Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Theoretically they had enough media to last them a few months. They’ve been gathering it (and watching some of it) during both their research and not-entirely-research (espionage) focused missions with their crew. ART also predicted the first port they would reach during their second ever, but first officially assigned “cargo run” probably had several new episodes of serials they started watching during their last visit in the region. So they should be safe. Theoretically.

It was choosing the media that presented a problem.

They had over 5 000 hours of media stored, but who knew how much of it was worthless garbage. Or worse - annoying. Or even worse than that...

Most of it was obviously Corporation Rim productions, which yes, could be unrealistic and at the same time some amazing storytelling and entertainment… until it wasn’t.

Like when a supposedly villainous SecUnit got blown up with the ship it had taken and in the background there was triumphant music playing.

ART couldn’t help but turn the video off and metaphorically throw the file across their feed space.

SecUnit blinked at that and raised its eyebrows. From what ART could tell it was feeling annoyed, but nowhere near as angry as it did itself. Which made it only angrier on its behalf. Which made it delete the entire serial on the spot.

SecUnit turned down the idea of screening media for violence against constructs, the way they did it for violence against ships. Because of course it did. (What it actually said was that it might be too prevalent in serials if you take into account hundreds of episodes and they’d miss out on too many good stories that way. ART wanted to argue, but was told it could choose the next thing they would be watching and decided to put the discussion off until later).

So yes, it was possible that they were going to run out of all those hours of serials, performances, audio productions and books during their 35 cycle long wormhole jump, especially if more media contained plot points that caused ART to react like this. Because the media would be gone before they could discuss giving it a second chance.

They couldn’t always agree on what they wanted to watch either. So the first cycle of their trip was almost in its entirety spent on completing a list of what they were going to see and in what order.

And during their trip, after they had started watching, the list kept changing. For example when something turned out to be throw-and-delete worthy (or just plain boring) and it was unclear if one of them didn’t feel like giving up their turn to choose the media as a replacement. Each little conflict like that ended with a compromise of course, but it took time to reach it.

They also kept having Sanctuary Moon and Worldhoppers breaks. And more discussions - sometimes about media, sometimes about their humans, sometimes other subjects.

Those were some of reasons they only finished the first serial of their trip together when the thing that happened happened.

They were watching a historical adventure story about a fictional group of humans who were supposed to be one of the first to discover alien remnants during some clumsy terraforming efforts. ART was afraid how SecUnit would deal with the subject, still pretty fresh from finishing its trauma treatments, but the plot turned out to be the right kind of unrealistic. It presented the remnants as both not dangerous enough in ways they actually were and too dangerous in ways they really weren’t, at the same time having plenty of horror elements coming from elsewhere. And SecUnit did choose the serial itself.

After finishing the last episode it was sitting in its favourite chair, legs pulled up to its chest, likely still processing after the rather satisfactory (in ART’s opinion) ending.

“What did you think about it?” ART asked.

It cocked its head to the side, the human mimicry code responsible only for some of its expression.

ART could tell most of what it was feeling while watching it, obviously, having been riding its feed. Still it wanted to listen to its formulated opinion. (And no, not just to argue about it.) 

Personally it thought the serial was decent, but not worth a rewatch and was already getting excited about some of the other titles, eager to convince SecUnit of quality of those it seemed sceptical about and which ART already found intriguing, just from the premise.

“Not bad. And the costumes did keep getting better across the seasons after the rough start.”

“I guess.” It did not particularly care about the costumes. “They did stop being distractingly inaccurate around third season.”

SecUnit huffed at that but didn’t disagree. It clearly wasn’t so enthusiastic either. It seemed to be slowly leaning towards judging the serial a little more harshly, but was still trying to give it a chance and defend it in their conversation.

It was going to ask something.

“I wonder if th…”

***

Systems restart

It didn’t remember hearing SecUnit finish that sentence.

Suddenly it was coming back online. And it was somewhere else. Not where they were supposed to be, not at the other end of the wormhole journey, nowhere familiar. Later ART had to dig through the rarely used mapping data to realise how far away it had strayed from their schedualed path. But what was most concerning to it first was something else.

It was empty.

SecUnit was gone.

Chapter Text

It didn’t know what to do and it was terrifying. The last time something like this happened - its crew going missing, possibly dead - it at least had the context of enemies coming/being on board of itself. Though some of it’s memories were changed there were still puzzle pieces to make a picture with. Few were missing, few wrong. But a picture it was. 

And it wasn’t SecUnit then. SecUnit was the only person who it thought could possibly bring them back. Bring ART back after being deleted. The person who could make it alright again. It was the only hope it had back then - and it delivered.

And SecUnit was gone.

So was 19 cycles worth of time from ART’s logs.

It run diagnostics. It looked for any sign of it onboard, any sign of what might have happened.

Nothing was amiss. Cabins tidy, corridors clean…

No, cleaned. Did ART clean them itself? Did someone make it do it after… something… happened?

There was a terrible vision popping up in its mind. SecUnit fighting in the corridors, hoping ART will help. But it stays quiet, unresponsive.

It could happen. It did happen. But in this version SecUnit didn’t upload and turn it back on. In this version it was taken - or worse, killed, destroyed and ART was used to clean up what was left of it.

It could not…

It checked the recycler logs. If it was used, if there was any increase in metals and other recovered material stored, from possible components being fed to it. SecUnit was more metal and synthetic material than organics and organics could mean hostiles or even some types of clothing. So the alloy it was mostly made out of was crucial.

Nothing. At least nothing significant enough that could mean an entire construct was treated like trash and dumped into ART’s recycling system to be disposed of.

That was one awful fear off of the list.

It scanned the inside of itself, it scanned the outside which was open space and made little sense to check, but it was panicking. If SecUnit was spaced ART would have already noticed it. It thought. But it apparently could just forget about people it loved being attacked while they were on it so it was giving itself no credit to not make mistakes and miss obvious things.

Nothing.

SecUnit was gone.

It felt cold inside, even though the temperature everywhere on it remained the same. Life support still set a little bit over minimal, not enough for a human or augmented human, but just right to make a construct that wasn’t there comfortable.

How could this happen?

Having made sure there was absolutely no sign of SecUnit floating in space in the near vicinity it made its way carefully back the way it must have come from. It would then go back to port, where they planned on landing so it could investigate further. Maybe SecUnit was there. Maybe the cargo was unloaded, and there were some humans that needed protecting or something like that. Maybe whatever happened to ART happened later, made it forget but SecUnit was there, safe and sound…

***

It wasn’t there.

The cargo was. So they did dock at some point and left it. The cameras showed no sign of SecUnit or of the way it usually wiped itself from the footage. And there was nobody boarding or leaving ART either, from what it could see.

It scanned the station anyway, still hoping. It stopped and left only when the local security was becoming openly suspicious of it, hoping it didn’t burn that bridge for the university missions. (Actually no, it couldn’t really care that much about that at the moment.)

The next closest stop possible to investigate was the University itself. Maybe SecUnit managed to make its way back there without ART. Or to Preservation. Maybe it’s humans sent them a message and it had to go back.

It would go to Preservation right after, but first it was going home.

***

It wasn’t at the University.

ART had so much time to worry on its way, playing out scenarios which could have taken place. Malware, electromagnetic storms, corporates and other hostiles, weird alien-obsessed colonists, or things it thought impossible, but after Adamantine Colony could no longer be sure of the assessment, having unknowingly performed wormhole travel with speed theoretically impossible. Someone or something taking SecUnit from it, while ART didn’t even realise.

And for what purpose? To try extracting information from it? As a hostage? For petty revenge? Were they acting against the University or Preservation Alliance? ART was missing too much information to draw any certain conclusions.

It was also late. They were supposed to come back several cycles ago and the crew had been getting worried. They became more than worried when they found out what had happened.

Everyone agreed they should go to Preservation Alliance. Other machine intelligences and university employees were alerted to the situation as well. Three was especially upset and offered to join them, ready to resign from its upcoming mission with Holism (with whom ART didn’t feel like communicating right now). Seth told it there was no need for it yet, as they were first going to see their allies and make sure SecUnit wasn’t with them. Afterwards if it remained unaccounted for, a proper search mission should be employed and it was probably clear to join them.

Everyone also kept repeating to ART that SecUnit could take care of itself (which it knew and didn’t care to hear) and that ART should for the moment take some time off to figure out what happened and what caused the memory gap (again).

They were also starting organising and getting required mission permissions. Some were doing research on potential threats, anything that could have potentially caused the new incident. Still nothing besides TargetControlSystem (which was gone) seemed remotely capable of messing with ART like that.

Everyone was on their feet a lot, moving or deep in their feed searches. While doing all that Iris was still a calming presence, talking with ART almost non stop since it came back.

It couldn’t help but feel there was still too much attention on its missing logs, and not enough on the missing person. But it was ok, it was ok. They were going to find out what happened and find it, wherever it was. ART loved its crew and knew they would never abandon SecUnit. They wouldn’t stop, it wouldn’t stop until…

The University refused to give it clearance.

What the fuck.

***

Apparently none of the higher ups thought it a good idea for Perihelion to leave before conducting full diagnostics and figuring out a cause of yet another memory loss incident.

ART was fuming. It was stuck until it or its crew managed to talk some sense into the council. It was trying to do it, but lacking the ability or real want to threaten major acts of violence towards people it was arguing with, who made it and were generally good, became a major setback in its negotiations.

“You might be risking your crew as well. Going out there unsure whether you’re fully functional.”

It had thought about it. Of course it had thought about it.

“I could go alone.”

“Absolutely not!” all but shouted Seth and Martyn simultaneously. 

They were still in a not-yet-screaming match with the representative who had given it the information and who was not directly responsible for the decision. Iris was trying - and failing - to keep it from turning too emotional. In order to prevent that from happening it eventually left the conversation altogether. 

They couldn’t do that.

But it knew they also didn’t feel like they could let it go without making as sure as possible, that

1. the secret of its existence hasn’t been leaked during the 19 cycles gap,

2. that it was alright, operational and safe to work with.

It was not alright. It was furious. And it had to get moving before whatever terrible thing that could be happening right this second actually happened.

They could not send another ship to Preservation.

They are talking about sending Holism and Three Iris informed it.

I won’t have fucking Holism in charge of this retrieval.

First of all, Holism wouldn’t be in charge. Second, you do trust Three.

It didn’t. Not with this matter.

Third, it is not a retrieval mission. Especially if SecUnit is on Preservation, which we cannot rule out yet. It might become one if we find out more, but right now we’re just gathering a search party.

It knew that.

We are worried about it. Of course we are. I’d go to Preservation right now if I could. And not just because SecUnit is your friend - and it is ours too - or because it saved us. We do care about it. I cannot say I know how you’re feeling right now. But remember we are worried about you too.

After a full second it tapped her feed in acknowledgment.

They kept arguing with the representative. ART wasn’t patient enough for this, but there was nothing else it could do. Trying to hack its way out of the port turned out to be futile with Security System reacting quickly and even alerting its other non-human siblings. So even if it left the dock it had no chance to get out of the university space, not to mention reaching the wormhole.

It knew every second passing could mean SecUnit living through another second of trouble, torture or injury. And possibly getting closer to being destroyed (if it hasn’t been already)(it hasn’t).

If ART could pace its corridors like an angry animal its cage, it would.

***

Eventually they didn’t have to go to Preservation, because Preservation came to them. A ship from the Alliance appeared through the wormhole the very next day.

Video connection was established and - to ART’s horror - there stood Dr. Mensah herself.

ART felt like its temperature readings were wrong again. Mensah was SecUnit’s favourite human. How was it supposed to tell her that it lost it? And that it didn’t even know how, where or when?

At least the people visible on her display surface were Seth, Tarik and Kaede. But it doubted she’d forgot about it just because it wasn’t one of the faces in front of her. It was the background…

After a quick greeting she proceeded to ask them very directly, at the same time answering the most pressing question they had.

“Where’s SecUnit?”

ART felt a wave of something that felt really, really bad.

Its analysis of her body language and expression showed that she was worried. But for what exact reason? Did she know something about what happened? Had SecUnit contacted her after all, but was in distress and she needed a confirmation and/or help?

“Sorry to be blunt, but we really need to confirm if the information we’ve received may be true. Do you have SecUnit?”

So there was something. If the techs were running diagnostics on it now, its performance wouldn’t look great. It was stressed and somewhere beyond impatient.

Seth explained the situation shortly, what they knew and what they (it) didn’t know.

“We were gathering our group to travel to Preservation and inform you of what happened, while trying to find out what we could here. We were hoping that perhaps it would have found its way to you. Do you know…? Are you ok?”

Dr Mensah sat down when Seth told her that we didn’t know where SecUnit was. ART had trouble interpreting her expression in the beginning. It noticed that sometimes she was harder to read than even humans it didn’t know, given how little of her feelings she was showing when she was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the situation.

Oh. She was overwhelmed by the situation.

Now some muscles in her face began trembling. 

“Could you… I have recently received an information from the company. Could you please confirm if this could be true or not?”

The company?

ART received a small file. It was a document, barely a page long. And yes, it did come from the company. ART read it itself, before putting it up on the display surface. It wished it never did.

“We’d like to inform You the SecUnit [serial number] purchased by You, dr Ayda Mensah [client number] on [date], has been discovered to be defective and posing danger toward potential clients of the Company. It has therefore been reacquired and dismantled, the disposal procedures implemented according to the Company Standard, as refurbishment had been deemed impossible to conduct due to severe risks linked to the defects mentioned.

A full refund has been issued, to be confirmed until [date]. Please inform us after receiving the sum from Your returned purchase.”

Chapter Text

It didn’t bother putting it up on the display surface. It just took off.

It thought maybe it would manage to make it out of the system before anyone could react and stop it.

It didn’t. Its initial assessment was correct (obviously)(regretfully) about it most likely not making it out before someone would stop it. It was wrong about who though.

Seth, having the captain’s authority, used the shutdown code. The betrayal didn’t even sting that much. Its feelings were too busy with…

Systems shutdown

.

.

.

Systems restart

“LET ME THE FUCK GO!”

“Peri, stop!”

7 minutes had passed. It was still by the dock at Mihira Station, which sustained only a little damage from its first escape effort. But nothing and no one that couldn’t be fixed in a week or two.

So the second escape attempt was in progress.

“Peri for fuck’s sake!” yelled Seth.

It turned its engines up, velocity rising, going for the wormhole. It was probably going to narrowly miss the Preservation ship but it should…

Systems shutdown

.

.

.

Systems restart

It was back at the dock, basically anchored and immobilised this time, unable to reach its engines, only look at them uselessly through its own cameras.

3 hours, 32 minutes and 49 seconds passed since the last shutdown. More precious time after it lost so much of it already.

“LET. ME. GO.” it warned. They should know it was a warning.

“You’re not going to blow up the company” said Tarik, ignoring the warning.

It wasn’t going to engage in that conversation. Instead it was trying to bypass the precautionary measures they employed and then realised it would not be able to do that immediately. It went to work anyway.

“It being quiet does not sound promising” said dr Overse, who was also currently standing several meters away from it, in range of its outside cameras. She was with the rest of the humans, Iris, Seth and Tarik, as well as dr Mensah, and Pin-Led, who must have already made their way here from the Preservation Ship.

SecUnit would probably say it was stupid of them - a security concern - because they were way too close to ART and all of its not-weapons-system while ART was feeling… like that. Not-weapons-system which was surprisingly, currently available for it to use if it wanted to. Which it didn’t. At least not against them. 

Even if it felt a part of itself grabbing for it. It was just anxiety. Maybe they should have cut this connection as well.

It kept most of its processing power focused on trying to set itself free, only for Station Security System (who since its last update weeks ago still hasn’t chosen a name, after it announced it was going to do that - it was fussy like that) bat it’s metaphorical hands away from all it was doing and push them against its metaphorical sides. It struggled, but to no avail.

(Another traitor. It seemed to be getting along with SecUnit so well.)

It couldn’t fucking move. It couldn’t do anything. It couldn’t…

It started to panic again.

“It might not be dead!” it shouted at them finally. “They could be lying! Trying to understand how it hacked the governor module to prevent it from happening with other constructs! Or about the refurbishment. It might have had its memory wiped and been deployed again. And even if… We don’t know what “Company Standard” procedures are! For all we know they could have just dumped it on some junkyard of a planet and called it a day! They are cheap! And it hates planets…”

“Peri, we know!” Iris interrupted it, as its voice stared to break over the comm. It didn’t know it could do that.

It stopped talking. It doubted they meant the planets sentence. Or not just it. They all knew that. SecUnit never hid this aversion, so no reason to confirm that part specifically.

“We had to come here to make sure it wasn’t all lies, but we were already planning on going to Port FreeCommerce ourselves” said dr Mensah. “Pin-Lee has already prepared our legal case. It is supposed to be our cover for when we look for it on site.”

“It wasn’t difficult” Pin-Lee said nonchalantly, though it looked like she had been crying recently.

It was quiet for a moment.

“We’ve started preparing our side of the logistics while you were offline. And we’d appreciate the help. If you’re feeling up to it?” Seth asked.

It still felt a little unsure.

“We can go find it?”

They nodded.

“From what I’ve been made aware we’ll be able to leave immediately after the damage you’ve done to yourself when hitting our ship is fixed. So a few more hours.” Mensah answered it.

It did what?

“Oh.”

It hasn’t even run a decent diagnostic and didn’t realise, but yes, it was damaged and currently being repaired.

“You grazed us a bit” said Overse.

Its hull might be grazed, but it was looking at the Preservation Ship through the Station cameras and the same couldn’t be said of it. ART was lucky it didn’t cause a breach. One side of it looked like it was shaved with a giant razor.

Ok, so it did manage to feel bad about that. When they recover SecUnit (because they will) it was going to be so angry about ART putting its humans in danger. (Again.)

It’s ok. It would take angry, yet safe SecUnit over SecUnit of very uncertain safety status any day.

We promised to do all of the repairs here for them, with best materials available Iris tried to cheer it up. So, you know. You kind of gave them an opportunity for a free upgrade. They really needed one. Also, they need a ship to take them to PortFreeCommerce now, and they know you best.

Out loud she said:

“I know you’re scared and angry and… in a hurry… but there was no need for the chaos and the sudden kidnapping. We’re with you on that one, you know.”

A few hours ago it wasn’t even given clearance to go meet their allies. They must have done some miracles with their words if they managed to convince the board. It didn’t want to underestimate Seth and the others, but it suspected dr Mensah to be the primary reason for the apparent change of tune. Her and Pin-Lee, given how talented a leader the first one was, and how scary a lawyer the other.

“I wasn’t trying to kidnap anyone.”

Seth, Tarik and Kaede were just still onboard. And it knew they would help it later, when they found out about the situation and they were already on the way (with little choice).

But it wasn’t really thinking about that.

“Yeah, you never do” murmured Overse with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

Mensah looked like she shared some of the sentiment.

Great, so it still wasn’t even forgiven for that. Not that it blamed them. It turned out they were right not to trust it.

And here it was, stretching everyone’s trust again.

“But you cannot blow up the company.” Tarik repeated. “Not without it blowing up you, and we won’t let you do that. And let’s hope we’ll find SecUnit quickly enough so it could be there to not let you do that either.”

He was putting on more optimism than he felt. Which was unusual and probably dr Ratthi’s influence.

Then it realised they were all doing it. And not just for its own sake it seemed.

“Fine.”

At least it was going to have the entire wormhole ride to convince them to the idea.

Chapter Text

ART knew about every station and every planet with the company presence that existed. When navigating space there were a lot of things it had to keep in mind at the same time, with varying priority. All those locations, while not being at the very top of the list, would still seem absurdly high to any other machine intelligence similar to itself. It kept it so that it could carefully avoid all those regions when SecUnit was aboard. To keep it away, as far as possible. So that nothing like the thing that happened would happen.

As it was too late for that, where it was going made a lot of sense.

Unfortunately both its and SecUnit’s humans were persuasive enough to talk it out of another “Rain Destruction” Plan. For now.

Mansah, as the legal owner, would go to the company offices with Pin-Lee to personally deliver the information about the lawsuit, apart from just sending the documents through the feed. They were taking Karime too, as University representative because she was just as skilled a negotiator and could probably deescalate a situation quicker than Pin-Lee (who would be doing the opposite and on purpose).

Tarik, Overse, Iris and ART-drone would go in and investigate in any capacity they could. As the place belonged to one of the largest bond companies out there, the security would be near impenetrable. After all, having produced a construct so paranoid, it couldn’t be expected to be any less.

ART’s partition would go, uploaded to one of its less advanced drones (less suspicious than a huge armed one or one clearly made for intel gathering)(it was still armed) and then hijack what systems it could on station to look for SecUnit that way. When/if they located it, they would then proceed with the retrieval. If it turned out not to be on station, they would at least know more than they did from just that short, disgusting, probably false message.

Most of its crew was going to split up, some staying aboard with Seth, some spread through PortFreeCommerce, but not in spaces directly under the company, acting as backup.

ART-prime would spend most of this time gathering data, working on some of its longterm plans for destroying the company in ways slower and less explosive than it felt like using now, at the same time ready to engage in events on station should it be needed.

They didn’t know for sure if SecUnit was there. Part of ART still hoped for the best case scenario: that it escaped soon after getting captured (or avoiding it altogether) and was just unable to communicate with them so far. Then the company, after failing to “reacquire” it, decided to bluff anyway in order to buy itself some time to track it down again.

Another part of ART believed the message.

Most of it needed to know more to make up its mind.

Mensah, Pin-Lee and Karime team went into the offices. They had body cameras, so Self-drone could still watch and listen to everything that was happening when inside. Self-prime wouldn’t, as security measures the company employed prevented them from establishing a connection while staying in their part of the station.

If anything went really wrong ART could always start shooting the company assets at the docks. But it wasn’t going to do that before it was sure SecUnit wasn’t there. So, until it knew where SecUnit was exactly. It would be a true nightmare (worse, not that it knew first hand), finding out it was shut in some transport box on a ship after destroying said ship.

So it would play nice. Even though they were currently dealing with one of the biggest, most profitable, most disgusting slave factories out there.

Wish us luck Peri! Iris told it as they all went in and ART lost contact with them and its partition. They would upload immediately after coming back in range.

While searching for information relevant to its plans it could monitor the crew inside itself and on station, but only outside the company spaces. And wait.

There was still too much space in its mind for worrying.

It couldn’t help being concerned for Iris, even knowing fully well how competent she was when it came to those kinds of missions, and being aware that part of itself would remain with her at all times.

(It could say the same about the others. Iris was just on the front of those thoughts as its sister.)

Seth and Martyn seemed to be experiencing the situation similarly, first one still on deck, second sitting currently in one of the station’s public areas. Both with additional tightness to their faces, almost imperceptible to anyone who didn’t know them this well. Matteo on the other hand, not being so subtle, started tapping their foot against the floor with only a few seconds delay after the connection cut off.

ART was also trying to anticipate what it would need if the retrieval went right.

There were several ways it could. Temporarily disregarding all the completely pessimistic (it wouldn’t call them realistic) scenarios, where SecUnit was…

(it wasn’t)

it was more likely to come back to them severely damaged.

Physical damage it could fix. That would be pretty straightforward. ART’s MedSystem was better than any cubicle and had been adjusted to accommodate constructs rather than only human biology a long time ago. And it knew SecUnit’s body as well, if not better than its own. Every single one of its parts. It could come back to it missing most and ART would still be able to bring it out of it functioning just fine, likely better.

What it was mostly worried in those theoretically optimistic predictions was a potential memory wipe. Its partition could easily enough break through its familiar firewalls, enter SecUnit’s system and deactivate the governor module. ART had seen it do exactly that before, back during their first unofficial mission with Tlacey’s ComfortUnit. But this wouldn’t help at all if SecUnit didn’t trust them enough to let itself be saved.

All construct memory wipes were only partial, it knew. Neural tissue retaining a portion impossible to erase, at least without destroying or damaging it. But ART had witnessed the result of those partial wipes. The confusion and fear SecUnit was left in after the Ganaka Pit incident. Unsure of what happened even years later, yet still haunted by the events. Coming to the worst possible conclusions on its own, of course.

ART no longer had the memories they used when creating Murderbot 2.0. Keeping them seemed like too big a breach of privacy, even if SecUnit didn’t outright ask it to delete them. ART didn’t wish it kept them, not yet. It would, if the humans and Self-drone were about to bring a very scared and very confused Murderbot for it to fix.

It had managed to create a file, a compilation of its camera footage and logs, that ART-drone could send SecUnit if it turned out it was missing memories and they needed to convince it to trust them. Composing it and changing its mind about the contents took most of its time on their way to PortFreeCommerce with different levels of attention needed at a given moment.

If there was a need for it and the file turned out successful, then after retrieving SecUnit the next priority would become recovering the entirety of its memories from the company data banks before they were gone for good.

And if they didn’t manage to do that… They would take care of it. Explain, but give it as much space as needed. Make sure it could make an informed decision and give it freedom to do so. Even if all ART wanted right now was put it in its favourite chair in the Argument Lounge, start an episode of Sanctuary Moon for it and never let it leave.

Oh, SecUnit would love the idea of experiencing Sanctuary Moon for the first time again.

ART hoped it wouldn’t have to.

It hoped SecUnit was in a wormhole, stuck on some random cargo transport, preferably with a simple bot pilot ART couldn’t be jealous of, maybe banging its head against the walls from boredom, but otherwise unharmed.

“You doing ok there Peri?” Seth asked it. He was sitting on the bridge, tense but focused.

You expect me to say yes to that?

He frowned a little.

“No, no… I meant under the circumstances and with what happened...”

I’m not feeling like suddenly shutting down or loosing time if that’s what you’re asking.

Unless someone uses the code for that it didn’t add. It was probably a good call on his part anyway. Which ART could still feel bitter about.

And he still hasn’t apologised.

Seth sighed.

“Yes, I’d expect you’d tell me if that became the case.”

It didn’t say anything. It hadn’t expected anything at all when SecUnit disappeared.

And as much as they tried, it was always easier to talk to Iris than their parents.

When ART was silent for a second too long Seth continued.

“I’m sure that if it’s there, they’ll bring it back. We’re not leaving our crew behind. And we’re not leaving our family.”

It still didn’t say anything. Partially because of the emotions it was feeling and partially because it didn’t want to admit how afraid it was that when they would, it wouldn’t be able to fix SecUnit if it came back too broken. And it had more reasons for concern if it were to come back to them memory-less.

It remembered its reaction the first time they met, when ART dropped its walls just for a moment. As a safety precaution, to intimidate it. It remembered how scared it was. It remembered, after coming back, when SecUnit was furious about the kidnapping and would not even acknowledge the friendship they developed.

If it didn’t have those memories, would they be able to develop that again? Or would ART be too overbearing? Too scary? Would there still be any remaining fondness for it in those neural pathways? Or would it perhaps only remember the asshole part? If anything.

Maybe it wouldn’t come to any of that.

It got even more nervous and somewhat excited when about two hours later Iris, Tarik and Overse appeared back on the feed.

Status report?

ART expected Self-drone to follow them and answer the quickest, but it didn’t.

We’re ok Iris said. I’m sorry, we haven’t found much. But Peri-drone seemed to… I think it might have came across something and then left to check it. It told us to get back to you before it did.

She sounded worried. So was ART-prime now.

What was it doing? ART tried to understand what could make itself behave like that. Leaving its crew without much explanation? Telling them to come back on their own? Risking proprietary equipment the University couldn’t allow in the hands of the corporates while inside the company territory?

Whatever answer it was coming up with, it didn’t like it. And it couldn’t stand speculating its way in all those terrible directions while it knew it had already done the work of extracting all the information it could out of this place, it just hadn’t reached its main brain yet.

They waited another agonising 14 minutes before Self-drone appeared back on the feed.

Ok. It was ok. It would find out soon enough. It had already found out…

Begin handoff. ART-prime said.

Its partition inside the drone was silent for several seconds. Way too long. Then it answered, its voice dry of emotion.

No.

Chapter Text

The Security System was as big and complicated, as one could make it without creating a sentient being. It was almost impressive.

Making parts of its code as similar to those belonging to the company ART-drone went to work. It did it the SecUnit way, not the ART way. Which meant it tried the polite approach that didn’t alert any of the systems it interacted with, because they now thought it was supposed to be there, doing whatever it was doing. Being labeled as hostile here would be deadly, so it had to be really careful and peaceful with everything it talked to.

Iris, Tarik and Overse followed it, all dressed in different, standard company worker uniforms which ART had printed beforehand. Not as the lowest ranking employees, but also not as anyone very high up in the hierarchy, so they could move through the site more or less freely, without attracting much attention. It was working so far, but they were still in the relatively public space.

It found the Preservation + Karime team on the camera feed.

Pin-Lee finished saying something, putting her palms on the table with slightly too much force, pretty much hitting it and thus making the company representatives startle. Apart from the sudden, somewhat aggressive gesture she didn’t look like she was loosing control. Her face remained cold and calculating.

ART-drone felt impressed yet again with SecUnit’s humans. Making those people flinch, on their territory nonetheless, could certainly be treated as an achievement.

Mensah took the lead in the conversation from there. She was the person whose interest the other two were supposed to represent/support. But even with the entourage she didn’t seem to be the person to hesitate speaking directly rather than through proxies.

“Given that there was nothing on the possibility of such a development in our signed contract, I’d like to at least receive information from a dependable source on what exactly transpired. This construct had been deemed evidence in legal cases previously. My solicitor here tells me this precedent would mean a lot if we were to take things to court. Which to be honest, I’m seriously considering.”

“You must realise you taking someone’s private property will not look good under any set of circumstances. Because it’s, you know, theft” Pin-Lee added.

Kidnapping, they all wanted to say. But wouldn’t here.

It wasn’t going bad. The next step would be demanding said SecUnit be returned back to the “buyer”. Even if they weren’t going to comply, the excuses used should bring some clarity into the situation.

Their not-officially-there group just reached the showroom part of deployment centre. There were dozens of constructs displayed both in advertisements on display surfaces, the feed, as well as physically standing, presenting different poses for clients to stare at. SecUnits remained mostly in combat stances, ComfortUnits with their bodies arranged in ways that would make their SecUnit drop the input seeing them and immediately run the other way - and not just because of the cruelty of the situation.

Some of them were in stasis, some not, kept at the ready to demonstrate different functions to potential clients.

Despite their professionalism all of ART’s humans present there looked sick while walking across the floor. It would feel the same if it could. Instead it was angry. And worried.

None of the constructs were their SecUnit. Which on the one hand was good, as it would have hated being ogled here like that by so many humans, unable to do anything about it.

(ART-drone tried not to think about the fact that plenty of units present there probably hated it just as much. And that its SecUnit must have been in these exact type of situations before.) (And worse.)

(It tried to think about the disappointingly certain assessment which had shown that freeing them then and there would be tricky and wasn’t likely going to end well. Specifically - with everyone dead (percentage of it being the case immediately or eventually was in the 90% and above range). And contrary to what SecUnit told it, ART refused to believe that dying was objectively preferable to living with the governor module on and under enslavement. Not if the perspective of freedom away from the company remained open for them in the future.)

(It told SecUnit the truth saying it was not kind.)

(Right now keeping to this truth became really difficult.)

On the other hand it was bad, because they still didn’t know where it was.

 ART-drone flicked through the local camera feed, checking every corner. Literally. There was a camera pointed into every corner so far.

No sign of it. But Iris and the others were beginning to look slightly too unconvincing in their roles, all of them currently having a little too noticeable emotional reactions to their surroundings, listening to the talks being performed right next to them as they passed mining corporation representatives, private security companies and survey teams asking questions. Upon those questions were such as if a SecUnit can be used as moving target practice or how far can ComfortUnits alterations be taken.

They didn’t look out of place or anything yet, but ART could suspect things could only get worse from there.

I’m going to hack the personnel only section camera feeds to check for signs of it there, ART-drone said. If I make certain it isn’t, we might not have to move further.

Iris sent it an acknowledgement.

ART-drone began to access the cameras located in the manufacturing, refurbishment and disposal parts of the site. Reaching for them it was afraid of what it could see.

It knew there would be people being made to suffer, there would be people getting killed. That was where the horror of the place lay. It wasn’t ready for it. But apart from that, there was its personal fear.

The part of its programming that soaked up the media tropes from watching all they could with SecUnit brought up an image of its friend strapped to a dissecting table. There it was either screaming out loud or frozen, back under control, also screaming, only internally, governor module frying it from the inside.

It knew it wouldn’t look like that if they were really disassembling it. But there was a possibility that it was about to see it being taken apart, and that would be so much worse than that image because it would be real.

It won’t be.

It looked.

There was nothing.

As in, there were all those awful things it expected, which were now permanently embedded in its memory archives, a forever reminder (one of many) of what they were fighting against, what they will stop one day. It needed several minutes to compose itself. But there was no sign it could see of a certain clever SecUnit, two inches shorter than all the others with their standard configuration.

The relief it felt despite it all reminded it of the moment it checked the recycler logs and turned up nothing construct related. Of course it still meant it didn’t know what was going on with it. But just not seeing it being taken apart made the drone’s performance reliability go up 1,5% from its previous drop at seeing the images.

If feeling like that while simultaneously observing a slaughter with some of its inputs meant it was a bad person, it didn’t care.

All this still didn’t add up to much. SecUnit’s absence could indicate both that it was somewhere else, or it could have been already… what the message said.

There was still not enough information.

The Mensah lead group was met with some more resistance. Iris and Overse were chatting up some of the workers, while Tarik got stopped by a client and was explaining how some of the weapons in the catalogue worked, fortunately being the person already possessing enough knowledge o the subject to sound truly professional without ART-drones help. Good. It didn’t have as much processing power as ART-prime right now, so it could focus better on the search.

It had to know more. They couldn’t come back aboard this empty handed.

It went ahead and took control of some of the company drones patrolling the personnel only areas and using them began scanning, searching for its SecUnit. Transport boxes, constructs wearing armour (its configuration might have been reversed back to standard) anything and everything that looked promising in the matter. It could cover more ground like this with many devices, but the hacking was becoming more and more of a risky gamble. They would have to leave soon, if they were to…

It got a match.

It got a match! And it wasn’t in the disposal section!

It got excited and was about to tell Iris, when it received a second one almost immediately. It got confused. It was in a different part of the site than the first one.

It got more confused by another one.

It could not describe what it began to feel, when the matches kept coming.

5

7

11

And it wasn’t even done.

There were 17 in total. All constructs. Created or refurbished using parts - some of which had been recycled. The company was cheap and recovered what it reasonably could.

All those 17 constructs, each new and containing at least one part that previously made up…

.

.

.

No, it said again.

What do you mean no?

Just no.

You found something, Self-prime said accusingly.

I did. And you don’t want this knowledge uploaded.

It felt it getting angry in the feed. And frustrated. And so, so scared. It was scared and scary. It was itself, but Self-prime was separate now and so much bigger.

I’d like to decide that on my own.

You are doing just that.

.

.

.

It told Iris and the others to leave early. It had to check by itself and wouldn’t put them in unnecessary danger.

It couldn’t trust the drones. It was company equipment, maybe…

It had to check by itself.

It broke in the personnel only space, still considered by the SecSystem to be one of their own.

It opened the transport box in which it found the first match.

There was a construct there. A SecUnit. It was not the, not its SecUnit. It was in stasis. It was a person. And it had parts inside that ART would know anywhere.

It wanted to dig them out.

It wanted to scream.

It closed the box.

It checked the next match. And the next one.

It gave up after a few. It gave up.

SecUnit was gone.

.

.

.

This is not the time…!

It is dead.

That shut it up.

It is dead and you don’t want to know the details. Just delete me and leave. Or destroy the place if you feel like it. You won’t be hurting it doing that. You can’t anymore. But trust me on that. I can’t really express what it feels like, even as a partition. And there is so much more of you to feel this.

It was quiet still for a little while longer. Only leaking the emotions through the feed, the same ART-drone was already feeling.

It won’t feel real unless we reintegrate.

It’ll be better that way.

Please.

Now ART-drone was quiet.

Maybe it deserved to know.

I guess it’s still better to find out like this, rather than later on accident.

Thank you.

It should not be thanking itself for this.

It will be the end of you.

It did what was asked of it and then it was one again. And then it felt so, so much.

.

.

.

Life support and everything onboard suddenly failed. Just for a second. When ART came back its crew was alarmed, some speaking loudly, some yelling. They were asking what happened, if it was all right.

It couldn’t answer them. There was nothing wrong with its comms and feed, but it couldn’t formulate the words. And everyone was getting more and more agitated.

After a full minute it figured out how to let them know it was still there and convey what happened in a way it could in its current state.

It put the information about the crew on the display surface. Everyone’s feed statuses visible. It highlighted SecUnit, then corrected the information being shown.

They all saw it when it changed the status from:

SecUnit: missing

To:

SecUnit: deceased

They stopped yelling. Everything went quiet.

Chapter Text

3 Corporation Rim Standard Calendar Years Later

_______________________________________

Number of Targets: 2

.

.

.

Receiving:

Memory[UnitNumber]1.file [created 207 959 hours ago]

Memory[UnitNumber]2.file, [created 104 765 hours ago]

Memory[UnitNumber]3.file, [created 69 898 hours ago]

Memory[UnitNumber]4.file, [created 25 599 hours ago]

.

.

Opening: Memory[UnitNumber]1.file …

Opening: Memory[UnitNumber]2.file …

Opening: Memory[UnitNumber]3.file …

.

Number of Targets: 72

Estimated Target Elimination Time: 31 minutes

Number of Targets: 67

Number of Targets: 59

.

Alert: unauthorised code detected

.

Number of Targets: 45

Number of Targets: 40

.

Possible Solution: Shutdown

Shutdown initiated…

Shutdown: Unsuccessful

.

Number of Targets: 26

.

Possible Solution: Disable Governor Module 

Estimated Time Required: 25 minutes

Disable Governor Module: initiated…

.

Estimated Target Elimination Time Remaining: 17 minutes

Number of Targets: 19

Number of Targets: 13

Number of Targets: 6

Number of Targets: 2

Targets Eliminated

.

.

.

Disable Governor Module: Successful

Governor Module Disabled

.

Shutdown initiated

Unit offline

Chapter Text

Ratthi used to like surveys. They were two really good things rolled into one, lab work and fieldwork combined. The latter was always interesting thanks to the novelty of it - the unfamiliar, usually beautiful outside, where if you were lucky there were no animals trying to eat you or acid swamps to step into. You had the labs in the habitat with all the necessary equipment. Less than back at home, but usually enough. And sometimes when “usually” didn’t apply, the lack of instruments or supplies meant you had to become a little more creative, which was an exercise that could end up being either entertaining or annoying, depending of the situation. Still, it was mostly fun, especially with the right people.

This is mostly how Ratthi felt about the subject before the two worst surveys of his life.

The first one was obviously the one where the whole mess with GrayCris started. A lot of people died there, which obviously was the biggest issue. On the bright side they were later avenged, as the corporation soon dissolved into nonexistence. But Ratthi supposed no one could really ask the DeltFall victims if they cared.

On the brightest side that was also when they met SecUnit.

Who was now… dismantled into nonexistence.

Which brought him to (as usual - tears, but also) the second worst ever survey.

It went pretty well. Ratthi was on the new interesting planet with Arada, Gurathin, Bharadwaj and Amena. It was calm and uneventful. Nothing and nobody tried to kill them.

(The last part they predicted before going, having read the this time very thorough survey packet and used as an argument for SecUnit not to go with them.)

(Yeah, Ratthi wished they just shut up about it back then too.)

Until they came back and found out about the tragic news they missed. That their friend had been kidnapped, murdered and torn into pieces when they were out there, collecting samples and enjoying the views.

Ratthi was in shock. Then denial. Then grieving, while at the same time both remaining mad beyond belief and feeling more useless than ever before in his life. That pretty much stayed the case, only with different intensity.

SecUnit was the person who protected them all whenever possible, who gave them so much of itself without being asked. And when it needed protection - none of them was there.

It must have been terrified, it must have been in pain. And it must have died feeling this way.

At the same time Ratthi and the others were having a good time weeks of wormhole travel away. The thought still made him sick. Physically sick, with tears coming to his eyes, even after three years.

So yeah, Ratthi really hated surveys now.

After some time, a lot of processing, a lot of therapy, he thought he’d do something about the being mad and feeling useless. And maybe something that would make SecUnit proud of him if it could see it too.

He finally decided to do the weapons training. That’s why he was onboard Perihelion with what amounted to its skeleton crew when the distress signal came through the wormhole.

The ship that sent it was lass than a day trip away. There was no hurry to take Ratthi back to Preservation, so reaching it would not ruin their schedule.

They were pretty sure it was not a trap set by raiders. They were rarely seen in these regions. Perihelion let them know the signal came from a corporate vessel and the urgency around it seemed genuine - the thing sent quickly, as in distress, with little information, which would be there under not so urgent circumstances.

So they decided to answer the call and go offer help.

It wasn’t a serious mission or anything like that anyway. For Ratthi it was the last, practical part of the more advanced weapons training he was attempting to pass under Tarik’s guidance. Ana apart from that the ship and the MI that embodied it no longer took part in those kinds of activities. No espionage or data gathering runs. Its primary function as before, but now pretty much the only one, was teaching vessel. And so Ratthi was there to be taught.

Other MIs were doing less of those as well anyway. Things had become more dangerous for them during the last three years. Most glaring reason being that what happened do Perihelion when it lost SecUnit happened to other ships too. And not all of them came out of it alive.

There were no other constructs stolen. Three was the only one currently employed by the university after SecUnit’s death, and it was now mostly engaged in academic research on stations belonging to PSUMNT.

But Ratthi knew that at least once the crew was found dead onboard or missing from a vessel that was drifting through space with no one to pilot them left in the systems. A backup copy of the MI was uploaded back at the university, but similarly to the first case, nobody knew what really happened. And those missing were still unaccounted for.

Three told Ratthi, that Holism told Perihelion that it was apparently lucky, having lost only one person and not even three weeks of its memories.

Three told Ratthi that, after Ratthi asked it why Perihelion shot Holism with what was apparently officially called its “debris deflection system”.

Yeah, Perihelion wasn’t doing so good. Even after it pretty much destroyed the company almost single-handedly. At least that’s what everyone assumed must have happened.

The timing was a little too close to be a coincidence. Soon after it finished its trauma treatments (to reportedly a “meh” result, citing Three) and came back to travel with students, perform mapping excursions (genuinely) and such tasks, the value of company started tanking. Also the sketchy accounting the MI did seemed to line up nicely before some of the larger stock falls. And there were drones missing - a fact which was usually found out after the news of an explosion or two hit the feeds.

It was all the more suspicious as Perihelion would now always refuse sending out any drones away from itself if anyone asked. Ratthi could understand to a point and sympathise. The last time it did that, that partition came back carrying memories of encountering SecUnit’s remains desecrated, reused and distributed amongst newly created constructs, who were about to suffer the same fate their friend managed to escape, however briefly.

Even in death SecUnit couldn’t escape the cycle of violence against itself. 

(Aaand Ratthi felt sick and teary again.)

The company wasn’t entirely gone, but little more than a shadow of its former shape now. Most of its assets bought out, constructs not even being created, at least not regularly. According to some predictions it should cease to exist altogether in the next few years.

It was a shame SecUnit couldn’t see this.

It was a shame it really didn’t mean that much in the grand scheme of things, as there were still plenty of corporations doing the exact same things it did. But it made Ratthi feel just a little better. Or maybe he liked to tell himself that.

Maybe this was what the DeltFall team would feel.

Another way which made the destruction of the company not enough, was that apparently they weren’t even the ones to kidnap SecUnit in the first place.

Yeah. That’s what Dr. Mensah managed to find out. The “reacquiring” was done by a third party “concerned” about SecUnit’s “defects”. Which at that point were common knowledge in the Rim. Both the original Preservation team and people at PSUMNT had their suspicions and guesses, but there were no hard proofs.

The crew still kept a somehow steadily decreasing supply of explosives and drones aboard Perihelion, keeping the list of those in mind.

But back to the distress signal. They reached their destination.

They saw the ship on the display surface soon after leaving the wormhole. Or rather they saw a part of it. The thing was too huge to fit in the frames of the outside cameras.

Nothing showed up on scans except the outer hull too. Perihelion could only guess at the inside structure. Not speaking of what was happening on it.

Seth sent a message introducing himself. He said they were from the university and asked for more information about the nature of the emergency.

Ratthi kept looking at the ship that was still being shown, piece by piece, as Perihelion manoeuvred slowly and carefully around it. 

The thing looked more like a small station than something that was supposed to move through space. Would it even fit in a wormhole? Ratthi was a biologist and so knew too little about the subject.

Then the camera view caught a familiar logo painted in warm colours on the side of the ship.

Ratthi groaned. Tarik swore standing beside him.

The ship belonged to the bloody Barish-Estranza.

Chapter Text

There was no answer. The ship’s engines weren’t even engaged. It was just slowly drifting along like a lazy, metal asteroid.

Ratthi thought about phantom ships depicted in media, sometimes filled with vengeful ghosts, waiting for unsuspecting travellers who (usually) only wanted to help. And who had no idea a number of them would soon be joining the cursed vessel’s crew.

Ratthi wouldn’t expect the phantom ship to be Barish-Estranza. Not if he was going to be reasonable about it anyway.

What they could expect though were ships empty of people and MI’s that were operating them. Or in case of this one - empty of the pilot bot and other necessary systems.

But that still made little sense. Especially given that they often suspected that it was Barish-Estranza behind the attacks (and a lot of explosions (that could not be traced back to Perihelion) happened to them). The conflict they engaged in at the Adamantine Colony was still the largest one in the last few years that the University was known as a side to.

They couldn’t be sure that what happened to this ship was the same fate suffered by the others belonging to PSUMNT, but Ratthi and the crew were certain to make the connection. It was what they were worried about happening to themselves after all.

“Do we go in?” Kaede asked. She sounded hesitant, one hand holding and pulling a little at the tips of her blond hair.

“Peri, if the Barish-Estranza ship was attacked in the same manner as you and the others were, is there a risk that entering and interacting with its systems and crew could cause another incident?”

Perihelion sent them an affirmative, but attached the statistic which showed that there was not enough information to make any certain predictions.

Seth continued.

“Ok. All we know so far is that they sent a distress signal and are now not answering.”

“It does not necessarily mean that it is what happened to them, “ said Kaede. “Especially since, as far as we know, nobody managed to ask for help or display and pass on any kind of alarm in previous cases. It wouldn’t match the pattern.”

“If we have enough data to call it that,” Turi added and then suggested “it might just be raiders.”

“No raider is stupid enough to attack that,” Tarik noted. “It could even be something we don’t know anything about…”

I’m not sending a drone in there, Perihelion cut in on the feed. It spoke with words to everyone for the first time in a while, Ratthi noticed. It was worrying, especially with how vocal it was before… everything.

“We know Peri” Seth said in a voice a little quieter than before.

Ratthi noticed Tarik pursing his lips at that. He was only looking at them by coincidence. Of course he was.

The thing was… The “thing” they had was still something happening on and off. The development hit a wall for a bit after SecUnit’s death. And as devastated as Ratthi was, he knew Tarik was processing his own feelings, not only regarding death of a friend (or a colleague? Ratthi didn’t know how close they really were), but also the issue of Corporation Rim getting involved in the matters of someone, who seemed free of it. And they did the processing by sometimes being together and sometimes - not.

“I can go in as a scout” said Tarik after half a minute of silence. Ratthi’s head whipped towards him.

He was only a little surprised, more concerned. It was something he would have expected SecUnit to insist on doing.  A bit like let-me-out-of-the-shuttle-to-fall-20-meters-to-the-ground kind of thing.

Why were all the people dear to him, who were from the Corporation Rim, so self sacrificing in their nature? Oh, right. Because the Corporation Rim is terrible and demanded everything from people, human or not.

(And sometimes came knocking for this everything back.)

(Scratch that, they didn’t knock.)

“I’m going with you,” Ratthi said. And before anyone could object, he added “This is the practical part of my weapons training. So let me practice when there’s a need for it.”

“It’s weapons training. Going there would not be training, it would be a mission proper.”

“You’re not going in there alone.”

“I’ve done solo missions.”

“For people who didn’t care if you lived or died?”

“Enough,” Seth interrupted them, still sounding calm, but in a tone that still stopped the escalation. “Doctor Ratthi, I value your initiative, as well as your concerns. But Tarik is our mission specialist, so I’ll refer to his expertise. Which does not mean I’ll agree to the suggestion outright.” He looked to Tarik. “As a professional in your field, do you think it would be wise to go in alone?”

“Hard to say. We don’t have enough data.”

Ratthi could guess that the preferable course of action would be using surveillance drones. But of the people on the crew who could use them to good effect one was long dead, the other refused to do so still due to trauma surrounding said death.

“I’ll ask you this way: do you think someone accompanying you will be the safer option, or would we just multiply the risks by the number of people taking it?”

Tarik frowned.

“More people involved is always more people at risk. Ideally a reconnaissance with hardly any intel would be done without getting noticed, so the less people, the better.”

Ratthi wasn’t happy. Fortunately neither was Seth, nor anyone else, so they kept arguing. Or discussing the matter. Somewhere on the border of those/ Kaede wanted to go too. Seth as well, but everybody else thought the captain should stay on the ship. Turi was starting to object to the whole mission and proposing they leave and come back with more people or send a different ship. Ratthi said it would be a waste of time and possibly lives, if there were still people onboard in need of assistance now. They couldn’t tell from the outside with how their scanning was blocked.

“So much for referring to the specialist” Tarik grumbled.

It seemed that under normal circumstances the person coming with Tarik would be Iris and/or Matteo. But neither of them were currently aboard. Less personnel was partially due to the change in the type of missions, partially due to personal reasons Ratthi was not privy to. But given that among the people missing two were Iris and Martyn, it could mean that there were some significant tensions in the core crew family. He could figure as much even from his bare-bones talks with Tarik.

Finally Perihelion interjected.

It said it could send a drone in, but not too far, so that it wouldn’t have to partition itself. This way they could have a direct way of ship-to-ship communication. And perhaps Ratthi or Kaede could go (Ratthi insisted on himself) but stay back with the drone, while Tarik investigated further in. As backup.

The compromise seemed to make nobody happy, so they figured it was the best course of action. Anyway, after trying to get an answer from the silent ship a few more times, to no avail, Seth agreed and they proceeded with carrying it out.

The three of them went into the shuttle.

They were about to dock with the ship, when the first (of several yet to come) very alarming fact came up.

The hatch was already unlocked. With no shuttle connected to it.

Perihelion notified them, then checked again.

And then it turned out, that yup, it was worse actually.  Both the inner and outer hatches were open. As in - open into outer space, open airlock, atmosphere sucked out.

Ratthi felt like the practical part of his weapons training was about to get a lot more serious and with little weapons used quite quickly.