Fugitive Telemetry

Chapter Five

AYLEN MADE IT CLEAR Ratthi and Gurathin were not invited, which was fine, since Gurathin didn’t want to go and Ratthi was glad because he thought this meant that Station Security knew I didn’t have anything to do with Lutran’s death. Aylen did not make it clear that she didn’t like the fact that I was invited. It would have been easier if she had, because then I would have known where I stood, and if I should be an asshole or not.

Followed by two Station Security officers (feed IDs Farid and Tifany), the Port Authority supervisor (feed ID Gamila), and the Port Authority bot, we walked over to the end of the public docks, through the gates into the cargo section. I did a quick search on Preservation’s local (public) newsstream archive, and found out that Aylen’s title meant she was called on by Preservation authorities to investigate stuff they couldn’t figure out, both on the station and down on the planet. She also did family and workplace arbitration, which meant a lot of talking to upset humans. So, not as cool a job as the title implied.

PA Supervisor Gamila had been pulling info into her feed, and now said, “This cargo transfer has been on hold for two cycles. We were waiting for an authorization but it hadn’t shown up yet when the order to close the port came through.”

Aylen asked her, “Do you know why?”

“No idea. The ship, the Lalow, isn’t responding to messages.” Gamila sounded annoyed. “It doesn’t use modules, and there’s no record of the cargo being offloaded, so we assume it’s still aboard.”

Aylen didn’t react but my drones saw Farid and Tifany exchange significant looks. They weren’t wrong; we already had one dead human associated with this ship, there was a 42 percent chance the Lalow’s failure to respond meant something more suspicious than ignoring their Port Authority feed messages.

The cargo section of the Merchant Docks wasn’t that different from the Public Docks. There was the big space of the embarkation hall with a line of sealed docking hatches against the far bulkhead. Big cargo bots (the configuration that usually only lived on the outside hulls of stations and hauled transport-sized modules) were sitting around or hanging, dormant, from the curve of the high ceiling. The low-level specialized lifters were parked and only a scatter of humans and augmented humans wandered the stacks of pressurized containers. Large modules were pushed back against the bulkhead, waiting to be loaded and shoved out the module drop so they could be attached to transports. Most of the ships currently in dock didn’t use modules, they had cargo compartments that had to be unloaded through inconvenient specialized hatches. That wasn’t unusual for an outsystem/non-corporate political entity ship.

Preservation has high safety standards so we passed through two air walls before we got to the cargo ship’s hatch. (High safety standards are great when they’re designed to protect humans against dangerous stuff like hatch failures and hull breaches; when they’re designed to protect humans against rogue SecUnits, not so much.)

I tried a ping but only got a response from the ship’s transit ring–assigned marker, which had its docking number and the Lalow registry name. This meant no bot pilot that I could get information from. That was depressing. I had no idea what else I was supposed to do as a member of this group and just following humans around listening to them talk felt a lot like just being a SecUnit again. I mean, I am a SecUnit, but… You know what I mean.

Aylen tapped the ship’s comm for attention and sent her feed ID, and added, “I’m a Special Investigator for Station Security. I’m here with a Port Authority supervisor. We need to speak to you about the transport contracted to your trading concern, the one currently in dock in the public transport ring. It’s urgent.”

I’d stopped out of view of the hatch cam, standing to one side, because that’s what SecUnits do. The PA bot came over and stood next to me. Great, that’s great. I wondered if it did anything that wasn’t related to standing around.

The comm acknowledgment pinged and a voice, echoing with the feed-assisted translation, replied, “Just you and the PA. Leave the port heels outside.”

I wonder what the original word choice was that the feed’s translation algorithm had decided “heels” was a good equivalent in Preservation Standard.

(I wasn’t the only one wondering. Tifany’s eyes narrowed and Farid mouthed the word “heels” slowly.)

Aylen glanced at Gamila, and told the officers, and me and the bot I guess, “Wait here.”

The hatch slid open and as they stepped toward it, my threat assessment module spiked.

I checked my drone inputs from Mensah’s task group first, even though they had reported in on schedule, eleven seconds ago, but they were all nominal. Mensah was still in the council offices, the big meeting having broken up into little meetings. She was sitting with four other councilors going over feed documents while they had cups of one of the hot liquids humans like.

Aylen and Gamila had just walked through the hatch, which was now sliding shut. I had the impulse to lunge forward and stop it, but I didn’t, because I didn’t want to look more like a rogue SecUnit than I already did.

And the hatch sealed. Oh, Murderbot, I think you just made a mistake.

Farid cleared his throat. “So… you’re really a SecUnit?”

Yeah, I get that a lot here. I said, “Are you on the feed with Aylen?” She might have a private connection with the two officers that I wasn’t included on.

“Not right now.” Farid’s brow creased and his gaze went to the hatch. “Balin, are you on with Supervisor Gamila?”

Who the fuck is—Oh, it’s the bot. Balin tilted its head and said, “No, Officer.”

Tifany gripped her baton and shifted uneasily.

This is the other thing. Station Security isn’t armed except with those extendable batons (they don’t even deliver shocks, they’re just for hitting/holding off aggressive intoxicated humans) and the officers are only issued energy weapons when there’s actually an energy-weapon-involved emergency. Which is good, because the fewer humans running around with weapons the better. (I say that as a SecUnit who has been shot a lot, often by my own clients, accidentally and on purpose.) But it also meant Aylen was in there unarmed.

I tried to secure a connection with Aylen or Gamila. No response. I tried a test message, a ping that would bounce off the ship’s comm or feed, and got nothing. Which meant something was jamming me, something that had been activated since the hatch had closed.

Fuck not hacking systems. I hit the port admin feed and connected to SafetyMonitor, the PA system that kept up a constant connection with all ships and transports in dock. I used it to find and break the ship’s secure connection to the feed, and tried to pull camera views from inside, but I couldn’t find any video connections except the stupid hatch camera. I caught an audio source but all I could hear was humans yelling some distance away; they must be in another part of the ship, away from the audio pick-up. I found Aylen’s connection to the port feed and upped it, trying to get through to her.

I upped it enough that I caught a burst of static from her and relayed it to the Station Security feed. Both Tifany and Farid looked startled and Balin the bot expanded a sensor net from the back of its neck. I stripped out the static; it was Aylen’s ID, and she was sending a Station Security urgent assistance code.

For fuck’s sake, I knew this was a bad idea and I stood here like an idiot and let it happen. I turned to Tifany and Farid. “I need to get in there.”

Farid had a hand on his interface, sending another urgent-assistance-needed code to the Station Security comm. Tifany was more direct. She drew her baton and said, “Balin, get us inside.”

The PA bot stood up to twice my height (I honestly hadn’t realized it had been crouching until that point), extended an arm, shoved spidery fingers into the control interface in the bulkhead next to the hatch, and sent a complex ping I realized was a decoder. The hatch slid open.

Okay, so that was what the PA bot did when it wasn’t just standing around.

My drones zipped past me and I dove through the hatch after them. This is what I do when I’m not standing around.

Past the airlock, I had a drone view of a shabby corridor, an open hatch at the end, and a shabby human/Target One standing there with a big energy weapon. Audio picked up angry human shouting. Past the target and the hatch was a large compartment with three corridors leading off it. Aylen and Gamila were backed into a corner, Aylen in front with her arms out, trying to shield Gamila. Four additional targets, two armed, faced them. Target Two was the closest, aiming a projectile weapon at them and yelling. Target Three: initial assessment = most likely to fire. She was further away from the hostages, also yelling, and waving her projectile weapon.

Warned by the hatch opening, Target One had time to turn toward me and lift the weapon. I had two humans trying to come in behind me so I didn’t dodge, but I didn’t want to block the energy burst with my head, either. I fired from my right arm and hit the Target’s weapon. (I could have aimed for his face but I didn’t consider him that much of a threat.) He yelped and spun sideways as I reached him. I bonked his head against the edge of the hatch and yanked the damaged weapon away.

I flung him through the hatch in front of me to draw fire, and then stepped through to throw the broken weapon at Armed Target Two. It bounced off her head as I fired my left arm weapon at Armed Target Three and hit her in the chest and shoulder. I was still moving across the compartment and I slammed into Unarmed Target Four along the way and threw him into Target Two who had stumbled back and dropped her weapon. They both went down in a heap and I slid to a stop with my back to Aylen and Gamila. I had my drone task group do a fast circuit of the compartment then break into small squads. Three squads took up sentry positions and the rest shot out of the hatches to search the ship for more targets.

Not an ideal intervention/retrieval; my speed had been a little low. Trying to keep Tifany and Farid from getting shot had thrown me off. Also, I wasn’t sure yet if the Targets were hostiles or just really stupid, so I had held back a little. Target Three had crumpled to the floor, still conscious and trying to grope for her weapon. Before I had to shoot her again, Tifany and Farid barreled in and Farid scooped up the weapon. Targets One and Four were dazed and not attempting to move, Target Five had dropped to the floor and was screaming for no reason. Target Two sprawled on the floor, pretending to be unconscious.

I would have worried about an as yet unknown Target trying to lock us inside (it wouldn’t have worked, but it would have been annoying to deal with) (nobody wants to be locked in a ship with an annoyed SecUnit) (nobody) but my sentry drones had a camera view of Balin planting itself in the hatchway and extending four bracing limbs to keep it open. (I’m guessing the Port Authority has dealt with problem crews before.)

Tifany moved further into the room, taking up a guard position to my left as Farid said, “We’ve called for assistance, and uh, I’ll alert Medical.”

I was getting drone video telling me that the ship was a stripped-down cargo hauler, with a small livable space. The drones hadn’t found any other occupants. From inside, the jamming was easy to take down, and I pulled a manifest from the ship’s feed to double-check the complement. I said, “Ship is clear, listed crew is accounted for.” Because I was tired of Target Two’s shit, I turned around to ask Aylen and Gamila, “Are you injured?”

Target Two made a wild grab for her fallen projectile weapon. I kicked the weapon over to Tifany, who snatched it up and secured it. (Yes, it was unnecessary and showing off.)

Aylen said, “We’re unhurt.” She sounded calm, a dry edge to her voice, but her forehead was damp with sweat and her heart rate was still elevated. Her jacket and shirt had been disarranged, like someone had grabbed her and pushed her. “Thank you for intervening.”

Gamila leaned against the wall, a hand pressed to her chest. “I’m not even sure what happened! They threatened us, wouldn’t even listen to why we were here.”

“You’re here to take our ship!” Target Two snarled, the feed translating. “You pussing corporates! You sent a SecUnit after us!”

I turned to look down at her. “You didn’t know they had a SecUnit until we broke in. Try again.”

Target Two’s brow knit as she looked up at me and her mouth hung open.

Target Five moaned, “Shut up, Fenn. They’re going to take our ship.”

Aylen shook her head wearily and Gamila said, “You should have thought of that before you attacked us!”

My drone sentries saw the Station Security Response Team thunder up to the outer hatch. Balin unwedged itself from its guard position, strode down the corridor, and folded itself down to get into the compartment. It extended a limb across to Gamila, she took it, and it led her out of the ship.

Nobody moved until they were out of the way. Then the response team crowded in and Aylen said, “Arrest everyone associated with this ship. They obviously don’t want to talk to us here, so we’ll do it at the station.”

Putting it mildly, it was weird to voluntarily walk into a Station Security office.

I had never been to one before on any station. (If I had, I’d be parts and recycler trash and you wouldn’t be reading this.) SecUnits weren’t normally used in stations in the Corporation Rim, and we sure weren’t used in normal station regulation enforcement. We were only deployed on a station as an extreme measure, like repelling a raider attack. (And stations with deployment centers weren’t likely to be attacked anyway, unless there were an absolute shit-ton of raiders or they were really stupid or both.) Palisade Security, working for GrayCris, had used a SecUnit as part of their hostage security team on TranRollinHyfa because they were worried about me showing up. And they had used two SecUnits and a CombatUnit as fugitive pursuit when I escaped with Mensah. And look how that had turned out for them.

But anyway, for most of my career as an escaped rogue SecUnit, staying away from Station Security had been kind of important.

Preservation’s Station Security office was next to the Port Authority, part of the barrier that separated the port’s embarkation area from the rest of the station. Both offices had entrances into the admin section of the mall and the transit ring.

Not long after I had first gotten here I had accessed a map of the security office interior from the station archives. The first level was a public area, where humans came in to complain about each other and to pay fines for cargo and docking violations. (Preservation had two economies, one a complicated barter system for planetary residents and one currency-based for visitors and for dealing with other polities. Most of the humans here didn’t really understand how important hard currency was in the Corporation Rim but the council did, and Mensah said the port took in enough in various fees to keep the station from being a drain on the planet’s resources.) The second level was much bigger and had work spaces, conference rooms, and accident/safety equipment storage. There was also a separate attached space for holding cells, and a larger separate section for storing and analyzing samples from potentially hazardous cargo, and a small medical treatment area that seemed to be mostly used for intoxicated detainees.

The response team brought in the detainees through the transit ring entrance. Targets Two and Three had already come in on gurneys headed for the medical area but the others were mostly ambulatory.

The weapons scanners on the station’s entrance went off on me, of course.

It caused some confusion, because the response team thought someone had screwed up and not searched the detainees properly. I stood there for two minutes and twelve seconds wondering if anyone would figure it out while they searched the detainees again, looking for the weapon the scanner was alerting on. In their defense, they had actually done the weapons search right the first time (I had verified it with scan and visual), and they had confiscated the detainees’ interfaces. (None of them were augmented humans—apparently it wasn’t common to be feed augmented in the polities outside the Corporation Rim that used Preservation as a waystation.) But not so much in their defense, they had forgotten a SecUnit was standing behind them.

Finally I pulled up my sleeve (using my onboard energy weapons made holes in fabric, so I’d have to get my shirt fixed) and held my arm up. “Hey, it’s me.”

They all stared. Still woozy, Target Four said, “It’s a slitting SecUnit, you pussers, how stupid are you?”

Yeah, these Targets are going to be fun to chat with, I can tell already. I told him, “You’re the one who got yourself bodyslammed into station detention, so let’s talk about how dumb you are.”

Target Four seemed shocked. “SecUnits aren’t supposed to talk back,” Target Five said weakly.

Tell me about it. “Cargo ship crews aren’t supposed to take Port Authority supervisors as hostages, but here we all are.”

From the front of the group, Aylen snapped, “Get them inside!”

The officers hurriedly milled into a more efficient configuration for taking the Targets in through the foyer. As I was rolling my sleeve down, Aylen stepped over to me. I don’t know what I was expecting; nothing good, basically. But keeping her voice low, she said, “I’ve just had a preliminary report from the Port Authority inspectors. They did an initial scan of the Lalow’s storage, and the cargo containers are empty. And there’s no record of anything leaving that ship.”

Empty? What the fuck? I actually locked up for a second, still rolling down my sleeve. Threat assessment had just spiked and even risk assessment (which really needed to be purged and reloaded) tried to deliver a report.

I was thinking a lot of different things but the one that came out was, “So what was the transport waiting for?” I knew from my drone search that the transport Lutran had been killed in didn’t have a cargo module attached. At the time, this hadn’t seemed a big deal, since if the transport was sitting in dock it was probably waiting for modules to be loaded.

“A good question,” Aylen said. Her expression was still in the neutral range but I could tell she was intrigued by the report, just like my threat assessment module.

I wasn’t sure why she had told me this. Unless it was because she had just gotten the news and after the weapons scan fuck-up I was the only one involved with the investigation who she wasn’t currently pissed off at. It would be nice if she had recognized me as the only other one here who actually knew how to investigate a suspicious incident that wasn’t a cargo safety violation, but I doubted that. I said, “They know a lot about SecUnits for a ship with a non-corporate registry. We’re usually only deployed as rentals on mining or other isolated contract labor installations, or by licensed security companies. They could have seen SecUnits in the media, but…” I couldn’t finish that sentence. The fear and hatred had felt different from the fear and hatred generated by shows like Valorous Defenders, which sometimes featured rogue SecUnits as scary villains. The crew’s reaction had felt like there was personal experience behind it, but I had no data to back that up.

“Hmm.” Aylen lifted her brows. “According to their ship’s circuit report, they’ve never even visited a corporate dock.”

“There could be an explanation,” I said, because there could be, and I’m used to having to be as accurate as possible or get my neural tissue fried and old habits, etc.

“Let’s ask them,” she said, and went on into the station.

There was a delay, because there was documentation on the arrests that needed to be completed and the Targets all needed medical checks because that was a regulation and blah blah blah. Also more relevantly, a tech team was searching the ship for anything that looked like 1) a contact DNA cleaner and 2) something that could cause the visual jamming effect with the transit ring’s surveillance camera or 3) a suspiciously fluid-stained floater cart. It also gave the Port Authority more time to pull corroborating documentation about the ship and the missing/nonexistent cargo.

I had feed messages; one from Ratthi asking if everything was okay and had I caught the murderer yet, one from Gurathin which was the same except he didn’t ask if I was okay, and one from Pin-Lee saying she wanted me to contact her now, no she meant right now, it was important.

I had followed the others into the main office space on level two, which had a large holo map of the whole station in the center, with a running status display on all station locks, air walls, and other safety systems, plus a scroll of data on cargo regulation checks throughout the port. It was surrounded by work areas and floating display surfaces. Also way too many containers with food residue, ugh. Several humans were sitting around working in their feeds and none of them looked up when I came in.

I found an unoccupied corner to stand in and sent acknowledgments/reply-laters to Ratthi and Gurathin, and tapped Pin-Lee’s feed.

The first thing she sent was I saw the update Indah sent to Mensah about an incident in the cargo dock. Is it GrayCris?

I told her, I don’t know. I just didn’t have enough data yet for my percentages to be meaningful as anything other than theoretical shit-talking, even with the info Aylen had given me. I added, It might be.

Her feed voice sounded weary. Are we ever going to be at a point where we can forget about those assholes?

I didn’t want to just say “eventually” so I told her, I can’t give you a timeline. But GrayCris can’t get the currency to buy the company off, and even if they could, it’s too late for that. GrayCris had ordered a security firm to attack a company gunship, and worse, almost succeeded. There was no going back from that, at least as far as the company was concerned.

Farid came into the room, spotted me, and came over to say, “Uh, we’re making tea. Do you—”

I paused my feed and told him, “I don’t eat.”

“Oh, right.” He wandered off.

Pin-Lee sent, There’s been a Station Security request for documents from the General Counsel’s office relating to cargo brokering between the Corporation Rim and outsystem polities and trading concerns. It sounds like they’re looking at a possible fraud or smuggling investigation to go along with the murder. Do you want a copy of the report when we send it?

Yes. Farid was back, this time waving at me to follow him. I have to go.

Find out what the hell is going on, Pin-Lee sent back, and cut the connection.

I followed Farid out of the work space and around into a conference room. Indah and Tural were seated at a table facing a large floating display. It was divided into three separate sections, each showing a different much smaller conference room. In each room was a response team officer, sitting across from a Target. Aylen was in the room with Target Five (yeah, I had picked Target Five as the one who probably knew the most about whatever it was they were doing) and the other two officers were with Targets Two and Four. One and Three were probably still in Medical.

I pulled the individual feeds so I could put them into separate inputs, in case I wanted to review them later. Right now Aylen and the other officers were explaining to their individual Targets what rights they had as detainees in Preservation Alliance territory. (It was a lot of rights. I was pretty sure it was more rights than a human who hadn’t been detained by Station Security had in the Corporation Rim.)

Chairs were scattered around and Indah waved me toward one, so I sat down. Again, it was a little, more than a little, weird. I was in a Station Security office, sitting down. (Non-rogue SecUnits aren’t allowed to sit down on duty, or off duty, if there’s any chance of being caught.)

Farid, Tifany, and three other officers stood back in the doorway to watch. (I will never figure out how humans decide who gets to sit where and do what, it’s never the same.) (There were more cups and small plates with food residue on the table. They’re always eating.)

On the three feeds, Aylen and the other two officers started the initial questions, basically “who are you,” “why are you here on Preservation Station,” and “what the hell were you thinking?”

The Targets’ stories were fairly consistent: they were traders originating in what they called an indie station designated WayBrogatan (a quick search on the Preservation public library feed confirmed its existence) and they shipped small cargos on a regular route that never, ever, at any point intersected the Corporation Rim. And they never took on passengers, no, no way no how, never! WayBrogatan had special regulations and they weren’t licensed for it. (That was Target Five’s earnest contribution.)

Tural muttered, “Because crews who take station staff hostage are going to be sticklers for licensing regulations.”

Indah agreed. “Whatever they’re afraid of, it’s about passengers and cargo.” She tapped the investigators’ private feed, which I had not been given access to and did not hack, because apparently I get to sit in a chair but not participate.

The other two officers, Soire with Target Two and Matif with Target Four, started in with questions about the ship’s cargo definitely-not-passenger route, making the Targets go over what the ship had been carrying and what it had dropped off and picked up in exhaustive detail.

Aylen worked on that with Target Five, then smiled, not in a friendly way, and said, “Now. Care to explain why you tried to abduct a Station Security officer and the Port Authority supervisor?”

“Too soon?” Farid asked Indah.

She shook her head slightly. “Maybe not.”

Target Five vibrated with dismay. “I didn’t—We didn’t do that—It was a misunderstanding—”

Weirdly, I got the sense that was true. It had been a misunderstanding.

Aylen said, “Before you argue with me about it, please recall that I was the Station Security officer you abducted.”

“But—It was—” Target Five subsided and looked glum.

“Attempted abduction is the charge my senior is at this moment bringing to the Preservation Station judge-advocate.” Since Aylen’s senior was at this moment sitting with her arms folded intently watching the display, I guess this was a tactic. It seemed really transparent to me, but then I wasn’t the one who’d landed myself in detention for what I was beginning to think was not monumental stupidity, but just a monumentally stupid mistake.

Aylen listened to Target Five sputter and protest. She said finally, “Unless you have an explanation?”

“We’re just shipping cargo,” Target Five said, too desperately. “It was a mistake. We overreacted. Fenn and Miro would never hurt anybody.”

“It didn’t look that way from the other side of the guns they had aimed at my face.” Aylen was still calm and pointed.

I said, “They were expecting someone else. Someone they didn’t know. They thought Aylen was lying about being Station Security.”

All the humans in the room turned to look at me. I always hate that, but Tifany was nodding, and Indah said, “I’m leaning that way myself.”

Targets Two and Four had been giving very convincing descriptions of their cargo route. Clearly they had taken some effort to get their stories straight. But Target Four had gotten the too-detailed story confused after the third stop and was now winging it very badly. It could have just been that Target Four had a bad memory. (I was always having to remember that humans didn’t have full access to the archives stored in their neural tissue, which explained a lot about their behavior.)

Indah was subvocalizing on her feed. Aylen paused to listen, then said, “Who did you think we were?”

Target Five flustered, then leaned forward, confiding now. “The rings we go to aren’t nice like this one, you can get your ship raided by the people who work there. That’s what we thought it was.”

Aylen nodded, like there was some tiny chance in the realm of possibility that she was buying that. “These rings are in the Corporation Rim?”

“No, no, no.” Target Five did an agitated shaking movement that was apparently emphatic denial. “We’ve never been there. Too many permits, we can’t afford it. And it’s dangerous.”

Aylen eyed her. Then she said, “Do you recognize this person?” and used her feed to throw an image of Lutran up on the room’s display surface.

The image wasn’t one of the good close-ups of Dead Lutran but the one of him alive, from the hostel. Scanners had been activated in the conference room and the real-time reports were running alongside the video display. As part of the rights thing, Aylen had told Target Five the scanner would be on, which I thought was playing way too fair, but maybe not, because Target Five didn’t show an elevated heart rate or any other neural cues indicating recognition.

Target Five frowned, a clearly “why the fuck is she asking me this” expression. She said, “Uh… No.”

Matif and Soire were getting similar reactions: Target Two clearly thought it was a trick and Target Four demanded to know who “that picker” was.

The humans all looked at the scan results and I said, “Chances that they’re lying are below 20 percent.” I had tapped the scanner’s raw feed so I could process the data faster. (Tapping a feed that’s being displayed in front of me is not hacking.)

Everybody looked at me again, then at Indah, who nodded, her gaze not leaving the display of Target Five’s face. It looked like she knew what she was doing. It would be interesting to compare her data to mine. Then I remembered the main reason I was doing this was to make sure there was no connection to GrayCris and I wasn’t going to refine my methods, such as they were. (What they were being mostly: crap I made up on the spot as I needed it that sort of worked, and leftover company code analysis.)

Aylen tilted her head, an unconscious gesture while she was receiving feed reports from Matif and Soire. She said, “Here’s a better view of his face.”

This time Lutran was dead in the image, lying where he had been dumped in the corridor junction. Target Five shook her head slowly, eyes narrowing. “No. I don’t know this person. Why are you asking me about them?”

Similar reactions from Targets Two and Four. (Well, Four wanted to know if it was the same person in the two images. Matif looked like someone who was desperately repressing the urge to sigh.)

From Aylen’s briefly preoccupied expression, I thought Indah had delivered another instruction via the feed. Then Aylen said, “His name was Lutran. He was found—”

She stopped abruptly because the scanner spiked. Target Five had had a reaction, a controlled flinch, and her skin was flushing as her internal fluids moved around. Target Two blinked rapidly, also flushing. Four said, “Fuck no.”

Indah said softly, “Oh, now, here we go.”

Aylen asked Target Five, “So you do know him?”

Target Five forced her expression back to blankness. “No.”

Target Two folded her arms and pushed back in her chair. “I’m finished talking. You go ahead and throw us in detent.”

Target Four said worriedly, “What about the others?”

Matif’s expression of borderline frustration snapped to calm and neutral, but he was probably lucky the scanner wasn’t pointed at him. He said, “I’ll check. Can you tell me their names? Describe them?”

Aylen and Soire both stopped to listen as Target Four described ten humans, three of them adolescents. Apparently his memory was terrible for lies but great for the truth, and I didn’t (and the scanner didn’t) think he was making any of it up.

Matif leaned forward, making sure his feed recording was getting all the details. “You’re saying these people should be with Lutran?”

“He was taking them home, to a home.” Target Four tapped the table earnestly. “We never saw him, you know, compartmentalize to make it hard for them to catch everybody.”

“Them?” Matif asked. “Who is them?”

Target Four said, “The Brehars. It’s Brehar something.”

I ran a quick public library query while the humans were fumbling to access their interfaces. “Possibly BreharWallHan. It’s a mining corporate…” I pulled more results, looking for connections. Oh, there was a big one. “It owns a system only one direct twenty-eight cycle wormhole jump from WayBrogatan.”

Indah’s whole face was scrunched in concentration. Tural whispered, “People. The Lalow was smuggling people.”

Soire was having Target Two taken to the holding cell, but Aylen’s face had gone preoccupied as she listened to Matif’s feed. Target Five watched her, frowning in growing consternation. “Miro’s talking, isn’t he?” she said in despair.

Indah relayed my info to Matif, who asked Target Four, “These people came from BreharWallHan?”

“Yeah, they were slaves,” Target Four told him. “They call it something else, but it’s slaves, right, dah? That’s what it is. Out in the rocks.”

Putting together Target Four’s story with what my library searches were turning up, BreharWallHan had a mining operation in an asteroid belt. The type of mining meant the contract labor had the ability to move around, to go from one asteroid to another, but they had no way to get anywhere else in the system, or out of it, and BreharWallHan controlled all access to supplies. But someone (Target Four either wouldn’t or couldn’t supply a name) had started an operation where contract laborers would make their way to the edge of the asteroid field, where a ship would slip in, pick them up, and take them away via the wormhole, to a point where the Targets aboard the Lalow would meet them and take them to a station where they would find the next step in their escape route.

“The corporates don’t notice?” Matif was fascinated but skeptical. “You taking out so many people at one time?”

Target Four was unfazed. “Cause we’re taking out their kids, dah. These people been out in those rocks so long they got kids older than me.”

Behind me, Tifany said, “What the fuck?”

“Wait, wait.” Matif was having a moment. “Are you saying these people were shipped to this belt as contract labor, but they’ve been there so long they’ve had families—children—and those children are being born into slavery? They aren’t allowed to leave?”

“I know.” Target Four spread his big hands on the table. “Penis move, right? That’s why we’re doing this, dah. Our grandperson was contract labor, like back in the back of time, before they got away and bought the ship.”

Aylen told Target Five, “Oh yes, he’s telling us everything.”

Target Five tried, “He has a head injury.”

Aylen was unimpressed. “He seems perfectly lucid.” Indah was subvocalizing again, talking to Aylen on her feed. “Even if you took payment to bring those people here, it’s not illegal, and it’s not illegal to be a contract labor refugee on Preservation. You can tell us where they are, we’ll get them proper help. But you need to tell us how Lutran fits in to this.”

Matif had just said, “But what did this have to do with Lutran?”

“He was the one, the plan person, right?” Target Four said. “He was supposed to handle what happened next.”

“What happened next?” Matif asked.

Target Four put his hands in the air. “I don’t know, that’s what I was asking you.”

Target Five slumped back in her chair, telling Aylen, “Lutran was our contact, he always meets us at the station, whichever one it is.” She added miserably, “If somebody killed him, they know about us.”

I said, “The perpetrator is a BreharWallHan agent.” I mean, probably. The chances were running over 85 percent.

Indah flicked her fingers at the display surfaces, and Aylen and Matif stopped talking. She said, “Not necessarily. We need to find out what happened aboard that transport. We know Lutran used it to get here, that it was involved in a cargo transfer contract with the Lalow, and that Lutran was killed aboard it. What does that tell us?”

Tural said, “I bet the refugees were meant to go aboard the transport, to be taken to its next destination.” They made a vague gesture. “The refugees either never made it to the transport, or they were killed as well, and… we just haven’t found their bodies yet.”

Indah was frowning. “Or the refugees killed Lutran? Because he demanded something from them, like payment?”

I said, “What did the review of the Merchant Docks surveillance video show?”

Yeah, it was a trick question. I knew from my drones still out in the main office area that the video had just been transferred from PortAuthSys to StationSecSys, and none of the humans working on the case had had a chance to download the files yet.

Indah looked at me, and I realized that she knew exactly what I was doing. She said, “If that’s your way of asking if you can review the video, then yes.” She nodded to Tural.

On reflection, I could have handled that better.

Tural got into their feed and gave my feed ID permission to download the video. I pulled the files while they were explaining how to access and play the material, and got to work.

Indah signaled for the questioning to continue, but there wasn’t much left to find out. Target Five gave in and supported Target Four’s version of the story, and they both insisted that they didn’t know what was supposed to happen after the refugees disembarked. All they knew was that Lutran would take care of getting them off the station to safety.

We needed to find out where the refugees were now, if they were either a) murderees or b) murderers. Concentrating on the video taken in the area around the Lalow’s dock, within 1.3 minutes I had isolated the moments when the refugees had left the ship. That gave us more to work with than just the descriptions Target Five had provided to Matif, though the camera’s estimates weren’t as good as full body scans.

The refugees were dressed in work clothes, and a few had small shoulder bags. They looked lost, stopping to check the feed markers frequently and moving slowly, as if they had never seen a station like this before. (Trapped in a contract labor camp spread out over an asteroid field, they probably hadn’t.) It didn’t catch any attention in this section of the docks, where ships from a wide range of places disembarked a lot of humans who had no clue what they were doing. And one of the regular-route merchants had just set a large noisy crew loose, plus there were three cargos being unloaded with varying degrees of efficiency and confusion. The Lalow had probably waited until the docks had gotten busy, to let the refugees mix with the crowd. The Port Authority personnel were obviously too worried about humans causing hauler bot accidents to notice the quiet group hesitantly crossing the embarkation floor.

I spotted Lutran entering the Merchant Docks one minute after the refugees left the Lalow. Seventeen minutes later, he left again. He had managed to avoid any cameras while inside the docks, so there was no indication of what he had done while there. It was too bad he was dead; for a human, he had been pretty good at this.

I sent the images of the refugees to Indah and Tural, then checked the video near the Merchant Dock exits to see if we could get some idea of where the refugees had headed next.

Then it got weird.

It got so weird I took extra time running the video back and forth, checking for anomalies and edits.

The Targets had been sent to detention cells to wait, and Aylen, Matif, and Soire had joined Indah and Tural to make exclamations over what they had found out instead of anything more useful. I said, “They never left the Merchant Docks.”

“What?” Indah turned toward me.

I threw the video onto one of the display surfaces. I accelerated the speed, pausing it for two seconds when any human, augmented human, or bot left either of the two exits. “There’s no sign of any member of the refugee party leaving the Merchant Docks. They disappear somewhere between the dockside cameras and the exit cameras’ fields of view.”

The humans stared at the video, Aylen moving so she could see better. “They’ve changed their appearances—” Soire began.

“Body types don’t match.” Since the security cameras used the same calibration standards, it had been easy to include a comparison check in the search. The security system noted feed IDs of known humans and augmented humans (Security officers, Port Authority staff, the merchant crews who did regular runs to Preservation) and I’d used them to annotate my sped-up video. There were only seven unidentified humans who had wandered out of the dock exits during our time frame, none matching the body type estimates the system had taken from the refugees, and all seven unidentified humans had returned via the dock entrance. I matched them on the dockside camera returning to their ships.

Aylen shook her head and reached for a jacket slung over a chair. She had the expression of someone who wanted to curse a lot but wasn’t going to. “We need to get over there and find them.”

Because obviously, if they hadn’t left, they were still there.

Whatever, the chance that it was GrayCris activity that had caused Lutran’s death was dropping rapidly. I could leave Station Security to finish up. Go back and catch up on my media while I kept watch over Mensah. I should do that. The rest of this was Station Security’s job, I could leave. I could pretend to be the enigmatic SecUnit and just get up and walk out. Pin-Lee had written my employment contract that way, so I could just leave.

I wasn’t leaving.

I didn’t think I’d have a better time to push for this. I waited until Indah finished ordering all response teams into the Merchant Docks for a search, then said, “Has there been a diagnostic analysis of StationSec and PortAuth and all associated systems?”

Aylen, Matif, and Soire were already on the way out to get their gear and Tural was in the feed mobilizing the tech crew. Aylen stopped but Indah waved her on to keep moving.

As the door slid shut behind them, Indah said impatiently, “No, not since you asked the first time and I told you the analysts had checked for hacks and there was nothing, no alerts had been tripped.”

Alerts? She hadn’t said that the first time. “They relied on alerts?”

Tural was listening now, their face turned guarded in that very familiar “someone else is getting in trouble” way. Indah said flatly, “I don’t know. The report they sent said that in their opinion, there had been no hack.”

I said, “With the safety of the station depending on it, are you sure you don’t want a second opinion?”

There was a moment, slightly fraught. Indah said, “You want access to our systems.”

I could go into all my reasoning and my threat assessment module’s indicator that there was only a 35 percent chance there was a jamming device present on this station. (I was 86 percent certain that type of device actually existed somewhere, but I just didn’t think it would be easily available, even to a security company. Mainly because, if something like that was easy to obtain, the company would have countermeasures for its SecSystems, and I would know about it. Obviously, it could have been a casualty of one of my memory wipes, or it could be something only available outside the Corporation Rim, but still.) If someone had gotten far enough into the port’s system to tamper with the camera video, they might have done/do anything.

I could have also said that Indah had me, the best resource Station Security could have for this situation, and she was too afraid to use me. I said, “To check for hacking, yes.”

Tural shifted uneasily, but they were brave, and said, “We should make sure. If there has been interference with our camera video, we could be looking for the refugees in the wrong place.”

Indah didn’t reply. It occurred to me if she turned me down, I was going to feel… something, probably general humiliation, and basically like an idiot. Which sucked, because I had set myself up yet again. But what she said was, “How much access would you need? And how long would it take?”

Okay, huh. “Admin access, under five minutes.” I know, five minutes was a hilariously long time, but I wanted a good long look around while I was in there.

Indah didn’t reply. I figured it was about 40/60 between “it will take over the station and kill us all” and “this isn’t the worst idea I ever heard.” Then she said, “Only five minutes?”

“I’m fast,” I said. “If the dock surveillance system is hacked, then everything on the Port Authority systems could be compromised.”

Indah said, “You don’t have to spell it out quite so pointedly, I understand the consequences. But we have data protection on the security systems—”

Data protection, right. Guess what provides your data protection—another security system. I had to make her understand. “And that’s what everybody says. When I walked onto TranRollinHyfa and walked out with Dr. Mensah, that’s exactly what they said.”

(I know, very dramatic and also inaccurate. Dr. Mensah walked out barefoot and I limped out leaning on Ratthi and Gurathin. But you see my point.)

Indah’s mouth twisted in skepticism. Okay, fine then. I said, “Are the systems in the Security Station offices monitored for breach attempts?”

Her brow furrowed. “Yes.”

I’d chosen the StationSec office because it had a nested set of high security systems not connected to the Port Authority, so a demonstration there was unlikely to alert our hostile. I had several options to go with, having been in the systems and rummaged around a little when Mensah had first brought me here, before I stupidly promised not to touch anything. I decided on something showy.

I took control of the visual and audio displays in the main work space. Through the open door, we heard the humans in there make startled noises. Indah glared at me. “What did you—”

I put a camera view up on a display surface. In the main office area, the three-dimensional station safety map was now showing episode 256 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, the scene 32.3 minutes in when the solicitor, her bodyguard, and the personnel supervisor are having a relationship argument that is abruptly cut off when a raider ship crashes into the shuttle bay.

Tifany, Aylen, and the others getting ready for the search stared at it in bafflement. “What the balls?” somebody said.

Indah’s face was… interesting. She gestured to the display surface. “How are you getting this view of the room? There’s no camera in there.”

I could have used a drone’s camera, but this way made for a better demonstration. “It’s Farid’s vest cam,” I told her.

Indah grimaced. “You’ve made your point. Fix the screen,” she said. “And check the systems for hacking.”