Iris looked murderous and Leonide impatient. ART-drone had started a running countdown to Hostile!SecUnit o’clock in our feed, which I absolutely didn’t need. I said, “Adelsen. Say it or I’ll tear your head off.”
He stopped abruptly and looked up at Iris. She grated out, “Say. It.”
He said it. Leonide gave me a tight nod to confirm it was the correct code. The SecUnit’s body went limp as it collapsed onto the floor. I waited the extra three seconds I couldn’t spare to make sure it wasn’t faking (the shutdown makes a distinctive sound, if you’re close enough and have augmented hearing), then I started toward the hatch that led to our original escape route.
Iris dropped Adelsen and followed me. Leonide lifted her weapon, but not toward Iris. Striding past, Iris told her, “If you shoot them you can’t come with us. And we’re still casting this to the colonists.” Because of course this was a perfect chance for Leonide to eliminate her dissatisfied coworkers and blame us. And no, we were recording, but not still broadcasting to the colony’s channel. (There weren’t a lot of routes we could take to the shuttle, but I didn’t want to make it extra easy by giving everyone who wanted to look for it a live video of our progress.)
Leonide looked sour like she had really wanted to shoot them, but lowered the weapon and followed Iris.
I took point with ScoutDrone1 as rearguard. Iris said, Tarik, try to warn the colonists that Barish-Estranza is armed and has attacked us. Tell them not to intervene, we don’t want them hurt.
I already have, Tarik said. They said they were trying some kind of defensive measure, but it didn’t work. I didn’t get what it was, something about the power supply.
Iris was relieved and dubious. They’re listening to you?
Yeah, they said they recognized me from the video.
Iris made a combination laugh-groan noise.
You know, if Barish-Estranza had thought of the idea of a persuasive documentary first, we would have been really fucked. I mean, ours was all based on documented research and events we had actually witnessed, and even with the extrapolation about what could have happened to the contract workers I had met, it was as true as we could make it. But Barish-Estranza could have lied and faked their documentation and come up with a story about how great indenture was, and that would have been it.
Tarik should meet us in the next seven minutes if he could stop talking to other humans and get moving. At least he would come in handy because Leonide was stumbling a little and if she collapsed she was too big for Iris to carry, and I needed my arms free.
Our shuttle was still in the hangar, ART-drone keeping it in a hover position about four meters off the ground. It had also called in pathfinders for a defensive perimeter to protect the shuttle once it left the hangar, but with the lingering storm it was taking the pathfinders longer to get here. I wanted the shuttle in the air; ART-drone (and Ratthi, though he couldn’t do anything at the moment but pace the shuttle cabin in frustration) wouldn’t leave without us. ART-drone had run a risk assessment showing it was just as dangerous for the shuttle to leave the hangar and return to pick us up as it was to hover there and wait for us to arrive and board inside the hangar. I thought it might be faking its results, but this really wasn’t the time to have that argument.
The big bright corridor made me jumpy; I had ART’s projected map but that wasn’t real intel, just estimates based on the earlier marked positions of HostileSecUnit2 and the potentially armed B-E humans moving either from their quarters or their shuttle hangar, and that sucked. I wanted cameras, I wanted real-time intel. The openness of the corridor felt like anything could come at us from any direction, even though we were reasonably certain that our escape route was currently clear. (I would never admit I was glad Tarik had run in here; at least I had recent good intel and mapping from his current position.) I needed more drones, I needed more eyes.
I tapped AdaCol2 and said, query: assistance.
ART-drone caught it when Leonide tried to access her feed and failed, and passed the info to the team feed. Iris asked her, “Did they cut your comm, too?”
“Yes.” Leonide’s face was frustrated and tight, like she was holding in emotion. Like it was weird to be upset when your coworkers shot you. Even before I hacked my governor module, I was upset when my coworkers shot me. I wasn’t surprised, but I was upset. She added, “I was trying to warn my assistant.” The glance she threw at Iris was calculating. (That didn’t mean much, I was pretty sure everything Leonide did was calculating.) “If I could get a message out, we might be able to resolve this.”
Really, could we? Do you think? ART-drone said. It had created a new channel to include her: teamFeed+Leonide.
“Peri,” Iris said in her “not now” voice. “As soon as we get out of the blackout zone, I’m open to discussing resolutions.”
No answer from AdaCol2. I sent, query: assistance again.
Behind me, Iris said, “SecUnit, were you hit?” She must have noticed the hole in the back of my environmental suit.
“No,” I lied. Query: assistance.
Yes, it was hit, ART-drone told her. But it has the situation under control.
Even when you’re a bot, there’s things you say because you believe them and things you say to keep the humans going in the right direction.
On the feed, Tarik said, Any possibility we can get the other SecUnit to shut down? Or will they change the command code immediately?
No, I sent. Shutting down HostileSecUnit1 with a manual command will generate a warning to any other SecUnits on their feed, to whatever system is acting as their security hub and the human supervisor. HostileSecUnit2 will advise a command rollover. I mean, maybe they wouldn’t do it? But the B-E humans had been smart enough to lock Leonide out of access to the SecUnits before trying to kill her, so they had to be smart enough to do the same to Adelsen and anyone else we’d had access to. It was why it wasn’t worth taking a hostage. Also I hate the whole hostage thing, there’s just too many ways around it.
ART-drone said, And without access to Barish-Estranza’s feed and comm, the command shutdown attempt—which currently has a 96 percent chance of failure due to standard security protocols involving SecUnits—would have to be done in person. Ideally, we wish to avoid that.
AdaCol2 hadn’t answered me. It was possibly reevaluating who it wanted to be friends with. Yeah, right back at you, AdaCol2.
I still didn’t know if the combo of me and ART-drone could hack a central system. We still had no idea of its capabilities. But getting into a code fight with what was basically an unknown right this second while hostiles were closing in on us and our escape window was depressingly narrow was not a good idea.
We came to a junction and I took the right turn into a curving corridor. Iris kept up easily, but Leonide’s breathing was getting shaky. We were close, though. Tarik was two turns ahead and in two minutes and thirty-four seconds we should be at our hangar.
Then ART-drone said, We have a problem at the same time Ratthi said, Everyone, the pathfinders are reporting that there’s another shuttle coming in. You think it’s one of ours?
I still had ScoutDrone3 inside the shuttle’s cockpit, and all I could see was Ratthi’s anxious face and ART-drone hovering in the background. I checked the channel for the shuttle’s exterior cameras.
The shuttle was still about four meters above the landing platform, a good height for making it clear to potential boarders that they weren’t welcome. (A SecUnit could jump that. With ART-drone on the controls, a SecUnit would regret that.) The forward view showed the landing platform’s ramp in the foreground and then farther away, the large shuttle-sized hangar doorway into the installation’s interior. Side views showed empty platforms and shadows; rear showed the wide open outside entrance, dust still swirling in the dim gray light. Dust and something else. A shadow, the shadow of another shuttle lowering into entry position. On our private channel, I asked ART-drone, Is it one of ours?