Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) - Martha Wells Page 0,34

not compelling, because Abene continued, “If she’s working for GrayCris, we need her as a witness.”

Okay, that did make sense. The whole reason I was here was to find more evidence against GrayCris. I looked into Wilken’s faceplate. Her expression had gone blank, trying to conceal fear. With her comm and feed down, she could still hear us, though our voices would sound like we were at the bottom of a mining tunnel. When it powered down, the armor had automatically opened some vents to allow air circulation, so she wouldn’t suffocate or cook in her own heat. I could give it a delayed command to close the vents once we’d left, and Abene would think it was an accident.

There’s that caring thing again. Did I care if Wilken survived or not? Not really.

I said, “We need to go,” and held out my hand for Wilken’s projectile weapon. Abene handed it to me, and I walked away. I left the vents open.

As Miki and Abene followed me, I said, “The bots in the engineering pod will be trying to reach us once they self-repair, and the drone I captured says that there’s one more active combat bot. It’s probably somewhere between us and the shuttle.” We also knew they would use whatever mobile equipment was left behind in the facility against us. I didn’t want to have to fight another bio sampler.

Abene lengthened her stride to keep up with me. “I can’t reach the shuttle on my feed or comm,” she said. “Neither can Miki.”

“That’s because I’m blocking you,” I told her. “I didn’t want you to say anything that might alert Gerth.” At least not until I figured out what to do about Gerth. I couldn’t get to her armor from here, even if I unblocked the feed. The codes for the armor were unique to each unit (the manufacturers weren’t completely stupid) so I had to be close enough to be able to scan for them.

“I see.” Abene, amazingly, didn’t argue. Or maybe it wasn’t amazingly; she was pretty smart. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that Gerth is not also a hired killer.”

“Analysis from the cargo ship suggested they had worked together for some time,” I said. “We have to assume they were suborned together, or at some point deflected and replaced the security team your company sent.”

“Deflected,” Abene repeated. “That means killed?”

“Probably.” When I picked up the Milu cargo ship on HaveRatton, I hadn’t downloaded any local news, just the bursts about Port FreeCommerce and GrayCris. If there had been reports of two bodies discovered with all identification burned out, I had missed them. (You can’t space people off a transit ring; security looks for that kind of thing and gets very agitated about it.) “With Gerth at the ship, we have a hostage situation.”

I hate hostage situations. Even when I’m the one with the hostages.

Miki said, “That’s not good.”

See, that? That is just annoying. That contributed nothing to the conversation and was just a pointless vocalization to make the humans comfortable.

In her feed, Abene was doing a quick review of my video from the engineering pod. It was less than a minute, so it didn’t take her long. She said, “Was Wilken giving the bots orders? Perhaps they will go dormant without her. But if they report to Gerth, we’re back in the same situation.”

“I don’t think she or Gerth gave them orders,” I said. “I was listening in on their feeds, and I would have heard that, even if it was encrypted.” They hadn’t spoken to each other much at all, which was maybe suspicious in itself. (I know, hindsight is awesome.)

Miki said, “The combat bots could have been in standby and received instructions to activate once anyone arrived at the facility.” Hirune stirred and murmured and Miki responded, “There, there, Hirune. It’s all right.”

Well, yeah, I thought of that already.

Abene was saying, “I don’t understand this. If Wilken and Gerth were sent to kill us, why were the combat bots sent here? Obviously GrayCris wants to stop the assessment, but that’s—”

I said, “Hold it,” and stopped. I needed to do a quick review of my video and prove or disprove this theory and there’s only so many things I can do while walking and scanning for hostiles without a Sec-or HubSystem to help. I let Miki view my feed as I started my analysis, and I was distantly aware of Miki explaining to Abene what I was doing.

I pinged my drone and