Tlacey stood up from a chair and looked me over with a smile. She said, “Take little Tapan to a cabin. I’ll want to talk to her later about her work.”
Tapan’s eyes were wide and frightened. I kept my expression blank. She tried to say, “Eden, I’m sorry! I’m sorry—” but the guard pulled her through another hatchway and down a corridor. I didn’t react, since I wanted her out of the line of fire. I listened for the hatch to close, then focused on Tlacey.
She strolled toward me, thoughtful now. I guess the triumphant smile had been for Tapan’s benefit. The two other unarmed humans were watching with nervous curiosity, the armed guards still looked cautious. To the sexbot, Tlacey said, “You really think this is one of the units from the Ganaka Pit accident?”
The sexbot started to reply, and I said, “But we all know that wasn’t an accident, don’t we.”
Now I had everybody’s attention.
I kept my gaze straight ahead, a good SecUnit still under the control of the combat override module. Tlacey stared at me, then her eyes narrowed. “Who am I talking to?”
That was almost funny. “You think I’m a puppet? You know that’s not the way we work.”
Tlacey was beginning to be afraid. “Who sent you?”
I lowered my head to meet her gaze. “I came for my client.”
Tlacey’s jaw moved as she gave a command in the feed, and the sexbot started to shift sideways into a combat position.
ART said, The shuttle is clear of the port and moving into an orbit around the moon. Do you have a moment to let me in?
I said, Be fast, and let ART in. I had the sensation again, my head shoved underwater, being temporarily incapacitated as ART used me as a bridge to reach the bot controlling the shuttle.
It was quick, but the sexbot had time to punch me in the jaw. Tlacey must have ordered that; it wasn’t the way a unit would attack another unit. It hurt, but only in the way that would piss me off. When I didn’t react immediately, Tlacey relaxed and grinned. “I like a mouthy bot. This is going to be interesting—”
ART was in the shuttle’s systems and I was clear. I caught the sexbot’s arm and flung it across the room toward the three armed guards. One went down, one stumbled into a chair, the third started to lift his weapon. I knocked Tlacey out of my way and stepped on the sexbot as I went over it, thumping it back down to the deck. I grabbed the muzzle of the energy weapon and shoved it upright just as he fired. The discharge struck the curved ceiling. I ripped it out of his grasp, dislocating his shoulder and at least three fingers, and slammed his head down on the console.
The guard who had already fallen to the deck had a projectile weapon and I felt two impacts, one to my side and one to my thigh. Now that’s the kind of attack that actually hurts. I extended my right arm and fired my inbuilt energy weapon, catching him with two bolts in the chest. I stepped sideways to avoid an energy weapon blast from the guard who had fallen into the chair, and my third shot hit him in the shoulder. I had the blasts set to narrow, and they created deep burn wounds that usually incapacitated humans rapidly with shock and pain and, you know, having holes burned into their chest cavities.
I pivoted and threw the captured gun as a distraction. The first unarmed human was on the deck, a smoking wound in her back; the guard who had missed me had shot her. The second flung herself across the compartment to try to grab a fallen projectile weapon, so I shot her in the shoulder and the leg.
The sexbot rolled to its feet and charged me, I caught it, went down on my back, and flung it off and over my head. I twisted around and up to my knees but couldn’t get all the way up due to the wound in my right thigh. The sexbot shoved upright and I grabbed its leg and popped the knee out of the socket. It went down and I took out its left shoulder joint. Slamming it down to the deck, I turned to see Tlacey reaching for one of the fallen weapons. I said, “Touch that weapon and I’ll take it away from you and insert it into your rib cage.”
She froze. She was panting from fear, eyes staring. I said, “Tell your sexbot to stop fighting.”
It was still struggling to get up and it was just going to hurt itself further. Especially if it made me mad again.
Tlacey straightened slowly, her jaw working, and the sexbot relaxed. I said, ART, cut off Tlacey’s feed.
Done, ART said.
Tlacey winced as her feed went down. I told Tlacey, “Give the sexbot a verbal command to obey me until further notice. Try to give it any other command and I’ll rip your tongue out.”
Tlacey huffed out a breath, then said, “Unit, obey the crazy rogue SecUnit until further notice.” To me, she said, “You need to get better threats.”
I put a hand on the nearest chair seat and shoved myself to my feet. “I don’t make threats, I’m just telling you what I’m going to do.”
Her jaw hardened. Two of the humans in the room had stopped breathing, the unarmed one that the guard had shot while aiming for me and the first one I had shot. Tlacey hadn’t noticed.
I looked down at the sexbot, which looked up at me. “Stay down,” I said.
It sent me an acknowledgment. I stepped over it, grabbed Tlacey’s arm, and dragged her down the corridor to the cabin where her guard had taken Tapan.
She said quickly, “So you’re a free agent, right? I can give you a job. Whatever you want—”
I thought, You don’t have anything I want. I said, “All you had to do was give them the fucking files and none of us would be in this situation.”
The look she threw back at me was startled, incredulous. I didn’t sound like her idea of a SecUnit, rogue or otherwise, I guess.
Humans should really do more research. There were operating manuals that would have warned her not to fuck with us.
Tlacey stopped at a closed hatch, said, “Bassom, it’s me,” and hit the release. The door slid up.
Tapan was half sprawled across the bunk on the far wall, blood spreading across the flower pattern on her T-shirt, drops of it splashed on the brown skin of the bare arm pressed against the wound in her side. Her raspy breath sounded loud in the small cabin. The bodyguard stared at us, eyes wide.
“He panicked when he heard the shots,” Tlacey gasped. “You can’t—”
Oh yeah, I could.
I swung Tlacey to shield me as the bodyguard brought up his weapon. Multiple shots hit her back but I’d already crushed her windpipe. I took another projectile in the chest as I crossed the cabin, threw him against the wall, jammed my arm up under his chin, and triggered my energy weapon.
I stepped back and let his body drop.
I turned away from it and leaned over Tapan. I said, stupidly, “It’s me.” Her eyes were shut and she was breathing through gritted teeth. I clamped my hand over the wound to stop the bleeding and said, ART, help.
ART said, I’ve been guiding the shuttle toward the transit ring, where I can dock it with myself. ETA is seventeen minutes. MedSystem is prepping for your arrival.
I sank down beside Tapan. She was just conscious enough to reach over and squeeze my hand. I pulled the useless combat override module out of the back of my neck and tossed it away.
I had made a huge mistake, which seemed blindingly obvious in hindsight. I had known the invitation to exchange the signing bonus for the files was a trap from the beginning and I should have convinced Rami and the others not to return to RaviHyral. The augmented human security consultant I was pretending to be would have done that. I was used to taking orders from humans and trying to mitigate whatever damage their stupid ideas did to them, but I had wanted to work with a group again, I had enjoyed how they had listened to me, I had put my need to get to RaviHyral above the safety of my clients.