AdaCol2: Negative. Risk of secondary breach.
It wouldn’t chance being hacked again.
I could argue with it, that now it knew how they got in the first time, it could fix any vulnerabilities. But I couldn’t risk it getting pissed off and taking away my camera access. On the feed, I said, We’re not clear. I couldn’t take out the second shuttle. I sent Tarik a map of a safe (currently, relatively) route to a rendezvous point. From the shuttle, ScoutDrone3 watched Ratthi watching us worriedly via ScoutDrone2’s camera feed. (I was down to four drones now, two of which were back on ART-prime.) Ratthi said, Where can we pick you up? Can you get outside?
The nearest exit was the east-side hangar, which was blocked. But there was still that long corridor heading back to the unused hangar and then the tunnel to the terraforming construction access. There had been no indication that Barish-Estranza knew that hangar or its connection to the terraforming excavations existed at all. And it would be well outside the radius where they might have dropped off SecUnits to catch escaping colonists. I said, I think I have a place in mind.
Chapter Ten
TARIK CAUGHT UP WITH us in the junction to the corridor, and we headed toward the lock leading into the powered-down section of the installation. Past that lock was the passage that led into the giant dark cargo receiving area that had scared the hell out of me, and then the hatchway out into the giant hangar that had also scared the hell out of me.
As we reached the lock, Tarik asked Leonide if she needed help. Leonide gave him a wary look, but politely said no. Iris had given her some medication tabs that were painkillers and stimulants and she was walking better now, so we were moving faster.
There was no filtered air past this lock, so we stopped so the humans could secure their environmental suits again. Mine was leaking because of me being shot, which I was going to ignore. We didn’t have that far to go, and I’m not as affected by the lousy air as a human. But Iris said, “Wait, SecUnit,” and pulled out the little suit-repair kit she had attached to her belt. She patched the projectile hole in the back, and ScoutDrone2 watched Leonide, who had a slight confused crease between her brows, watch Iris be nice to the SecUnit. Leonide’s suit was expensive enough that she had been able to turn on a self-repair function to close up the hole the projectile had torn through the shoulder.
Once we were through the lock into the corridor with no power we had (1) complete darkness; (2) a large space that ScoutDrone2 couldn’t adequately scout (again); (3) the humans needing to use at least one of their hand-lights so they didn’t trip on the intermittently buckled floor plates.
I positioned ScoutDrone2 as rearguard because as far as our intel went, nobody but AdaCol2 knew we had come in this way. Barish-Estranza could still find us, but it would depend on (a) what information they had managed to download before AdaCol2 stopped their hack; and (b) how good they were at guessing our intentions from what they knew about our previous position. It was the first one I was more worried about.
I had been across the cargo chamber once with AdaCol2 guiding me, but I knew it was busy right now. It had been curtailing my camera access and mapping data since we entered the corridor, so I could see the area immediately around us but that was it. I knew why: its humans would be preparing defenses or escape routes or both, and it didn’t want to risk that intel becoming available to Barish-Estranza if there was another hacking attempt.
The cargo foyer was so big the hand-light didn’t help, and I had told Tarik to keep it on the lowest setting, pointed at the floor. Even without full scan function, I still had my dark vision filters and my own mapping data, so with the fixed point of the corridor hatch, I could retrace my steps to the ramp. It just looked awkward and stupid because for the first part I had to navigate like a floor-cleaning bot.
While we walked in the dark, on teamFeed+Leonide, Iris said, How extensive is this rebellion in your task force? Is it just you they hate, or is it all the upper management?
That … was a really good question. I had a private channel open with Ratthi in the shuttle, in case he was nervous and wanted to talk without tying up the feed. He said, Ahh, I hadn’t thought about that.
Iris understood corporate backstabbing better than Ratthi.
Leonide said, I don’t know.
There was a skeptical pause, then ART-drone said, How terribly imperceptive of you.
Leonide’s voice was clearly irritated. You can fuck off into the abyss.
Tarik tried, Is it a schism in the upper management? Come on, you owe us that much.
Iris added, If we come out of the blackout zone with no idea what the situation is, how exactly do you think that’s going to work in your favor?
All right, Leonide snapped. It is a schism. There was a small management faction that was angry at the prospect of losing bonuses because of failure to deliver on all the operational goals. I had no idea … they were this serious about it.
By “operational goal” do you mean signing up the colonists for your slave labor pool? Ratthi asked.
She ignored him. Humans never want to hear about that part.
Iris switched to the regular team feed, cutting Leonide out of the conversation. Her voice was grim. So do we think the fighting will be confined to the two Barish-Estranza factions or will taking us out be part of their business plan?
ART-drone said, The only thing preventing Barish-Estranza from seizing the colonists is our presence. The dissenting faction may believe that eliminating us is their next logical step.
Which meant ART-prime and the Preservation responder could be under fire right now. They would be defending themselves, and ART would start with disabling strikes on the B-E ships but if that didn’t work, it had probably calculated what the point would be where it had no choice but to start slaughtering B-E humans in order to keep our humans alive. I said, Barish-Estranza could have intercepted our two messenger pathfinders. If the let’s-get-those-bonuses faction had already started an attack, there was no reason to pretend to be respectful of each other’s surveillance equipment anymore.
Ratthi made an unhappy noise. Tarik said something religious and sweary again. Iris was quiet for a couple of steps. Then she said, We need to hurry.
You can take them, I said, privately, to ART-drone. I was talking about ART-prime, but it knew that.
I can, it agreed. But they may decide to hold the colonists hostage.
That was what I was afraid of, too. The mission priority of our humans was to save the colonists. With everything that had happened, I had been up in ART’s business almost as much as it was up in mine. I knew that its mission priority was to save our humans.
I was so tired of dead humans. You won’t let hostages stop you.
I will not.
I was able to see a difference in the darkness of the wall and partially closed hatch at the top of the ramp and the darkness that was the opening into the hangar. I sent ScoutDrone2 ahead to check our route. The separatists could have told Barish-Estranza about the tunnel to the terraforming engines, but what we had seen of them made it hard for even threat assessment to imagine them sitting around chatting to visitors about all the obscure exits and entrances to their secret cave hideout, so the chances were negligible.