Network Effect

I trusted Arada’s judgment to a certain extent. She and Overse had always been firmly in the “least likely to abandon a SecUnit to a lonely horrible fate” category, which was always the category I was most interested in. They were my clients, that was all. Like Mensah, like Ratthi and Pin-Lee and Bharadwaj and Volescu (who had opted to retire from active survey work, which gave him the award for most sensible human) and yes, even Gurathin. Just clients. And if anyone or anything tried to hurt them, I would rip its intestines out.

When we came through the wormhole into Preservation space, I was watching episodes of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon again, since there wasn’t time to start anything new before we reached the station. (Being interrupted isn’t nearly as annoying when I already know the story.) I was worried about Mensah, if everything had been okay while I was gone. I wasn’t sure exactly what “okay” would involve, but I was willing to settle for “unmurdered.”

I was just finishing a rewatch of episode 137 when the ship’s alarm sounded through the comm and feed.

It might just be a navigation anomaly, like another transport in the wrong place. We were in a commonly used approach lane and Preservation tended to be visited by lots of non-corporate transports with no bot pilots who wandered all over the place trying to figure out where the hell they were, or at least that was how I interpreted the constant litany of complaint from Preservation Station Port Authority that Mensah had involuntary access to. With no bot pilot on our baseship, I couldn’t get direct system updates, but I tapped the comm system to let me listen in on the bridge. Transcript:

Copilot Mihail: “It came out of nowhere! Nothing on comm.”

Specialist Rajpreet: “That’s a docking approach. I’m reading active weapons.”

Pilot Roa: “That’s it, raise the Station and tell them—”

Mihail again: “Copy, but there’s no responders near us—”

Well, shit. I rolled out of the bunk and pinged the team feed, and sent to Arada: Dr. Arada, we’re being approached by a potentially hostile vessel. A boarding attempt may be imminent.

A potentially— Oh no! Arada responded.

Again? Overse asked.

I let them deal with the other team queries coming in as I opened my code-sealed locker. I pulled out the projectile weapon, checked the load and charge, then woke my dormant drones. They all activated their cameras at once and I had to take a few seconds to sort and process the multiple inputs.

I’d changed out of the survey uniform before we’d entered the wormhole and back into the clothes I liked (human work boots, pants with lots of pockets (good for storing my small intel drones), T-shirt, and soft hooded jacket, all dark colors) because I didn’t like logos, even the Preservation survey logo, which was just a variation on the planetary seal, and not a corporate logo. I had a deflection vest from Station Security Operations designed to provide some protection from inert blades, slow projectiles, fire, acidic gas, low energy pulses, and so on. I hadn’t been wearing it because it was a) worthless for the kind of firepower usually deployed against me and b) it had a logo on it. (I know, I need to get over that.)

I made myself put it on under my jacket. I might need all the help I could get.

By this point the Potential Hostile had continued to approach. Pilot Roa was now making a general announcement which was pretty much the same thing I’d already told Arada. As I left the cabin, my drones converged on me in a cloud formation. I needed more direct info from the baseship so I sent one ahead, and it whizzed past me as I started down the corridor toward the access. I had a plan, but it was mostly “keep the hostiles off the ship,” which is not so much a plan as a statement of hopeful intent.

This could be really bad.

I know, I know, I’m Security, I should already have a plan in place for a boarding action. But I was used to having a human supervisor come up with the plans and … Okay, right, I just hadn’t bothered because the chances of an attack while en route to and from the mission site were so slight it wasn’t worth taking the time off from viewing media. I’d put all the work into coming up with attack and defense scenarios for the facility while on planet. (None of which I got to use during the one actual attack on the facility, but though it was tempting, “advance planning sucks” seems to be the wrong lesson to take from that whole incident.)

Anyway, SecUnits were shipped as cargo on company transports and I didn’t even have any old procedure documents for ship-based actions in my archive. The only ship-to-ship attack I’d participated in had been viral, and I’d almost destroyed my brain during it.