That was satisfying. I think I’ll do it again.
But I’d taken too long and it gave Target One time to scramble up and bolt for the hatch.
I started to follow but then registered that Amena was bellowing “SecUnit, look!” at me.
I looked. On the deck, the two remaining targetDrones were flashing awkwardly placed lights; they were powering up. I sent a power down order but the key wasn’t working anymore. I stomped the first one with a boot and then caught the second as it lifted off. I smashed it on a chair, accidentally taking out a display surface in the process. The two casualties were yelling agitatedly at Amena and I had to run back my audio to understand.
Casualty One grabbed Amena’s arm and said, “You have to come with us! We have to get away, try to hide!” This close, though ART’s primary feed still wasn’t working, I could pick up some info from her interface. (Feedname: Eletra, gender: female, and an employee ID from a corporation called Barish-Estranza.)
Casualty Two (Feedname: Ras, gender: male, and another Barish-Estranza employee ID.) “Quick, before they send more drones!” He threw a look at me. I knew that look. “With your SecUnit, we have a chance.”
Amena turned to me. “We should go with them.”
I’d already sent a restart command to my dormant drones. Target One wasn’t hard for them to track since it was wounded, leaking fluid, and shrieking. (You know, if you don’t want to be manually eviscerated with your own energy weapon then maybe you shouldn’t go around killing research transports and antagonizing rogue SecUnits.)
I told Amena, “I have something I need to finish off.”
“There are too many drones,” Eletra insisted. Her gaze went from Amena to me and back again. She wasn’t sure who she had to convince. “You have to come with us!”
Amena took a step toward me, wincing as she put weight on her damaged leg. “Are they right? Can you tell if the drones are coming for us?”
Target One ran through the hatch into the crew meeting area below the bridge.
The crew meeting area where I’d spent most of my time with ART, where we watched World Hoppers. My drones caught video of another hostile already in there (designated Target Three) standing on the steps that led up to the control deck. The hatch into the meeting area started to slide down. Eight of my drones reached the hatch in time to dart under just before it closed.
The humans weren’t wrong about the targetDrones, which weren’t responding to my key commands anymore. (Which meant there was a highly motivated controlling system somewhere that had pushed through a quick security update.) I still had access to the Targets’ feed, and from the encrypted traffic, somebody was telling the targetDrones to do something. Which most likely involved converging on our position to kill us.
I said, “Probably.”
Amena waved her hands impatiently. “Then let’s go!”
I tried cutting off the targetDrones’ control feed. It confused some but others still seemed to be receiving orders. There were obviously parts of this system I couldn’t access. Working within it was like trying to operate a projectile weapon when someone had shot half my fingers off. All the data needed to be converted to other formats, nothing was right, it was a pain in the ass. To take full control of it I was going to have to start at the beginning, with penetration testing.
Exasperated, Ras said, “Just give it an order!”
Amena snapped, “It doesn’t take orders.”
I’d wanted to do this up close and personal but that wasn’t an option. The eight drones now inside the control deck with Targets One and Three were on standby near the floor, in surveillance positions. Target One had collapsed against a padded station chair, panting, both damaged arms hanging uselessly. Target Three stepped down to an inactive display surface and activated it with a hand gesture. Weird to see a human or whatever these were do it manually. They hadn’t set their non-standard encrypted feed to access ART’s systems yet.
Target Three said on the all-ship comm, “Intruders, escapees, slice them open like—”
The translator fizzled on the last few words so I guess I’d never know what I’d be sliced open like. I cut one drone out of the swarm of eight to observe, and gave the others their instructions. With the protective suit and the partial helmets, I needed to aim for the exposed face.
Target Three had time to make a gurgling noise and Target One a gaspy scream. My seven drone contacts winked out one by one. Drone Eight continued to record, sending me video of the bodies jerking helplessly, then finally dropping in leaking sprawls to the deck.
“But that’s a SecUnit—” Ras protested.
Eletra, her expression increasingly desperate, listened to the comm announcement and its abrupt end. “We have to go!”
Amena limped forward another step. She grabbed my arm and glared up at me. “Listen to me!”
I looked down at her and made deliberate eye contact because she had almost all my attention right now and the last person/target who had done that was still dripping down the bulkhead behind me. She was too self-absorbed or brave or some combination of both to realize what she was doing was not smart. She set her jaw and said, “We have to go with them. Now.”
I gently peeled her small hand off my jacket and said, “Never touch me again.”
Amena blinked and pressed her lips together, then turned to Eletra and Ras. “Let’s go.”
Eletra stepped toward the hatch. “This way—”
Ras said, “Is that thing going to listen—”
I stepped past Eletra and out the hatch in time to catch the targetDrone waiting there. I slammed it into the bulkhead and shook the remnants off my hands. Following ART’s schematic, I said, “This way.”
They followed me.
5
I called in most of my drones to take scouting positions ahead and cover positions behind us. I was taking the long way around toward Medical. The dim corridor lights brightened as we went by, an autonomic reflex. For a human, it would have been like seeing a dead body twitch. ART wasn’t here, there was no sign of its drones, but some of its lower-level functions were active, the code running even without the controlling intelligence.
An intruder system, probably some kind of bot pilot, had changed the security key for the targetDrones. And it must be guiding the ship through the wormhole. Transports just can’t do that on autopilot, at least according to World Hoppers and all the other shows about ships that I’d watched. That ART had wanted to watch.
I designated the intruder as targetControlSystem.
I hoped it was sentient enough to hurt when I killed it.
I had a lot of work to do before that point. And the image of the steaming bodies of Targets One and Three inside ART’s pristine control area was taking up way too much processing space.
I had a few scout drones still in the corridors near the control area and I told them to start mapping any motion and anomalous activity and plot it to my copy of ART’s schematic. I had to find a way to advance-detect the targetDrones.
A drone (designated: Scout Two), parked on the ceiling of the foyer outside the crew meeting area, picked up activity. More Targets converged on the foyer and tried to get the hatch open, but Target Three had apparently used a manual emergency control to seal it from the inside. The new Targets—let’s call them Four, Five, and Six—fumbled around with the controls but didn’t seem to know how to undo the seal. And whatever was going on with their weird feed and targetControlSystem, they couldn’t seem to access ART’s systems with it.