All Systems Red

Chapter Seven

SO AT THE APPOINTED time the next day, Mensah and I were flying toward the rendezvous point.

Gurathin and Pin-Lee had taken one of my drones and rebuilt it with a limited scanning attachment. (Limited because the drone was too small for most of the components a longer and wider range scanner would need.) Last night I had sent it into upper atmosphere to give us a view of the site.

The location was near their survey base, which was only about two kilos away, a habitat similar to DeltFall’s. By the size of their habitat and the number of SecUnits, including the one Mensah had taken out with a mining drill, they had between thirty and forty team members. They were obviously very confident, but then, they’d had access to our hub and they knew they were dealing with a small group of scientists and researchers, and one messed-up secondhand SecUnit.

I just hoped they didn’t realize how messed up I actually was.

When the hopper picked up the first blip of scanner contact, Mensah hit the comm immediately. “GrayCris, be advised that my party has secured evidence of your activities on this planet, and hidden it in various places where it will transmit to the pickup ship whenever it arrives.” She let that sink in for three seconds, then added, “You know we found the missing map sections.”

There was a long pause. I was slowing us down, scanning for incoming weapons, even though the chances were good they didn’t have any.

The comm channel came alive, and a voice said, “We can discuss our situation. An arrangement can be made.” There was so much scanning and anti-scanning going on the voice was made of static. It was creepy. “Land your vehicle and we can discuss it.”

Mensah gave it a minute, as if she was thinking it over, then answered, “I’ll send our SecUnit to speak to you.” She cut the comm off.

As we got closer we had a visual on the site. It was a low plateau, surrounded by trees. Their habitat was visible to the west. Because the trees encroached on their camp site, their domes and vehicle landing pad were elevated on wide platforms. The company required this as a security feature if you wanted your base to be anywhere without open terrain around it. It cost extra, and if you didn’t want it, it cost even more to guarantee your bond. It was one of the reasons I thought my great idea would work.

In the open area on the plateau were seven figures, four SecUnits and three humans in the color-coded enviro suits, blue, green, and yellow. It meant they had one SecUnit and probably twenty seven–plus humans back at their habitat, if they had followed the rule of one rental SecUnit per ten humans. I sat us down below the plateau, on a relatively flat rock, the view blocked by brush and trees.

I put the pilot’s console on standby, and looked at Mensah. She pressed her lips together, like she wanted to say something and was repressing the urge. Then she nodded firmly and said, “Good luck.”

I felt like I should say something to her, and didn’t know what, and just stared at her awkwardly for a few seconds. Then I sealed up my helmet and got out of the hopper as fast as I could.

I went through the trees, listening for that fifth SecUnit just in case it was hiding somewhere waiting for me, but there was no sound of movement in the undergrowth. I came out of cover and climbed the rocky slope to the plateau, then walked toward the other group, listening to the crackle on my comm. They were going to let me get close, which was a relief. I’d hate to be wrong about this. It would make me feel pretty stupid.

I stopped several meters away, opened the channel and said, “This is the SecUnit assigned to the PreservationAux Survey Team. I was sent to speak to you about an arrangement.”

I felt the pulse then, a signal bundle, designed to take over my governor module and freeze it, and freeze me. The idea was obviously to immobilize me, then insert the combat override module into my dataport again.

That was why they had had to arrange the meeting so close to their hub. They had needed the equipment there to be able to do this, it wasn’t something they could send through the feed.

So it’s a good thing my governor module wasn’t working and all I felt was a mild tickle.

One of them started toward me. I said, “I assume you’re about to try to install another combat override module and send me back to kill them.” I opened my gun ports and expanded the weapons in my arms, then folded them back in. “I don’t recommend that course of action.”

The SecUnits went into alert mode. The human who had started forward froze, then backed away. The body language of the others was flustered, startled. I could tell from the faint comm static that they were talking to each other on their own system. I said, “Anyone want to comment on that?”

That got their attention. There was no reply. Not a surprise. The only people I’ve run into who actually want to get into conversations with SecUnits are my weird humans. I said, “I have an alternate solution to both our problems.”

The one in the blue enviro suit said, “You have a solution?” The voice was the same one who had made the offer in our hub. It was also very skeptical, which you can imagine. To them, talking to me was like talking to a hopper or a piece of mining equipment.

I said, “You weren’t the first to hack PreservationAux’s HubSystem.”

She had opened their comm channel to talk to me, and I heard one of the others whisper, “It’s a trick. One of the surveyors is telling it what to say.”

I said, “Your scans should show I’ve cut my comm.” This was the point where I had to say it. It was still hard, even though I knew I didn’t have a choice, even though it was part of my own stupid plan. “I don’t have a working governor module.” That over, I was glad to get back to the lying part. “They don’t know that. I’m amenable to a compromise that benefits you as well as me.”

The blue leader said, “Are they telling the truth about knowing why we’re here?”

That was still annoying, even though I knew we had allowed plenty of time for this part. “You used combat override modules to make the DeltFall SecUnits behave like rogues. If you think a real rogue SecUnit still has to answer your questions, the next few minutes are going to be an education for you.”

The blue leader shut me out of their comm channel. There was a long silence while they talked it over. Then she came back on, and said, “What compromise?”

“I can give you information you desperately need. In exchange, you take me onto the pick-up ship with you but list me as destroyed inventory.” That would mean nobody from the company would be expecting me back, and I could slip off in the confusion when the transport docked at the transit station. Theoretically.

There was another hesitation. Because they had to pretend to think it over, I guess. Then the blue leader said, “We agree. If you’re lying, then we’ll destroy you.”

It was perfunctory. They intended to insert a combat override module into me before they left the planet.

She continued, “What is the information?”

I said, “First remove me from the inventory. I know you still have a connection to our Hub.”

Blue Leader made an impatient gesture at Yellow. He said, “We’ll have to restart their HubSystem. That will take some time.”

I said, “Initiate the restart, queue the command, and then show me on your feed. Then I’ll give you the information.”

Blue Leader closed me out of the comm channel and spoke to Yellow again. There was a three-minute wait, then the channel opened again and I got a limited access to their feed. The command was in a queue, though of course they would have time to delete it later. The important points were that our HubSystem had been reactivated, and that I could convincingly pretend to believe them. I had been watching the time, and we were now in the target window, so there was no more reason to stall. I said, “Since you destroyed my clients’ beacon, they’ve sent a group to your beacon to manually trigger it.”

Even with limited access to their feed, I could see that got them. Body language all over the place from confusion to fear. The yellow one moved uncertainly, the green one looked at Blue Leader. In that flat accent, she said, “That’s impossible.”

I said, “One of them is an augmented human, a systems engineer. He can make it launch. Check the data you got from our HubSystem. It’s Surveyor Dr. Gurathin.”

Blue Leader was showing tension from her shoulders all down her body. She really didn’t want anybody coming to this planet, not until they had taken care of their witness problem.

Green said, “It’s lying.”

A trace of panic in his voice, Yellow said, “We can’t chance it.”

Blue Leader turned to him. “It’s possible, then?”

Yellow hesitated. “I don’t know. The company systems are all proprietary, but if they have an augmented human who can hack into it—”

“We have to go there now,” Blue Leader said. She turned to me. “SecUnit, tell your client to get out of the hopper and come here. Tell her we’ve come to an arrangement.”

All right, wow. That was not in the plan. They were supposed to leave without us.

(Last night Gurathin had said this was a weak point, that this was where the plan would fall apart. It was irritating that he was right.)

I couldn’t open my comm channel to the hopper or the hopper’s feed without GrayCris knowing. And we still needed to get them and their SecUnits away from their habitat. I said, “She knows you mean to kill her. She won’t come.” Then I had another brilliant idea and added, “She’s a planetary admin for a system noncorporate political entity, she’s not stupid.”

“What?” Green demanded. “What political entity?”

I said, “Why do you think the team is called ‘Preservation’?”

This time they didn’t bother to close their channel. Yellow said, “We can’t kill her. The investigation—”

Green added, “He’s right. We can hold her and release her after the settlement agreement.”

Blue Leader snapped, “That won’t work. If she’s missing, the investigation would be even more thorough. We need to stop that beacon launch, then we can discuss what to do.” She told me, “Go get her. Get her out of the hopper and then bring her here.” She cut the comm off again. Then one of the DeltFall SecUnits started forward. She came back on to say, “This Unit will help you.”

I waited for it to reach me, then turned and walked beside it down the slope of rock into the trees.

What I did next was predicated on the assumption that she had told the DeltFall SecUnit to kill me. If I was wrong, we were screwed, and Mensah and I would both die, and the plan to save the rest of the group would fail and PreservationAux would be back to where it started, except minus their leader, their SecUnit, and their little hopper.

As we left the rocky slope and turned into the trees, the brush and branches screening us from the edge of the plateau, I slung an arm around the other Unit’s neck, deployed my arm weapon, and fired into the side of its helmet where its comm channel was. It went down on one knee, swinging its projectile weapon toward me, energy weapons unfolding out of its armor.

With the combat override module in place, its feed was cut off, and with its comm down it couldn’t yell for help. Also, depending on how strictly they had limited its voluntary actions, it might not be able to call for help unless the GrayCris humans told it to. Maybe that was the case, because all it did was try to kill me. We rolled over rock and brush until I wrenched its weapon away. After that it was easy to finish it off. Physically easy.

I know I said SecUnits aren’t sentimental about each other, but I wished it wasn’t one of the DeltFall units. It was in there somewhere, trapped in its own head, maybe aware, maybe not. Not that it matters. None of us had a choice.

I stood up just as Mensah slammed through the brush, carrying the mining tool. I told her, “It’s gone wrong. You have to pretend to be my prisoner.”

She looked at me, then looked at the DeltFall unit. “How are you going to explain that?”

I started shedding armor, every piece that had a PreservationAux logo on it, and leaned over the DeltFall unit as the pieces dropped away. “I’m going to be it and it’s going to be me.”

Mensah dropped the mining tool and bent down to help me. We didn’t have time to switch all the armor. Moving fast, we replaced the arm and shoulder pieces on both sides, the leg pieces that had the armor’s inventory code, the chest and back piece with the logos. Mensah smeared my remaining armor pieces with dirt and blood and fluid from the dead unit, so if we had missed anything distinctive GrayCris might not notice. SecUnits are identical in height and build, the way we moved. This might work. I don’t know. If we ran away now the plan would fail, we had to get them off this plateau. As I resealed the helmet, I told Mensah, “We have to go—”

She nodded, breathing hard, more from nerves than exertion. “I’m ready.”

I took her arm, and pretended to drag her back toward the GrayCris group. She yelled and struggled convincingly the whole way.

When we reached the plateau, a GrayCris hopper was already landing.

As I pulled her toward Blue Leader, Mensah got in the first word. She said, “So this is the arrangement you offered?”

Blue Leader said, “You’re the planetary admin of Preservation?”

Mensah didn’t look at me. If they tried to hurt her, I’d try to stop them and everything would go horribly wrong. But Green was already getting into the hopper. Two other humans were in the pilot’s and copilot’s seats. Mensah said, “Yes.”

Yellow came toward me and touched the side of my helmet. It took a tremendous effort for me not to rip his arm off, and I’d like that noted for the record, please. He said, “Its comm is down.”

To Mensah, Blue Leader said, “We know one of your people is trying to manually trigger our beacon. If you come with us, we won’t harm him, and we can discuss our situation. This doesn’t have to go badly for either of us.” She was very convincing. She had probably been the one to talk to DeltFall on the comm, asking to be let into their habitat.

Mensah hesitated, and I knew she didn’t want it to look like she was giving in too quickly, but we had to get them out of there now. She said, “Very well.”

I hadn’t ridden in the cargo container for a while. It would have been comforting and homey, except it wasn’t my cargo container.

But this hopper was still a company product and I was able to access its feed. I had to stay very quiet, to keep them from noticing me, but all those hours of surreptitiously consuming media came in handy.

Their SecSystem was still recording. They must mean to delete all that before the pick-up transport showed up. Client groups had tried that before, to hide data from the company so it couldn’t be sold out from under them, and the company systems analysts would be on the alert for it, but I don’t know if these people realized that. The company might catch them even if we didn’t survive. That wasn’t a very comforting thought.

As I accessed the ongoing recording, I heard Mensah saying, “—know about the remnants in the unmapped areas. They were strong enough to confuse our mapping functions. Is that how you found them?”

Bharadwaj had figured that out last night. The unmapped sections weren’t an intentional hack, they were an error, caused by the remnants that were buried under the dirt and rock. This planet had been inhabited at some point in its past, which meant it would be placed under interdict, open only to archeological surveys. Even the company would abide by that.

You could make big, illegal money off of excavating and mining those remnants, and that was obviously what GrayCris wanted.

“That isn’t the conversation we should be having,” Blue Leader said. “I want to know what arrangement we can come to.”

“To keep you from killing us like you did DeltFall,” Mensah said, keeping her voice even. “Once we’re in contact with our home again, we can arrange for a transfer of funds. But how can we trust you to leave us alive?”

There was a little silence. Oh great, they don’t know either. Then Blue Leader said, “You have no option except to trust us.”

We were slowing down already, coming in for a landing. There had been no alerts on the feed and I was cautiously optimistic. We had cleared the field for Pin-Lee and Gurathin as much as we could. They had had to hack the perimeter without that one last SecUnit noticing and get close enough to access the GrayCris HubSystem feed. (Hopefully it was the last SecUnit, hopefully there weren’t a dozen more somehow in the GrayCris habitat.) Gurathin had figured out how to use the hack from their HubSystem into our HubSystem to get access, but he needed to be close to their habitat to actually trigger their beacon. That was why we had to get the other SecUnits out of there. That was the idea, anyway. Possibly it would have worked without putting Mensah in danger but it was a little late to second-guess everything.

It was a relief when we thumped down into a landing that must have made the humans’ teeth rattle. I deployed out of the pod with the other units.

We were a few kilos from their habitat, on a big rock above a thick forest, lots of avians and other fauna screaming down in the trees, disturbed by the hopper’s hard landing. Clouds had come in, threatening rain, and obscuring the view of the ring. The beacon’s vehicle was in a launch tripod about ten meters away and, uh-oh, that is way too close.

I joined the three other SecUnits as we made a standard security formation. An array of drones launched from the craft to create a perimeter. I didn’t look at the humans as they walked down the ramp. I really wanted to look at Mensah for instructions. If I was alone, I could have sprinted for the end of the plateau, but I had to get her out of there.

Blue Leader stepped forward with Green; the others gathered in a loose circle behind her, like they were afraid to get in front. One, who must have been getting reports from their SecUnits and drones, said, “No sign of anybody.” Blue Leader didn’t answer but the two GrayCris SecUnits jogged toward the beacon.

Okay, the problem is, I’ve mentioned this before, the company is cheap. When it comes to something like a beacon that just has to launch once if there’s an emergency, send a transmission through the wormhole, and then never gets retrieved, they’re very cheap. Beacons don’t have safety features, and use the cheapest possible launch vehicles. There’s a reason you put them a few kilos from your habitat and trigger them from a distance. Mensah and I were supposed to distract GrayCris and their SecUnits while this was going on, get them away from the habitat, not end up as toast in the beacon launch.

With the delay caused by Blue Leader deciding to grab Mensah, time was getting close. The two SecUnits were circling the beacon’s tripod, looking for signs of tampering, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I started to walk toward Mensah.

Yellow noticed me. He must have said something to Blue Leader on their feed because she turned to look at me.

When the remaining DeltFall SecUnit whipped toward me and opened fire, I knew the light had dawned. I dove and rolled, coming up with my projectile weapon. I was taking hits all over my armor but scoring hits on the other SecUnit. Mensah ducked around the other side of the hopper and I felt a thump rattle through the plateau. That was the beacon’s primary drive, dropping out of its casing to the bottom of the tripod, getting ready to ignite. The other two SecUnits had stopped, Blue Leader’s surprise freezing them in place.

I bolted, took a hit in a weak armor joint that went through to my thigh, and powered through it. I made it around the hopper and saw Mensah. I tackled her off the edge of the rock, turning to land on my back, curling an arm over her suit helmet to protect her head from impact. We bounced off rocks and crashed through trees, then fire washed over the plateau and knocked out my—

UNIT OFFLINE

Oh, that hurt. I was lying in a ravine, rocks and trees overhanging it. Mensah was sitting next to me, cradling an arm that looked like it didn’t work anymore and her suit was covered with tears and stains.

She was whispering to someone on the comm. “Careful, if they pick you up on their scanner—”

UNIT OFFLINE

“That’s why we need to hurry,” Gurathin said, who was suddenly standing over us. I realized I had lost some time again.

Gurathin and Pin-Lee had been on foot, making their way toward the GrayCris habitat through the cover of the forest. We had meant to go pick them up in the little hopper if everything didn’t go to shit. Which it did, but only partly, so yay for that.

Pin-Lee leaned over me and I said, “This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction. Also, I really didn’t want them to try to move me because it hurt bad enough the way it was. “Your contract allows—”

“Shut up,” Mensah snapped. “You shut the fuck up. We’re not leaving you.”

My visual cut out again. I was sort of still there, but I could tell I was hovering on the edge of a systems failure. I had flashes off and on. The inside of the little hopper, my humans talking, Arada holding my hand.

Then being in the big hopper, as it was lifting up. I could tell from the drive noise, the flashes of the feed, that the pick-up transport was bringing it onboard.

That was a relief. It meant they were all safe, and I let go.