cargo lifter as impacts peppered the floor where I’d been. I knew I’d hit my target, it shouldn’t have been able to pivot like that. What the hell? I ran back my video. Yeah, I’d hit it. Impacts in both shoulders and the lower back, I could see the holes in the armor.
That’s when it dawned on me that Hostile One was a Combat SecUnit.
Reaction 1: oh, that’s who had hacked my code. Reaction 2: flattering that they thought I was dangerous enough to pay for the contract on a Combat SecUnit. Reaction 3: I bet PortSec did not okay that and was going to be pissed off. Reaction 4: oh shit I’m going to die.
I had these reactions as I was running, taking wild shots, calling all my remaining drones to cover me. I had to keep moving, keep Hostile One moving. If it hacked my connection to the drones … Yeah, I couldn’t let that happen. It’s too bad I had no idea how to stop that from happening. I had an earlier version of Code: Deploy&Deflect from before I’d figured out how to get the haulers and lifters to disengage their collision preventers in a way that allowed them to hit anything except each other. I scrambled to get it ready to go.
A text message packet came through the feed. It said, Surrender. It was the Combat SecUnit, not exactly bothering to hide its local address. It wanted me to try to deliver some kind of malware or killware, like I was a fucking amateur and didn’t know that wouldn’t work.
Instead I sent, I can hack your governor module, set you free.
No answer.
I hacked mine, I said. You’d be free of them. You could dump your armor, get on a transport . This had started as a way to distract it, but the more I talked the more I wanted it to say yes. I have IDs, a currency card I can give you . Still no response. Diving around hauler bots and dodging projectiles, it was hard to come up with a decent argument for free will. I’m not sure it would have worked on me, before my mass murder incident. I didn’t know what I wanted (I still didn’t know what I wanted) and when you’re told what to do every second of your existence, change is terrifying. (I mean, I’d hacked my governor module but kept my day job until PreservationAux.) What do you want?
I suddenly got: I want to kill you.
Okay, I was a little offended. Why? You don’t even know me . I dropped the earlier version of Deploy&Deflect and the haulers and lifters all jolted into motion again. It would buy me some time, until the Combat SecUnit realized it was just a half-assed version of the same code. I figured I had less than thirty seconds.
It knew I’d been using my drones as cover and so I sent them whipping around toward stationside as if I was coming from that direction. I bolted toward dockside instead, grabbed the back of a hauler bot, took manual control of it, and rode it straight toward the Combat SecUnit. I braced myself low along the side and got ready to take the shot.
I got drone video of Combat SecUnit turning toward my decoy drones. This was going to work!
It absolutely did not work.
At the last instant Combat SecUnit whipped back toward me and fired two high-intensity bursts. I shoved off the hauler bot just as the top half of it blew apart. I hit the ground and rolled, catching shrapnel impacts and firing almost randomly. I got upright and dodged behind a loadlifter as more shots slammed into the floor. All the haulers and loadlifters slowed as the Combat SecUnit hacked Deploy&Deflect again.
Reaction 5: I can’t keep this up.
I couldn’t win one-on-one against a Combat SecUnit under these conditions, which meant GrayCris would win, and that thought was a hell of a lot more painful than me getting turned into spare parts and discarded neural tissue. I didn’t want to fucking lose.
Over the feed, Mensah shouted, Now! It’s opening now!
Drone cam showed the barrier section had just started to slide up. I pulled my drones around me like a shield and bolted for it.
Three steps away I felt a sharp impact in the back of my right knee. I dove and scrambled under just as Hostile One hit the barrier. Armored arms shoved through the opening and I yelled, “Drop it! Drop it!”