Work Text:
“Remember, I’m not your coworker or your employee or your bodyguard. I’m a tool, not a person.”
She blinked. It sounded so resigned to this.
There was no other way, Overse said. There was not an easier way to do this that would keep her safe and it from being suspicious.
“I understand. Don’t worry.”
Overse was still mad at her right now, but they’d agreed they’d table it for when she got back. If she came back.
Airlocks didn’t hiss anymore, but somehow, as she stared the corporate ship down, she imagined the ominous hiss. Certain death if she stayed in space. Scared, upset, angry Overse on Perihelion. A corporate supervisor on the transport before her.
She stepped into the airlock and didn’t look at her feet. Head up, eyes forward, ready to negotiate.
Four people with weapons greeted her. The suit masked her small gasp at the guns pointed directly at her chest. Problem? she asked SecUnit.
No. It’s security procedure.
Good. Arada took a deep breath, fighting the urge to hyperventilate. She was strong. She could do this. Overse and the others were counting on her.
“Remove your suits, please,” a guard said, and she waited for both SecUnit and Eletra to get out first before she did. She was the leader here. Corporate leaders were the last to get in or out of EVAC suits, Overse had said, just in case of someone firing a weapon or trying to space them.
“This way, Dr. Arada,” someone else said, and she followed them into a meeting room. It was very red and brown; she tried hard not to scrunch up her nose at the sheer tackiness of the sight.
Leonide had arrayed herself on the couch directly facing the entrance, like a queen on her throne awaiting petitioners. “Dr. Arada.” A nod at the other couch, rather than an invitation to sit.
Arada bounced once on her heels and stepped forward to meet her. “Supervisor Leonide.” She nodded in return, then gestured at SecUnit. She didn’t glance at it, she could be a good corporate academic for an hour. (“Don’t think about what it must be remembering. Your face will do the thing,” Overse had said.)
“Your bodyguard,” Leonide said, looking at SecUnit. “Is that…”
“A SecUnit,” Arada said, meeting Leonide’s eyes. She wanted to look at it, make sure it was okay with what she said. But everything depended on her making sure Leonide never realized it was rogue.
“You don’t trust us?”
No, Arada did not trust a corporate supervisor. And that was the most annoying fake-sweet voice she’d heard since the bullies in leaf-year. She bit her tongue (literally, and it hurt) and smiled like Pin-Lee did, teeth covered and lips pulled in. “I think we trust each other the same amount. And I’m afraid our contract requires our SecUnit be present during off-ship first contacts.”
Don’t look at SecUnit, keep the smile…
“Of course,” Leonide said.
Even Arada could guess she’d won that one. (People were hard. Corporate people were weirder and never smiled and didn’t make even the slightest lick of sense.)
She smiled a little more, had to show how interested she was, and tried to look like she wasn’t lying her head off about what had happened. “Can you tell me what happened to your transport? Because I think it’s very similar to what happened to mine.”
Crud.
Leonide blinked.
“I can go first, if you like,” Arada offered. (Count one fuckup. Overse had told her she was allowed to tally them, but she wasn’t allowed to do anything else until she was back on the ship. And she had to keep track of her wins too.)
“Not necessary,” Leonide said, doing something with her face. “You understand the former colony planet in this system is now wholly owned by Barish-Estranza.”
(“Whatever you do, babe, this isn’t a time for justice. Lie long enough to get out of there and then I’ll let you rant to me for as long as you need, hey?” Overse’d said.)
Arada tensed her shoulders, but she was good, she didn’t get mad, she didn’t punch Leonide in her eminently punchable stupid face. “Of course.”
“Our arrival here and initial scan of the system was uneventful, and we went into orbit while our explorer approached the colony’s space dock. They reported that it was surprisingly still intact and operational, which was good news for our reclamation effort. Bringing in a new one to assemble would be a considerable expense. Instead of a shuttle, the contact team elected to use the dock’s drop box to reach the surface. Possibly that was a mistake.”
Arada bit her tongue. ‘Possibly a mistake’ was an understatement, frankly. She let Leonide continue and focused on maintaining eye contact. She absolutely could not interrupt here. People barely tolerated it on Preservation. Corporates didn’t tolerate it between equals.
“There was nothing but standard status reports from the explorer for more than fifty-seven hours. Then the drop box returned. Our contact party had been compromised, but we weren’t aware at first. We’d just sent over a shuttle to the explorer with two environmental techs for a standard maintenance check. I had assumed that shuttle was destroyed in the subsequent … events, until you told me otherwise.”
Arada nodded, but Leonide didn’t continue. Oh, it must be her turn. “Your techs, Eletra and Ras, had been implanted with these small devices.” She asked SecUnit, Now? and it handed her the implant so she could pass it over.
Leonide frowned and sat still for a moment before someone came in and grabbed the implant. Arada did the sort of half-nod Overse had showed her how to do so she acknowledged their presence without suggesting she actually recognized a person had come in.
(“It’s what she’ll expect corporate academics to do, babe. Nobody else but the supervisor is a colleague there. Think about it like you’re acknowledging that jerk from grad school in the halls. Just enough that you see there’s a person in the physical space, not enough to make them talk to you.”)
“That might explain how they were controlling our contact group. As far as we can tell, when the group returned to the explorer via the space dock, they were somehow forced to take the rest of the crew prisoner. Our security system received a truncated warning of a viral threat, so we were able to cut off feed access before our systems were contaminated. It gave us some moments to prepare, before the explorer fired on us.”
Arada nodded, like she was agreeing with Leonide. “Did you get any visual images of the raiders?”
“Very briefly in a security vid,” Leonide said. “They were, as you said, unusually divergent.”
“We suspect they’ve been affected by alien remnant contamination.” Arada kept her face still, pretending she could stay calm. She knew what they’d tangled with and that meant she had to be calm enough to discuss. This was just a discussion about the threat. Keep calm.
“Yes. How were you attacked?” Leonide was glaring. Probably about the reminder of the failure.
Arada didn’t play with her hair or swallow. She had to say their story like it was the truth. She had to lie perfectly. “We had just arrived in the system and started our initial long-range mapping scans.” She could do this. She spread her hands like she was setting the scene. “We received a distress call from a ship we now know was your explorer. When we came within range, it launched a shuttle. We allowed it to dock and ended up in a battle for our lives and our ship. They were able to take eight members of our crew. If we hadn’t had a SecUnit, we would have lost the ship.” She looked off into the distance, imagining what would have happened if she had actually lost her survey team to the gray raiders.
“Our Units weren’t so effective.” Leonide looked at SecUnit as if its perceived success was a threat to her. And maybe it was. “Did you see anyone who might have been from the explorer’s crew?”
Arada dug her thumbnail into her finger. “Only Eletra and poor Ras. Did you have any idea there were alien remnants on this planet, perhaps at the old colony site?”
Careful, SecUnit said.
Oh, damn everything.
Leonide suddenly looked at her like birds of prey looked at worms. (She’d screwed up bad. Count another fuckup.) “I’m afraid my contract won’t permit discussing that. Our cargo factor has finished unloading your supplies.” Leonide gave her an opaque look that was probably condescension or hatred? “Before we transmit a certificate of note for your invoice, perhaps you’d like to negotiate.”
“Negotiate what?” The price they’d given was low, but surely nobody wanted to pay more for help?
“Your return to your ship.”
Arada didn’t even have a second to react before SecUnit did… something… and had a guard and weapon pointed at Leonide.
Arada tried really hard to breathe.
SecUnit would protect her.
It was better than any human at security.
She wasn’t going to die here.
She could get herself together.
Arada, put your hands down. You’re supposed to be the one giving me orders.
Huh, since when had her hands been up? She folded her hands neatly and took a shaky breath. Oh, sorry, you’re right.
Another shallow breath.
Overse would tell her to keep going. She had the best chance of– of surviving, if she could stall long enough for SecUnit to do its thing.
“I don’t want to negotiate.”
It had sounded cool in her head, but coming out of her mouth, it sounded more like she was frightened and about to cry.
“Our onboard security–”
Oh no you don’t.
“Is useless, right now.” Arada risked a glance at SecUnit, who looked distracted enough it might be in the feed dealing with things. Her voice felt less scared this time, as she said, “As you said, our SecUnit is very effective.”
“Where did you get it?” Leonide had to be stalling too, only she didn’t seem scared.
“The company,” Arada said, except that wasn’t the story SecUnit had made up. (A third fuckup. Well, she at least recognized she’d forgotten entirely.)
“Company units have a reputation for being dangerous.”
Oh no you fucking don’t. SecUnit did not save all of them multiple times for this.
“I know,” Arada snapped.
Someone, probably SecUnit, had cut her feed in the chaos, but the Perihelion broke through. I have a targeting lock on their bridge. The section you’re in will break off and I can tractor you over before you lose too much atmosphere.
Um, no?
SecUnit, who was much more in control of its reactions right now, said, No, don’t shoot at us. For fuck’s sake, art.
“It’s against Corporation Rim standards to allow a SecUnit control over proprietary systems.” Leonide looked mad but like she was maybe less scared and more murderous, which, probably not good either.
Still. Arada glared right back. “Then you should call someone and complain about that.”
The Perihelion sent her proof that it had the targeting lock and for the love of all things great and small why did it still have that thing going.
Leonide did something with her mouth that wasn’t quite a frown. “There’s no need for all this. I was simply looking for a better deal. Perhaps coming from an academic background, you find that unusual.”
Arada swallowed. She was not going to sound even weirder right now. “Well, it was a little rude. I’d like to go back to my ship now.”
And for you to transmit the invoice.
Right, that. She smiled without showing her teeth, just a little bit. “And for you to transmit the invoice.”
“Of course.”
Then she and SecUnit were leaving, getting back in the airlock, and Overse pretty much immediately texted her, Are you all right?
No, not really. But that wasn’t what Overse meant right now. Right now, Overse wanted to know that she was still alive and not hurt. Everything else, they’d said they’d talk about when she got back and they were safe. I’m fine, babe. Just some corporate power peeing.
Ratthi had sent half a dozen frightened emojis and Amena had asked if she was okay. Thiago had said the transport was blocking her feed but please let everyone know as soon as she could. Arada responded to all of them and opened her feed with SecUnit.
She curled in on herself a little, grateful for the EVAC suit keeping her utter exhaustion from showing outwardly. Why did she do that? she asked SecUnit, so tired she hoped it figured out who she meant. Did I sound weak? I’m sorry I messed up.
No, it said, it wasn’t you.
Oh, thank goodness.
I think she told us too much, in front of her crew, it continued, and she realized it. She wanted to make sure they knew she was in charge.
That helped. SecUnit never spared her feelings. If it didn’t think she was at fault, she probably wasn’t.
But it was worth it. At least we know what to do next, now.
She’d talk to Overse, work things out, and then they’d plan. Overse always knew how to make things (like going to the space dock where the gray people had come from) work out for the best. And Arada might have hated every second of it, but Leonide didn’t know they weren’t the Perihelion’s crew and SecUnit wasn’t governed, plus they knew their next steps, so overall this was probably several wins to balance out those fuckups.