There’s a 66 percent chance, ART-drone replied. If after our first message they decided to send assistance, they could have met the second pathfinder en route and received the map coordinates that would allow them to locate our exact position.
Uh-huh, and fly into an enclosed space controlled by humans with unknown motives and intentions, with zero current intel. ART-prime, whose drone iteration wouldn’t let the shuttle land without checking the bedrock with a ground sensor, would be fine with this.
Sometimes the thing where it’s like ART reads my mind goes both ways. I said, But you don’t think it is.
No.
Are they trying to call us? Iris asked on teamFeed+ Leonide.
They are in range now despite the interference and there is still no attempt at contact, ART-drone said. It’s not us, Iris.
ScoutDrone2 caught Iris’s wince, the one that said she knew this was bad. Leonide glanced at her, her lips pressed into a thin line. Pain made her look older. We couldn’t slow down, the timing was too tight, and we had to get somewhere, anywhere that HostileSecUnit2 wouldn’t know to look for us. Unless AdaCol2 was letting it use its cameras.
Iris said, Peri, get the shuttle out of here.
It’s too late, both ART-drone and I said at the same time. ART-drone added, Just get here. I can get us out.
On our private feed, I asked, You can? ART lies a lot.
I can. ART-drone sent me eleven different scenario/flight path projections for outflying a pursuing shuttle that was less than 270 meters away, which, fine, why not. Crashing and dying is better than watching the humans be murdered, I guess.
Then two things happened at once.
(1) Tarik hissed on the team feed, They’re ahead of me. Barish-Estranza, coming up on your position. Tarik’s helmet camera indicated that he was backed up against a wall, two anxious colonists still with him.
(2) An explosion hit the side of the hangar entrance. The outcrop protecting it came loose with an abrupt crack and collapsed down into a pile of rubble, partially blocking our shuttle’s only way out.
I stopped, held up a hand. Iris and Leonide stumbled to a halt. I could hear footsteps ahead now, whispers of movement, humans trying to be quiet.
We were in a corridor, not moving. We needed to not be here. Time was running out and HostileSecUnit2 would find us at any moment. I needed a defensible position. I hadn’t seen that the Barish-Estranza shuttle was armed, and I should have noticed that when I went to look at it in the north-side hangar. To AdaCol2 I sent, assistance: are you going to let them kill my humans you piece of shit. I turned and grabbed Iris’s arm, backtracking down the corridor. Leonide struggled to keep up. I took the next turn to the left. From what the partial map was telling me it might work, but I wouldn’t be able to tell until I saw it.
In the shuttle, Ratthi asked ART-drone, “What should we do?” He sounded mostly calm, but he had flinched and fallen back against the seat at the explosion, and now he was gripping the chair arms like they were the only thing keeping him upright. It was being alone; if he had another human there to worry about, it would have been easier for him.
Can you get him out overland? I asked ART-drone. How good was Ratthi at hiding? I had no idea, but the environmental suits weren’t designed for stealth. If Tarik could make it out to him, they might have a better chance together. I was juggling different scenarios, like sending Iris and Leonide away to hide separately in the installation, but nothing was giving me even decent survival numbers. I would be panicking more, but I didn’t have time.
In the input from Tarik’s helmet camera, he parted from the two colonists, who ran away down one corridor. He was now running down another corridor back toward the hangar. He was saying, Ratthi, can you get inside the installation? Peri—
The lights fluctuated, and that was all we fucking needed; if AdaCol2 started actively opposing us we were going to be even more in the shit than we already were.
Tarik, no time. I have an alternative, ART-drone said. Ratthi, strap in.
As Ratthi grabbed for the safety restraints, the shuttle moved forward in hover mode. The rear camera caught a glimpse of the hostile shuttle angling for a better firing position outside the partially blocked hangar entrance. “Uh, where are we going?” Ratthi asked.
I took another turn into a smaller passage. I wanted to use it to get to a large corridor maybe thirty meters ahead, part of the system that extended out from the larger disused hangar that we had first encountered on the way in from the terraforming excavation. AdaCol2 had directed me through it when it was still fucking talking to me.
Behind us, ScoutDrone1 went dark. I had run out of time.
I shoved Iris into the first open door on our right and tossed Leonide in after her. Just as HostileSecUnit2 rounded the corner, I stepped in and hit the release for the hatch. The good part: the hatch was working and started to slide closed immediately. The bad part: it was not a heavy outer hatch but a flimsy inside one, designed for privacy and to keep humans out of places they didn’t need to be.
HostileSecUnit2 caught it before it could close.
Its fingers wrapped around the hatch lip and it tried to pull it open while angling its arm to fire projectiles through the widening gap. In armor made for humans, its fingers would have been encased in a powered metal glove. Since our fingers are metal anyway, the gloves for most SecUnit armor were only a thick deflective fabric. Hopefully not too deflective in this model. I braced myself against the door and fired three narrow pinpoint pulses from my left arm energy weapon at its three main finger joints.
Three fingers hit the floor and the door snapped shut.
We can’t get out through this hangar, so we’re going to another one, ART-drone told Ratthi. The shuttle powered forward in hover mode, accelerated through the interior hatch into the installation, and whipped through the turn to slot itself down the dark tunnel. Ratthi made a strangled noise. ART-drone flicked on the shuttle’s outer lights, though at least inside the tunnel, protected from the terraforming interference by the rock, the shuttle’s proximity and obstruction sensors would function better. ART-drone added, Tarik, find a place to hide and wait for SecUnit.
Tarik might be waiting a long time, depending on what happened in this stupid room I had trapped us in. Iris stepped up beside me, looking down at the fingers, her furrowed brow indicating that she was appalled but relieved. She said, “How long will—”
The first thump against the door interrupted her. Yeah, it was going to smash its way through. The next blow dented the metal into a fist shape.
Iris finished, “Shit.” She pushed at her hair and looked around. The room was probably meant for storage. It was four by five meters. The ceiling a full meter above my head was bare of any exit except a ventilation access the size of Iris’s tiny palm. The walls were covered with cabinets like the kind of lockers you might have for tools. Leonide was methodically opening them but they were empty so far.