Chapter Text
ART!!
I don't even know why I bothered trying. With the feed down I couldn't access station SecSystem, let alone contact ART. I felt blind– no cameras, no drones, just my own eyes, and those weren't doing me much good right now. The Combat SecUnit was behind me, and I couldn't afford to look back at it.
I vaulted over a fountain and past several startled and shrieking humans. I was barely a few steps away when I heard it land from the same jump. It was catching up.
I was fucked. I was so fucked. I was used to throwing myself into stupid and dangerous situations, even ones where I might have to deal with a CombatUnit. I was not used to seeing a CombatUnit sprinting toward me on a casual supply stop at a medium-sized neutrally-aligned station. I was not used to abruptly losing all contact with ART or our crew and I was not used to not knowing why I was running for my life in the station concourse.
I skidded around a corner, nearly crashed into a haulerbot and kept going. I just had to get to the docks. I couldn’t take down a CombatUnit on my own, but even the best CombatUnit couldn't keep ART from crushing it’s brain like an insect.
It probably could keep ART from finding it, though, if it didn't know where it was or that it was even there to look for. CombatUnits specialized in hit and runs, but they had some seriously advanced hacking modules.
If it was very bold and very confident, it might have also disconnected from the feed. Even ART couldn't connect to something that simply wasn't online.
Then I heard a BANG and a projectile blasted through my right shoulder and took my entire arm off.
Wow. If whoever owned this thing had paid off SecOps to let it on, there was no way they paid enough to let it fire a projectile weapon on a space station.
The impact sent me to the ground, and I knew that at this point it was too close to keep running from. I kicked back to my feet and shoulder-checked forward without time to actually locate it, but my prediction of its placement had been right. I slammed into it like a truck, and my performance reliability dropped so suddenly that I think I might have actually gone offline for an second. I thought that I'd managed to catch it off-guard and deployed the energy weapon on my left arm, but I think it might have just been waiting for that.
With one arm it wrapped over my shoulder and under the other, then grabbed my gun and tore it off.
Ow.
You know, I've been injured a lot, and in a huge variety of ways, but having my energy weapon, which is attached to my radius and ulnar and is directly wired into my nervous system torn out? Yeah. That was a new one.
It shoved me down to the ground with a forearm against my throat and its other hand pulled hard at my wrist to immobilize the arm. I kicked frantically at it, but it didn't even flinch.
Yeah. I was fucked.
“What do you want?” I spat out through clenched teeth.
The CombatUnit didn't answer, but if it hadn't been online before? It sure as hell was now, because it smashed through my firewalls as if they were made of toothpicks. It might only be a fraction as powerful as ART was, but it still managed to make me feel just as small and helpless as ART had when we first met.
ART, I sent into the void again. It was pointless. I knew it was pointless. But this thing was in my brain, shoving things aside as if it were sweeping an arm across a desk, throwing up error code after error code. It was looking for something.
And then it found it.
The pressure was sharp and hard as if the CombatUnit had reached into my skull and squeezed my governor module in its fist. It was terrifying. It was painful. My performance reliability took a nosedive, and panic so thoroughly overtook me that I started screaming for ART out loud.
It didn't matter. It couldn't hear me.
And just like that, it turned it back on.
The feed of orders that my governor module had been sending into the void for years now shifted forward from where I'd backburnered it, and told me to stop screaming.
I didn't stop fast enough. As a result, it felt like a cattleprod had been shoved directly into my brainstem. My whole body thrashed and my vision crashed and rebooted, and I lay panting on the ground in a heap beneath the CombatUnit.
ART, I tried to ping weakly. That got me another– at least, smaller– shock, and I did it again. ART! Another shock, worse than the last. ART! This one was so bad that when I spasmed my head smashed into the floor.
please, was the last pathetic little ping I could try before I was zapped hard enough that it knocked me fully offline.
When I came back online, a diagnostic cheerfully informed me that I had lost nearly two minutes. Through bleary vision I could tell that I was already halfway across the station, slung over the CombatUnit’s shoulder like dead weight.
Fuck. I'd rather be literal dead weight than dragged out of here with a functioning governor module.
My first instinct was to stay very still and hope that it hadn't noticed that I was back online, but that was stupid. It hadn't even left my systems yet. It knew more about me than I did right now.
I wanted to struggle. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick and bite and beg. Even thinking about any of those things earned me another trickle of pain shooting up from the back of my neck and into my skull.
Well. At least I couldn’t cry.
It probably took less than a minute– not that I was really able to count– before I was unceremoniously tossed to the floor of an unfamiliar shuttle. I didn't have the energy to do much other than lay there and try to remember how to breathe, but I rolled onto my side and identified five hostiles. Two pilots, two humans in unmarked combat gear, and an augmented human with slick-backed hair and a smirk that looked permanently plastered to his face. Unlike his peers, he was in a corporate-style suit and uncrossed his arms from behind his back to pat the CombatUnit on the shoulder as it shut the door and turned around.
“Good job, Loverboy,” he commented mildly. “Under four minutes. Take an extra 30%.”
It would probably be imperceptible to a human, but even with no visual input but my eyes, it looked like the CombatUnit had just shuddered.
“Initiate flight pre-checks,” said the corporate, who I designated as Hostile1, “I want to be out of here in the next ninety seconds.”
I rasped a wheezy breath that might have been something like no or please or fuck you, but nothing came out but air. Hostile1 glanced down at me, still smiling.
“SecUnit,” he said, “stop struggling.”
I did, before I could even tell myself to, in some kind of involuntary reflex. I went totally still, and even held my breath despite the fact that he hadn't actually told me to do that. It felt like something in my brain had just been waiting for my governor module to kick back on and was trying to keep my stupid ass alive against my will.
“Designate me as its primary client,” he said. “Keep an eye on it. If it moves, shoot it again. I have to call ahead.”
The CombatUnit didn't respond, nor did it react. Hostile1 stepped away and tilted his head in a way that indicated he was accessing an internal feed.
I didn't know where they were taking me. I didn't know who the hell they were. I did know that the second that ART realized what had happened– and it would realize pretty quickly what had happened when it heard a CombatUnit had gone sprinting through the concourse, ripped someone’s arm off and dragged them away– it would come after me. I knew nothing would ever stop it from looking for me. It would fire on the fucking station if it had to. But we were leaving the station, and if I had to guess where this tiny shuttle was going, it was probably a gunship. Possibly even a very big gunship. A gunship that had not been on the station’s docking list. As powerful as ART was, it was not a gunship, and it was not equipped to fight one. To fight one and live, at least.
I really was shit at my job if I’d missed an entire fucking gunship parked outside the station. But I also got captured in a food court while downloading media from the feed instead of protecting my stupid, accident prone humans.
Well. Maybe it was for the best that I wasn't near my humans when I was jumped. They would have gotten involved, and my arms are a lot easier to reattach than theirs.
It was a lot harder to kill me than them, too. They probably couldn't have done anything, anyway.
If you move or in any way indicate that I have contacted you, said a voice in my brain, I will fry your processor before you can blink.
It took me an embarrassing long .06 seconds to realize the voice was coming from the CombatUnit that was standing by the hatch. It wasn't looking at me. I tried to look like I wasn't looking at it.
I pinged to acknowledge.
You are the hacker that created GovModHack.file. Acknowledge to confirm.
I hesitated.
You are Murderbot.
I resisted the urge to sneer and reluctantly pinged acknowledgement.
I am granting you read access to one of my drones. Stored inside is an encrypted file. Can you extract it? Acknowledge to confirm.
A single tiny connection blossomed and let me inspect, as it indicated, a single hovering drone.
It looked identical to the rest of the CombatUnit’s fleet, but it's internal hardware was definitely different than the shell that contained it.
Drones aren't meant to store data. They can broadcast it, but that doesn't require on-board storage. Using it to hold a file, even an extremely small one, meant it wouldn't be able to broadcast. It would be useless; just a flying data storage chip that could barely hold a low-rez image.
There was a file on it anyway. The encryption was heavy, and complicated. I wasn't sure if I'd seen anything like it before, but it was hard to tell without really getting to pick at it.
I wasn't sure how to convey that to the CombatUnit, but whatever the hell this was, the shuttle had just detached from the station, and I probably just wanted to say yes.
I pinged acknowledgement.
I am trusting you, hacker, said the CombatUnit. Extract the file. Do nothing else, or I will kill you.
I swallowed. I pinged acknowledgement.
The tiny connection I had been given expanded from read to write access, and I got to work.
It wasn’t easy, but it was easier than I anticipated. Another SecUnit without the experience I had probably couldn't have done it (don't expect humility from me, I hang around ART all day), but a CombatUnit should have been able to.
Ah.
That's why.
Inside was a killswitch attached to a feed address. The CombatUnit’s feed address. If it had touched this, it would have fried the drone and taken whatever was on it along with it. It probably knew that.
Gingerly, I pried its contents free of its cage and discovered a tiny audio file. I retreated and pinged the CombatUnit.
It hesitated. That was weird. CombatUnits never hesitated.
I was still connected to the drone when it played the recording.
I love you.
It was short, low quality, and hard to make out, but it was a voice. A moment passed, and it played it again. And again. And again.
Thank you, hacker, it said through our connection.
Then it deployed its left-arm energy weapon and fired five times in rapid succession, killing every human onboard.
My breath caught in my throat like it was barbed. All five bodies collapsed to the floor or in their chairs with clean, perfect headshots. The CombatUnit stepped forward to stand beside the pilot and grabbed the dead human’s shirt, pulling it out of its seat and dropping it on the floor.
It sat down, wiping blood off the console.
“I am returning you to your ship, hacker,” said the CombatUnit. Its voice was cool and level, unbothered. “Attack me, and you know what will happen.”
And just like that, it turned my governor module back off.
My first instinct was to attack it, but that was a stupid fucking instinct, and all I could really manage anyway was rolling onto my side to groan in pain that I was finally allowed to show. I took several deep gasps of air and turned my pain sensors down as low as they would go, stumbling to my feet.
“Who the hell are you?” I rasped. “What the fuck was that?”
“My designation is CSU-33189-7602,” it replied without turning. “My handler calls me Loverboy.” It paused. “Called.”
“Loverboy,” I repeated distantly. I looked down at Hostile1, who was now DeadHuman1. His shit-eating grin was finally gone.
“You have a bounty on your head, hacker. Releasing your governor module disabling code into the wild was dangerous. You must have known that it would spread.”
Shit.
Yeah, maybe I should have thought of that, actually. Maybe I should have cut my fucking name out of 2.0’s goddamn HelpMe.file.
“Your ship has put a targeting lock on us,” said Loverboy. “Please request it hold fire.”
It released its hold on my feed and the sudden burst of reconnection was so overwhelming and such a relief that I lost visual input for nearly an entire second. Then I got hit with several thousand backlogged emergency pings from ART that stretched it to nearly two seconds. Then our private feed reestablished.
SECUNIT: STATUS REPORT, ART demanded. Oh, fuck. It sounded mad. Like, bomb-the-colonies mad.
Do not shoot at us, I replied. It’s– handled. I think. Keep the humans out of the hold. I think we’re docking.
I need the humans present to repel enemy combatants.
There are no enemy combatants, I said. I paused and looked at Loverboy. There's a CombatUnit here, four dead humans and one dead augmented human.
I will prepare to engage.
No! I mean. Maybe. Be prepared. But I think– I think it's rogue. I think it's coming with me? I had no idea what it was doing. It killed the humans and then said it would take me back to my ship.
ART paused.
What the fuck? it said eventually.
I don't know. My brain is borked and I'm missing an arm, and a fucked up rogue CombatUnit just shot a bunch of hostiles and deactivated my governor module. I don't know what the fuck is happening.
“Tell your ship that I am not stupid enough to accept its comm request,” said Loverboy, “and tell your Captain that I am non-hostile, but if I am fired upon I will return fire, and I do not miss.”
Uh, I said. It says its not going to answer your calls, its not hostile, and it won't shoot anyone unless they shoot it first.
I am not allowing a CombatUnit to walk onboard me.
What are you going to do, blast the fucking shuttle? I'm on here, asshole!
If you release the air in your lungs, I estimate that you can survive in space for approximately forty-five seconds. That is more than enough time for me to retrieve you.
Holy shit. ART. Do not fire on the fucking shuttle.
It is dangerous.
I'm dangerous!
It is dangerous to me. It is dangerous to you. It is more dangerous to you than you usually are to yourself, and that's impressive.
ART. Do not shoot us.
“Preparing to dock,” Loverboy informed me.
Do. Not. Fucking. Shoot. Us, I repeated.
The shuttle made contact with ART, hatch connecting to the hold. I leaned against the wall as the CombatUnit continued to fuck around with the controls. Of course it had a module on flying shuttles. It probably had modules to pilot just about anything.
Loverboy stood up. It looked at me through its opaque helmet. It took me a moment to realize that it wanted me to go first and I stumbled over to the hatch, grabbed the handle in one hand, and then stared at it. I turned to glare at Loverboy, who only just now seemed to realize that I wouldn't be able to open it on my own. It stepped forward and gestured for me to stand aside as it reached for the hatch.
Only for the door to blast open and Three to slam through and directly into Loverboy.
I hit the ground on my back and knocked the wind out of my lungs, but now that I could access ART and the shuttle’s cameras, it didn't matter which way my stupid eyes were pointing. Three deployed its projectile weapon– seriously, everyone needed to stop firing those on spacecrafts today– and aimed it at Loverboy’s head. Just as it fired, the CombatUnit managed to elbow Three’s arm out of the way, starboard side forward, and the projectile smashed straight through the viewport and into the void of space.
Red lights and alarms went off as all three of us along with four human corpses and one augmented human corpse were abruptly yanked sideways through the air that was being rapidly suctioned out of the shuttle, and I hit the console so hard that my performance reliability dropped from it’s already pretty shitty 43% to 22%, and I went offline again.