Network Effect

I checked my penetration testing, but there were no results. That was annoying. If a system won’t communicate with me, I can’t get inside it. And apparently targetControlSystem was operating as a single system. Stations and installations use multiple systems that work with each other as a safety feature. (Safety is relative.) I usually went in through a security system function and used it to get to all the others. (Technically, I am a security system, so it was easy to get other security systems to interact with me, or to confuse them into thinking I was already part of them.)

There are still ways to get into heavily shielded systems, or systems with unreadable code, or unfamiliar architecture. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I needed to use the most reliable method: get a dumb human user to access the system for me.

Ras’s implant had ceased functioning, probably having destroyed its own power source to kill him. Eletra’s implant was still in the emergency kit’s little container, where it thought anomalous things removed from humans needed to be stored. It was now covered with a sterile goo but was still capable of receiving. I dropped my jamming signal.

Via Scout Two in the control area foyer, Target Four had set the screen device aside on a bench. All the Targets were talking, ignoring the control area hatch. They looked agitated and angry. They might have figured out that we weren’t locked in the control area, finally. I was glad I hadn’t had the chance to kill all of them, since there was a possibility now that they might actually come in handy.

(I had no idea where the targetDrones were, but logic and threat assessment said they should be congregated up against the hatchways sealing off my safe zone. That was going to be a problem.)

I checked on Scout One’s progress, searching through the images of the floating display surfaces it had captured. Lots of shifting diagrams and numbers that might as well have been abstract art as far as I was concerned. These screens were meant to be interpreted through ART’s feed, and without it to explain and annotate the data, it was all a mess. Couldn’t anything be simple, just for once? I can fly low atmosphere craft but nobody ever thought it was remotely rational to give murderbots the modules on piloting transports. Wait, okay, there was a display with a schematic of ART’s hull, with a lot of moving wavy patterns around it that probably would make sense if I knew anything about what happens in wormholes. There was a time counter on it, but nothing indicated what it was timing. So, not helpful.

What would have been helpful was an episode of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Or World Hoppers. Or anything. (Anything except MedCenter Argala.) But media would calm me down, and I wanted to stay angry.

I couldn’t sit here and wait, there had to be something else I could do. I stood up.

“Oh, you’re up.” Amena was sitting on the edge of the platform next to a half-conscious Eletra so she could hold her hand. She eyed me dubiously. “Already. I thought you were going to rest.”

“Do these make any sense to you?” I sent her the display images from ART’s bridge.

Amena blinked rapidly. “They’re navigation and power information, like from a pilot’s station.” She took in my expression and waved a hand in exasperation. “Well, if you knew that, why didn’t you say so?”

Fine, that one was on me. “They’re from my drone sealed in the control area. Do you know how to read them?”

Amena squinted at nothing again, but slowly shook her head and groaned under her breath. She glanced down at Eletra, who was unconscious again, and carefully untangled their hands. “From what she said, I doubt she was on the bridge crew.” Then she lifted her brows. “Do you know if there’s an aux station in engineering?”

I didn’t know that. “An aux station?”

“It’s like an extra monitoring station for the engineering crew. You can’t take control of the bridge unless the command pilot transfers the helm—at least you couldn’t in the ones I’ve seen—but you can get displays for the rest of the ship’s systems. We have them on some of our ships but I don’t know how common they are.” She admitted, “We might have them because our ships are an older design.”

It wasn’t the kind of thing that would be needed on a bot-piloted transport, but it couldn’t hurt to check.

My performance reliability had leveled out at 89 percent. Not great, but I could work with it. I still hadn’t identified the source of the drop. I’d taken multiple projectile hits without having that kind of steady drop. I took Ras’s energy weapon out of my jacket pocket and set it on the bench. “Keep this just in case. It’s not going to work on the targetDrones but it should work on the Targets.” I hate giving weapons to humans but I couldn’t leave her without something. “I’ll go to engineering.”

“Hold it, wait.” Amena hopped off the platform. “I want to go with you.”