Rogue Protocol

by Martha Wells

  I hadn’t noticed that, but when I reran a portion of my video, there it was. Abene said slowly, “Wilken knew something would happen to the facility, and approximately when it would happen. She could only wait so long before she had to get back to the shuttle. When she had the opportunity, she sent you off to be killed by the combat bots, and intended to kill me and Miki. Then she would tell the others it was hopeless and force them to return to the transit station—”

  The combat bots’ behavior was starting to make sense. If they had been waiting for something, too, it explained why they had taken Hirune prisoner. They had assigned one bot to mess with us. To attack, grab a prisoner, retreat, attack again. I had destroyed it when it attacked Wilken, but the other three hadn’t come rushing after us. Two had been in the engineering pod, and one was out of range, doing what?

  Abene took a sharp breath. She said, “It has to be the tractor array. There’s no other real benefit for GrayCris.” In the feed, she flicked away the assumption squares for the actions of a theoretical station-bound GrayCris operative. “We know from the drone there is no controller for the combat bots, no one aboard the transit station sending orders to them. They are original equipment, meant to defend the facility until it collapsed naturally into the planet, leaving no evidence that it was an illegal mining operation. Wilken and Gerth didn’t know about the bots and weren’t sent to kill us, because killing us is not the goal. The goal is to let the facility be destroyed as planned. The thing that prevents the facility being destroyed is the tractor array. Therefore Wilken and Gerth were sent here to do something, and they thought the only consequence of that something was that the tractor array would fail, and we would be forced to leave the facility. We would all return to the transit station and they would leave aboard the next cargo ship, with no one the wiser.” She slipped out of the feed and turned to me. “But what could they have done? They were with us the whole time.”

  I thought she was right, and there was only one thing they could have done without me or someone in the team noticing. “They sent an encrypted signal.” A comm signal, not a feed signal. With all the storm interference, and more importantly the fact that I hadn’t been looking for it, I had missed it.

  “Yes, yes.” Abene’s brows lifted. “But to who? The combat bots? Is there a weapon, a way for the bots to destroy the array from here?” She turned to look at the other consoles.

  I checked my connection to the shuttle’s audio again. Kader was pushing Gerth about trying to go aboard the facility to search for the others, backed up by Brais and Vibol. No mention of any problem with the tractor array. They had to be monitoring it. Gerth was pushing back, saying they had to wait like they agreed. I ran the audio back. She wanted them to wait thirty minutes. The digger display sent a ping into the feed, indicating that the diggers had finished their full power-up. I sent the shuttle audio into the feed for Abene and Miki and sat down at the digger control station. Whatever was going to happen, it was going to be soon.

  As I sent the first set of orders for three of the diggers, Abene said to Miki, “We need sensors. Check all the consoles. Anything in here will be pointed at the surface, but we can try to redirect—”

  I backburnered everything but the diggers. Abene was obviously still interested in saving the facility, but my priority was in getting off the facility before it broke up in the atmosphere.

  The three diggers uncoiled out of their housings and started to walk across the outside of the lower half of the geo pod. Their multiple arms gripped the surface securely as they moved, the cameras giving me a dizzying view of the storm. They didn’t have the memory cores with their mining protocols, but then they wouldn’t need them for what I wanted them to do.

  Abene had booted another console and data popped up above the display surface as Miki leaned over it. Hirune shoved to her feet and limped over to them, leaning on the back of a chair.

  I needed to copy over some specialized code from the console, but once I had it, I could control the three diggers through the feed. I assigned them yet another channel in my overworked brain, and stood up. Oh, okay, ouch. Without their protocols, controlling them was tricky. I basically had to drive all three of them at once. Keeping my voice level and patient, I said, “We need to go. You have six minutes.”

  Abene waved a hand. “We’ve almost got it.”

  I reminded myself I was still pretending to be a SecUnit under contract, and put the countdown in the feed with no additional commentary. Then I collected Wilken’s weapon and harness and went to stand by the hatch.

  Hirune looked around, picked up the emergency kit from where Miki had left it, and limped over to stand beside me. She was unsteady on her feet and still clearly a little out of it, but having been carried off by a combat bot once, she was obviously ready to call it a day.

  Abene pushed to her feet. “Yes, there! Copy that trajectory, Miki.” Miki acknowledged and followed Abene as she strode to the doorway. “Some sort of structure launched from the engineering pod and is heading toward the tractor array. The missing combat bot must be aboard it, and it means to destroy the array. Those orders must have been in the encrypted transmission Wilken and Gerth sent.”

  That’s great! And I will care about the fucking tractor array once I get us on the fucking shuttle! Watching my own countdown, I pulled three inputs forward, my drone, Miki, and the diggers. No wait, I needed my own camera, too. Four inputs. Oh, and the suit audio from the shuttle. Five inputs. I had the drone do a quick check of the foyer and the access to the lift junction, making sure it was clear. I said, “We need to move fast. We don’t know where the other combat bots are.”

  Abene nodded and gripped Hirune’s arm. Hirune whispered, “Where are we going?”

  Abene shushed her. “Back to the shuttle. It’s all right.” Miki patted Hirune’s shoulder.

  I hit the release for the hatch and stepped out. The fast walk to the lift junction made every nerve in my human skin itch. The drone scouted ahead of us, scanning, but I irrationally expected the bots to leap out from around the next corner.

  We reached the junction and I sent the drone ahead in my invisible lift. Abene and Miki talked on the feed, occasionally making a reassuring comment to Hirune. They could be plotting to sell me for parts and I couldn’t spare the attention to listen in. Outside the diggers neared the curve of the geo pod. They would need to follow the trough between it and the habitation pod to avoid being spotted by the shuttle.

  The lift reached the junction nearest our docking area and the drone zipped out. I sent it on a quick scouting pattern, up and down the access and through into the decontam room, then up to get a view of the shuttle’s lock. The scan was clear, and I told the drone to return to the lift junction and hold position.

  The lift returned and I got the humans inside. (And Miki, but at the moment I was classing it with the humans.) I directed the diggers to speed up a little. I wanted us to spend as little time in the access corridor to the shuttle as possible. If the combat bots decided we were putting their mission at risk, they’d come after us and they knew they could catch us there. As I started the lift, I sent Abene the diggers’ video so she’d have some idea of what the shuttle was about to see, and told her, “When I unlock your feed, connect to Kader and tell him to make sure to get everyone off the shuttle.”

  “I will.” She nodded sharply and squeezed Hirune’s hand, and tapped Miki’s feed.

  The lift reached the junction and I was out as soon as the doors slid open. I moved toward the decontam room, the humans behind me, and I sent the diggers over the curve of the habitation pod and straight in toward the shuttle.

  On board, through my connection to the evac suits on the flight deck, I heard Vibol say something in a language I didn’t have loaded, and Kader say, “We’ve got something approaching, unknowns are approaching—”

  Distantly, from somewhere below the flight deck, Gerth shouted, “What? What direction?”

  I opened Abene’s feed connectio
n, and told her, Now.

  She made the private connection to Kader and said, Kader, listen. No questions, don’t tell anyone I’m here. You must get everyone off the shuttle into the facility now, at once. Do whatever you must, pretend to be in a panic, but get everyone off. Your lives depend on it.

  Through Abene’s feed, I heard Kader trigger an emergency evacuate order that blared across the team’s feed and the shuttle comms. Gerth had started up to the flight deck and snarled, “Stop, stop where—”

  I thought she might trap Kader and Vibol in the cockpit, and we’d be back to a hostage situation. But Kader, who must have taken the “pretend to panic” advice to heart, sent the vid of the approaching diggers from the shuttle’s sensors into the feed and screamed for the others to get out.

  I reached the corridor and had a view of the docking chamber as the shuttle’s hatch cycled open. Brais staggered out, a semi-conscious Ejiro leaning on her. Miki ran to help them, Abene hanging back with Hirune, and I followed.

  I told one digger to let go of the facility’s surface and dive at the shuttle’s nose, where the forward sensor would have the best view. Abene was in Kader’s feed but with no cameras I got nothing but a confused jumble of impressions.

  (I found out later from Gerth’s armor cam that the sudden sensor view of something large coming at the shuttle had made Gerth jerk backward out of the flight deck access. Vibol, taking Kader’s performance as evidence that the shuttle was about to be torn apart, grabbed Kader and dove past Gerth with him tucked under her arm, using the lighter gravity in the access to keep from slamming into the bulkhead. When they hit the corridor floor, they stumbled in the heavier gravity, staggered, and bolted for the hatch.)

  Anyway, Kader and Vibol flung themselves out of the hatch, and Gerth, in her powered armor, strode out after them. I was standing to one side of the shuttle hatch by that point, so all Gerth saw was the others, confused and panicked, with Abene and Hirune, and a one-handed Miki holding up Ejiro.

  I scanned her armor and found the right code. (It was a much quicker process now that I knew where to look.) Just as she brought her projectile weapon up, I sent the command.

  Her armor froze in place, and I stepped around into view. Her expression as she realized what had happened was gratifying. If she had been using her scan, she would have detected me just outside the hatch, but even with the feed, even augmented, humans can only think about one thing at a time.

  Abene said, “Now we must get back on the shuttle!”

  The others demanded answers and she explained rapidly as she shooed them toward the hatch. I tuned it out to check on all my other inputs. Without my orders, the diggers had gone dormant and stopped where they were. Two were still on the surface of the habitation pod, and the one that had lifted off to dive at the shuttle had landed on the atmosphere pod. Then I checked the drone, which I had left in the lift junction to watch our backs.

  It started to respond with a scan of the area, then the transmission cut off abruptly. I felt the connection drop, the drone going out like a light.

  I said, “Abene, Miki, bots!” I crossed the room, pulling Wilken’s projectile weapon off my back.

  Abene yelled, “Aboard, now!”

  I reached the doorway and started to pull explosive packs off Wilken’s harness, arm them, and toss them down the corridor. I still had Miki’s camera as an input and I backburnered it, but I was peripherally aware of the humans scrambling, getting the wounded Ejiro and Hirune through the lock, and Abene telling Miki to pick up Gerth and carry her in. It was about that time when the combat bot slammed around the corner and the first explosive charge went off.

  I fired three projectiles, just to make it think I was going to stand here like an idiot and shoot at it, then sprinted back across the room. The charges in the corridor delayed the bot long enough for the humans and Miki to get Gerth in and clear the lock. I flung myself through and I hit the emergency close. Both hatches slammed down.

  Finally, I had gotten these fucking people back on this fucking shuttle.

  The combat bot hit the outer hatch with an impact like we had been rammed by another small shuttle. I sent to Abene, We need to go.

  The clamps gave way and the shuttle fell away from the lock. I checked the camera view of the outer hatch and saw the combat bot standing in the open docking port, holding onto the sides as the chamber decompressed. There was a second one behind it. Miki stood beside me, and I shared the image with it on our feed connection. It said, “Those bots were mean, SecUnit.”

  I was losing the connection with distance but one of my diggers was close enough to the lock, crouched in sleep mode. I sent it a last order and it whipped its big hand down, snatched the first bot out of the port, and crushed it.

  “Ouch,” Miki commented. SecUnit, why don’t you talk to me on the feed anymore?

  Miki knew why, or it wouldn’t have asked.

  I stepped around it and went down the access corridor. Miki said in the feed, I didn’t tell on you until I had to.

  I went up the corridor toward the crew area. Miki picked up Gerth and followed. In the comm audio, I had been monitoring Abene while she gave the others the quick version of what had happened with Wilken, how I had saved Hirune, how Wilken had shot Miki’s poor hand off, how I had saved her and Miki, and so on, whatever. I had my geo pod data for Dr. Mensah, I had saved Miki’s stupid humans, I just wanted to get out of here. The shuttle was moving away from the facility and I could feel the transit station’s feed just on the edge of my range.

  I stepped into the crew area. Kader and Vibol were up in the cockpit, but the others were here, though Ejiro and Hirune were collapsed into seats. Ejiro looked woozy but more alert than Hirune, who probably needed to be stuffed into the MedSystem. Miki set Gerth on her feet, and everyone stared at her for a second, then at me.

  Brais stood, facing the floating display. It showed a sensor view of the tractor array above the facility. “Yes, there it is. The object is heading toward the tractor array.”

  Abene looked grim. “We think it’s a work zipper from the engineering pod. One of the combat bots is aboard.”

  I said, “Don Abene, we need to return to the transit station as soon as possible. When the tractor array fails, it could damage the shuttle.” I guess it could. I don’t know, it sounded good.

  In my feed, Miki said, I never talked to a bot like me before. I have human friends, but I never had a friend like me.

  I had to bite my cheek to keep my expression at SecUnit neutral. I wanted to block Miki’s feed, but I needed to keep monitoring it in case the humans started plotting against me. (I know, it sounds paranoid. But Miki and Abene knew I’d made Consultant Rin up, and I needed to get away before they told that to a human who knew just how not normal that behavior was for a SecUnit.)

  On the comm from the flight deck, Kader said, “We’ve got to commit in the next minute, are you sure about this?”

  Wait, what? I ran back my recording and listened to Brais say, “We can use the shuttle to knock the zipper off course. Our shielding will protect our hull—”

  Squinting at the display, Ejiro said, “But wouldn’t the zipper be able to return and try again?”

  Brais shook her head, still watching the flight projection. “I’ve pulled the specs on that model of zipper. It’s meant for facility maintenance and needs a feed connection to the engineering pod to operate. We can push it out of range and it’ll lose navigation control.”

  Oh, great. How long was that going to take?

  By the time I caught up to realtime, they had already decided to do it, they were just arguing about specifics.

  I stood there watching the glowing shapes on the display as Kader took the shuttle closer to the zipper. I admit, I did watch a little more of the episode I had paused while this was going on. (It was only six minutes, but it was a boring six minutes, okay? Also, Miki had walked over to stand sadly next to Abene and stare at me, and I was ignoring it. Abene thought Miki was sad abou
t the missing hand, and kept patting it and telling it they would get it fixed as soon as they got back to the station.)

  (It’s a good thing I don’t have a stomach and can’t vomit.)

  Finally the shuttle bumped the zipper off its course, dramatically saving the tractor array and GoodNightLander Independent’s investment with forty-five seconds to spare, yay. The humans congratulated each other, and Abene and Brais helped Hirune stand so they could take her to the medical unit. There was still one combat bot left on the facility, but that sounded like somebody else’s problem. The shuttle had altered course to head back to the station and we were close enough already for me to ping Ship through the feed. It pinged back, still waiting for me. That was a relief.

  And I heard a clank from the hatch.

  I’m not an expert on space, but I was pretty sure stuff wasn’t supposed to knock on the hatch. It might have been debris from the zipper, but I knew. I just knew it wasn’t. I checked the hatch camera, and got a wide-angle view of combat bot face.

  The next connection overrode the station feed, temporarily blotting out all my channels: [Objective: kill intruders.]

  Oh, shit.

  I blocked the bot out of my feed and yelled, “Emergency! Lock breach imminent!” I sent the images from the hatch camera to Miki and through it into the rest of the team’s feed. The humans froze and it felt like forever, it felt like they weren’t going to believe me. But I had forgotten how slow humans seemed to move when I actually had all my attention on what I was doing. Kader hit the all-ship alarm and sealed the two interior hatches between the lock and the crew area. Great, that would buy me a minute, maybe two.

  I told Abene, “Get everyone into the flight deck.” There was another hatch there and it might buy another minute. I turned for the access to the compartment just below us where Gerth and Wilken had stored their gear.