strategy.
[Query: SecUnit active in watch zone.]
I stopped. I did not scream, though I thought about it for .02 of a second.
I was pretty sure I kept my face blank, but Abene and Miki turned to look at me. Wilken kept moving.
I started to walk again, trying to figure out what channel it was coming in on so I could block it.
[Query: respond.]
In my feed, Miki said, SecUnit, what is that?
Don’t answer it, Miki. It’s a combat bot, trying to fix our position. Combat bots can’t hack like combat SecUnits. They don’t work linked to Sec or HubSystems like security SecUnits do. But still. I didn’t want it in my head. Or Miki’s head.
[Query: SecUnit has subordinate unit.] It sounded implacable, and amused. [Query: pet bot.]
I almost had it.
[Objective: We will tear you apart.]
I blocked the channel. I breathed out, slowly, so as not to draw attention from the humans. Miki sent me a glyph of distress. I said, It’s okay, which was a complete lie. I reminded myself a combat bot wasn’t a human, it wasn’t a villain from one of my shows. It was a bot, and it wasn’t threatening us.
It was just telling us what it was going to do.
* * *
Combat bots usually needed a human controller. Well, they needed a human controller when you were trying to achieve an objective. If the objective was as vague as “attack everybody who lands on the facility while disguising your network feed traffic with static designed to match the interference created by the storm,” maybe they didn’t. But taking a prisoner, luring us further into the facility, did suggest a plan. GrayCris might have left an operative on the station, hiding out in plain sight with the Port Authority staff, keeping an eye on the facility. They had known when our shuttle left and when it docked with the facility, and had estimated how long it would take for the team to get into one of the pods and start the assessment. Then they sent a signal to activate the combat bots.
A signal that got through the facility’s shielding? Maybe.
It would be nice to know how many bots, but at least now I knew the location of the first trap. It had failed, so the combat bots would be adjusting their position to create a second trap. I checked the schematic again, verifying that we were about to cross into the central hub.
I said, “Don Abene, I need to scout ahead. It’ll be better if Wilken comes with me, and you and Miki wait here.” I added on the feed, And we need to hurry.
Abene was all for hurrying and I didn’t want to give Wilken time to argue. Abene said, “Yes, go ahead.”
I started up the corridor, walking faster. Wilken hesitated, then followed me, her powered armor letting her catch up. “Hold it,” she said. I stopped, to humor her, and because I could tell from the feed she was checking the schematic. “I see. Let’s move.”
I let Wilken lead the way.
We followed the tube that bypassed the central node to curve toward engineering. I’d been scanning automatically for drones, but I was still turning up a negative result. I tapped Miki’s feed. Have you checked the ship recently?
I’m monitoring Kader’s feed for Don Abene and checking the onboard system status every 2.4 seconds, SecUnit. Ejiro is in the medical suite and is expected to fully recover.
This was the first time I’d heard Miki sound even minimally annoyed. I was vaguely encouraged by that, for some reason. Acknowledged, just checking.
Miki sent me a smile glyph. It’s good to check on our friends.
Well, I’d asked for that.
The tube curved ahead and, as I’d suspected, I saw the shadows and light play that indicated big windows in both walls. What we were about to do was an obvious tactic, and the combat bots could have sent some miniature drones up here to see if we tried it. But I wasn’t picking up any hint of surveillance, movement, or suspicious static on my scan. It was support for the theory that they didn’t have an on-site controller; the schematic didn’t show that these access tubes had windows, it had just seemed likely given the rest of the facility’s design. That wasn’t something a combat bot was going to pick up on.
I stopped inside the shadow of the opaque part of the tube, and Wilken halted nearby. In the feed, I saw she was adjusting the magnification on her helmet cam.
One side