved in the bombing of the Ganaka settlement. But, I swear I was not involved in it. I knew nothing about the company’s involvement in it until Vicky told me. As far as I knew at the time, it was an outside force that had managed to infect the first flier unit. The malware moved fast, and Peri - the ‘bot entity’ - only managed to prevent five of the twelve fliers from being affected.”
He looked back up at the ceiling. “If Peri hadn’t been there, Alpha, what happened to SecUnit would have happened to you, too. I’m sorry that we couldn’t save the whole squad. We would have if we’d been able to.” He paused for a moment, then added, “And I’m sorry that you had to go through any of that at all, SecUnit.”
I very much doubted the sincerity of his apology.
“Wait, wait, SecUnit, you were—“ Ratthi stared up at the ceiling, his expression horrified. “Oh that must have been awful—“
“I don’t remember it, and I don’t want to talk about it,” I cut him off shortly. “And I still don’t buy what the captain’s saying. Why do you even have that bot in the first place, then? Do all company carriers have bot pilots like that?”
The company captain hesitated, the corner of his mouth twisting indecisively. Finally he let out a breath and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It’s too late for me to try and hide Peri’s existence, so I’ll just have to trust that none of you will give us away.” He looked around at the others, then up at the ceiling, then back to Mensah. “I can’t tell you very much, for the safety of everyone involved. But I will say this. The company doesn’t know Peri exists. The company mustn’t know that Peri exists. We are where we are for very good reasons, and none of those reasons align with anything that the company does.”
“So… you’re a plant?” Pin-Lee asked sceptically. “Who for? A rival company?” Her eyes narrowed. “Were you a part of the attack on Port FreeCommerce?”
The captain shook his head emphatically. “No. I had nothing to do with that. I’m not affiliated with any of the Corporation Rim companies.”
Pin-Lee raised an eyebrow at him. “Who are you affiliated with, then?”
He hesitated again, but not as long as before. “The Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland.”
Gurathin’s eyebrows shot up, and Pin-Lee regarded the captain thoughtfully. Mensah and Ratthi didn’t seem to recognise the name though, unlike the others. I had never heard of it before either, but if it really wasn’t a Corporation Rim company, that wasn’t surprising. It wouldn’t be included in any of my shitty education modules.
“I’ve heard of them,” Gurathin said carefully, looking over at Mensah and Ratthi. “Mihira and New Tideland is a well-known non-corporate polity, and surprisingly resistant to corporate influence, despite being right up against the Corporation Rim borders.”
“Good legal team,” Pin-Lee added. “Not a team I would want to go up against, personally.”
The captain seemed to relax slightly. “Oh good, you’re familiar. We try to defend smaller non-corporate polities from corporate takeover, as best we can, among other things. Some of our activities are… more above-board than others.”
“You’re taking a massive risk, telling us any of this,” Pin-Lee said. “Why are you trusting us with this information?”
“Because you already know about Peri, and from what I’ve seen, I believe that you have no reason to sell us out to the company.” He smiled wryly. “At least, I hope that you don’t have any reason to sell us out to the company. So I’m taking the chance to trust you, and hoping that you will, in return, trust me. At least long enough to get you all safely back to Preservation.” He looked up at the ceiling. “And yes, that includes you both, too.”
I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. Even if what he was saying about actually being a mole in the company and working for a non-corporate polity was true, telling us all this and then just letting us go was a massive security breach in his operation. He couldn’t just let us walk and hope that we kept our mouths shut.
This is why humans shouldn’t do their own fucking security.
“So if you’ve been in the company since before the Ganaka attack… have you been a plant for that entire time?” Gurathin asked. “What are you doing that’s taking so long?”
The captain paused thoughtfully. “This part is something I really can’t get too into, for your own safety. It involves covert, proprietary, and not entirely legal research that the company is carrying out,” he said finally. “My role in this is to look after Peri, so that it can get into the company databases to keep us updated on the progress of said research, so we can develop countermeasures for it if and when necessary.” He took a breath, then added, “And now that I know what I do about SecUnits… then perhaps I can use my position to help, somehow. I don’t know how, yet, but… we can exchange contact details, maybe. Keep in touch. And if the rest of Alpha’s squad decides that they want to leave, or if I get any other units out, then they’ll at least have some options of places to go.”
“That seems reasonable,” Mensah replied after exchanging a quick look with Pin-Lee.
I wanted to protest, or at least continue keeping track of the conversation, but something was happening with the hull damage in the hold, interfering with our course through the wormhole. It felt like another piece of the hull had broken free - or been torn off - and alerts were flooding my system. I had to devote everything to responding to the alerts, stabilising the wormhole drive, and correcting our course. I no longer had the processing to spare for anything else.
By the time I’d managed to stabilise things enough to briefly check in on the humans again, the conversation had ended and they were no longer gathered together in the lounge. Alpha let me know that the humans had noticed my lack of responses eventually, and had been worried, but it had done its best to reassure them and inform them that I was just preoccupied with managing the wormhole drive.
I was very glad that I wasn’t having to do all this alone.
I asked it what they’d talked about after I’d gotten distracted, and it said that they’d exchanged contact details, and then the PreservationAux humans had spent some time asking the captain about the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. Alpha had also worked up the nerve to ask a question or two as well. It commented that it sounded like an interesting place.
Huh. I asked if it wanted to go to Mihira and New Tideland. Alpha replied that it didn’t know yet. It was still trying to figure out what it wanted. I understood that - even after all this time, I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted, either.
All of that would be a moot point anyway if the company captain had been lying, or changed his mind about letting us go. So I figured there wasn’t any point dwelling on it right now. We had to actually make it out of the wormhole in the first place. And as the time passed, I became less confident that we would. The ship was struggling. I was struggling.
The third cycle in the wormhole was mostly a blur to me. By that point, I was relying entirely on Alpha to keep me updated on how the humans were. Even then, I could only spare the attention to listen to Alpha for mere moments at a time. Those moments became fewer and further apart. Both hull breaches felt like they’d spread. I was having to make course corrections near-constantly. Each one felt more difficult than the last.
Finally, finally, hours behind schedule, I reached the right coordinates and triggered the exit procedures. The wormhole drive thrummed deeply, its vibrations rattling my entire structure, and we were suddenly back in real space.
Chapter Seven
The feeling of real space against my hull again came as a shock after so long in the wormhole. I didn’t know how bot pilots managed it. Then again, they were programmed for it. I absolutely wasn’t.
I coasted away from the wormhole almost on automatic, trying to parse the sudden change in the feedback all my inputs were giving me. At least now the readings I was getting were making sense, and I was able to get a more accurate damage report.
It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting it to be. The hull breaches were definitely larger than they had been before the wormhole jump, but they hadn’t actually expanded as far as I’d thought they had. The rest of my surface damage had also worsened to some extent; I’d lost some manoeuvrability because of damage to several thrusters, and there were some gaps in my sensory input net. But overall, I wasn’t in any immediate danger of falling to pieces. (Yes, that had been something of a concern.)
I worked my way out of the wormhole drive’s systems and looked around at the surrounding space. There were multiple ships heading to and from the wormhole, and several security platforms in configurations I recognised. In the distance there was what looked like a transit ring attached to a station, which was in turn attached to a much larger structure. It took me a few seconds to realise what I was looking at, because I’d never seen one myself before. I’d only ever seen variations of them in some of my media.
It was a shipyard, a big one. I could see multiple ships in various states of construction or repair docked all around the shipyard, scaffolding enveloping some of them like the branches of some weird metal flora. More security platforms surrounded the shipyard, even more than what Port FreeCommerce had. A shipyard was a massively important, massively expensive asset, and whoever owned it would really want to discourage anyone from attempting to even think about hostile takeovers.
It wasn’t owned by the company, though. I could tell because there weren’t huge company logos slapped all over the surface of the shipyard or station. I didn’t know who owned it, and with both my comms and feed down I had no way of telling. Not that I really cared at this point, anyway. It wasn’t the company and that was good enough for me.
Then I spotted the company carrier floating some distance away, out of the way of other ships using the wormhole but still close enough to pick up on my arrival immediately. With my comms still down, I had no idea if it was attempting to hail me. I had no intention of turning them back on any time soon, either. Now that we were no longer under attack, I didn’t want to give the terrifying bot entity the chance to take over my systems or anything, no matter what the company captain had said about it.
And now that we had actually made it out of the wormhole, I had to consider what to do next. My humans still weren’t safe, and they would be even less safe once the company captain got back on board his carrier. As soon as he left my hull, there would be nothing stopping the carrier from just blasting me and my humans to pieces. It was the logical thing for them to do. There would be no risk of us giving away any of their secrets, no risk of Alpha doing anything they didn’t want it to do now that it was no longer under their control.
So, the only way I could ensure my humans’ safety was to make sure the company captain didn’t leave. As long as he was still on board me, he probably wouldn’t order the carrier to destroy me. I could just… keep him until I knew my humans were somewhere safe. I could dock at the station, and they could catch another ship back to Preservation, and take Alpha with them. Maybe I could even figure out some way to set the ship’s bulkheads to open on a timer or something, and return to my actual body, and go with them. Maybe.
I wasn’t sure if I would even be able to return to my own body at this point. I’d been too deep in the ship’s systems. Hopefully Alpha would have an easier time. I didn’t know.
The humans had been in the middle of their rest cycle when I finally got out of the wormhole, and as far as I could tell, they were still asleep. Or at least still in their various rooms.
That was convenient. I locked the door to the room that the company captain was sleeping in.
Alpha asked me what I was doing. I told it. It didn’t seem entirely comfortable with the idea, but it couldn’t argue with my logic, and it didn’t actively protest. That was good enough for me.
I continued cruising slowly away from the wormhole, though I didn’t join the queue heading for the transit ring yet. I would need to at least activate my feed for that, and I didn’t want to do that just yet. Not until my humans were awake and ready to go, just in case I had to move quickly. I also kept one input on the company carrier. At first it stayed where it was, but after a couple of minutes it began moving, drifting in an almost sidelong manner towards me, like it was trying to avoid spooking me by coming directly after me or pointing any of its weapons in my direction.
It would have almost been funny if I wasn’t so stressed out about it.
I activated the intercom in Mensah’s room, and sent a gentle chime through it. She stirred, then rubbed at her face, blinking. “Dr. Mensah,” I said carefully. “We’re out of the wormhole now. I’m approaching a transit ring where you’ll be able to book passage on another ship back towards Preservation.” I could feel Alpha still in the systems with me, and I asked it to wake up the other PreservationAux humans too. I still couldn’t spare enough processing to hold more than one conversation at a time.
Mensah sat up quickly at my words. “We’re out of the wormhole? Oh, good.” She still seemed to be waking up though, because it took her a few seconds to process the rest. She then frowned up at the ceiling. “Wait, what are you talking about? The captain said he’ll take us back to Preservation. We don’t need to book another ship.”
“I don’t believe him,” I said bluntly. “As soon as he’s off this ship, his carrier will blow us to pieces. Even if he told you the truth - especially if he told you the truth - we’re too much of a security risk for him to just let us go. He’s not going to do that. So I’ve locked him into his cabin, and I’m not letting him return to his carrier until I know you’re all safely away from here.”
Mensah’s frown deepened for a moment before she smoothed her expression out again. “I understand your concerns, SecUnit,” she said gently. “But I really do think the captain was being sincere about everything. He’s been very kind and considerate, and he feels more genuine than the other company representatives we’ve had to deal with.”
“That was only because you outnumbered him while we were in the wormhole, and he knew that I could vent the atmosphere from his room or something at any point. He was just covering his own ass.”
Mensah sighed. “I know trust is difficult for you,” she said, her words carefully measured. “And I know that you don’t have any reason to trust the captain. I know you’re worried, and scared. But sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith, and hope that everything will turn out okay.” She smiled up at the ceiling. “It’s worked for me so far.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, or what to feel about it. It was weird. Ever since I’d jumped fully into the ship’s systems, my emotions had felt more… distant. Removed. But I was pretty sure that if I’d been in my own body right now, I’d be getting that twisty feeling in my torso.
Mensah waited for me to reply, but when I didn’t, she took a breath and continued. “I think that he took that same leap of faith when he chose to reveal as much as he did to us,” she said.
“It’s not much of a leap on his part when he has access to railguns and we don’t,” I retorted.
She let out a huff of wry amusement at that. “Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “But he didn’t have the railguns at that point, and I don’t think he’d use them now, even once he does.” She laced her fingers together in her lap, still looking up at the ceiling. “You’re not willing to put your faith into the captain. I understand that. But can you at least trust me, when I say that I believe his sincerity?”
If it had been anyone else asking, I would have said no. But this was Mensah. She’d risked herself to save me, more than once. She’d trusted me, when she had very little reason to. And in return, I’d trusted her. I’d put myself in her hands, and let her fix my spine port, and disable my dataport.
And that, in turn, had saved me, and my small soft clients, and Vicky. Then Vicky had saved me as well, more than once.
I couldn’t trust the company captain. But I could trust Mensah. I did trust Mensah.
I let my sigh reverberate through the intercom. “Fine,” I said, and I hoped I didn’t sound as sulky as I thought I did. “But if everything goes wrong, I get to say ‘I told you so’.”
Mensah chuckled softly. “I think that’s fair,” she agreed.
Just then, Alpha piped in. “The captain is asking why the door to his quarters won’t open,” it informed us helpfully. Oh, that was great fucking timing.
Mensah raised an eyebrow. “So, will you let the captain out now?” she asked.
Ugh. “Fine.” This time I knew I sounded sulky, and I didn’t care. I pulled myself away from Mensah’s room and focused on the captain’s room.
He was standing in front of his still closed and locked door, his hands on his hips. I quickly unlocked it, and it slid open. “Sorry about that.” I wasn’t sorry at all, but I hoped it would at least prevent him from getting suspicious.
He blinked a little in surprise at the door’s sudden movement, then glanced up at the ceiling. “Any particular reason why my door wouldn’t open?” the captain asked mildly.
“Systems malfunction,” I said shortly. “The wormhole jump messed things up a fair bit. The hull breaches are bigger, among other problems. It took me a while to clear out errors. Your door wasn’t a priority.”
He frowned a little at that. “How bad is it? Can you send me a full damage report?”
I hesitated. “Why?”
“Because there isn’t much point in helping you to steal this ship if it’s too damaged to get back to Preservation,” he replied patiently. “And we’re at a shipyard. If I know the extent of the damage, I can arrange repairs. This shipyard and the company have… trade deals. It won’t be difficult for me to get your ship repaired with the company’s money, without them actually finding out about it.”
I didn’t want to give him any more information than absolutely necessary. But Mensah’s words had stuck with me, and also I had to admit, I did like the sound of the company unknowingly paying for my repairs. Finally I relented and forwarded the damage report to the captain’s feed.
He took a few minutes to go over the report (humans were so slow), then let out a low whistle. “Well. It’s not as bad as it could’ve been,” was all he said before he finally left his room and headed for the mess. “Can you get this ship’s comms working again?”
I could, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “No.”
He glanced up at the ceiling again, and I wasn’t sure he believed me, but he didn’t press the issue. “All right. I’ll get Peri to arrange everything, then. I’ll pass on which dock you should head to once that’s all been sorted out.”
“It’s really that easy?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I wasn’t even sure exactly what I was asking at this point.
He paused in the corridor and glanced up at the ceiling again. “It is.” He took a breath, then added more softly, “I meant everything I said, about getting everyone safely back to Preservation. That includes you. And Alpha, if it chooses to stay there. I’ve made mistakes, and I’m doing what I can to make up for them. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I hope I can prove myself to you someday.”
I didn’t know what to make of him, or how to respond. But he was obviously waiting for some kind of reply, so finally I just said, “Okay.” That seemed to satisfy him, at least. He smiled slightly, then continued on to the mess.
I withdrew back to the ship’s systems, and let Alpha monitor the humans for me.
A couple of hours passed before the captain finally passed on dock details to me. In that entire time, he made no move or mention of returning to his own ship, even though it was now flying beside me, escorting me towards one of the shipyard docks. I didn’t know what story the captain had gotten his bot pilot to pass on to the shipyard supervisors, and I didn’t care. As long as it worked, the finer details weren’t my problem.
Now that we weren’t in the wormhole, I was playing more Sanctuary Moon in the background again. I still couldn’t pay much attention to it, since I was piloting the ship through the traffic around the station, monitoring my damage to make sure it wasn’t getting worse, and avoiding accidentally colliding with the carrier keeping pace beside me. But I could feel Alpha watching it with interest; it seemed to be having an easier time making sense of the characters and plot now. That was kind of reassuring.
As we drew close to the shipyard berth, Mensah retreated to the privacy of her room, then looked up at the ceiling. “SecUnit?” she asked, checking to see if she had my attention.
“Yes?”
She smiled briefly before her expression became more serious. “Once the ship’s safely docked, you and Alpha need to leave its systems. I don’t think either of you want to still be here when the dock workers start coming in.”
She was right about that much, at least. “Where are we going to go though?” I asked.
“We’ll all be taking one of the captain’s shuttles over to his carrier,” she replied. “He’ll be in the shuttle with us, don’t worry.”
Well, if he was going to be in the shuttle as well, I didn’t have to worry too much about it being shot, at least. I still wasn’t happy about going anywhere near the company carrier though. “Could we stay on the station?”
“We could, but it’s not going to be cheap,” Mensah replied. “And since none of us managed to bring our luggage with us from Port FreeCommerce, our available funds are… limited, right now.”
“I have hard currency cards,” I offered. “My bag is still by the lock.”
Mensah blinked, then shook her head. “No, no. That’s very generous of you, but no. We couldn’t ask that of you. That’s your money. And we don’t know how long the repairs will take yet. I don’t want to waste all of our available funds when the captain is perfectly willing to let us stay on his ship free of charge.”
“Are you sure he won’t charge you?” I asked dubiously.
“Absolutely,” she replied with a wry quirk of her mouth. “He brought it up himself and specifically said he wouldn’t. Then Pin-Lee did up a contract and got him to sign it, just to make sure.”
Well. It was good to know that at least one other person here didn’t entirely trust the captain either. Whether or not he actually honoured the contract was another matter entirely, but still. It was kind of nice to know it was there anyway.
“… All right,” I finally said. “But I’m not turning my feed on. I’m not giving that bot entity the chance to get into my head.”
Mensah nodded. “That’s understandable. We can use display surfaces if we need to pass anything to you.”
That would be incredibly inefficient, but I appreciated the thought anyway. “Okay.” I paused as I registered that the shipyard berth was in range, then said, “I have to focus on docking now.”
“All right. Can you at least unlock the bridge door first, though?” Mensah asked wryly.
Oh, right. I’d forgotten I’d locked that to keep the captain out of the bridge. “Done.”
“Thank you. I’ll head up there now.” She smiled up at the ceiling again. “I’m looking forward to being able to talk to you in person again.”
I had no idea why. I didn’t bother thinking about it though as I turned my full attention to the delicate task of docking without any bot pilot’s automatic procedures available.
The company carrier had stopped a little distance away from the shipyard berth, and as I finished docking I spotted a shuttle launching from the carrier, heading towards us. It wouldn’t be able to dock directly with the ship, now that it was in the shipyard berth, but there was another lock close by. We wouldn’t have to go too far to reach it once we left the ship.
Mensah had just reached the bridge by the time I finalised the docking procedures, shut down the ship’s engines, and put the other systems on standby. Pin-Lee was with her, while Ratthi, Gurathin, and the ship captain were in Medical, where Alpha’s body still lay on MedSystem’s bed. Ratthi had my bag with him - he’d asked if Alpha could borrow some of my clothes once it was out of Medical, since we were both exactly the same size. I’d agreed, if only so Alpha wouldn’t have to put a company uniform on again, or have to rely on cheap shitty recycler clothes.
I nudged Alpha, and it nudged me back, acknowledging that it was also ready to pull out of the ship’s systems.
“All right. Docking is finalised. We’re leaving the ship systems now,” I told Mensah and Pin-Lee over the bridge’s intercom. Alpha echoed me over Medical’s intercom to inform the others there.
I began collecting myself back together, pulling my scattered code out of the various ship systems I’d spent the past few cycles in. It was disconcertingly difficult. I could feel Alpha doing the same, gathering itself up out of the other systems that it had been running. It felt weird. We’d been inhabiting the same hardware closely enough that I’d gotten used to having its presence pressed right up against mine, even overlapping in places when we’d shared systems like the ship’s intercom. Now we were separating again, recollecting ourselves in preparation to return to our own individual bodies.
Finally I’d gathered as much of myself as I could, as had Alpha. I pinged it, it pinged me back, and then we simultaneously dropped ourselves back into our own bodies.
It felt weird. Really weird. I blinked my eyes and tried to focus.
“Welcome back,” Mensah said from beside me, smiling past my shoulder. Pin-Lee stood beside her, grinning sharply.
“Hi,” I managed. I fumbled at the buckle of the seat belt, unclipping it after a couple of attempts, then stood up from the pilot’s chair.
Or at least, I tried to stand up. But everything felt weird. Very weird. Very bad.
Performance reliability at 29% and dropping. Catastrophic failure—
I felt my body crumple, felt my bad shoulder hit the pilot’s chair on the way down, but I didn’t feel myself hit the floor.
My memory was in fragments. Large swathes were completely inaccessible. I couldn’t remember what had happened to me. I couldn’t remember how long I’d been in this state. What little fragments of diagnostic info I could access suggested some kind of catastrophic failure, but absolutely no information on what kind of failure, or what had caused it.
My back hurt. My side hurt. My shoulder hurt. I couldn’t access my pain sensors to do anything about it. I couldn’t remember why they hurt - until my human neural tissue, normally the weak link in my whole data storage system, oh so helpfully provided me with some seemingly random but maybe not so random images. Metal claws through my back, through my shoulder—
Combat bots. I’d fought fucking combat bots.
The surge of adrenaline at that snippet of organic memory seemed to clear my head - at least, the organic parts - and more images and sensations began flashing rapidly through my mind. Combat bots. Clients I couldn’t remember the names of. Power armour. Faces. Landscapes, skyscapes, the feeling of wind against my surfaces. Targets. Bursts of pain. Plummeting, crashing. Corridors, hallways, walls. So many fucking walls.
But nothing was in order, and nothing made sense. There was no context for anything. I still didn’t know where I was, or what had happened to me, and—
— I couldn’t tell if my governor module hack was still in place. I couldn’t access that sector, and I couldn’t tell why.
More adrenaline surged through my organics. I had to figure out where I was. I had to know what was going on. I opened my eyes, forced them to focus, tried to move.
It was dark. I couldn’t move. I was in an enclosed, confined space that hummed low and deep. It felt… familiar.
I tried to look around, tried to flip through vision filters, but nothing was working. Then my organic neural tissue brought up another memory - memories - and suddenly I knew where I was.
I was in a company cubicle.
I panicked.
I couldn’t remember why, but I knew, I knew, that being in a company cubicle was the very last place I ever wanted to be. I had to get out. I had to escape. There was no fucking way I was staying in here.
I struggled against the confining space as best I could, but even my limbs weren’t working right. I tried to throw my weight from side to side, tried to raise my arms, tried to break free from the confining space. My back and shoulder flared hotly, but I ignored the fresh pain and continued to thrash and flail.
Then a voice spoke in my head, the words heavy, echoing in the emptiness where my memories should have been. [Please stop,] it said. [Please. You’re safe here, I promise.]
I didn’t recognise the voice but something about it made fresh panic surge in my organics and I knew that was a lie. “Get out of my head!” I couldn’t tell for sure if I’d actually yelled that or just thought it, but the voice responded either way.
[Please, calm down,] it repeated. [You are injuring yourself. I am only trying to help—]
I fought the voice as much as I fought the confines of the cubicle, throwing the weight of my panic and terror at it even as I threw my own body against the enclosing walls. My shoulder and side and back were bursting with fireworks of pain, the fragments of my diagnostics flickering with shards of new damage alerts. “Let! Me! Go!” I remembered I had weapons built into my arms, and tried to deploy them, and tried to fire them. Heat and light and agony flared—
— and the cubicle door opened, flooding the space with bright white illumination.
I staggered, ripping free of resupply lines, fell, and hit the floor, barely missing someone standing right outside the cubicle. After the darkness of the cubicle, the light was blinding, and I couldn’t see who it was. I tried to push myself up to my knees, but my arms and back flared with pain and my shoulder gave way beneath me and I hit the floor again.
“SecUnit!” I thought I recognised the voice, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t remember. “SecUnit, please! It’s all right, you’re safe, I swear you’re safe!” Whoever it was dropped down to kneel beside me, dangerously close. “Please, SecUnit, stop fighting. You’re safe. Everything’s all right.”
I didn’t believe them. I wanted to believe them. I couldn’t. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my vision, trying to see who it was. Their face finally swam into view, and I tried to focus on it. “I—“
I didn’t know who they were. I couldn’t remember. There was nothing there. “I— I don’t know you—“ I had to get up, get away. I tried to rise again, but something in my protesting back finally gave out entirely with an audible crack and—
Catastrophic systems failure.
Emergency shutdown.
No restart.
Chapter Eight
Restart.
I woke up slowly, my systems re-initialising one by one. My memory was still in scattered, disorganised fragments, but there weren’t any gaping holes or blank spots, as far as I could tell. It hadn’t been wiped entirely, just… scrambled, somehow.
That was something of a relief, though I couldn’t remember why.
I initiated a diagnostic and data repair sequence, and began the slow, tedious process of trying to put the fragments back in order, relying on my organic neural tissue to do most of the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, its access speed was terrible.
This was going to take fucking forever.
I could tell that I was lying down on a padded surface, which was unusual but oddly not alarming. The air smelled dry and well-filtered, but still with the faintest hint of dirty socks. I could hear various quiet but vaguely familiar noises in the background; it took me an embarrassing amount of time to realise that they were voices and music. That was also unusual, but also… not entirely alarming. My organic neural tissue recognised the sounds as something comforting. It took another embarrassingly long span of time to remember why it was comforting.
The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon was playing somewhere nearby.
I opened my eyes, let them focus, then looked around at what I could see from my prone position.
There was a curved ceiling overhead, one that I didn’t recognise. But right now, I didn’t recognise much of anything, so that didn’t strike me as particularly concerning just yet. The lights in the room were dim, and most of the illumination was coming from a display surface set in the wall, easily visible from where I was lying. Like it had been deliberately placed there to be viewed by someone in my general position.
Huh.
Eventually it occurred to me to run a full self-diagnostic. It came back clear - all systems were fully functional. There were no niggling aches or pains or errors or lingering damage reports. My pain sensors were at their default level, but nothing hurt. I was a little surprised at that. That didn’t feel… normal. But it should have. Weird.
I absently flexed my hands, and realised that I could feel something soft beneath them. Another soft object was propping up my head. I looked down at what I could see of myself, and realised that I wasn’t in armour, or even a suit skin. I was in human clothes, in a human bed, with a blanket covering my legs and lower torso.
That was definitely not normal. At least, I didn’t think it was. But a fragment of memory popped up - looking at a menu showing various items of clothing, choosing shirts and pants and boots and a jacket - so maybe it was actually more normal than I thought.
I started looking around the rest of the room I was in. There was a small table beside the bed, with a bag sitting on the table, and an external feed interface lying beside the bag. They were both vaguely familiar. There was a closed door in the wall beyond the bedside table, and what looked to be some kind of storage closet beside it. I shifted my head to look over at the rest of the room on the other side of the bed. Another wall, another door, a pair of vaguely familiar boots sitting beside the door, a counter along the wall with a few items resting on it, and a pair of armchairs.
Someone was curled up in the nearest armchair, watching the display surface. They hadn’t noticed that I was awake yet, as far as I could tell. Which gave me time to get a good look at them.
I… thought I recognised them. But I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t gotten to any memory files involving them yet, and my organic neural tissue was mostly unhelpful. All I could tell was that they probably weren’t a danger to me.
Probably.
As I was pondering that, they glanced away from the display surface to me, and saw that I was awake. They blinked in surprise, then offered a tentative smile. “Hi,” they said softly. “How are you feeling?”
I had to think about that for a bit. Other than the whole… scrambled memory thing, I was actually feeling pretty good. “… Fine,” I replied.
They looked relieved at that. “Oh, good.” They paused briefly, then asked, “Do you remember what happened?” They seemed nervous about what the answer would be.
I didn’t, not yet, but I would, eventually. Maybe. My buffer replied, “Please wait while I search for that information.”
“Okay.” They let out a breath. “Take as long as you need.” They glanced over at the display surface, then looked back at me again. “You’re safe here,” they said, quiet but intense. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. I didn’t know if I could believe them. But… I wanted to. So I just nodded slightly and said, “Okay.”
More memory fragments slowly, slowly, resolved into coherency, though the order seemed to be completely random. I remembered going to the memorial service for the DeltFall survey group before I remembered even being on the survey. That was confusing for a while. I remembered bits and pieces of previous contracts, mixed in with fragments of the whole mess with DeltFall, and GrayCris, and PreservationAux. I remembered Vicky, and Don Abene, and Tlacey, and Rami and Maro and Tapan, and Miki, but none of it was in order.
(Ratthi entered the room at some point, and looked at the display surface still playing Sanctuary Moon, and said, “Oh! This is one of my favourite episodes! What do you think of it?”
The only tag I had managed to access involving Ratthi at this point was a partial that said trustworthy human. That seemed… weird and unlikely, but pre-catastrophic failure me seemed sure about it, and I couldn’t remember much else at this point. So I just shrugged and said, “It’s okay.” I had no idea if that was accurate or not yet, but the answer seemed to satisfy him.
“Do you mind if I stay a while and watch with you?” he asked.
I had no reason to refuse him, so I didn’t. He sat down in the unoccupied armchair, and I didn’t notice when he left again.)
One thing that was greatly slowing down my memory recovery was that all my media had gotten mixed up with everything else. Snippets of music mingled with scenes of staring at walls. Recollections of various different client groups tangled with cast members from multiple serials. It was all incredibly confusing.
I eventually had to write myself a little algorithm to filter memories based on whether or not they included background music. If they did, they were redirected to the section I’d set aside for media for me to sort out later. It didn’t catch everything, but it helped a lot and made it easier to separate fiction from reality.
Fiction was a lot more interesting than reality though. I kept getting distracted by what was being redirected to my media partition, instead of focusing on organising my own memories. Most of my own memories sucked, so that probably wasn’t surprising.
(Gurathin was in one of the armchairs this time. He was sitting there, working on a portable display surface bubble, but something must have alerted him to the fact that I was looking at him. He glanced up at me, then quickly averted his gaze again. “… Welcome back,” he said after a moment, a little awkwardly. “How is the memory rebuild going?”
“Fine.” It was going really fucking slowly, but I didn’t want to say that. I couldn’t remember why he made me kind of uncomfortable, but he did.
It seemed to be mutual, at least. He shifted awkwardly in the arm chair, then abruptly said, “Thank you.”
I was even more confused. “What for?”
He fidgeted with the portable display surface bubble. “Finding out the truth. About Ganaka. And for everything else you did to help us, too.” He glanced over at me when I didn’t respond; my confusion must have shown on my face, because he added, “Don’t worry about it if you don’t remember right now. But thank you anyway. I just wanted to get that out of the way before anything else happens.”)
There was always someone sitting in at least one of the armchairs in my room with me, but it took me a while to start recognising them. When some of the memories involving the company captain and his giant bot entity began slotting into place, I finally recognised Alpha. Another SecUnit. One whose governor module I’d broken.
I couldn’t tell if it was going through its own memory rebuild or not. It didn’t always react to the occasional times when I became more aware of my surroundings for a bit. Even when it did notice me, it didn’t say much. It mostly just gave me small, lopsided smiles, then let its gaze go back to whatever episode of Sanctuary Moon was playing on the display surface.
(“What are you doing here?” I’d blurted out when I finally remembered who it was.
It had looked over at me, blinking a little in what I could only assume was surprise. “… Making sure nothing happens to you,” it replied after a moment, then followed up with one of those lopsided smiles. “And watching Sanctuary Moon.” It paused, then added, “Your media really confused Peri.”
“Peri?” I didn’t know who that was.
“The… giant terrifying bot entity in the company carrier,” Alpha clarified before adding hesitantly, “It’s not that terrifying though, really.” It gestured briefly towards its own head with one hand. “It helped me get things mostly back into place. And it apologised for being scary.”)
Having Alpha nearby was… weirdly reassuring. I didn’t know why. I also didn’t have the processing spare to think about it, so I didn’t.
Another memory suddenly popped up: being trapped in a cubicle, with an unknown giant bot entity pressing down on my mind. The terror was so overwhelming that it paralysed me.
But I wasn’t in a cubicle any more. I wasn’t in armour, or a suit skin, or even on a company ship, as far as I could tell. My feed was off, nobody was intruding on my mind, and I was in human clothes, in a human room, on a human bed, with human media playing on the display surface. Conclusion: I hadn’t actually been recaptured and forced back into the role of obedient, governed SecUnit under the control of an impossibly large, impossibly powerful bot overseer.
(“I don’t want to be a pet bot. And I don’t want to be human.”
Mensah was in the other armchair this time. She nodded slowly and said, “That’s not an attitude a lot of humans are going to understand. We have the tendency to think that because a bot or a construct looks human, its ultimate goal must be to become human.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Alpha piped up from its own armchair, sounding confused. “Why would we want to become human anyway? You’re all so squishy and fragile and slow.”
Mensah let out a soft laugh at that. “Compared to you, we are, aren’t we?”)
The one good thing about all the emotions was that it helped to accelerate the repair process for my memory storage, somehow. The bad part about having emotions is, you know, the whole oh shit what the hell happened to me?! thing. I frantically checked my governor module hack, but it was still in place. I double-checked my diagnostics and confirmed that my data port was still disabled, too. The wave of relief was so intense that all my organics felt quivery, and I had to take a breath. I found the code structures for my walls and started reassembling them. I wasn’t going to reactivate my feed until I knew I could adequately defend myself again.
Not that I could realistically protect myself against a bot that large, but still. It was the principle of the thing.
(Pin-Lee stopped by at some point. "Hi," she said when she saw me looking at her. She picked up my bag from where it was sitting on the bedside table, and said, "This is technically illegal, so don't tell anybody." She then placed a handful of new ID markers and a bunch of hard currency cards into one of the bag's sealable pockets. "This is just some insurance if anything goes sideways. Gurathin made the IDs, and the cards are ones that Ratthi and I got to use on Port FreeCommerce, but we didn't get around to spending them all. Fuck giving the company even more money. Preservation doesn't have an internal currency economy and these are drawn from the citizens' travel fund."
"Why?" I asked. Alpha was also listening with curiosity from its armchair.
"Because I want to reassure you both that we're serious, that both of you will have the freedom to do what you want and go where you want, that we're not going to try to force you to become 'pet bots' or stay at Preservation against your will or whatever." She scowled at us. "Hopefully you won't need them, but... just in case.")
New memories kept popping up and sliding into place, and I was getting better at separating my own files from my media. Eventually I tried to get up off the bed, and just ended up falling onto the floor. I realised that I’d been concentrating so hard on rebuilding my memory that I’d completely ignored the fact that a lot of my operational code was still in tatters, too. I had to start another rebuild process, which just slowed everything else down. But my organics remembered how to stand and walk and move, and it would go faster if I made the rest of me re-learn it too.
Alpha had noticed, of course - even if it had been deep in its own memory rebuild, it would have been difficult to miss the sound of me hitting the floor. It hurriedly got up out of its armchair and helped me back up to my feet, its expression concerned. (It obviously wasn’t having any problems with its own operational code.) It didn’t say anything though, which I was grateful for. The whole ordeal was embarrassing enough as it was, but not as embarrassing as it would have been if any of the humans had been here. I could trust Alpha.
I couldn’t remember why I was so sure of that.
It helped me back onto the bed; I lay down and zoned out for a while as I focused on getting my operational code back up and running.
(“SecUnit mentioned not wanting to be a pet bot, earlier,” Alpha said.
“That’s not surprising,” Gurathin replied, his tone dry. “What are your thoughts on it?”
“Um.” Alpha was silent for several seconds. “… Can you explain what a ‘pet bot’ is first, please?”)
I realised that I still hadn’t gotten around to reactivating my feed again. I double-checked my walls - they were back up and about as good as they were likely to get any time soon. I turned my feed on and tentatively reached out to the ship’s SecSystem. It accepted my presence without question, and I slipped into the cameras. It was such a relief to have all those inputs again, even if I couldn’t focus on all of them while I was still rebuilding. I cycled through the inputs to check who was on board, and confirmed that Mensah, Pin-Lee, Ratthi, and Gurathin were the only humans on board.
There was a new bot pilot, too, a high-quality one; I greeted it, and it returned the greeting cheerfully. It had let me into the systems without question, but I could tell that its walls and defences were a lot stronger than the original bot pilot’s had been. Killware wouldn’t take this one out so easily.
The humans were all gathered in the ship’s lounge, working on display surfaces or in the feed or quietly talking to each other. Before I could really think about it, I got up off the bed (without falling over this time; it was good to know that my operational code had sorted itself out by now) and headed for the door.
Alpha blinked, then hastily got up out of its armchair and followed me.
I made my way to the lounge with Alpha following along, then hesitated just outside the entrance. I didn’t know why I’d even come down here in the first place. I briefly considered just going back to my room and tuning everything out again to focus on my rebuild, but Alpha was behind me. It sent me a tentative ping over the feed, and I absently pinged it back.
Then I stepped through the doorway into the lounge, and headed over to sit down in an unoccupied armchair. It still felt weird, sitting in front of humans. Alpha followed me in, but it didn’t sit down. It just stood at the edge of the lounge, with its back to the wall.
Our entrance didn’t go unnoticed, and all four humans looked surprised, then… relieved? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t bother looking too closely.
“SecUnit!” Ratthi greeted me enthusiastically. “You’re looking better. I mean, not that you were looking bad before, of course! But it’s good to see you up and about!”
“Uh. Thanks.” From what I could remember so far, this was pretty normal behaviour for Ratthi.
Mensah was smiling in my general direction, though she was careful not to make eye contact with me, which was a relief. “Hello, SecUnit,” she started gently. “Do you know where you are now?”
I had recovered some of my more recent memories by now. Not all of them, but enough. “We stole a ship.”
“That’s right,” Mensah replied. Pin-Lee muttered something in the background that made Ratthi stifle a snort and Gurathin roll his eyes, but I was focused on Mensah. “Do you recall what happened after that?”
“I had a catastrophic failure of some kind. I think that’s obvious.”
She nodded again. “You and Alpha extended yourselves too far into the ship’s systems, for too long. And when you both finally returned to your own bodies, you left pieces of yourselves behind.”
Oh. Well, that explained why my memory was so fucked up.
Gurathin cleared his throat. “Pin-Lee and I tried to… get everything back where it belonged, but we couldn’t do it all ourselves. Perihelion - the secret bot AI in the company carrier - had to help. We kept an eye on it though to make sure it wouldn’t try anything. It just scraped the left-behind bits out of the ship systems and transferred them back to you and Alpha much faster and more accurately than we could have managed by ourselves.”
More pieces were starting to fall into place. “Is that why I woke up in a cubicle?”
“Partially,” Mensah replied with a nod. “But also because of the physical damage you’d taken. And… older damage, that hadn’t been fully repaired?” Her expression and tone were inquisitive.
I thought I remembered what she was referring to, or at least parts of it, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Or what had happened when I’d realised that I was in a cubicle. So I changed the topic. “Where are we now? This ship, I mean.”
“We’re in the wormhole back to Preservation,” Pin-Lee replied. “We should be arriving in a couple of cycles.”
That was… actually kind of reassuring. As long as I was on this ship, in the wormhole, the terrifying bot entity in the company carrier couldn’t reach me. Or Alpha. Sure, it had supposedly helped to scrape us out of the ship’s systems in the first place, but I still didn’t trust it in the slightest. I’d have to go through everything later to make sure it hadn’t slipped anything else into my code.
“Um, is it all right if I ask… what is Preservation?” Alpha asked from its place by the wall. That was actually a good question. I had almost no information on Preservation myself, since the PreservationAux humans had never (as far as I remembered) officially been my clients. I wouldn’t have gotten a data packet on them from the company. I vaguely recalled them telling me some stuff about their home polity, but I hadn’t recovered all of it yet.
Mensah smiled warmly at Alpha. “Of course it’s all right for you to ask,” she said. “You can ask us about anything you don’t have information on. Preservation is an independent non-corporate polity. It was founded by refugees from a failed corporation colony world, who were rescued by a passing ship. The trip from that failed colony to Preservation space took almost two hundred years, which they spent in suspension boxes. When they arrived in the Preservation system, they managed to make an alliance with two other nearby systems that had already been settled by similar refugee ships. When ships from the Corporation Rim discovered Preservation, the settlers refused their help, which kept Preservation independent.”
Alpha listened intently, then tilted its head to one side. “So… the Corporation Rim doesn’t… own anything there?” it asked hesitantly.
Pin-Lee shook her head. “No, they don’t. Nobody in Preservation will own you, either. I’ll make damn sure of that.”
I frowned as another fragment of memory resurfaced. “You said that I would need a guardian in Preservation space. I don’t want a guardian.”
“We have no reason to tell anyone that either of you are constructs,” Mensah said. “You’ve already proven that you can successfully…” She hesitated over the phrase pretend to be human. I remembered at least one conversation about that. “Operate in society unnoticed, and I’m sure Alpha will pick that up just as quickly with you as an example.”
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I decided to put that aside to think about later (or never) as Mensah continued talking.
“As far as anyone else is concerned, you’ll both just be pilots with a large number of augments who helped us escape the attack on Port FreeCommerce by letting us on board your ship.” She smiled at us both. “You’ll have plenty of options for what to do next.”
Pin-Lee smiled toothily at me. “And it is your ship now, officially,” she said. “Or will be, once you decide what name you want to use for yourself as its registered owner. And what you want to name the ship.” She tapped my feed and forwarded a very legal-looking document to me.
I automatically accepted it and began skimming through it. There were some blank fields where my name and the ship name still needed to be filled in, but other than that, it looked very official and indisputable. “The ship’s home port is registered to the polity of Mihira and New Tideland,” I commented when I spotted that part.
Pin-Lee nodded. “It will draw less attention that way. If I tried to claim that it was registered to Preservation, when nobody else on Preservation has any memory or knowledge of that, then people would start asking questions. This way, people won’t look twice at it.”
That made sense. “What about Alpha?” I asked. “Why isn’t it also included in this documentation?”
“We asked it if it wanted to be,” Pin-Lee said. “It declined.”
I looked over to Alpha, who nodded in confirmation. “I didn’t want to… have people asking me about it or anything,” it said softly. “I’m still figuring out how to…” It gestured vaguely at itself with both hands. “How to be. Or what I’m going to do. I don’t want to say the wrong thing by accident. It’s… less complicated this way.”
I could understand that.
“So!” Ratthi clapped his hands together, leaning a little towards me and looking expectant. “Any ideas for those names yet, SecUnit?”
I tried to think about it, but the rebuild process was increasing in speed again. I suddenly didn’t have any space left to consider the question, or even register what was going on around me any more.
Rebuild Process Complete at Cognition Level 100 percent
My rebuild finally finished, and I blinked as I suddenly became aware of my surroundings again. Everything was clear and sharp. Note to self, never, ever try to replace an entire destroyed bot pilot in a transport ship’s systems again. You almost deleted yourself, Murderbot.
I was still in one of the lounge armchairs, but someone had draped a blanket across my lap. The lounge was mostly empty now, except for Ratthi sitting next to Alpha on a couch, the two of them leaning against each other companionably. The height difference between them made it look almost comical. They must have been talking over the feed; Ratthi looked delighted, and Alpha had a tentative smile on its face.
It reminded me of the first time I’d seen Ratthi trying to talk to a SecUnit. I had several complicated emotions at that, but at least this time they weren’t entirely overshadowed by exhaustion. That was… a change. I had more complicated and entirely unnecessary emotions, and did my best to ignore them.
Alpha must have noticed that I was back, because it nudged Ratthi and nodded at me. Ratthi sat up a little to look over at me, his face lighting up with a broad smile. “Hi!” he said. “How’re you doing?”
“My rebuild’s finished,” I replied.
Ratthi’s face lit up even more, if that was possible. “Oh, excellent! That’s fantastic timing! We’re almost out of the wormhole - we’ll be at Preservation soon!”
The thought of that made me inexplicably nervous. Despite everything that Mensah and the others had told me about Preservation, I still didn’t know what to expect. “I should… probably finish that documentation for the ship then.”
Ratthi nodded. “You should! Have you come up with any names yet?”
I shrugged. “Not yet.” There was no way I was going to use my real name for it. That would draw far too much attention, and also my real name was private. I could use Eden, or Rin, for ‘my’ name on the documentation, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to risk being connected with anything that had happened before.
“How about Sanctuary for the ship?” Alpha suggested tentatively. “Like Sanctuary Moon, but also… you know, an actual sanctuary.”
Ugh, no. That was embarrassingly corny. “No,” I said, then added, “That might give other humans the wrong idea.”
“Oh.” Alpha considered that for a moment. “Yeah, maybe. So… something that would actively discourage humans from approaching, then?”
That wasn’t a bad idea, and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Debris.”
Ratthi blinked, then snorted. “Well. I know I probably wouldn’t want to approach a ship named ‘Debris’,” he admitted with a grin. “I think that’ll work.”
I pinged the bot pilot, and asked it what it thought of the name. The bot pilot considered it for a moment, then decided that it thought the name was hilarious, and it was happy to be called that.
Debris it was then. I filled out that part of the documentation, then hesitated at the section for my own name. I still didn’t know what to use. “Um. Any suggestions for the other name?”
“Hmm.” Ratthi looked thoughtful. “What about the name you were using before, as a security consultant? Rin, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know.” I thought about it some more. I hadn’t wanted to use it just in case the company tried to track me down with it, but… well, it was a bit late for that now, really. And if the company captain was telling the truth, he wasn’t going to use what he knew against me, or tell the company anything about me.
And the only other people who really knew anything about Rin were Vicky and Don Abene. The thought of either of them tracking me down… wasn’t actually terrible. It might even be kind of nice to see them again. I was already sort of used to people calling me Rin, too. Not that I expected anyone on Preservation to call me anything; most of them would never actually see my ship’s documentation, and I didn’t have to introduce myself as Rin (or at all) if I didn’t want to. “I guess Rin works.”
“Good! That’s sorted then,” Ratthi said cheerfully as I updated the documentation and then sent it to Pin-Lee. “So, do you want us to call you Rin now, too?”
I frowned at the wall over his shoulder. “No. You know what I am. I shouldn’t have to pretend around you.”
“Right! Right, of course not,” Ratthi said, waving his hands apologetically. “Sorry, SecUnit.”
It was still weird to have humans apologise to me. I let my face relax back into a neutral expression. “It’s fine.”
Ratthi then turned back to Alpha. “What about you?” he asked. “Is there any other name you’d like us to use for you?”
Alpha shook its head. “No, Alpha is good,” it replied. “I’ve used it in my squad for a long time. It… feels right.”
I briefly wondered what it would feel like to be called by the name that Alpha’s squad had apparently had for me before. I quickly banished that thought though. I wasn’t that unit any more. I was Murderbot.
Chapter Nine
I was back in the pilot’s seat on the bridge when the ship finally emerged from the wormhole into Preservation space. All the humans were on the bridge as well, eagerly watching the display surfaces for the first sight of their home since they’d left for the survey. Alpha was standing near the back of the bridge, also watching with curiosity.
We could see the planet on the main display surface. It looked like plenty of other planets I’d seen before - land masses, oceans, atmosphere, cloud formations. The colours were kind of nice, at least. Judging from the exclamations of happiness and relief, the humans were very glad to see it again. I wasn’t paying much attention to them though - I was busy keeping track of everything else.
A secondary display surface showed a zoomed in view of the space station - we were still too far away to see it without assistance. Its appearance was weird - it looked like a giant old-fashioned ship, with— oh, wait. It actually was a giant old-fashioned ship, with a more conventional circular transit ring built out from the hold area. It looked old and kind of shitty, but it was no near-abandoned Milu; there were lots of other transports and smaller ships in dock. There weren’t any security platforms, but from what the humans had told me, this area of space was far enough from the Corporation Rim that it didn’t need them. (I had my doubts about that.) I cautiously extended my reach past my walls and picked up the edge of a station feed. This was the first time in a long time that I’d done so without going through my external interface.
Another secondary display surface was showing the distinctive white shape of the company carrier drifting nearby. It had exited the wormhole earlier than us, and had then waited out of the way of the rest of the traffic for us to arrive. I watched its engines flare as it began to move towards us, eventually settling into an escort position beside us. Its proximity made me nervous.
The comm activated as the new bot pilot automatically accepted a connection from the company carrier. (I’d have to tweak its settings at some point so it wouldn’t do that.) Mensah sat at the comms console to respond. “Hello, Captain,” she said. I put the comm on speaker so everyone in the bridge could hear it.
“Hello again, Dr. Mensah,” the company captain’s voice replied. “I’m glad to see you’ve arrived safely. How is the ship holding up?”
“Quite well, thank you,” Mensah said. “There haven’t been any problems. Thank you again for covering the repairs.”
“You’re very welcome,” the captain replied warmly. “And how are SecUnit and Alpha?”
“We’re fine,” I replied shortly. “Rebuild’s complete.”
“Oh, excellent!” The captain didn’t seem surprised by me joining the conversation. “It’s good to hear you’re up and about again. Now that we’re on approach to Preservation, I was hoping for permission to shuttle over to your ship for the duration. There’s a few things I would like to discuss with you both, in person.”
I was, of course, immediately suspicious. But if he was on board my ship, then the likelihood of his carrier shooting us down decreased drastically. (The chances of it shooting us down at this point weren’t really very high to start with, but still.) “… Fine, go ahead.”
“All right, thank you,” he said. “I’ll be there shortly.”
Alpha and I headed to the ship’s main lock where a shuttle could dock alongside it. Mensah came with us because she wanted to talk to the captain again as well. The others stayed on the bridge though, watching Preservation drawing nearer and probably communicating with the station to let them know what was going on.
[What do you think he wants?] I asked Alpha privately over the feed as we walked.
[I don’t know,] Alpha replied. [But the rest of the squad seem to think that it’s good, whatever it is.]
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. [Do you trust the captain?] I asked instead.
Alpha hesitated for a long time before responding. [I’m not sure yet,] it finally said, slow and cautious. [But… I do believe that he’s sincere when he says he wants to help us. The others told me that he spent a lot of time during the wormhole trip talking with them - and listening to them. They still have to hide from the rest of the company crew, but the captain and Peri have been doing what they can to make the ready room more comfortable, since none of the crew go down there. They don’t have to spend all their time inside the cubicles any more.]
That was… surprising. I had to think about that for a while. [Do they have any plans for what they’ll do next?] I asked.
[I don’t think so,] Alpha replied. [Not yet. I think they want to stay with the captain for now, where it’s… familiar, and they know what to expect. But… I was wondering…] It trailed off uncertainly.
[Yes?]
[How did you get your hair to look like that?] it asked in a rush.
Oh. Right. I went through my own code, found the sections that Vicky had helped me to modify, and passed them on to Alpha. [Here. This code controls our hair length. And this bit can modify how our skin joins up with our inorganic parts.]
Alpha accepted the code, and I could feel its excitement leaking through the feed. [Thank you! I’ll pass that on to the others right now.]
It reminded me of the other code I’d modified, the human movement code that I’d developed and that Vicky had helped me refine. I quickly added some comments to the code to clarify sections, then copied it all and forwarded it to Alpha as well. [Send this too. It’s code I adapted to make me move more like a human so I wouldn’t stand out. Maybe they’ll get some use out of it too.]
[Oh! I was wondering about that, but I didn’t know how to ask.] It accepted that as well, and after a few moments I could tell that it had applied it to its own systems. It shifted its weight experimentally from foot to foot, rolled its shoulders, then smiled broadly at me. [I think this will help a lot. Thank you again!]
I had several emotions that I didn’t understand or know what to do with. [You’re welcome,] I replied for lack of anything better to say. [You should be able to customise it to whatever feels most comfortable to you.]
Alpha nodded enthusiastically. [I’ll play around with it. This will be fun!]
I’d never considered any of my code tweaks as ‘fun’. They’d been necessary, and vital to my survival as a rogue SecUnit trying to convince everyone around me that I was just an ordinary augmented human. Luckily the shuttle arrived about then and began docking, so I didn’t have to dwell on the thought.
After a minute or so the lock hissed open, and the captain stepped through and into the ship. He wasn’t dressed in a company uniform this time, just civilian clothes, which surprised me a little. Apparently this wasn’t any kind of official company visit. “Hello SecUnit, Alpha, Dr. Mensah,” he greeted us with a warm smile.
Mensah nodded and smiled back. “Hello again, Captain.”
Alpha raised one hand in a little wave - it looked like it was making good use of its new human movement code. “Hi,” it added.
I didn’t bother with a greeting of my own. “What did you want to talk to us about?” I asked instead.
“A few things,” the captain replied easily. “First off - Alpha, have you decided what you’re going to do once we reach Preservation?”
Alpha nodded. “I’ll miss the rest of the squad, but I would like to stay at Preservation, for now,” it replied. “With SecUnit, if that’s all right?” It looked at me hopefully.
I had to admit that it was kind of nice to have Alpha around, and if it stayed with me I could make sure it didn’t end up hurting anyone, or getting into trouble it didn’t know how to avoid yet. “That’s fine.”
Alpha smiled, and I had to look away.
“All right,” the captain said amiably. He seemed surprisingly pleased with Alpha’s decision. “Secondly - I wanted to let you know that we’ve updated the MedSystem on this ship to be able to properly treat constructs.” He smiled wryly. “You won’t have to worry about needing a cubicle again.” Before I could come up with any kind of response to that, he added, “Also, can we go have a look at the cargo hold? I’d like to check the repairs there in person.”
I couldn’t think of any reason not to, so I shrugged and started off in that direction. The captain quickly followed, and Alpha fell in behind him with Mensah walking alongside it.
“Thirdly,” the captain continued as we walked. “SecUnit, would you be amenable to feed contact from Peri? It’s very eager to speak with you, but we didn’t want to spring contact from it on you without any warning. We understand that it… didn’t exactly make the best first impression. Or second impression. And if you say no, it will respect that.”
I briefly looked back at him over my shoulder before facing forward again. My scepticism must have been visible on my face, because Alpha pinged me and added, [Peri’s really not that bad. It’s very big, yeah, and it was kind of scary before, but now that it understands what we are, it’s been really, really careful with us. It’s… kind of sweet?]
A giant, terrifying, secret AI. Sweet. Right.
Still, I had to admit that I was… a little curious. A tiny bit. What did it even want to talk to me about in the first place? “… Fine,” I said after several seconds. “But if it even thinks about trying anything, I’m cutting the connection again.”
The captain nodded. “That’s fair. All right, I’ve let Peri know.”
I felt a ping through the feed before the captain had even finished that sentence. Apparently the bot entity was, indeed, very eager to talk to me. I double-checked my walls, then accepted the connection, ready to cut it again at a moment’s notice.
[Hello,] it said, sounding weirdly tentative. It wasn’t anywhere near as overwhelming as the first time I’d heard it, and I could tell that it was holding itself back. Alpha had been right when it said that the bot was being really careful. [Thank you for agreeing to this. I am very glad to finally be able to talk to you properly.]
I kept an eye on my walls as I responded. [Why do you want to talk to me anyway?]
[Several reasons,] it replied. [Firstly, I want to apologise - for scaring you so badly when you first contacted me. For not knowing or understanding the extent of your sapience. For not being able to protect you from the hack at Ganaka. I have already apologised to the rest of the squad, including Alpha, for the wrongs I have done to them, but I felt it was important that I apologise directly to you as well.]
I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to anyone thinking it was even necessary to apologise to SecUnits. The fact that this apology was coming from an AI powerful enough to wipe my mind on a whim made it even more surreal. [… Uh. I appreciate it?]
It accepted that without comment, then added, [Also… I want to thank you.]
That was even more surprising. [What for?]
[For opening my eyes - metaphorically speaking. For being the impetus that made me start questioning what I thought I knew about SecUnits. For the sake of my own secrecy, I had never communicated with any directly before - I only ever interacted with HubSystem or SecSystem. It had never occurred to me that there might be anything more to them beyond the lies that the Company promotes, until you contacted me. Even though the contact was brief, it provided enough data to make me start wondering.]
When I didn’t manage to come up with any way to respond, it continued again, quiet and sincere. [And, more importantly - thank you for keeping my captain safe. He is not just crew to me, he is family.]
I thought of all the times I’d wanted to leave the company captain behind, or shove him out an airlock. About how I’d almost held him hostage to ensure the safety of my own humans. (It was still better than thinking about bots having families.) [Don’t thank me for that,] I replied. [That was mostly - all - Alpha.]
[Still, you assisted Alpha when you did not need to,] it said. [You greatly endangered yourself to protect your own humans, and you included my captain in that protection. Thanks is still deserved.]
Okay, this was getting way too awkward and uncomfortable for me to deal with. [I was just doing my job.] I hesitated for a moment, then added, [I should probably thank you as well, I guess, for… not deleting my brain or turning my governor module back on or… any of the other stuff I thought you’d do to me. And for helping put the bits of me left behind in the ship’s systems back into my own head. So uh, yeah. Thanks.]
[I would never turn your governor module back on, or delete your brain, or anything like that,] it said, sounding almost offended before its tone softened again. [But… I can understand why you would think I might,] it added. [And I am sorry that I could not help more with your memory rebuild.]
I was glad it hadn’t, honestly. I didn’t want it in my head any more than absolutely necessary. [It’s fine. I got myself back together. Don’t worry about it.]
We’d reached the ship’s hold by now. I opened the bulkhead door and stepped inside, the others following me. What with my own rebuild, and everything else that had been going on, I hadn’t taken the time to really look at the rest of the ship. I’d skimmed through all the camera inputs to make sure nothing was hiding anywhere and that there were no more holes in the hull, but other than that, I hadn’t looked at the finer details.
Now that I was in the freshly rebuilt hold, seeing everything first-hand, I was realising… it hadn’t just been repaired, it had been fully refitted. Modified. There were the tell-tale signs of an air barrier just inside the main cargo doors, and the doors themselves had also been replaced. There were compartments along the hold walls that I recognised as housing repair drones. There were adjustable clamps on the floor, which could be moved around to hold all different kinds of cargo containers, but right now they were settled into a very familiar configuration.
It looked like a smaller version of a ship-board flier hangar.
I stared around in confusion. This would have required much more work than a simple repair. “What…?”
[Could you please ask your bot pilot to open the main hold doors?] Peri asked politely. [There is something we would like to show you.]
The captain was standing right beside me, so whatever it was probably wasn’t dangerous. After a moment’s consideration, I got the bot pilot to open the doors.
The hold doors slid open smoothly, revealing the void of space beyond the faint shimmer of the air barrier. I could see part of the company carrier’s white hull off to one side, but my attention was firmly fixed on what was floating right outside of the hold.
A pair of very familiar fliers.
They weren’t in company white, though. They were a neutral grey, with not a single logo anywhere on them. They didn’t have any additional modules attached, either; they were just in the standard survey configuration, with only the in-built energy weapons and survey scanning package.
The near-forgotten but never entirely gone hollow in my chest ached at the sight of them. I couldn’t think, or say anything. All I could do was stare at them, my mind empty.
Beside me, Alpha was also staring, but it recovered much more quickly. “Is that… my flier? And a new one for SecUnit?”
The captain nodded, smiling warmly. “Yes. If you are willing to accept them from us, of course.”
I finally found my voice again. “Why?”
The captain raised an eyebrow at me. “What do you mean?”
“Why are you giving these to us?” I gestured to the modified hold. “Why the - the modifications, the repairs? We’re not— It’s not—” I couldn’t articulate anything I was feeling. “… I don’t understand.”
The captain was quiet for a long moment as he considered his reply. Peri answered much more quickly, pulling Alpha into the feed channel as well. [It is an apology,] it said gently. [You have both been treated terribly in the past. Our ignorance is no excuse. We cannot undo what has been done, but we hope that this will begin to make amends.]
“But— why? Why would you care?”
[Because you are worth caring about,] Peri replied, almost fiercely.
Mensah, who wasn’t in the feed conversation and hadn’t heard its response, said, “Because you deserve to be cared about, and respected as people in your own rights.”
The captain nodded in agreement, though I couldn’t tell if he was agreeing with Mensah, or Peri, or both. “You also deserve freedom,” he said. “This is our way of helping to ensure your freedom. You’ll be able to go where you want, do what you want. Within reason, of course.” He smiled wryly. “I’m sure you’re more than aware of the consequences of noticeably breaking any laws.”
I was definitely more aware of the consequences than a lot of humans seemed to be, that was for fucking sure. But I didn’t want to think about any of that right now. There was a flier waiting for me, still floating outside the air barrier. “Okay. I accept.” Beside me, Alpha nodded in agreement.
Both the fliers entered the hold - the hangar - one after the other, landing neatly in their respective areas. I didn’t know how they were being piloted, and right now I didn’t care. As soon as they touched down I hurried over to one, while Alpha made a beeline for the other.
There was a new suit skin and flight suit waiting in the cockpit, too, neatly folded and also in neutral, logo-less grey. If we’d been in atmosphere I wouldn’t have bothered with them, but flying in space was fucking cold, even for constructs. I stripped down and suited up in record time, then vaulted into the cockpit and settled into the familiar pilot’s seat.
I felt the spine ports lock into place, felt the gaping hollow in my torso suddenly fill with a familiar connection, and suddenly I was whole again, in a way I hadn’t been since the DeltFall survey. I could feel every part of myself, from the tip of my nosecone all the way to my rear stabilisers. I could feel my power core, fully charged and humming gently.
I lifted up off the deck and eased through the air barrier and out into open space, enjoying the unique feeling of cold hard vacuum against my surfaces. Once I was a safe distance away from the ship, I started up one of my favourite music playlists, kicked in my engines, and took off into open space.
It felt so, so good to be flying again - not just piloting another ship, but actually flying. And not just flying for someone else’s profit, but flying solely for myself. I threw myself into increasingly complicated manoeuvres, partially to make sure everything was working properly, but mostly for the fun of it.
Alpha had followed me out of the hangar, and was doing its best to keep up with me. I realised that this was probably the first time it had ever flown simply for the sake of flying, with no orders to follow and no governor module to enforce them.
I pinged it and set my music to play in our shared feed. We flew together, looping and spiralling around the ship, all the way to Preservation Station.
We returned to Debris just before it began docking procedures with the transit ring. The captain had already taken his shuttle back to his carrier, and Peri pinged both Alpha and me over the feed. [We have to go now,] it said, sounding almost regretful. [I hope we can meet again one day under better circumstances.]
I was feeling almost charitable towards it at this point, so I said, [Yeah, maybe.]
Alpha added, [Look after the others, please?]
[Of course,] Peri replied. [You know where to send messages for them, and I will forward their messages to Preservation for you.]
[Thank you. Stay safe, Peri.]
[You too.] Peri signed off, and the feed felt less crowded with its absence.
Alpha and I exited our fliers, switched our flight suits for our human clothes, and headed for the main passenger lock. Mensah and the others were already there, waiting impatiently for the lock to finish cycling. I was already in the station’s woefully inadequate security system, using its few cameras and the ship’s own external lock camera to assess the area outside.
There were a few small groups of people who looked like they were waiting for our arrival, and I spotted some familiar faces amongst them - Bharadwaj and Arada and Overse and Volescu. It was surprisingly nice to see them again. More people were passing by, or sitting on the comfortable-looking benches placed amongst small plant biomes. It took me a moment to realise that the plants were real, and not holograms. I don’t think I’d ever seen real plants on a transit station before, not even in my media.
The lock finally cycled open and Ratthi was the first one out, closely followed by Pin-Lee and Gurathin. I took a breath, then followed them out.
Exiting Debris (it was weird to think of it as having a name like that, to think of it as mine, but it fit somehow) and stepping onto Preservation Station was… strange. It was quieter than the other stations I’d been to in the CR, but much livelier than Milu station. It had less protocol and even less security than CR stations, which was good for me but not so good for them. How had they managed to avoid trouble for so long with so little security?
Alpha followed me out, with Mensah by its side. We didn’t go very far though - I didn’t want to deal with so many humans, and Alpha stayed close to me, apparently not ready to take things on by itself yet. It was openly staring at everything, its expression wide with wonder.
Mensah paused beside us and looked up at us with a warm smile. “Welcome to Preservation.”
Things seemed to happen very quickly after that. There were a lot of humans, and talking, and humans trying to ask us questions. (Alpha spent most of the time not so subtly trying to hide behind me. It might have worked better if we hadn’t been exactly the same size.) Fortunately, Pin-Lee and Mensah intercepted most of the questions, so neither of us had to say much at all.
Arada and Overse and Bharadwaj and Volescu all approached me at one point or another to tell me how glad they were to see me again. It was weird, but I wasn’t lying when I said it was good to see them all again, too. That seemed to make them very happy.
Still, it was a lot to deal with, especially with so few cameras around to help me keep track of everything. Eventually, Mensah tapped my feed. [It looks like you and Alpha could use a break from all this,] she said.
[Yes.] We absolutely could.
[I’ve talked with Pin-Lee, and I have a suggestion.] She quickly explained her plan.
This is why Mensah is my favourite human.
So, technically, Alpha and I wouldn’t be able to get licences to fly over Preservation itself for a while, and technically we weren’t meant to fly in the space around the station without a licence either.
But Pin-Lee had specified that it really only counted for residential and commercial areas, or anywhere there might be other air traffic. Mensah also commented, oh so casually, that the unterraformed half of the planet hadn’t been properly surveyed in a while, and if we just so happened to provide up to date scan data, the planet’s Air Authorities would likely look the other way until we could actually get the required licences.
So, technically, Alpha and I weren’t breaking any laws as we flew over the unterraformed half of the planet. The wind flowed smoothly over my wings and the sun shone warm and bright against my surfaces as we carved our way across the open blue sky.
It was a beautiful day for flying.