She slumped against me, gasping, her hands knotted in my jacket. Miki was at my shoulder, worriedly poking at her feed, its long fingers gently lifting her hair to check her neck. It said, “Don Abene, do you need medical assistance? Don Abene, please answer.”
Gerth and Wilken stopped firing down the corridor, and my scan showed whatever was down there was long gone. From the floor, Brais gasped, “What was— Are you—” Ejiro, curled up at the base of the wall, shouted, “Abene!”
I was congratulating myself (because nobody else ever does it) on an excellent save. Human security had literally just noticed that something had tried to steal their client’s head. Then Gerth said, “That’s a SecUnit!”
All the humans stared at me and Abene. More importantly, Wilken and Gerth had pointed their weapons at me. Oh, Murderbot, what did you do?
(I don’t even know. I suspect it has to do with the fact that I went from being told what to do and having every action monitored to being able to do whatever I wanted, and somewhere along the way my impulse control went to hell.)
The only way out of this was to kill them.
If I did that, I’d have to kill all of them. Including Miki. Including Abene. Her still-attached head was resting against my collarbone and her hair was all warm and soft where it was in contact with my human skin.
Right, so the only smart way out of this was to kill all of them. I was going to have to take the dumb way out of this.
I made sure my face and voice were SecUnit neutral. I said, “I’m a SecUnit under contract to Security Consultant Rin, who was sent by GoodNightLander Independent as an extra security measure for the assessment team.” I had to admit I was a SecUnit; there was no augmented human who could do what I just did. Also, my right sleeve was still rolled up, exposing the weapon port in my forearm. (The inorganic parts around the port might look like an augment designed to correct an injury, but the weapon port doesn’t look like anything else but what it is.)
It was at this point I remembered Miki, and how I had told it I was an augmented human security consultant. I had been in Miki’s feed, the connection so intimate even though I’d had my walls up. Miki would know that the Rin it had been talking to this whole time was the SecUnit standing here. Yeah, I should have taken Miki over earlier when I had the chance; there was no time to do it now.
In my private connection to Miki, I said, Please, Miki, I just want to help.
Miki cocked its head at me, then at Abene. Still dazed, and possibly concussed, she hadn’t let go of me yet. She stared up at me, her brow wrinkled in confusion. Following my wounded human protocol, I had upped my body temperature to try to prevent her from going into shock. She said, “Miki…? Who is this?”
Miki said, “Security Consultant Rin is my friend, Don Abene. I was asked not to tell you, to keep you safe.”
Huh. That wasn’t a lie, but it sure wasn’t the truth, either. Maybe Miki had hidden depths.
I saw Gerth throw a startled glance at Wilken. Wilken reacted but controlled it. They didn’t speak on their feed connection. From the shuttle, Kader demanded an update, asking if the team needed assistance. Brais said, “Ejiro is injured.” She pushed herself up the wall, shaking. “Is Abene all right? What happened?”
Abene started to nod, then winced. She patted my arm and pushed away a little, and I let her stand on her own. “I’m fine…” On the feed, she told Kader to hold his position. Aloud, she said, “Ejiro, how are you hurt?”
“It’s my shoulder,” Ejiro said. His voice indicated stress, his expression tense with pain. I started to tap MedSystem and remembered I didn’t have one. (I know, I was all over the place.) Ejiro added, “What were those things? I couldn’t see, just shapes.”
Wilken and Gerth still aimed their weapons at me. Don Abene and Miki were blocking clear shots from this angle and if either Wilken or Gerth moved, I was going to have to do something about it.
Then Miki said, “Don Abene, Hirune is missing and is not answering her feed or comm.”
Well, crap. They weren’t my humans, I hadn’t done a head count. I checked Hirune’s feed, feeling Abene, Wilken, Gerth, Brais, and Ejiro all in there, too, calling for her. Her feed was still online, but it was inactive. That meant she was alive, but unconscious. I wasn’t getting anything on my limited range scan, and neither was Miki.
On the comm from the shuttle, I heard Vibol cursing and Kader telling her to shut up and listen.
Abene’s expression turned horrified. In the general feed, Miki replayed the last seconds before I got here. Breaking the images down, I saw a fast-moving shadowy shape approach from the main bio pod access corridor, just a sensor ghost in Miki’s vision when Miki had hit the release to close the hatch. Then Miki had turned to go to the corridor that led toward the central facility, but was too late. All it had was a glimpse of the pinlights on Hirune’s suit disappearing into the dark as she was dragged away, then Wilken and Gerth firing down the corridor after her. It had happened so fast, I don’t think Wilken and Gerth had realized the hostile had taken Hirune.
As the humans reviewed the video in the team feed, Ejiro looked like he might be sick, and Brais swore softly. Abene turned to Gerth and Wilken. “We have to go after her. What were those things that— Why are you pointing that at me?”
They weren’t pointing their weapons at her, but at me, just behind her. Wilken said, “That’s a SecUnit, Don Abene, you need to step away from it until we sort this out. Where’s this Rin? On the facility somewhere? It doesn’t mesh with our brief from GI.”
Abene had been in shock but I could practically see her brain slam back online. Her jaw set and her expression turned hard. She countered, “Where’s Hirune? What took her? You’re supposed to be our security.”
Wilken held her ground. “Before we can look for her, I need to know why there’s a SecUnit here. It’s a fair question.”
Miki sent into Abene’s feed, Please Don Abene, Rin is my friend. Please say you knew Rin was here.
I thought there was no way Abene would take the word of her pet robot. (And granted, her pet robot was being loose with the facts, and phrasing the plea in a way that made it unclear that Consultant Rin and the SecUnit were actually the same, so its word wasn’t worth much.)
Abene’s angry gaze went from Wilken to Gerth. She said, “I didn’t know Rin would be on the facility. GI informed me before we left. The oversight division was sending Rin to provide additional security—” She threw an opaque glance back at me. “Consultant Rin sent you?”
Fortunately I hadn’t just been standing there like a moron and didn’t drop the perfectly good opening she was trying to hand me. “I’m Consultant Rin’s contracted SecUnit. Consultant Rin is on the station, and sent me to the facility on her shuttle.”
Gerth said, “We weren’t told about this.” Wilken snapped a glare at her. Still no conversation between them on any private feed connection. There were a lot of questions they could ask. The scenario I had described, a client sending a SecUnit out to provide security for another set of clients, was technically possible, but would violate bond company regulations and warranties. But Gerth took her weapon off me and pointed it where it should be, on the still-open corridor where the hostile had taken Hirune.
Abene snapped, “I don’t care what you were told! We need to find Hirune! Brais, you have to get Ejiro back to the ship. Gerth, you go with them. Wilken, either help me or give me a gun and go back to the ship with the others.” She switched to her feed to say, Kader, inform the station PA of our situation. Tell them we’re not sure what attacked us yet. Tell them to be wary of possible raiders in the system. Kader acknowledged.