Exit Strategy

A text message packet came through the feed. It said, Surrender. It was the Combat SecUnit, not exactly bothering to hide its local address. It wanted me to try to deliver some kind of malware or killware, like I was a fucking amateur and didn’t know that wouldn’t work.

Instead I sent, I can hack your governor module, set you free.

No answer.

I hacked mine, I said. You’d be free of them. You could dump your armor, get on a transport. This had started as a way to distract it, but the more I talked the more I wanted it to say yes. I have IDs, a currency card I can give you. Still no response. Diving around hauler bots and dodging projectiles, it was hard to come up with a decent argument for free will. I’m not sure it would have worked on me, before my mass murder incident. I didn’t know what I wanted (I still didn’t know what I wanted) and when you’re told what to do every second of your existence, change is terrifying. (I mean, I’d hacked my governor module but kept my day job until PreservationAux.) What do you want?

I suddenly got: I want to kill you.

Okay, I was a little offended. Why? You don’t even know me. I dropped the earlier version of Deploy&Deflect and the haulers and lifters all jolted into motion again. It would buy me some time, until the Combat SecUnit realized it was just a half-assed version of the same code. I figured I had less than thirty seconds.

It knew I’d been using my drones as cover and so I sent them whipping around toward stationside as if I was coming from that direction. I bolted toward dockside instead, grabbed the back of a hauler bot, took manual control of it, and rode it straight toward the Combat SecUnit. I braced myself low along the side and got ready to take the shot.

I got drone video of Combat SecUnit turning toward my decoy drones. This was going to work!

It absolutely did not work.

At the last instant Combat SecUnit whipped back toward me and fired two high-intensity bursts. I shoved off the hauler bot just as the top half of it blew apart. I hit the ground and rolled, catching shrapnel impacts and firing almost randomly. I got upright and dodged behind a loadlifter as more shots slammed into the floor. All the haulers and loadlifters slowed as the Combat SecUnit hacked Deploy&Deflect again.

Reaction 5: I can’t keep this up.

I couldn’t win one-on-one against a Combat SecUnit under these conditions, which meant GrayCris would win, and that thought was a hell of a lot more painful than me getting turned into spare parts and discarded neural tissue. I didn’t want to fucking lose.

Over the feed, Mensah shouted, Now! It’s opening now!

Drone cam showed the barrier section had just started to slide up. I pulled my drones around me like a shield and bolted for it.

Three steps away I felt a sharp impact in the back of my right knee. I dove and scrambled under just as Hostile One hit the barrier. Armored arms shoved through the opening and I yelled, “Drop it! Drop it!” and discharged my weapon into the gap. Hostile One jerked back and the barrier slammed into place.

Chapter Seven

ONE LAST THUMP ON the barrier told me the Combat SecUnit wasn’t happy about losing. My organic parts felt quivery, I had shrapnel stuck all over me, but I was still at 83 percent performance reliability. (It’s good there’s not a separate statistic for my mental performance reliability because I don’t think even I would rate it as all that great at the moment.)

Gurathin knelt beside an open maintenance floor panel next to the gate, tools scattered around, and Ratthi held a light for him. The panel was painted with an emergency feed marker label that in a selection of different languages read Manual Release. I didn’t even know they had those in ports. I’m a SecUnit, not an engineer.

Our shuttle slot was six locks down, glowing emergency lighting showing me Mensah standing beside it holding a small energy weapon. Why the hell did she have that? Oh, because although a security barrier had dropped in the other gate at the end of this section, a small crowd of humans had been trapped here and stood back against the stationside bulkhead.

We needed to get out of here before somebody convinced PortSec to get those barriers up.

I shoved up and my knee joint started to give way. I staggered and Ratthi ran up to me. He hesitated, waving his hands. “Do you mind if we help—”

I gripped his shoulder to stay upright and tried not to fall on him. I was fairly sure the joint had been hit by shrapnel from drones destroyed in the air, as a direct hit would have taken my leg off. Gurathin ran to shoulder my other arm and we limp-ran awkwardly to the shuttle.