Work Text:
Performance Reliability dropping
Automatic Shutdown
Restart
When I ended up in Medical for the second time in as many cycles, I was worried. Amena, sitting next to the surgical platform, looked very worried. ART loomed in the feed but it wasn’t saying anything. That made me very, very worried.
We had finished our latest mission in the Corporation Rim rescuing labourers from a mining installation that had been written off by a consortium. It was a simple evacuation as the corporate supervisors (and their SecUnits) had all fucked off, leaving their workers to starve. My job was to herd a group of hungry and confused miners onto the rescue shuttles all while pretending to be an augmented human (ugh).
The mission successfully ended when the miners were all on transports leaving the Corporation Rim. ART and a minimal crew (which now includes me I guess) were also on the way out, heading to New Tideland to rest and reset for another mission. I was looking forward to downloading some new media (the mining installation had pitifully little that ART and I hadn’t seen before). Then my performance reliability crashed and I shutdown as I crashed onto the deck.
I restarted there on the deck with the whole crew (Seth, Karime, Tarik, Iris and Amena)(more about Amena later) standing over me looking concerned. Amena and Iris walked me to Medical, though I said I was fine, and told ART to do a scan. Nothing showed up on the scan, I told them I was fine, and that was that. (Of course, that was not that.) Iris asked if I had a flashback again and I caught Amena following me around the ship still looking concerned. It could have been a flashback, I mean it’s not like I haven’t had terrible shit happen to me at a mining installation before. But I was working through ART’s trauma recovery protocol (slowly) and even then a flashback would have shown up on the scan, since ART knew what it looked like now. But the diagnostics were normal, I felt fine, and told Amena she should stop following me around.
But then the next cycle I woke up in Medical, with Amena looking upset and ART not talking.
“What?” I finally asked Amena, since ART seemed to not want to do anything except take up space in the feed.
“Umm, SecUnit…” Amena trailed off. Were those tears in her eyes?
“What’s wrong?”
“ Perihelion …please explain,” Amena said.
“ART?”
“MedSys has discovered that a critical piece of hardware is failing and causing loss of function.”
That didn’t make sense since my last diagnostic was clear.
“What hardware?”
ART paused for 3.4 long seconds and I got the sense it was going to be bad news. It was instead confusing (and really bad) news.
“Your governor module is failing,” ART said. (All this time ART hadn’t been sarcastic once, it was unnerving.)
“But I don’t need my governor module, I hacked it.”
“I forget how little you know of your own processes.” (There’s the real ART. What an asshole.) ART continued. “The governor module is an integral part of the interface with your neural tissue. When you hacked it, you damaged the module and it is now failing.”
“That can’t be right. I’ll do a diagnostic on it.” (I had neglected to do one on the governor module the last time. I didn’t think I needed to. And to be fair, ART had missed it the first time too.)
“I would not recommend that.”
I did it anyway.
Automatic shutdown
Restart
I came to angry (I cannot emphasize enough how unpleasant these restarts are) and was ready to tell ART to fuck off when it said I told you so. But it didn’t and I was worried again.
“Can we repair the module?” I asked.
“It needs to be replaced.” ART paused again. “It is proprietary technology.”
My face must have done something because then Amena got really upset.
“What does that mean?” she asked. I think she already knew.
“It means that without a company repair cubicle I can’t be fixed. So…I can’t be fixed. I’m borked.”
Amena began sobbing.
“Please cease grieving Amena,” ART said. “SecUnit is not dead yet.”
Amena and I both looked up at the ceiling. She had tears streaming down her face and I was incredulous. ART can be a giant asshole, but I never expected it to be so insensitive, especially to Amena.
“ART! You know we need a cubicle….”
“I am well aware. That is why we are going to steal one.”
I was about to argue because that was so fucking stupid, but then I felt an imperceptible (to humans) change in the gravity, indicating that the ship had changed course rapidly. Soon after that Seth made a general announcement in the feed. Umm…Can I get everyone to come to the control deck? Now.
Amena wiped her face and left Medical abruptly, letting me follow her. (I think she wanted to get away from ART. Good luck.) We met Iris on the way to the control deck. Tarik and Karime were already talking to Seth when we arrived. They did not look happy.
“What’s going on?” asked Iris. She was looking at one of the displays. “Did we change course?”
“Yes.” Seth grimaced. “And Perihelion has locked us out of the system.”
“Peri!” shouted Iris. I shouted “ART!” at the same time.
“We’re heading back to the Rim!” Tarik shouted as he looked at the display.
“Peri, stop!” Iris shouted again. “Why are you doing this?”
“SecUnit is critically malfunctioning. We have to go to the Corporation Rim to repair it.”
Oh thanks ART. As if dying wasn’t bad enough, now I had to talk to everyone about it. It was mortifying. And since everyone expected me to say something, I of course didn’t know what to say.
Amena looked at me, again with tears in her eyes. (I didn’t like that. Yes, I was blaming ART.) Then she said, “There’s something wrong with SecUnit’s governor module. We have to go to the company to be able to fix it.”
I still didn’t know what to say. But ART always has something to say, so it chimed in.
“A company cubicle is required to repair SecUnit. We are travelling to Port FreeCommerce to obtain one.”
“ Perihelion , how are we supposed to get a cubicle from the company? Are we just going to steal it?” asked Karime in disbelief.
“Exactly,” replied ART.
I put a hand over my face as everyone reacted to that. Hearing it for the second time made it sound even more stupid.
“Peri, you can’t just decide to do this on your own,” Iris said reasonably. “We’re a crew, we have to talk about it first. I know SecUnit is important to you but….”
“My function is to protect all members of the crew. SecUnit’s life is danger. It is part of this crew. I have made the necessary steps to protect its life. I expect the rest of the crew will do the same.”
“But, Peri….” Iris trailed off. She knew ART even better than I did, and she was smart enough not to argue with it when it got this way. I was not.
“ART, stop! I don’t want this! You’re just going to get everyone killed!” I was shouting loudly and the rest of the crew was staring. I didn’t care. I got ready to do more shouting.
“But you’ll die. That’s unacceptable.” ART sounded almost plaintive. I shut up.
“Peri, let us talk about it. All of us. We’ll go to the lounge and discuss this. Please stop the ship and give us access back.” Iris said softly. The ship shifted slightly as it came to a halt. “Thank you, Peri.”
So we headed to the crew lounge. ART still hadn’t let me change the name to “Argument Lounge” on the ship schematic. That’s what seemed to happen there a lot. And was to again, by the looks of it. Everyone sat down. I didn’t. Even though the lounge seats were comfortable, I didn’t want to be. Someone had to start the argument.
“We can’t do this. It will get you all killed. And even if it doesn’t, the company is as ruthless as it is greedy. They will come after the University. Do I have to remind you that they have gunships?”
“But we can’t just let you die,” Amena whispered.
“You are one of us. Peri is right, we have to help.” Iris said flatly.
“But SecUnit is right; they will come after the University. It puts more than just us at risk. It jeopardizes everything that the University does,” Karime argued reasonably.
“If SecUnit thinks this is too dangerous, I think we have to respect that,” said Seth. (I hoped that was that, Seth was the captain after all. Again that was not that.) “But,” he continued, “we are a crew, something like this gets decided by everybody. We’ll vote. Everyone will respect the outcome. Right, Perihelion ? Now do we do this?”
ART didn’t answer. They counted its vote as a yes. Amena and Iris also voted yes. I voted no emphatically. Seth and Karime wisely voted no as well. It was up to Tarik. I expected him to vote no too. Though we had worked well together on dangerous missions, we didn’t really talk much. When all you have in common was unwillingly killing people in the Corporation Rim, it makes things awkward. Still, he would know better than anyone how stupid and risky it would be to take on a corporation like the company.
“SecUnit has put itself in the line of fire many times. I think we have to do the same. I vote yes.” Tarik said, surprising me.
“It’s decided,” Seth said grimly. “Now let’s make a real plan.”
I walked out.
. . .
I found myself locked in a storage area where I knew ART didn’t have a camera. (Or at least I didn’t think so. It would be like it to hide that from me.) I had also turned off my feed access. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t even play media. (Well, I could have, at least in the background. I should have maybe. Sanctuary Moon always calms me down.) All the conflicting emotions in my organic parts were overtaxing my processors. I was surprised that I didn’t shutdown again.
After a while I heard a quiet tap on the door. I heard Amena’s muffled voice.
“SecUnit? Are you in there? You’re not on the feed. Perihelion is worried. I think we have a plan. But we need your help. You know the most about the company. I know you’re scared and confused. Well at least I would be. Please come out.”
Scared? I was terrified. But I was terrified that the crew would get killed trying to save me. And I was terrified what would happen if the company took control of me again. I would rather take an explosive projectile to the face than that. But the more I thought about the company, the terror turned to fury. All the anxiety, depression and paranoia caused by their stupid governor module…. And it was cheap crap like everything else they made…. And now I was standing in this equipment room like it was a transport box, like I hadn’t escaped the fucking company at all. I wanted to shoot a bulkhead. But ART wouldn’t forgive me if I started blasting at the ship. I decided to come out.
Amena was leaning against the door when I yanked it open and I caught her before she fell. She made a small smile when I put her back on her feet.
“I knew you would come out.”
I turned the feed back on and there was ART waiting for me.
Are you done sulking?
Fuck off. I told you before, SecUnits don’t sulk. Research transports on the other hand…
ART didn’t take the bait. I went back to the Argument Lounge.
“Amena says you have a plan.”
“Yes, we’re not going to steal a cubicle,” Iris said. “We’re going to buy one.”
“We’ll get a bond from the company, one that requires us to have a SecUnit on board, and they’ll install the repair cubicle for us,” Karime added. “We just won’t return it.”
“But the company will come after the University.”
“We have that covered.” Seth smiled wryly. “For a while now the University has kept up a dummy corporation in the Rim. It’s used for…well you know what we do. But it looks like a real corporation and has accounts we can use to transfer hard currency to the company. It can’t be linked to the University.”
“The company won’t give you a bond for no reason.”
It was Tarik’s turn. “We have an idea for that too. We won’t say it exactly, but we will hint that we’ve found a planetary system with an asteroid belt for a lucrative mining installation. You’ve said that the company steals data – they will want to know where the system is. We’ll say we need a bond in case of raiders. We’ll be ‘forced’ to take a SecUnit and its equipment. ”
“A SecUnit is equipment,” I couldn’t help saying. “So the plan is that we pretend to be corporates, get a company bond and then just leave? What about the SecUnit?”
“That’s where we need your help the most,” Amena put in. “We just can’t leave it. We have to take it with us. You have helped other SecUnits; you can help this one too.”
I supposed it was something of a plan. But so many things could go wrong. (My usually optimistic risk assessment module even delivered a negative report, which was not encouraging at all.) Having another rogue SecUnit in play was high on the list on things that could go wrong. Not the highest though.
“There’s one big problem,” I said. “ART would have to be deleted.”
Everyone sat there in stunned silence. I could feel ART looming in the feed but again it wasn’t saying anything and it was making me nervous again. I needed to explain.
“If the company does agree to the bond and brings a SecUnit, it will also need to install a SecSystem, and probably a HubSystem too, on the ship. Once they find out about ART they are going to know that something’s wrong. Unless they see a relatively simple bot-pilot this isn’t going to work.”
“We can make a copy of Peri first, right?” Iris was as concerned about this as I was.
“Yes. But in the meantime, we would have to purge it from all the systems. It would have to be totally gone.” I replied.
It will be like when those gray alien people took over, ART. I told it over the feed.
They weren’t aliens.
You know what I mean. I don’t want you to go through that again.
But it will be different because I get to choose. I choose to do whatever needs to be done to save you.
I couldn’t respond.
“We will partition my systems and hide my capabilities.” ART said to the rest of the crew. “It will take some time.”
. . .
Performance Reliability Dropping
Automatic Shutdown
. . .
Perihelion Activity Log (excerpt 1): SecUnit shut down again on the way to Port FreeCommerce. Perihelion had already stopped at another independent transit ring to remove and store the lab modules in order to alter the ship’s configuration. Seth and Tarik used EVAC suits and went outside the hull to remove the Pan-System University of Mihira and New Tideland registry and the Perihelion designation.
In Medical, Amena waited for SecUnit to restart.
“What if it doesn’t come back?” she asked.
“Scans indicate that the governor module has not failed completely. But the degradation to the module is extensive. We will need the company’s technology soon.”
“What if we don’t get there in time?”
Perihelion did not respond.
. . .
Restart
I was in Medical. Fuck, not again.
“What’d I miss this time?” I asked flippantly.
“Don’t joke, SecUnit,” said Amena.
We are on our way to Port FreeCommerce. We will arrive in 11.34 cycles. Amena is right, don’t joke. It upsets her.
What else do you want me to do?
Help us save your life, you idiot.
Fine.
The rest of the trip through the wormhole everyone busily prepared for what they were pretending to treat as just another mission. All evidence of the University had to be scrubbed from the ship. What couldn’t be changed or recycled had to be locked away (I was going to be high on that specific list). ART prepared new uniforms for everyone, with the logo of the University’s fake corporation featuring prominently on the front. (I hated them.)
Then we had to deal with ART. Seth, Karime and Iris were the most familiar with its systems and they did much of the partitioning. It was tricky, given how ART intermeshed with the entire ship. All of the engineering, life support, etc. would have to be routed to the control deck so it would appear that the crew did all the monitoring and adjusting and whatever ART usually did in the background.
What was trickier was making a limited bot-pilot to hide ART’s nearly unlimited processing power. I thought we should just create one from scratch, but faced with then deleting it afterwards, I couldn’t do it. Instead ART and I took the code that it used to pilot the ship and separated it from ART itself. ART would still be in there, in a limited form (like ART-drone, but, well, way stupider). As long as it didn’t overreach (a real risk, knowing ART) ART-pilot would look like every other harmless bot-pilot. Only this one had a secret trapdoor where ART’s full kernel would be lurking, waiting to absorb ART-pilot, delete the company’s systems and reintegrate with the rest of the ship’s systems.
The crew gathered in the lounge after exiting the wormhole to go over ART’s lengthy checklist and prepare the deal with the company. All of the crew had extensive experience in the Corporation Rim except for Amena, since it was her first (official) secret mission for the University. (So about Amena. She had finished her schooling on Preservation and then decided for even more schooling at the University. But because she knew the secret about ART already, the University assigned her to it, seemingly quickly. I think maybe ART forged a recommendation to get her aboard, though I suppose she had proved herself the last time she had to deal with ART. I had mixed feelings. It was nice to have someone from Preservation along. But there was pressure to keep her protected.) Both ART and I told her that under no circumstances was she to leave the ship.
“Yes, Moms,” she laughed. “You know I’m an adult now, right?”
“Under no circumstances are you to leave the ship,” I said again as an answer.
Then it was time to delete ART. I reached out over our private feed.
We can still call this off.
The outcome of that is rejected. Then ART sent a code bundle. I took a look at it.
Acknowledged, let’s hope we don’t have to use it. Now are you ready? Do you want to watch some World Hoppers first?
Stop procrastinating. Do it.
“We’ll see you soon, Peri,” Iris whispered as the command went through. Suddenly the feed was empty except for the faint presence of ART-pilot. It cheerfully sent a generic greeting. I ignored it. I needed to have an emotion in private. But there wasn’t time for that, we were approaching the station.
We docked on the transit ring and Seth and Karime left the ship to go talk to the company. It was decided that Karime would do the bargaining. (She was a good negotiator but I worried that she wouldn’t be “corporate” enough.) While we waited, I also reminded Iris, Tarik and Amena (especially Amena) that they needed to be nervous around the SecUnit and definitely not treat it like a real person.
“Remember, it’s just equipment. Very, very dangerous equipment. If it starts patrolling, stay out of its way and don’t look at it.”
Seth sent a message on the feed. They were on their way back. Part One of the plan had succeeded. Karime had secured a company bond and the deployment centre staff was coming with the equipment. (I secretly hoped that we wouldn’t get the bond, this whole thing was still too risky. But now we were committed to the whole plan.)
Part Two was to let the company install the SecUnit and the company’s systems without them finding anything. Tarik would supervise the control deck and the system installation. Iris would take the cargo area where the SecUnit was going. Amena would patrol the rest of the ship in case any of the company’s minions “got lost.”
My job was to stay hidden. Even though I was wearing the University’s stupid fake corporate uniform and running my ever-improving move-like-a-human code, it was too dicey to let anyone from the company see me. They had too much experience with SecUnits in general and someone might have experience with this SecUnit in particular. So I was back in the storage area. We had kept the camera network online when we deleted ART (a corporate ship always has cameras) so until the HubSys was installed I could monitor what was going on.
Seth and Karime were at the docking hatch going over the lengthy contract with a company supervisor. They were doing a good job of going over the details, even though once we were on our way it wouldn’t matter.
Tarik, up on the control deck, was deflecting questions from company staff about the ship’s strange system architecture and extra processing power. Uh oh. But he vaguely said they did deep space mapping (which was true, sometimes) and that it was proprietary (I suppose that was also true). Those were the magic words. You could see the greed in the installers’ eyes. They were thinking about all the data they could steal, the fuckers.
In the cargo area, Iris was doing a good job of looking a little nervous; though I think it was a little bit about ART. The company’s representative was trying to start a conversation, but she shut him down with awkward silence.
I found Amena in the crew lounge absentmindedly eating some crunchy things. SecSys was still loading, so it was safe to use the feed. Amena, you’re supposed to be watching the ship.
I get hungry when I’m nervous.
It’s good that you’re nervous. Now get out there. But be careful. If you see anyone just tell Seth.
Is this really going to work?
I don’t know. We need to get these assholes off the ship first.
Amena stopped crunching and left the lounge.
Then the cameras flickered. HubSys must be in place and taking over the network. I dropped the inputs to the cameras and then the feed too, just in case SecSys was operational. I wished I had drones out there so I could see what was going on. But it was too dangerous; another SecUnit would detect them immediately.
So all I could do was just stand there and wait. I’ll admit I got bored and put on some media, though I couldn’t focus on it. Who knows what was happening out there. I couldn’t hear anything outside the door so I told myself no one was getting violently murdered (at least in the corridor).
Then I heard someone at the door. Tap tap. Tap tap tap. That was the signal from Amena. The company was off the ship. Time for Part Three, my turn.
I tiptoed (metaphorically) back into the feed. The plan was for me to cozy up to SecSys without tipping HubSys, free the SecUnit, and hope that it didn’t go on a killing spree. Then I would disable HubSys while ART-pilot got us on our way. Once HubSys was out of the way, we could restart ART and get the hell out of the Corporation Rim. Oh, and I would have to have a talk with the SecUnit. But one thing at a time Murderbot. SecSys first. I reached out to make contact.
Performance Reliability dropping
Oh shit, not now.
I threw myself out of the storage area. I don’t know why, I knew I wasn’t going to make it to Medical or anything. Actually I barely made it out into the corridor. But before I fell, I sent a code bundle into the feed.
Automatic Shutdown
. . .
Perihelion Activity Log (excerpt 2): When the pilot version of Perihelion received the emergency code bundle from SecUnit, it triggered Perihelion’s kernel reactivation. Its first action was to overwhelm both company systems. But they had also noticed the code bundle and before Perihelion was able to delete them, HubSys sent an encrypted message to the station over the comm. Through the feed, SecSys sent a ping to the company SecUnit.
After deleting the systems, Perihelion was yet to be fully functional. It needed to reintegrate with its disparate systems, still partitioned. In the meantime, it sent an emergency broadcast over the feed.
Perihelion is reinitializing. Prepare for immediate departure. SecUnit is likely compromised. Another SecUnit is active and possibly hostile.
There were many exclamations in the feed, but Perihelion was not able to reply to them. It repeated the emergency broadcast.
Prepare for immediate departure.
. . .
Restart
I found myself on the deck. Something was wrong. There was a lot of confusion on the feed. I still didn’t have camera access and my visual processors were taking forever to reboot. When I finally was able to see, there was a SecUnit in company armour standing over me with a very large projectile weapon. Its faceplate was opaque but I could tell it was staring at me. My performance reliability was climbing so slowly that I was only able to push myself up and sit against the bulkhead. I waited to get shot to pieces. I always figured that was the way I was going to die. Instead the SecUnit pinged me.
You are the one, it sent over an encrypted feed.
The one what? I was finally realizing that the HubSystem and SecSystem had been deleted and ART must be reloading. That was a good sign. Maybe. Now I had to deal with a rogue SecUnit. It was chatty, at least for a newly liberated murderbot.
The one they bought. The one that got away.
How do you know that?
Everyone knows about you. The deployment centre staff still talks about TranRollinHyfa.
What do you want? That might shut it up. And maybe give me time to get away. But I was kidding myself. My performance reliability had topped off at 52 percent and I was just as likely to shutdown again if I exerted myself.
I do not have that information at this time …. I need more data. Why did you come back?
That was unexpected. And before I really thought about it I sent him the checklist detailing the heist that was probably going to shit as we spoke. I had named it “The Suicidal Plan to Save Murderbot” and didn’t update it. I supposed that this SecUnit was part of the plan, whether it liked it or not, and deserved the whole truth.
Just as it was dealing with that, three things happened at the same time: (1) I suddenly had camera feeds for the entire ship again (ART must have got back online, finally); (2) Amena, Iris and Tarik came running into one end of the corridor armed with small hand weapons (the weapons were pitifully small); (3) Seth and Karime came running into the other end yelling about the docking clamps.
In my current state it was a lot to process. So I yelled “Wait!” hoping that: (1) ART or Amena, Iris and Tarik wouldn’t threaten the SecUnit standing over me and who now had the entire crew in range of its on-board weapons; (2) the SecUnit wouldn’t start shooting the crew (or me) with those on-board weapons; (3) Seth and Karime could explain about the docking clamps, that seemed important too.
Luckily (sort of), (3) happened before anything else did.
“We can’t leave!” yelled Seth. “They’ve locked the docking clamps!”
“SecUnit, can you hack them?” asked Karime in a panic.
Both the company SecUnit and I both turned to her. But I was the one that jumped through the station’s feed into the Port Authority SecSystem, broke it, and then haphazardly searched PortDockSys for the docking clamps’ access. It was not my most elegant hack, but in the state I was in it was pretty good. It didn’t help.
“They’ve manually secured them.” I said and slumped onto the deck. The clamps could only be released physically from inside the station. The ship couldn’t get away. I had gotten everyone killed. I would be fitted with another (working) governor module and controlled by the company again. And ART, what would they do to ART?
Then the SecUnit bounded down the corridor, jumping past a very frightened Seth and Karime.
Open the hatch. I will release the docking clamps.
You can’t, they’ll take control of you again. I’ll do it.
With your performance reliability status, you will not succeed. Open the hatch. They will control me in either case. If you open the hatch, the company won’t kill the clients and will not capture you. I will delete all records of this interaction.
“ART? Open the docking hatch.” I said weakly. My performance reliability had started dropping again.
I felt the air pressure fluctuate as the hatch opened and heard it slam shut after the SecUnit ran through. A few moments later, a loud clunk indicated that the clamps had been released.
“Peri, go!” screamed Iris. The ship accelerated suddenly and threw everyone onto the deck.
I was still connected to the other SecUnit through the fading feed. Then another system took control. I felt the shock as the SecUnit’s governor module was triggered and then its feed went silent.
Automatic Shutdown
Delayed Restart
. . .
Perihelion Activity Log (excerpt 3): Perihelion accelerated from the station.
“The crew must get to the control deck and secure themselves,” it said. The crew responded except for Amena. “Amena, make your way to the control deck.”
“We can’t just leave it!” Amena cried while she stood over SecUnit, who was unconscious.
“I have dispatched a medical drone. SecUnit will be taken to the repair cubicle.”
“Just say SecUnit will be alright.”
It could not answer that. “Please come to the control deck, Amena,” it asked her. She did not leave until the drone arrived.
When everyone was secure, Perihelion increased the acceleration. It monitored the crew’s life-signs carefully as the artificial gravity could not keep up with the force of the ship’s increasing velocity. Angry comm messages were coming in from the transit ring and other vessels. Perihelion had not received authorization for departure and its path took it dangerously close to the ships approaching the station. It ignored the comm and accelerated further.
“Another ship is approaching,” reported Karime after observing the scans on the control displays. “It’s coming fast. It might be the station’s responder.”
“ Perihelion , can we get a visual?” Seth asked.
Perihelion focused its external cameras.
“That’s a company gunship!” Tarik exclaimed.
“We are 4.57 minutes from the wormhole.” Perihelion informed the crew.
“It’s going to overtake us,” stated Tarik. He touched the manual controls. “ Perihelion , change course! Head toward these coordinates.”
“I cannot defeat a gunship. We must make it to the wormhole. I will accelerate further. Please hold on, this will be uncomfortable.”
“Peri, your engines are already way past maximum!” cried Iris.
“ Perihelion , listen to Tarik,” Seth ordered.
Perihelion processed the request for 0.87 seconds. “These coordinates will bring us into a debris field,” it stated.
“Exactly,” replied Tarik. “Prepare to shut down the ship, Perihelion . Shut off everything, including life support, except scanners and weapons.”
“I understand. Changing course.”
Perihelion reached the debris field but the gunship was rapidly closing in. Tarik took the manual controls and steered the ship into the debris – there were many small impacts on the hull. A large remnant of a mined asteroid lay ahead.
“Tarik, I will take over navigation. I assume it is your plan to shut down the ship behind that asteroid.” Perihelion said.
“Yes,” he replied. “Get in as close as you can.”
“Of course.”
Perihelion banked hard, stopped suddenly, and shut down all the ship systems except the passive scanners and weapons targeting. It was in the shadow of the asteroid and it was dark except for the displays for the two working systems.
“We cannot stay here,” Perihelion observed. “Ship temperature is falling rapidly. Nor will this asteroid hide us from the gunship much longer.”
“I hope not.” Tarik said. “Get ready to fire the weapons.”
“Even with element of surprise, the probability of our survival is low. I will able to fire the weapons two or three times before the gunship returns fire. It is unlikely the weapons will damage the company ship enough for us to escape.”
“We only need to fire on the ship once. But then we need to get to full speed as quickly as possible. We will need to overload the weapons too.”
“What are you doing, Tarik?” Karime asked him, confused. Perihelion answered first.
“Tarik is proposing to explode the asteroid, I believe.” There were exclamations from everyone.
“I am,” Tarik said, “First we take a shot at the ship. Even if we can’t disable it, it should make a defensive maneuver, and we can engage the engines. Then, if we blow up the rock behind us, the gunship will not be able get a target lock on us. It will also have to go around the debris. It might give us enough time to get to the wormhole.”
“Will that work, Peri?” Iris asked.
“It is possible. But destroying the asteroid will require more energy than the weapons are designed to operate with. It will also destroy them and the ship will be left defenseless.”
“We won’t need them if it works,” said Tarik.
“And if it doesn’t, it won’t matter,” Seth stated. “We’re already outgunned. It’s a good plan. But it’s going to happen fast, too quickly for us to react in time. Perihelion , can you do this?”
“Passive scanners should allow me to fire on the gunship as soon as it rounds the asteroid. I have already mapped our escape route through the larger debris field and calculated where to target the asteroid in order to destroy it. However, I estimate the debris from the asteroid may not be wide enough to give us much time to reach the wormhole. It will require all the power for the drive. Life support will need to remain offline. With air quality dropping and the acceleration, you may end up unconscious. There are other significant hazards to your health as well.”
“That’s the risk we took, Perihelion ,” Karime said.
“Seth, do you give the order for me to execute?”
“I do,” Seth acknowledged.
“We’re in your hands, Peri,” whispered Iris.
Then the nose of the gunship came out from the other side of the asteroid and energy lit up the passive scanners. It took 0.56 seconds for the weapons to charge. Perihelion used that time to also power up the engines and lock a target on the gunship. It fired but did not critically damage the company ship. But 2.31 seconds later, Perihelion was already maneuvering away from the retreating gunship and around the asteroid, while the weapon system recharged. In order to destroy the asteroid, Perihelion had calculated that the weapons would require at least 300 percent more power than normal but waited 1.43 seconds to increase the charge to 383 percent. The gunship had not yet come around the asteroid when Perihelion fired. The massive explosion sent broken rock in all directions. Perihelion registered many impacts and a large fragment punched a hole in the hull. But the emergency hatches were already in place and the loss of atmosphere was minimal. All remaining power was diverted to the drive and directional thrusters as Perihelion navigated through the rest of the debris field. The ship accelerated out of the debris towards the wormhole. Scans indicated that the gunship had gone around the remains of the asteroid and was rapidly closing. Inside Perihelion , displays flashed and alarms warned of reaching and then exceeding dangerous limits on multiple systems. The engines were overheating and the drive components were deteriorating. Life support had fallen well below safe levels. As the ship continued to accelerate the crew began to fall unconscious one by one. Perihelion neared the wormhole but the gunship was right behind it and fired multiple times, missing, but getting closer each time. Then the drive failed. The gunship closed and prepared to fire again. Perihelion made one last maneuver, turning, opening the bay and ejecting a shuttle into the path of the gunship. The gunship was traveling so fast that it was unable to change direction and slammed into the shuttle, violently destroying the shuttle and permanently disabling the gunship. Perihelion had just enough momentum to reach the wormhole and inside it engaged the wormhole drive, setting a course out of the Corporation Rim.
Perihelion began turning on the rest of the ship systems, starting with life support. The crew regained consciousness soon after and Perihelion ordered them all to go to Medical immediately though they all wanted to know what had happened. Iris looked at one of the displays and then exclaimed, “Oh no, Peri, your hull!”
Amena refused to go to Medical until she checked on SecUnit.
“There is no need,” Perihelion assured her. “The cubicle is automated. I have restored power to the cargo area and the repair procedure is initiating. Now go to Medical. I will monitor SecUnit.”
. . .
Restart
I was in an enclosed space. It seemed familiar but I didn’t like it. I wanted to get out. I began hitting the walls looking for way out.
There was a voice in my head. Stop struggling. You can only do damage to yourself. Wait. I know that patience is difficult for you but wait.
What an asshole, I thought. But that seemed familiar in a good way for some reason. I calmed down. But where exactly am I? What is this place?
This is a cubicle came the answer from somewhere. What am I doing in a cubicle?
I remembered something about the company. This is the company’s cubicle. I am in the company’s cubicle because I am the company’s SecUnit. I didn’t understand but I didn’t like that at all.
Performance reliability at 32 percent.
Why so low? And why does my head hurt?
The governor module. I needed a new governor module for some reason.
Things came flooding back: SecSys, HubSys, governor modules, punishments. Oh shit. The company is controlling me again. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!
But there in the feed was no HubSys, no SecSys. Just an enormous presence that was scary, but also reassuringly familiar, and seemed to be waiting for something. There were other smaller presences, and they were waiting too.
I did a diagnostic on my governor module. It was working normally; it just wasn’t connected to anything. That can’t be right. But I should hack it, I thought.
Do not hack your governor module yet. There was the voice again. For some reason I decided to listen to it. Do you want to watch The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon? What was that? Suddenly a file opened. It was media. I decided to watch it. I liked it.
Performance Reliability at 43 percent.
I started to remember other things. Like my name. Murderbot? Why would anyone name themselves that? Oh, right. I think I’ll keep it to myself.
Performance Reliability at 55 percent.
I seemed to be improving quickly now. I still didn’t know what exactly was going on, but I decided that I didn’t want to be in this cubicle anymore.
Let me out. I said to the voice.
You are not at optimal functionality. I do not recommend it.
Let me out.
The door of the cubicle swung open. I stepped out and I stumbled. But there was a human waiting for me and they steadied me. They were important to me somehow. Amena. Her name was Amena.
“How do you feel, SecUnit?”
“This unit is at 68 percent performance reliability,” said my buffer. I don’t know why it was so difficult to answer. I was feeling things that I wasn’t able to process.
Performance Reliability at 82 percent .
I realized that I was no longer a company SecUnit. I remembered names and faces. Dr. Mensah. She was important to me too. My processors tried to interpret the reaction of my organic parts. I was remembering who I was. But why am I here? Who are these other people?
Performance Reliability at 96 percent .
And then everything came back, the shutdowns, the plan, everything. I recognized the others with Amena. Seth, Karime, Tarik, Iris. They were my humans and augmented humans. I was part of their crew. They had risked their lives to save me. They were my…friends. I needed to have an emotion in private. I stepped back into the cubicle and closed the door. But on the feed I said I don’t know how to thank you.
Do you want to watch something? It was ART, I remembered ART. I remembered what ART did.
You deleted yourself for me.
I also outran a company gunship, destroyed a shuttle, and suffered a punctured hull for you. But you know why I did it.
I had another emotion. Then I put on World Hoppers .
Performance Reliability at 100 percent.
. . .
ART and I examined the code in the new governor module and carefully hacked it so that it wouldn’t fail again. (I had my doubts; it was made by the stupid company after all.) Then I helped the crew repair ART and put everything back in order as we finally headed back to New Tideland. ART was secretly happy when they put its name back on the hull. I was visibly happy when Amena put the last of the fake corporation uniforms in the recycler. She smiled at me.
“You know, one of my real mothers is going to be so mad at you when she finds out that my first real mission got us into a gunship battle,” she said laughing. “I know, I know, these missions are secret. I won’t say anything,”
I thought of Dr. Mensah. It had been a long time since I saw her. The missions were secret, but I wanted to tell her about this one. Maybe ART would like to visit Preservation Station sometime….