Network Effect

ART would have laughed at an attack like that. (Actually, ART would have laughed at the part where it sent back a code bundle that would have eaten my face.) But I had a theory that the reason the Targets weren’t trying to access most of ART’s systems was that their targetControlSystem lacked the ability to effectively use ART’s architecture.

Then I got an alert from a sentry drone. It was on the hatch into the quarters module, the first hatch I’d sealed to create our safe zone. It couldn’t get a visual of any targetDrones, but an energy build-up near the hatch indicated a weapon or tool was being used on the controls. Uh-oh.

I started to run, following the curving corridor back out of the engineering module. I checked Scout Two in the control area foyer, just in time to see Targets Five and Six race out of its camera range.

When I said everything kept happening at once, it had mostly been an exaggeration, but now everything was actually happening at once. Something must have alerted them to the safepod on the hull.

I had an option, but it was a terrible idea. But it was also the only way to get Arada and the others inside in time. Amena, our safe zone is about to be compromised and I need to deal with it. Can you get to the airlock to cycle Arada and the others in? I was assuming targetControlSystem wasn’t going to be cooperative about admitting visitors. Plus, it was a little busy right now.

Amena had been pacing Medical, anxiously listening in on the hurried conversation in the safepod as they prepared to abandon it. She stopped, muted her comm, and said, Yes, can you give me a map?

I sent her our safe zone map with the fastest route to the airlock highlighted. You’ll have your squad of drones ahead of you. I’ll send an alert and another route if they encounter anything.

Understood. She started for the door, then stopped to pick up the Targets’ energy weapon and tuck it into her jacket pocket. Then she dodged sideways and grabbed a container out of the pile of supplies on the bench.

I meant to enlarge the image to see what she’d taken but I had intel coming in from the sentry drone that the safe zone hatch had just been breached. At the engineering module exit, I took a different route, through the hatchway into the cargo handling station and out to the corridor that ran down the outside of the central module toward the quarters hatch. If I couldn’t get in front of them, I had to come up from behind.

There were three possible reasons the Targets might have acted now: (1) they had received intel from targetControlSystem that the safepod was on the outside of the hull and interpreted its presence as an attack, (2) now that we’d left the wormhole and were presumably at our destination they knew their reinforcements would be coming soon and felt it was now relatively safe to attack us, or (3) they were expecting a supervisor to arrive at any moment and wanted to look proactive. With my luck, it was a combination of all three.

My drones zipping ahead of me, I reached the far end of the central module and ducked through two connecting corridors. I lost three drone contacts as they reached the passage to the quarters hatch but I didn’t slow down. I’d gone low in the last two encounters, and with combat drones, even weird unfamiliar ones, it was best to assume there was an active learning component. So I accelerated and as I rounded the corner I ran up the bulkhead.

Two targetDrones waited for me near the deck and I landed on one before it could change position. I smashed the second as it jolted toward my head. The hatch had been cut open, the locks drilled and partially melted. I ordered my drones to drop back; I hadn’t had time to work on countermeasures for the Targets’ protective suits and I knew I was going to regret that.

I lost one of Amena’s drone contacts and sent her an alert. She was in a corridor near a junction she would have to cross to get to the airlock and there was no alternate route. I told her, Go back to Medical.

No time, Amena said, and stepped back to press herself against the bulkhead. I think something’s wrong with the safepod.

I could have argued about that but there wasn’t time and she was right. And I’d finally gotten a view of the container she’d taken from the emergency supplies, the one she was currently holding clutched to her chest. It was the fire suppresser Ras had pointed out.

I slammed through the connecting passage and out into the next corridor.

Targets Five and Six spun to face me, pointed their clunky square energy weapons at me. Four targetDrones hovered beside them.