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“The code in your system,” Ratthi explained, tapping his own forehead like maybe I had also forgotten where my brain was. “The contaminated code. We can’t use the medical platform, until Perihelion gets that code out of you. But Overse and Thiago are getting a portable med unit that will be cut off from the feed. We’re... |
“Yes, but we’ll have to come up with some sort of explanation.” Amena added, “Yeah, my second mom is going to want to know what happened and she’s not exactly easy to lie to.” “Your second mom?” Kaede prompted. “She’s the head of the— She was the head of the Preservation Alliance Council,” Amena explained. “Dr. Mensah.... |
* * * I’m not going into detail because it was gross and involved a lot of leaking and removing projectiles and regenerating tissue the hard old-fashioned way with hand units and the emergency medical kit kept trying to spray everything with disinfectant. At one point, Martyn, who was Seth’s marital partner and Iris’s ... |
I had trouble believing that, but then I barely had the cogni tion to understand Timestream Defenders Orion right now (which is admittedly a pretty low bar) so maybe I was misunderstanding. “Are you sure? That doesn’t sound right.” ART hadn’t said anything, even to tell me how wrong I was, which was suspicious in itsel... |
I said, I don’t know how they could have managed it accidentally. I’d had time to process everything, and there were parts I didn’t want to talk about yet. (No, I am not talking about Timestream Defenders Orion.) But this part I could say. You and Amena were right, 2.0 was a person. It wasn’t like a baby, but it was a ... |
I will discuss it with them. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even make a crack about ART’s idea of a discussion and forcing everybody else to do what it wanted. I didn’t know if I trusted ART’s humans or if I even wanted to try. But no one had ever rescued me before except Dr. Mensah, when she went into the DeltFall ha... |
The MedSystem had finished what the humans had started and my performance reliability was up around 98 percent. I was wearing the kind of soft smock thing that injured humans wear, but my drones spotted my clothes, cleaned and recycler-repaired, folded on a gurney. Before I could think about it too much, I said, “ART a... |
She said slowly, “I think ART cares a lot about you. You should have heard … the only reason it went ahead and sent your killware to the explorer was because it thought if it didn’t, the only way to get Iris and everybody back was to send you. That sending the killware would mean you wouldn’t have to do something dange... |
It was mostly doing what it had done on the Barish-Estranza explorer, which was to stand around on guard and patrol occasionally. Except ART had made it give up its armor and weapons and I suspect had given it some details about what might happen if it even thought about shooting any projectiles out of its arm. Amena a... |
But having a thing in your head that kills you if you make a mistake is more terrifying.” It didn’t seem inclined to argue. “Your clients told me I could go with them to Preservation.” “You can do that. Or not. You don’t have to.” “They are your clients.” I said, “You can trust them.” I’m sure it thought I was delusion... |
And by that I mean me being aggravated while humans talk to each other for an unnecessarily long amount of time. Seth gave me a thoughtful look. “We can. Peri?” Are they likely to deploy malware? ART asked. “You’re not funny,” I told it. Once ART secured a comm connection with the Preservation responder, I said, “This ... |
There was a lot of talking to me, with Pin-Lee asking me if I was all right, and Mensah thanking me for trying to get Amena off the baseship. Seth, as the captain, formally introduced them both to ART. He told them, “We normally aren’t able to do this, since Perihelion’s existence as anything other than a bot pilot has... |
“No, she didn’t.” “Oh.” Yeah, well, I could have kept my mouth shut about that, but now it was too late. “It was when I thought ART was dead.” She still had a little worried forehead crease. “That’s understandable. Ratthi said Perihelion is a very close friend of yours.” “Ratthi has a vivid imagination.” This was an aw... |
(Amena told me Thiago felt he had some apologizing to do to Mensah for “misunderstanding her relationship with me” and that Amena would report back on it and I was just glad they were talking on the other ship where I didn’t have to risk hearing them.) Arada and Overse and Ratthi had stayed in the spare bunkroom aboard... |
Chapter One THE DEAD HUMAN WAS lying on the deck, on their side, half curled around. A broken feed interface was scattered under the right hand. I’ve seen a lot of dead humans (I mean, a lot) so I did an initial scan and compared the results to archived data sets, like human body temperatures vs. ambient temperature, l... |
(On this station there was no separation between transient spaces and longterm station housing like on stations in the Corporation Rim, but that wasn’t even close to being the weirdest thing about Preservation.) This junction, and Preservation Station in general, were also weird places for humans to get killed; the thr... |
If whoever did it had been trying to conceal the dead human’s identity, were they naively optimistic? Preservation Station kept an identity record and body scan for permanent residents and every disembarking transient passenger, so it shouldn’t be that hard to run an identity check. “Known associates?” Tural glanced at... |
“The council closed the port and deployed the responder as soon as we got the alert, but are you certain this person is—was—a visitor and not a resident?” The responder was the armed ship currently on picket duty, discouraging raiders from approaching the station and rendering assistance as needed to local and transien... |
Traffic was minimal here right now, but a bot that worked for the station was out with a glowing baton, directing humans, augmented humans, and drone delivery floaters away from the junction entrance and Station Security’s equipment. The group of security officers standing there tried to pretend they weren’t watching u... |
If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall, for fuck’s sake.) She said, If you want to stay in the Preservation Alliance, improving your relationship with Station Security will help immeasurably. This might lead to them hiring you as a consultant. Mensah didn’t usually take the “this is for your own good, y... |
“I know Dr. Mensah wants you involved in this investigation. Are you willing to work with us?” Okay, I’m not lying about having investigated this kind of thing in the past. It turns out the big danger to humans on any isolated corporate project, whether it’s mining or—okay, it’s mostly mining. Whatever—the big danger t... |
Actually being in contract labor just made it that much worse.) I had archives of everything that had happened since I hacked my governor module, but I hadn’t had as much relevant experience in that time. But what I did have were thousands of hours of category mystery media, so I had a lot of theoretical knowledge that... |
But Pin-Lee’s contract would make sure that they couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do and I would get a hard currency card out of it. (When we had first discussed the idea of me getting jobs as a way to encourage the Preservation Council to grant me permanent refugee status, I didn’t know very much about th... |
(Senior Indah had been with the rest of the upper level security staff for the “hey, there’s a rogue SecUnit here” meeting. You should have seen their expressions.) There was a big huge deal about it, and Security was all “but what if it takes over the station’s systems and kills everybody” and Pin-Lee told them “if it... |
Her eyes narrowed, her head tilted slightly, and her mouth made a minute movement that turned her polite planetary leader “I am listening and receptive to your ideas” smile into something else. (If she had looked at me like that I would have created a distraction and run out of the room.) (Okay, not really, but I would... |
To do that, we will both be reasonable about this and set our knee-jerk emotional responses aside.” Indah kept her expression reserved, but I could tell she was relieved. “I apologize.” She also wasn’t a coward. “But I have concerns.” So there was a lot of negotiation about me (always a fun time) and it ended up with m... |
Nobody had said anything about not setting up my own systems.) “No ID report yet,” Tural was telling Indah. Indah wasn’t pleased. “We need that ID.” Tural said, “We tried a DNA check but it didn’t match anyone in the database, so the victim isn’t related to approximately 85 percent of Preservation planetary residents.”... |
Processing raw data and pulling out the relevant bits was a company specialty and I still had the code. “There’s an unusual lack of contact DNA on the deceased’s clothes.” Samples from the deceased, the two humans who had found the deceased, and the first responder medical team had been included in the comparison file;... |
The deceased was wearing a knee-length open coat over wide pants and a knee-length shirt, which wasn’t an uncommon combination as human clothing goes, but the colors and patterns were eye-catching. It might have been a clue leading to planetary or system origin, or at least suggest a place that the deceased had visited... |
They wanted to look like a visitor.” Humans from the planet wore all kinds of things, but on the station the most common were the work/casual pants, short jacket, and a short or long shirt or tunic, and the more formal long robes or caftans in solid colors with patterned trim. Bright multicolored patterns like this wer... |
We’re looking for anything resembling a travel bag.” She paused to listen to her feed and added, “Pathology is here. We need to get out of the way.” Tural asked, “Can I take the broken interface for analysis? The scene’s been scanned and position-mapped.” Indah nodded. “Take it.” Tural hesitated, glanced at me, but Ind... |
Senior Indah said, “The feed ID doesn’t need to say anything other than what everyone else’s says, just name, gender, and…” She trailed off. She was looking at me and I was looking at her. Pin-Lee pointed out, “Everyone else who has a feed ID has one voluntarily. Consensually, one might say.” Senior Indah stopped looki... |
I could use it, and the humans on the Station wouldn’t have to think about what I was, a construct made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage, a killing machine for whichever humans rented me, until I made a mistake and got my brain destroyed by my governor module. I posted a feed ID... |
(One of the journalists had just asked the council spokesperson if GrayCris reps would be allowed at the meeting.) (It had been such a stupid question, I had forgotten not to have an expression.) Supposedly it wasn’t Senior Indah or anyone else from Station Security who had sent the photo to the newsstream. Right, sure... |
And she was trying to think how other humans could come to this understanding without the shared experience of almost being chewed up together in an alien fauna’s mouth. (Obviously she didn’t use those exact words but that’s what she meant.) The second time we had talked I had somehow just come out and told her that I ... |
As far as I knew, I was the only one currently on the station looking for GrayCris agents to kill. I just realized I don’t like the phrase “as far as I knew” because it implies how much you actually don’t know. I’m not going to stop using it, but. I don’t like it as much anymore. And speaking of not knowing things, I c... |
There were no Corporation Rim corporations here, so no reason for corporates to come on business. Some came as visitors sometimes, but most were afraid to travel outside the Rim. (They thought everywhere outside the Rim was all raiders killing everybody and cannibalism.) There were places to stay other than the housing... |
It was sort of humanform, but more functional, with six arms and a flat disk for a “head” that it could rotate and extend for scanning. It had rotated it to “watch” me walk through the lobby, a behavior designed to make humans comfortable (its actual eyes were sensors that were all over its body.) (I don’t know why bot... |
I don’t know what they think I’m going to do to their bots. Teach them to hack? Bots don’t have governor modules like constructs and it’s not like the Preservation bots weren’t supposedly able to do whatever they wanted. It’s also not like I didn’t know what the real problem was. I’m not a bot, I’m not a human, so I do... |
Acknowledge, the bot said. It pulled its arms in and led the way toward the target corridor. We checked seventeen of the currently empty rooms, and while the bot didn’t let me touch anything, it did open the clothing storage cubbies so I could see the contents in the rooms where the humans hadn’t left their stuff strew... |
(Or at least not about this; I figured they would come up with other ways to try to get rid of me.) I’d have to get intel on their investigation through Mensah’s council channels. To get the bot to leave me alone, I answered, task complete. I was already out the door when the bot said, query: arrivals data, meaning I s... |
Based on the tech used to create his clothes, I was betting he had come here from the Corporation Rim and not another non-corporate political entity, station or whatever, but it would be nice to be sure. I could hack the port’s transient arrivals system but I had said I wouldn’t, so I wouldn’t. Also, it seemed pointles... |
It pinged back readily, with enough identifying information to class it as a passenger transport whose home destination was a small hub station outside the Corporation Rim. It visited Preservation on a regular route, carrying cargo and passengers, continuing on to five other non–Corporation Rim polities and then loopin... |
Ships from outside the Corporation Rim, particularly on the routes intersecting Preservation, had a variety of different protocols, some of them horrifyingly jury-rigged by humans. But by the registry signifiers in its feed connection, this transport was from a Corporation Rim origin.) I pinged it again. It pinged me b... |
(I have energy weapons in my arms and it’s not like I can leave them behind in the hotel room.) (I mean, my arms are detachable so theoretically I could leave them behind if I had a little help but as a longterm solution it was really inconvenient.) I was sure the weapons scanner would alert Station Security that I was... |
There was surveillance on the embarkation floor, and I can tell when I’m on camera, even when I’m not supposed to access the system. From my drone sentries I knew Mensah was in a council meeting now. I tapped Pin-Lee’s feed to check on her but she was in a different meeting. I knew the others were on planet: Dr. Bharad... |
Gurathin didn’t have any other human friends from what I could tell but he had been taking a cycle rest period, reading in one of the lounge areas with lots of plant biomes. “It’s definitely not willfully obtuse,” Ratthi told him. He told me, “I do think we should call Station Security.” “The transport said I could com... |
Lights were up, life support set for humans, but the transport was clearly designed mostly for cargo shipping with passengers as an afterthought. Ahead off the main corridor, my drones encountered a transport maintenance drone, wobbling in the air with its spidery arms drooping, beeping pathetically. “Do you smell some... |
“Now can we call Station Security?” My drones had just completed a fast scan/search of the transport and I knew it was unoccupied; whoever had killed Lutran—hopefully it was Lutran who had been killed here and not some other human we hadn’t found yet—was long gone. The damage to the transport’s systems meant there was ... |
The first officer, feed ID Doran, said, “How do you know there’s no one on the transport?” Ratthi and Gurathin looked at me, and I said, “I checked the transport for possible fatalities and injured crew or passengers in need of assistance, as well as potential hostiles. It’s clear.” The expression range was dubious to ... |
In the Corporation Rim, the transport would have had to sit there damaged and racking up fines until its owner or an owner’s rep arrived.) Station Security told the PA team to hold off, since the damage to the transport was evidence and would have to be documented before it could be repaired. Gurathin kept saying we sh... |
Neither one of them seemed happy with that answer. I actually wasn’t either. From everything I’d seen in the media, assholes who just like to kill other humans are hard to catch. But without more info, I thought it was more likely there was a reason that Lutran had been killed, and that it would have to do with who Lut... |
But him talking gave me a chance to work around the privacy seal on Aylen’s feed ID and see she was listed as a Special Investigator. I didn’t know what that meant, but it was a good job title and honestly it made me a little jealous. Indah was looking at me again. I hadn’t said anything because what was I supposed to ... |
I’m better at keeping my expression neutral after so much practice, but I was surprised at how pissed off it made me. Compared to a lot of things that had happened to me, you’d think it wouldn’t matter. But here, now, for some reason, it mattered. Ratthi made an angry snorty noise. Gurathin was grimly staring up at the... |
Eyeing me, Indah said, “How would you dispose of a body so it wouldn’t be found?” I’m not the public library feed, Senior Officer, go do your own research. I said, “If I told you, then you might find all the bodies I’ve already disposed of.” “It’s joking.” Ratthi managed to sound like he completely believed that. “That... |
So that was one planetary leader plus one councilor who had seen me at the council offices across the station when Lutran was being killed. Indah sighed (yes, she did that a lot around me) and said, “Continue, Officer Aylen.” Aylen said, “The reason I had to ask was this,” and via the feed she sent me a video clip. It ... |
Mensah from the corporate station, you can do something similar?” I said, “I can, but only under certain circumstances.” Circumstances which I am not going to explain to you, Special Investigator. “Is your security system compromised?” It was kind of an urgent question. Indah was watching me closely. “Our analysts say ... |
We already know they have access to a sterilizer to remove contact DNA. And it’s unlikely they used their own ID to request it.” This sucks more. All you needed to get a cart was an address, and the subject could have used the transport’s lock ID. Gurathin said, “Then why didn’t this person clean the transport? If they... |
Followed by two Station Security officers (feed IDs Farid and Tifany), the Port Authority supervisor (feed ID Gamila), and the Port Authority bot, we walked over to the end of the public docks, through the gates into the cargo section. I did a quick search on Preservation’s local (public) newsstream archive, and found ... |
Large modules were pushed back against the bulkhead, waiting to be loaded and shoved out the module drop so they could be attached to transports. Most of the ships currently in dock didn’t use modules, they had cargo compartments that had to be unloaded through inconvenient specialized hatches. That wasn’t unusual for ... |
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 ha... |
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 con... |
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... |
Also, I wasn’t sure yet if the Targets were hostiles or just really stupid, so I had held back a little. Target Three had crumpled to the floor, still conscious and trying to grope for her weapon. Before I had to shoot her again, Tifany and Farid barreled in and Farid scooped up the weapon. Targets One and Four were da... |
They threatened us, wouldn’t even listen to why we were here.” “You’re here to take our ship!” Target Two snarled, the feed translating. “You pussing corporates! You sent a SecUnit after us!” I turned to look down at her. “You didn’t know they had a SecUnit until we broke in. Try again.” Target Two’s brow knit as she l... |
But anyway, for most of my career as an escaped rogue SecUnit, staying away from Station Security had been kind of important. Preservation’s Station Security office was next to the Port Authority, part of the barrier that separated the port’s embarkation area from the rest of the station. Both offices had entrances int... |
In their defense, they had actually done the weapons search right the first time (I had verified it with scan and visual), and they had confiscated the detainees’ interfaces. (None of them were augmented humans—apparently it wasn’t common to be feed augmented in the polities outside the Corporation Rim that used Preser... |
I was thinking a lot of different things but the one that came out was, “So what was the transport waiting for?” I knew from my drone search that the transport Lutran had been killed in didn’t have a cargo module attached. At the time, this hadn’t seemed a big deal, since if the transport was sitting in dock it was pro... |
Also more relevantly, a tech team was searching the ship for anything that looked like 1) a contact DNA cleaner and 2) something that could cause the visual jamming effect with the transit ring’s surveillance camera or 3) a suspiciously fluid-stained floater cart. It also gave the Port Authority more time to pull corro... |
There was no going back from that, at least as far as the company was concerned. Farid came into the room, spotted me, and came over to say, “Uh, we’re making tea. Do you—” I paused my feed and told him, “I don’t eat.” “Oh, right.” He wandered off. Pin-Lee sent, There’s been a Station Security request for documents fro... |
(Non-rogue SecUnits aren’t allowed to sit down on duty, or off duty, if there’s any chance of being caught.) Farid, Tifany, and three other officers stood back in the doorway to watch. (I will never figure out how humans decide who gets to sit where and do what, it’s never the same.) (There were more cups and small pla... |
“I didn’t—We didn’t do that—It was a misunderstanding—” Weirdly, I got the sense that was true. It had been a misunderstanding. Aylen said, “Before you argue with me about it, please recall that I was the Station Security officer you abducted.” “But—It was—” Target Five subsided and looked glum. “Attempted abduction is... |
“The rings we go to aren’t nice like this one, you can get your ship raided by the people who work there. That’s what we thought it was.” Aylen nodded, like there was some tiny chance in the realm of possibility that she was buying that. “These rings are in the Corporation Rim?” “No, no, no.” Target Five did an agitate... |
(What they were being mostly: crap I made up on the spot as I needed it that sort of worked, and leftover company code analysis.) Aylen tilted her head, an unconscious gesture while she was receiving feed reports from Matif and Soire. She said, “Here’s a better view of his face.” This time Lutran was dead in the image,... |
“You’re saying these people should be with Lutran?” “He was taking them home, to a home.” Target Four tapped the table earnestly. “We never saw him, you know, compartmentalize to make it hard for them to catch everybody.” “Them?” Matif asked. “Who is them?” Target Four said, “The Brehars. It’s Brehar something.” I ran ... |
“You taking out so many people at one time?” Target Four was unfazed. “Cause we’re taking out their kids, dah. These people been out in those rocks so long they got kids older than me.” Behind me, Tifany said, “What the fuck?” “Wait, wait.” Matif was having a moment. “Are you saying these people were shipped to this be... |
We know Lutran used it to get here, that it was involved in a cargo transfer contract with the Lalow, and that Lutran was killed aboard it. What does that tell us?” Tural said, “I bet the refugees were meant to go aboard the transport, to be taken to its next destination.” They made a vague gesture. “The refugees eithe... |
The refugees were dressed in work clothes, and a few had small shoulder bags. They looked lost, stopping to check the feed markers frequently and moving slowly, as if they had never seen a station like this before. (Trapped in a contract labor camp spread out over an asteroid field, they probably hadn’t.) It didn’t cat... |
“There’s no sign of any member of the refugee party leaving the Merchant Docks. They disappear somewhere between the dockside cameras and the exit cameras’ fields of view.” The humans stared at the video, Aylen moving so she could see better. “They’ve changed their appearances—” Soire began. “Body types don’t match.” S... |
I waited until Indah finished ordering all response teams into the Merchant Docks for a search, then said, “Has there been a diagnostic analysis of StationSec and PortAuth and all associated systems?” Aylen, Matif, and Soire were already on the way out to get their gear and Tural was in the feed mobilizing the tech cre... |
I said, “To check for hacking, yes.” Tural shifted uneasily, but they were brave, and said, “We should make sure. If there has been interference with our camera video, we could be looking for the refugees in the wrong place.” Indah didn’t reply. It occurred to me if she turned me down, I was going to feel … something, ... |
I had several options to go with, having been in the systems and rummaged around a little when Mensah had first brought me here, before I stupidly promised not to touch anything. I decided on something showy. I took control of the visual and audio displays in the main work space. Through the open door, we heard the hum... |
The surveillance system was clear.” I was braced for something, I had no idea what. But the fleeting look of disappointment that crossed Indah’s face wasn’t it. She grimaced, and used the feed to revoke my system access. Aylen came in from the other room, pulling on a deflection vest. “The off shift volunteered to come... |
Before we had left for the Merchant Docks again, Indah told the special investigation team, “If this circus act is telling the truth and they’re the only lifeline those people trapped at BreharWallHan have, then we’ll release them without charge. Until then I don’t want to risk any information about any of this getting... |
(Yeah, let’s revisit that the next time you get held hostage.) So I was searching the dock utility areas with the hazardous materials safety techs and the cargo bots. The modules had drives but they weren’t the kind you could turn on inside the station, so the cargo bots lifted and moved them for us so the techs could ... |
It doesn’t work in these docks.” JollyBaby sent me another private message: Balin not equal cargo hauler Balin equal cargo management. Balin didn’t lift heavy things? Well, fuck Balin then. I said, “All right, where’s the fucking cabinet?” On the team channel, Matif was saying to Indah, But would these refugees have a ... |
Except I had no evidence of the hack; I couldn’t even prove it to myself, so I didn’t know how Mensah could fix it. On the comm, one of the techs said, “Officer Aylen.” It was the one who had made the comment about a historical documentary on the crap stored in the private docks. “I’ve got a problem with the empty modu... |
We’re looking for a single unregistered module—” No authorized transfer, Matif reported via the Station Security feed. It’s just missing. Soire added, Somebody must have deleted its records. (If it seems like they twigged to this faster than they had anything else, it was because cargo safety/smuggling and hazardous ma... |
There had been no reported disruptions on the embarkation floor, no fight, no struggle picked up by the cameras, so the refugees had had no idea they were in danger. So, working theory: Lutran meets the refugees and gets them to board the module that is due to be transferred from the Merchant Docks to his transport wai... |
Most stations wouldn’t close their transit rings because someone found a dead body, but most stations weren’t as short on random dead bodies as this one. The BreharWallHan ship hadn’t run, or tried to fight the responder, because Indah was right, they wanted to keep it quiet. They wanted the Lalow to continue its part ... |
(Oh yeah, it hurt to say that.) Aylen was trying to say something to her and Indah held up a hand to show she was on her feed. Her eyes were narrow and her mouth was thin. I had no idea what that meant. She said, How do you know this hacker isn’t listening to you right now? Because that’s how fuckers get permanently de... |
As we crossed the tiled floor of the lobby I felt the tension in the organic parts of my back ease. Mensah had notified her staff to let us through, and I removed us from the surveillance camera, just in case. One of her assistants opened the inner office for us. He had already closed and opaqued the transparent doors ... |
It’s the only thing that makes sense.” I had control of all inputs to this room’s comm and feed, and I caught and bounced a comm call for Indah with Balin the Port Authority bot’s feed ID. It was probably an important call from Gamila but if something had blown up the council’s system would notify us and everything els... |
“If it was you, why would you tell us where the original crime scene was, which led to finding the Lalow and the refugees?” Indah added, “You are the most paranoid person I’ve ever met, and I’ve worked in criminal reform for twenty-six years.” I don’t even know how to react to that. She’s not wrong but hey, I need my p... |
If the BreharWallHan agents have someone in the Port Authority who can listen in on our comms and feed, they’re going to know what we’re doing.” Yeah, not we, me. I said, “This is the part that’s my job.” Chapter Seven I’D BEEN BROUGHT TO Preservation on one of their older ships, which had been refitted over and over a... |
By this point I knew that was Aylen’s idea of a joke. I replied, Because Senior Indah has never told anybody to fuck off. You have me there. I reached the lock corridor and sent, I’m going offline now. Understood, she sent back. Good luck. I understand why humans say that, but luck sucks. I found the lock and dropped t... |
Big green arrows scrawled along the bulkhead pointed me toward the nearest emergency lockers and I opened the first one. The inside was neatly packed with safety supplies, all of it tagged with explanatory labels and scrawled symbols on the containers, all of it simple and easily readable for any panicky untrained huma... |
It was unlikely the hostiles would be monitoring it and the chatty broadcasts would provide cover for my comm and the life-tender’s location transmissions. The library entry also said life-tenders weren’t used anymore because without their transponders, they were difficult to locate and didn’t meet Preservation’s curre... |
It’s cold, it’s dark, whatever was generating the air smelled terrible, I’m in a bag in space. I thought about going back for the EVAC suit, but the chance that the hostiles were scanning for transponders on the station search and rescue channel was still hitting 96 percent. If what I was doing in this stupid bag was d... |
(I hadn’t used those exact words during the planning process with Indah and Aylen, but we all knew what we were talking about.) But my maybe-not-so-dumb bag made its own airlock, that was the whole point of it. If I could get the refugees out of the module and over to the colony ship’s lock without the hostiles even re... |
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