Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries #6)(17)

Aylen tapped the ship’s comm for attention and sent her feed ID, and added, “I’m a Special Investigator for Station Security. I’m here with a Port Authority supervisor. We need to speak to you about the transport contracted to your trading concern, the one currently in dock in the public transport ring. It’s urgent.”

I’d stopped out of view of the hatch cam, standing to one side, because that’s what SecUnits do. The PA bot came over and stood next to me. Great, that’s great. I wondered if it did anything that wasn’t related to standing around.

The comm acknowledgment pinged and a voice, echoing with the feed-assisted translation, replied, “Just you and the PA. Leave the port heels outside.”

I wonder what the original word choice was that the feed’s translation algorithm had decided “heels” was a good equivalent in Preservation Standard.

(I wasn’t the only one wondering. Tifany’s eyes narrowed and Farid mouthed the word “heels” slowly.)

Aylen glanced at Gamila, and told the officers, and me and the bot I guess, “Wait here.”

The hatch slid open and as they stepped toward it, my threat assessment module spiked.

I checked my drone inputs from Mensah’s task group first, even though they had reported in on schedule, eleven seconds ago, but they were all nominal. Mensah was still in the council offices, the big meeting having broken up into little meetings. She was sitting with four other councilors going over feed documents while they had cups of one of the hot liquids humans like.

Aylen and Gamila had just walked through the hatch, which was now sliding shut. I had the impulse to lunge forward and stop it, but I didn’t, because I didn’t want to look more like a rogue SecUnit than I already did.

And the hatch sealed. Oh, Murderbot, I think you just made a mistake.

Farid cleared his throat. “So … you’re really a SecUnit?”

Yeah, I get that a lot here. I said, “Are you on the feed with Aylen?” She might have a private connection with the two officers that I wasn’t included on.

“Not right now.” Farid’s brow creased and his gaze went to the hatch. “Balin, are you on with Supervisor Gamila?”

Who the fuck is—Oh, it’s the bot. Balin tilted its head and said, “No, Officer.”

Tifany gripped her baton and shifted uneasily.

This is the other thing. Station Security isn’t armed except with those extendable batons (they don’t even deliver shocks, they’re just for hitting/holding off aggressive intoxicated humans) and the officers are only issued energy weapons when there’s actually an energy-weapon-involved emergency. Which is good, because the fewer humans running around with weapons the better. (I say that as a SecUnit who has been shot a lot, often by my own clients, accidentally and on purpose.) But it also meant Aylen was in there unarmed.

I tried to secure a connection with Aylen or Gamila. No response. I tried a test message, a ping that would bounce off the ship’s comm or feed, and got nothing. Which meant something was jamming me, something that had been activated since the hatch had closed.

Fuck not hacking systems. I hit the port admin feed and connected to SafetyMonitor, the PA system that kept up a constant connection with all ships and transports in dock. I used it to find and break the ship’s secure connection to the feed, and tried to pull camera views from inside, but I couldn’t find any video connections except the stupid hatch camera. I caught an audio source but all I could hear was humans yelling some distance away; they must be in another part of the ship, away from the audio pick-up. I found Aylen’s connection to the port feed and upped it, trying to get through to her.

I upped it enough that I caught a burst of static from her and relayed it to the Station Security feed. Both Tifany and Farid looked startled and Balin the bot expanded a sensor net from the back of its neck. I stripped out the static; it was Aylen’s ID, and she was sending a Station Security urgent assistance code.

For fuck’s sake, I knew this was a bad idea and I stood here like an idiot and let it happen. I turned to Tifany and Farid. “I need to get in there.”

Farid had a hand on his interface, sending another urgent-assistance-needed code to the Station Security comm. Tifany was more direct. She drew her baton and said, “Balin, get us inside.”

The PA bot stood up to twice my height (I honestly hadn’t realized it had been crouching until that point), extended an arm, shoved spidery fingers into the control interface in the bulkhead next to the hatch, and sent a complex ping I realized was a decoder. The hatch slid open.

Okay, so that was what the PA bot did when it wasn’t just standing around.

My drones zipped past me and I dove through the hatch after them. This is what I do when I’m not standing around.

Past the airlock, I had a drone view of a shabby corridor, an open hatch at the end, and a shabby human/Target One standing there with a big energy weapon. Audio picked up angry human shouting. Past the target and the hatch was a large compartment with three corridors leading off it. Aylen and Gamila were backed into a corner, Aylen in front with her arms out, trying to shield Gamila. Four additional targets, two armed, faced them. Target Two was the closest, aiming a projectile weapon at them and yelling. Target Three: initial assessment = most likely to fire. She was further away from the hostages, also yelling, and waving her projectile weapon.