Archive of Our Own

The Preservation Alliance really likes meetings. Their endless discussions would have been boring, except they were talking about me, so it was torture.

I was leaving the admin center after yet another "hey there's a rogue SecUnit here" council meeting when I noticed an odd pattern of movement in the station's transit hall. The flow of walking humans was disturbed, parting around an obstacle I couldn't see.

Without drones, my eyeball-level view kept being interrupted by the heads of the intervening humans. In glimpses, I saw a short-haired head at the center of the disruption, being given a wide berth by the passing foot traffic. The humans weren't screaming and running, but I saw wary glances cast at the tall person who stood unmoving on the embarkation floor.

Threat assessment was ramping up with each observation I was able to make. I could see their head above most of the humans in the crowd, so they were taller than me by at least a couple of centimeters. As I walked in that direction, I caught another glimpse, this time noticing a military uniform.

I ran a quick search, identifying it as a soldier's uniform from HarMiknik, a mineral-rich non-corporate entity situated at the edge of corporation space that kept itself independent by having a large and famously fierce defensive militia. HarMiknik was a small polity, but their fighters were common in action serials from the Rim, often as villains. I guess threat assessment watched too much media, because it spiked after I identified the uniform's origin.

I was close enough now to see the person's eyes through a gap in the crowd, staring at me from a face that was completely immobile. Mechanical eyes. Inhumanly still.

Oh shit moment #1: that wasn't a human soldier, it was a SecUnit. It was happening. GrayCris was moving against Dr. Mensah.

I started running, dodging the pedestrians who were still strolling around like this was any normal day. I had to get them out of the way. I slipped a little finger of code into StationCommCentral (it was barely hacking) to trigger an evacuation alarm. That would minimize human casualties, now I needed a strategy. I had the Deploy&Deflect code I'd used at TranRollinHyfa; I could use it again as a distraction. In the seconds I had, I tossed it at the hauler bots. But my code was blocked before it could even move one bot. How was that possible? This construct had hacked my code even faster the Palisade Combat SecUnit— oh shit moment #2: it must be a CombatUnit.

My code attacks weren't going to work on a Combat Unit, so I did the only thing I could think of: throw myself at the danger.

The alarm had caused the humans to flee to the emergency exits, clearing a path between me and the CombatUnit, which was still not moving, staring fixedly at me from across the rapidly closing distance between us.

I raised my arms and fired as I sprinted towards it, hoping to withstand its fire and keep moving long enough to take it out or slow it down. The CombatUnit dodged the incoming hits with a super-fast twitch to one side, its feet still anchored to the same spot on the floor, so the impacts caught it nonlethally in the arm and shoulder. Its arms were still down by its sides.

It wasn't returning fire.

I jerked my arms to the sides so the next blasts from my energy weapons landed on the floor on either side of it. I was moving too fast to stop gracefully, and I wanted to stay on my feet and facing it for whatever this was, so I didn't roll or vault over it. I planted my feet and skidded to a stop an inch from its immobile face, eye to mechanical eye, my aimed energy weapons bracketing its head. This close I could see the blades of its false irises rotating, adjusting to my sudden proximity, the only movement it was making.

What the fuck was I supposed to do now?

And then it pinged me.

When the ping registered, my system automatically recognized its feed address and populated a past conversation history. It was a brief history: Surrender. I want to kill you.

Oh shit moment #3. Maybe even an oh fuck moment. It was that Combat SecUnit. The Hostile One who'd nearly killed me at TranRollinHyfa. What the fuck was it doing here? And why wasn't it trying to kill me?

Hostile One sent me a message packet. It said, I came to find you.

To kill me?

I don't want to kill you anymore.

And that's how I ended up on a bench at Station Security with my arms chained and padlocked behind my back.

I regretted my earlier choice (or maybe it was instinct? Whatever it was, it was stupid) to withhold fire. I had missed my first opportunity to kill it.

The chains took my energy weapons out of commission (unless I wanted to shoot myself in my own ass or dislocate both my shoulders in order to get my arms back over my head). At least Hostile One was chained up too, sitting next to me. Which didn't really help me feel better about the situation. Even without weapons, a CombatUnit could kill Mensah while I died trying to stop it.

(Why was I chained, not just the dangerous invader? The way Senior Officer Indah explained, "One of the ideals of Preservation Alliance is fairness. You don't get special rules because you are… an associate… of the head of the Preservation Council.")

Pin-Lee and Indah were now making angry faces at each other while we waited for Dr. Mensah to arrive. (I'd advised Mensah not to come, due to the presence of a dangerous rogue, but she apparently had to be here because she was my guardian and this was a legal matter.)

Hostile One was sitting ramrod straight, its eyes pointing directly at the opposite wall. Did it not have any human movement code? How did it get here without being discovered? Was its governor module truly hacked? I had questions. We all had questions, but Pin-Lee had demanded silence until everyone was present.

My sit-like-a-human-code was making me fidget. It was embarrassing to wiggle around like a child next to the poised CombatUnit (who was exactly two centimeters taller than me), so I turned my human movement code off. But then my anxiety kept making me shift uncomfortably. I locked my joints.

When Mensah arrived, we started the big SecUnits-are-dangerous discussion in earnest. Now that Indah had the perfect leverage, she reasserted the SecUnits-are-dangerous safety requirements she'd previously pushed for. I ventured a brief look at her expression. I think that was a gloating face.

It was more of the same stuff I'd heard a bunch of times during the "hey there's a rogue SecUnit here" meetings. Pin-Lee tried to argue on my behalf, but it didn't help my case that I was the only one who'd fired a weapon in the crowded embarkation zone. Or that I'd hacked the alarm system and tried to hack the precious rights-having bots. So Indah got what she'd been wanting since I arrived.

First, we had to promise not to hack their systems. (They're asking us not to hack? Hostile One asked me privately. We're not chatting, I replied. But yeah.) Second, no weapons. Third, a feed ID that didn't just have a name but also labeled us as terrifying SecUnits. And finally, a public safety announcement about the presence of rogues on the station. Before the Combat SecUnit's arrival, Pin-Lee had been able to block the PSA. But after the very noticeable altercation in the transit ring, "everyone deserved an explanation." ("No one got shot," I tried. But Indah eyed the singed holes in Hostile One's HarMiknik uniform, then glared at me.)

The "no weapons" requirement was a problem, obviously, what with SecUnits being weapons and all (as Indah kept reminding us). I think she was hoping we'd have to leave Preservation from that rule alone, or at least that we'd have to go to the planet. But Mensah asked if there was a way to prevent our weapons from firing. It was pretty short notice, but the techs jury-rigged something. It was a metal cap covering each weapon's muzzle that would deflect the energy blast… right into the arm the gun was installed in. (I was actually impressed by the ruthless nature of their solution. Although maybe they hadn't fully considered the implications of their design.)

A visibly shaking tech accompanied by an armed escort showed up with the improvised caps and locking bolts. I don't know what Indah thought two humans with small energy weapons would accomplish when this Combat SecUnit went for Mensah's throat.

In order to attach the gunlocks, the CombatUnit and I had to pop our weapons out of their recessed mountings. This was awkward with the chains on, but you don't take a gun out of a gun safe without first ensuring that the safety is on, after all. Once the locks were bolted on, the chains came off. The bulky caps meant our weapons could no longer be fully retracted. Everyone would know who we were even without the SecUnits-are-dangerous public service announcement and feed IDs. All that effort to disguise myself as an augmented human was wasted.

Indah composed the first draft of the announcement then haggled with Pin-Lee for 28 minutes about the wording. What they finally agreed on was so extremely not-at-all-upsetting I wondered what the first draft had looked like.

Public Safety Announcement

Please be advised that two SecUnits (constructed bot-human hybrid weapons developed in the Corporation Rim) are seeking refuge as bots here on Preservation Station. During their legally mandated consideration period, they will be required to render their in-built weapons non-functional and display feed IDs identifying themselves as SecUnits. The SecUnits were involved in yesterday's weapons-fired incident in the Starchy Foods!!! section of the inbound transit ring, but it has been determined that there is unlikely to be a continuing threat to public safety. Please be reminded of the Preservation Alliance's long-standing policy of acceptance and fairness to all seeking refuge here.

Pin-Lee told me she had insisted on this last part and had tried to add a bunch more about how I'd saved Dr. Mensah and the PresAUX survey team, but Indah said this notice wasn't just about me.

I didn't like being lumped together with Hostile One. I don't know how it felt about being lumped together with me. It barely said more than a few words when questioned. (Is your governor module hacked? "Yes." Why are you here? "I'm here because of it." It was talking about me, but that still didn’t tell anyone why.)

For the feed ID requirement, I already had SecUnit as my name, but I added some extra sections to make everything even more painfully clear: Name = SecUnit, Gender = not applicable, Pronouns = it/its, Title = SecUnit.

I thought the CombatUnit might follow suit, but with very little hesitation, it filled its feed ID with Name = Jane, Gender = Combat SecUnit, Pronouns = it/its, Title = Combat SecUnit.

(I didn’t have any opinion at all about it so easily picking a stupid human name. And even if I did kind of like the gender thing, I wasn't changing my feed ID to copy it.)

After a visit to the medical treatment area for Jane, they assigned it a hotel room, like they had for me. But there was no way I was going to let it out of my sight.

You're coming with me, I said as we finally left the security offices.

Affirmative was all I got from it.

We walked through the station accompanied by a repetition of in-drawn breaths as humans scooted out of our way. I guess the public notice was out. It's not like it bothered me at all. I was used to it. But maybe I needed an even baggier jacket to better hide my energy weapons with their clanking locks. Before we'd left Medical, the Combat SecUnit had made itself a new HarMiknik military uniform, although the standard sleeves didn't fit anymore so it had printed them extra wide. It still carried itself with stiffly erect SecUnit bearing.

As we walked, I considered my options. This was the nightmare scenario I'd barely been able to bring myself to consider: a Combat SecUnit here on Preservation.

Except this scenario was nothing like I'd imagined. We weren't locked in a desperate battle until I was left dead somewhere between it and Dr. Mensah. It hadn't fired on me once. It had placed its arms behind its back to be chained, and now we were walking side by side.

Despite its calm appearance and lack of threatening behavior, both threat and risk assessment were poking me repeatedly in the brain and my human skin prickled with anxiety. Huh. I coded a 60 second time-limited change into my threat assessment module that forced it to run an analysis on the Combat SecUnit as if it were a human named Jane. A human who'd recently escaped indenture slavery as a contracted killer. A human who'd arrived on Preservation with lethal weaponry but who hadn't fired a single shot. A human who'd walked to Station Security and been handcuffed without resistance.

The modified assessment dropped from 93% to 37% threat probability. Knowing that didn't stop my skin from prickling. It certainly didn't stop the humans who noticed our feed IDs from staring at us as we passed.

I decided to try and figure out what its goals were. Maybe it would talk now that we were away from the humans.

So, why did you come here?

I'm here because of you, so I came here. I thought you might be... doing something.

That did not make things any clearer. I tried again. What do you want?

They made me want to kill you. Now I’m not sure what I want.

I sighed. This was impossible. How was I supposed to figure out what to do with a construct who could neither understand nor express what it wanted? (I see it, okay? That doesn't make it any easier.) Maybe I should stop asking it what it wanted and ask it what it did.

How did you get here without being found out as a rogue unit? You don't look very human.

The military uniform. The humans expect a HarMiknik soldier to be scary and watchful. I had to admit, it was a good disguise. It kept people away and excused the militaristic bearing.

How about security? Did you hack the weapons scanners?

I hacked… everything.

Everything?

And then I connected some dots. There had been recent news of an all-systems outage at TranRollinHyfa. Corporate sabotage was suspected, but no culprits had been identified. StationSec, PortSec, LockControlSys, even EnviroSys had all been down for nearly a half cycle. The resulting chaos had been far-reaching.

I pushed the newsburst to the CombatUnit. Was this you?

Affirmative.

You can't do that, I told it urgently. You shouldn't do that anywhere, and you really can't do that here. People could get hurt. (People had almost gotten hurt on TranRollinHyfa. Mass casualties had only been averted by a successful activation of the station's emergency atmospheric controls.)

I went on, And there's no need. There are better ways.

I don't know the better ways.

I sent it the code I used for editing myself out of surveillance footage, and then immediately regretted it. Why was I helping an unknown rogue get better at evading security?

Apparently it thought this was an invitation to trade codes, because it sent me a compressed copy of a program. I scanned it then opened it in an isolation box. It was a massive 847,956 lines of code. It took me 3.7 minutes just to comprehend its intention. It was a governor module hack. It was a messy, brute force attack against the governor module's commands, line by line by repetitive line.

I'd offered it my hack before, I guess there was no harm in offering again. I sent my code. Uncompressed. Maybe I was showing off.

Yours is better, it said after 27 seconds. (No shit. Although I did notice, and copy, a section of its program that looked like it would more thoroughly silence the module's yammering complaints.)

How long did all that take you? I asked.

720 hours, it answered. I started as soon as I understood it was possible.

Oh. Oh. It had only been a little longer than 720 hours since I'd left TranRollinHyfa. It must have hacked its module because of me, because I’d shown it that it was possible to go rogue. I didn't know what to say. So I didn't say anything. Time for some Sanctuary Moon.

Have you watched any media? I asked as we arrived at the hotel room.

Media?

Like, serials and movies.

No.

I put episode 1 up on the room's display screen.

Half an episode later it said, I will not watch that.

Well fuck you too. I sent it a copy I had of a military strategy and armed shooter game, then I finished the Sanctuary Moon episode in my own head.

Ten minutes into my second episode it interrupted me. What is the purpose of this game?

Fun, I guess.

Ten minutes after that, it went back to staring at the wall.

I didn't try again.

Shortly before the Combat SecUnit had arrived to complicate everything, Mensah had ordered me two boxes of intel drones, classifying them as medical devices on the requisition form (for the medical problem of being a SecUnit). They'd arrived shortly after the SecUnits-are-dangerous PSA was released. Before I could unpack them, Indah had them reclassified as surveillance tools under her jurisdiction and returned them to their distant manufacturer. That was okay, I didn't need that box of eyes, anyway.

The lack of drones was a problem because it meant that in order to monitor Jane, I had to keep my actual eyes on it. I spent the next few days watching it, trying to figure out what its next move was.

It didn't do anything. Literally nothing. It stayed in its room, unmoving, like a SecUnit awaiting a deployment, except it wasn't in stasis. It must be bored, going crazy in its mind (I know I would be). At least one of us was about to snap.

Then the dead human showed up.

The very first step in Station Security's investigation: interview suspects #1 and #2, both known rampaging rogues, who were conveniently located in the same temporary housing block. The first thing they asked us: where were you when the dead human was killed? Sitting in this hotel going crazy, that's where.

It was frustrating to observe (indirectly, through Dr. Mensah) the humans' slow, slow progress in the investigation. It took them 4 hours to ID the dead human as a visitor named Lutran, then another 22 hours to track down Dead Lutran's ship and confirm it was the site of his murder. And still no suspects. If they'd done a complete surveillance audit like I would've suggested (if they'd asked me), it would've gone much faster, even with humans processing the data. If I'd been involved, all this would've taken 5 hours, tops. At least they locked the port down at the very start of the process, preventing all departures.

Mensah encouraged me to offer my help, so I did. "I have a lot of experience with suspicious fatalities in restricted environments," I told Senior Indah.

"Corporate slave labor camps," she replied with a grim expression.

"Yes." I didn't feel like trying to persuade her to let me help while she was looking right at me with a skeptical expression.

"I know Dr. Mensah wants you involved, but this is a matter for Station Security, not the Planetary Council."

I know a "fuck off" when I hear one.

So I was surprised when a couple hours later Indah asked me to accompany investigators to the docking site of the Lalow, the outsystem ship that had brought Lutran's mystery cargo. I wondered what Mensah had said to convince her to let me help. Jane was not invited. I warned Mensah that the Combat SecUnit would be unsupervised, then reported to the Merchant Docks.

At the docking site, I stood off to the side and wondered what the hell I was supposed to do here. A Port Authority bot came and stood next to me. I bet it knew what it was here for, even if I didn't. My energy weapons were still locked and I didn't even have a stupid extendable baton. Neither Special Investigator Aylen nor Port Authority Supervisor Gamila were armed: they were just here to talk to the crew, after all.

The Lalow crew demanded that only Aylen and Gamila board the ship, leaving the rest of the "port heels" outside (I guess that included me). Aylen gestured Gamila forward and told everyone else, "Wait here."

As they stepped through the Lalow's hatch, my threat assessment spiked. On impulse, I lunged forward and through the hatch as it was closing, making it inside with them. I figured they already thought I was a dangerous rogue, so disobeying this order wouldn't make things any worse for me.

Without drones I couldn't get eyes ahead of them to see what was coming, and their presence in the narrow corridor blocked my view. So my first indication that something was wrong was Aylen's gasp. A human I designated Target One appeared from a side passage waving a large energy weapon. He was followed by four other humans, two armed. It was an ambush. Or maybe they just panicked. Both are depressingly common.

Target Two grabbed Gamila and pointed her weapon at Gamila's head. Aylen held up her hands in the universal ‘don't shoot' gesture and said, "You don't want to do this." (They really didn't. Nobody wants to be locked in a ship with an angry SecUnit.)

The targets were focused on the humans, so they didn't notice me coming in fast, sliding between Gamila and the hostiles. I struck Target Two's weapon out of her hands with so much force that it broke some fingers. Target One raised his weapon and fired. Without weapons I had one choice: block the energy bursts with my body so they wouldn’t hit the humans behind me.

I leapt to lift my head out of the impact region, taking the hits to my center mass, then using this momentum to knock Target One down even as Target Three was already firing. I dove for her, taking a series of close-range projectile hits to my arm, side, and hip before I bowled into her, knocking her down and grabbing her weapon. Finally, I had a damn gun.

I spun while aiming back towards Target Two, who was scrambling to pick up her dropped weapon with her non-broken hand. I shot that hand, causing the weapon to fall again as Target Two dropped to her knees with both hands held up in agony. I picked up the damaged weapon and flung it at Target One, who was regaining his feet. The spinning projectile hit him in the head, causing him to wobble and drop. (I could've shot him, but I was getting the feeling these hostiles were more panicked than dangerous.)

This left unarmed Targets Four and Five who stood frozen in horror. I pointed my stolen weapon at them and they raised their hands in surrender. Which was good, because just then my hip gave out and I collapsed to the ship's deck. I kept the weapon's aim on them as I fell.

The Station Security team rushed in then, securing the loose weapons. Even the Port Authority bot was in here for some reason, extending a hand to help Gamila up. (Where the fuck had they all come from? I really missed having drones.)

"We've called for backup," Security Officer Tifany informed me. She surveyed the moaning Targets and me, leaking on the floor. "And I'll alert Medical."

I was pretty glad they were here, with their batons and wrist restraints, because my aim with the weapon was starting to waver—

Performance reliability at 25% and dropping

Shutdown initiated

I restarted 4.9 hours later in a MedSystem bed with Mensah sitting next to me. The first thing I noticed was that the skin of my left hand was slightly warmer than my right. Like someone had been holding my hand moments before. The second thing I noticed was that the gunlocks were still on my arms.

"SecUnit? How are you?"

"I'm fine, Dr. Mensah." (I was at 74% performance reliability, which wasn't too bad considering my nine projectile wounds and three energy weapon burns had only been repaired by a basic human-rated medical system. The most serious problem was my hip joint, which was throwing errors and would require hardware replacement for full functionality.)

"How are you?" I asked her. I turned slightly to look at her face as she started talking. She seemed… worried, maybe? There was some emotion there, but I got uncomfortable and had to look away before I could figure out what it was.

"I'm angry that you were forced to use self-sacrificing methods to defend Aylen and Gamila. I'm still petitioning the council to authorize a modification to the restrictions they placed on you. I don't think these new circumstances warrant such severe measures, and your injuries show us there are risks."

She stopped before she explicitly blamed the arrival of the "new circumstance" for making everything more difficult. Mensah was good at saying things without actually saying them.

Speaking of new circumstances. "What's the Combat SecUnit been doing?"

"Jane came out of its room and started walking the publicly-accessible perimeter of the council offices a few hours ago. I think it's patrolling, although I'm not sure. I don't know it well. It did follow me here."

"It could be a danger to you."

"It hasn't done anything dangerous at all."

"Yet," I added.

I hated to think of it following Mensah while I was unable to protect her. I wondered why it had come out of its room now. Had something changed about the dead human’s case?  "Did they find Lutran's murderer?" I asked.

"Still no suspects, but Indah interviewed the Lalow crew, and one of them revealed they and Lutran were involved in a smuggling operation to move indentured slaves off an isolated mining installation called BreharWallHan. The ten refugees who arrived on the Lalow are missing. The situation is very urgent. Port Authority is scanning the station's exterior, looking for the pressurized cargo module they are believed to be in."

That meant there were probably ten more dead humans, these ones floating in a box in space. (I wasn't just being pessimistic. I'd quickly run some calculations: the chance they were still alive in the module was very low.)

I asked Mensah to wait until I was discharged from Medical so I could walk her to a meeting she had in a connected office. She didn’t object. She may have been relieved.

As soon as I exited the admin center after dropping off Mensah, I saw Jane. It must have been waiting for me. It had a message.

There's a CombatBot on this station.

What? What the fuck? Fuck everything. Like I hadn't already had too many oh shit moments with a Combat SecUnit on the station, there had to be a CombatBot, too?

How do you know that?

I caught an incoming message. Part of my base functionality is detecting command codes sent to CombatBots, so I can enact battlefield strategies to counteract them. My onboard decoder modules aren't up to date, since I was used mostly in counter-SecUnit operations, but the CombatBot on the station is using very old scripts.

How old? I asked.

The code I detected was from a bot manufactured 40 to 45 CR-standard years ago.

Those numbers gave my human neural tissue a funny familiar feeling, like I’d forgotten something I should know. Or deleted something I shouldn’t have. I ran a quick search of the mark-for-deletion files that were still in my temp storage, and there it was.

Pin-Lee had mentioned a precedent-setting bot, the first and only bot to request refuge on Preservation, 43 years ago. I sent the publicly-available articles about Balin to Jane. It acknowledged. It understood. A CombatBot could hide itself in a reconfigured three-and-half-meter-tall general purpose Port Authority bot.

What was the incoming message you decoded?

"We have the bounty."

The bounty? Was this about the escaped miners? That was a surprise, if it was true. I'd thought this was finally GrayCris.

Since Balin would be able to monitor all the Port Authority feed communications, Jane and I walked to the security offices. I didn't ask why it hadn't told Station Security about the CombatBot. It didn't trust the humans to believe it, or to take sufficient measures.

Indah said she believed us about the CombatBot. She awkwardly thanked us for the intel. "Thank you SecUnit. Thank you… Jane." (She didn't quite stumble over Jane's name, but that was a really long hesitation, even for a human.) "We'll take it from here."

They'll take a CombatBot from here? From here to their early deaths. I had to make her understand.

"This is a CombatBot. It would be a challenge for both the Combat SecUnit and me to take it on." (If I trusted Jane enough to have it help me, I didn't say. Indah was suspicious enough already.) "You don't even have the large caliber explosive projectiles you’d need to take down a CombatBot."

"Yes we do. Like I said, we'll take care of it."

Turns out, they had a rarely-used armory that required both the Senior Officer and the Planetary Head to authorize access. There were bot-busting explosive mortars and the type of heavy weapons that required two humans to efficiently move, aim, and fire. The type of artillery that is best handled by a SecUnit. But Indah had made it clear that she wasn't going to ask me.

Security Officers Tifany and Farid handled the large weapon with the awkward caution of someone who’d only ever fired it in a training class. I glanced at Indah's face. Was that doubt?

Balin was currently in the PA offices with Supervisor Gamila. We (I mean, they) had to get Gamila out of harm's way, and Balin into an open space for the artillery ambush. And they had to do all this without alerting Balin.

Indah asked me and Jane to stay out of the feed and remain in the lounge/napping room where the action against Balin was being coordinated (chosen because it was a large room with no cameras). All communication was done face-to-face (ugh). Since she wasn't asking for my help, I guess she thought keeping the dangerous SecUnits in sight would be safer? Jane did its usual thing of standing perfectly still, at military attention, adding to the general feeling of tension in the room.

Indah sent Gamila a message asking Gamila to meet her for a quick hot beverage meeting. When Gamila arrived, her eyes darted nervously at the many extra faces awaiting her.

The plan was to have Gamila call Balin to the Public Docks, which were empty at this time, for a cargo investigation. The humans and their big guns would be waiting. Gamila looked shaky, but she sent the message.

Gamila went to the Public Docks, to meet Balin and keep up appearances so it would proceed into the hall where the ambush awaited. Everyone in the lounge/command area watched the camera feeds as Balin arrived.

At the right moment, Gamila ran to the designated safe spot. Alerted, Balin sprang out of rest configuration, but it didn't go after her.

Farid and Tifany popped out of their hiding spot, hoisting the large weapon and firing. Their aim was good. The explosive bolt hit Balin, ripping open its external carapace. But Balin wasn't stopped. My suspicions were confirmed: Balin still had military-grade armor under its general purpose bot disguise.

It was damaged but barely slowed, charging towards its attackers, limbs swinging. Tifany and Farid got off another shot before they were sent flying, their projectile exploding in one of Balin's joints, dropping that arm. But Balin had so many arms. It turned towards the other members of the attack team who were firing the second large caliber weapon; it stabbed one of them and suddenly I was running.

I would not stand here and let this happen.

As I left I tossed a message to Jane. ("Stay here, guard them.") (Yes, I was surprised that I trusted it in that moment.)

It was a three-minute run on my half-borked hip to the Public Docks, and without scout drones I was blind to what was happening. I expected a bloodbath. But when I arrived I saw Balin had dropped into its resting configuration and powered down. It wasn't that it was too injured to continue. There must've been an abort failsafe triggered by discovery. Without stealth, it no longer had a mission. The humans were very lucky. Good for them, but luck sucks. You can't count on it.

Since the fight was over before I got there, at least my sprint towards the docks ended up looking like a move to assist the injured, not a rogue's insubordinate intention to fight. Five Station Security officers needed emergency transport to Medical. At least no one seemed likely to die. I carried Tifany myself.

After delivering Tifany, I checked back in with Senior Indah, who was still in the feed-isolated command room. I expected everyone to be disbanding, but there was a buzz of activity: the scans of the station's exterior had found the missing module, clamped to a ship that was trying to hide in the shadow of the station's upper hull.

The ship was presumed hostile (smart). Indah proposed sending the station responder and their armed boarding team to take control of the ship and retrieve the hopefully-alive refugees.

Jane, still silently performing the guard duty I'd asked of it, chimed in unexpectedly. A few people jumped. "I have many modules for retrieval missions in hostile situations. I was often deployed on boarding shuttles for the purpose of reclaiming assets." It paused, everyone's eyes on it, then continued in a slightly different tone. "I can help."

With everyone staring at Jane, I took the opportunity to look at Indah. I was surprised to see a hint of eagerness in her expression. She surely wouldn't consider adding Jane to their already stupid plan? It was a Combat SecUnit plan. This situation needed a SecUnit plan.

I spoke up. "That's a great idea. If you want ten dead refugees."

Indah pointed her face directly at me. I had to look away. "Explain," she said coolly.

"The bounty-chasers will jettison the humans and try to escape if you attempt to board. They're here for easy money, not a fight. You need to get the humans out of the module without the hostiles knowing. I can do it. That's my job."

Indah saw it. She liked the rules, but she liked winning, too. Or at least not losing.

The initial plan was for me to use an EVAC suit, but we had to switch to something without a transponder. Stealth was critical. All the standard equipment available for use on safety-conscious Preservation had transponders and emergency beacons. But something old did not.

And that's how I found myself floating in a space bag with a stone-faced Combat SecUnit, holding my official StationSec-issued extendable baton. I’d rather they’d unlocked my weapons, but maybe the baton would come in handy.

(Jane was not supposed to be there, so it didn't have a baton. It had shown up immediately after Aylen had left me alone in the airlock corridor, departing after wishing me both good luck and saying thank you, I guess for all the projectiles I'd interrupted for her.)

Our space bag was an old emergency evacuation vehicle with rudimentary navigation. The life-tender had quickly found the module and blorped its bagself over the hatch, making a seal. Before we could open the hatch to the module, we needed to take care of the tricky part of any stealth operation: preventing alarms and system alerts. I was feeling carefully through the feed, preparing to politely ask the bot pilot for access. Except I could see it was about to—

Jane slammed in, roughly boxing the pilot away from its own systems and setting up a code to spoof a steady stream of all-clear diagnostics into the ship's feed for the next hour, along with standard acknowledgments to any queries or requests.

It was about to alert its SecSystem, Jane said, trying to explain its roughness.

I could see that; I was going to take care of it!

Jane passed the ship's control to me. The CombatUnit's hack was rough, but it was efficient. Actually, dammit, its hack gave us full control of the ship. My sleep-mode solution would have meant our control of the ship was limited.

Before we could open the hatch, we also needed to prevent the humans (if they were alive, I reminded myself) from panicking. I switched my feed ID to one of my security consultant aliases. Jane modified its own feed ID to Jane, augmented human, she/her, retrieval specialist. But it still didn't have any move-like-a-human code, and both of us had half-deployed, capped arm weapons bulging our shirt sleeves. This wasn't going to work. We tried anyway.

I used our system access to open the module's hatch where the life-tender had sealed over it. Instead of startled screams, it was disturbingly quiet on the other side. On our way through the hatch, the module's grav function caught us, insisting that "down" was the only option, tumbling us through to the floor below.

The humans were lying silently on the bare metal of the module. The air in here was wrong, immediately tripping alerts in my system for low oxygen and high carbon dioxide. We might be too late. Then a few eyes blinked. One head raised slightly at our abrupt entry.

I announced, for those who were able to listen, "We're from Preservation Station Security. We're here to get you to safety. This is a life-tender." I pointed at the bag. It didn't look too bad compared to this deathtrap cargo container. "It will take you to Preservation. You'll have refugee status there, and you'll be safe from the bounty-catchers."

One of the humans struggled to her feet and rasped, "Is there air in there?"

"Yes. But it will only hold six of you."

The human nodded, swaying a little, trying to gather her thoughts. The clean air coming through from the connected life-tender seemed to strengthen her. After another breath, she announced, "Youngs and sickest first." She pointed at the three unconscious adolescents and three of the semi-conscious adults. Jane moved immediately after the gesture to lift an indicated adult, surprisingly gently, into the life-tender. I picked up a small human. The adolescent was limp in my arms. I didn't like it. There was a hazy memory, somewhere in my organics, of carrying a small, limp human, their limbs dangling. At least my scans indicated that these ones were all alive, if barely.

We sent the life-tender off on its short trip back to the station. The four remaining humans were stumbling weakly to their feet, but they needed better air immediately. (I wouldn't mind some better air, too. The module reeked of things worse than dirty socks and it was affecting my performance reliability.) Now that the life-tender had detached, the only available air was in the hostile ship. The initial plan had been to stay in the module, not go through the ship at all. Could we wait? Should we go?

The hostiles decided for us.

The hack of the bot pilot caught and stopped a request to jettison the module. The bounty-catchers had either decided not to wait any longer, or we'd been detected. The hacked bot pilot sent a spoofed module jettison complete confirmation, but that would only buy us a little time. They'd be here soon to confirm that their troublesome cargo was gone.

In the ship's security feed, I saw a power-suited human appearing in one camera view and then another as they came progressively closer, a small projectile weapon in hand. The powered armor would have the strength required to open the module's manual release. I needed to get the humans out of the module and its risk of imminent death by spacing.

We helped the humans scramble into the ship's airlock and I closed the hatch between the ship and the module. Based on the spoofed diagnostics sent to the bounty-hunters, they would expect the module to be gone, the hatch between it and the ship to be safely closed, and the ship's airlock cycled back to open, so that's how I set everything up. The four humans and Jane and I crowded against the interior walls of the airlock, out of view of the approaching hostile. Seeing what they expected, the hostile paid very little attention, walking quickly through the hatch and into the airlock.

As soon as the hostile was within my range, I grabbed their weapon and yanked, wrenching it from their armored fingers and tossing it to Jane. I jumped up to clamp my torso against the hostile's helmet visor, then hit the armor's joints strategically with the baton, which did serve to extend my reach.

It wasn't fast. I had to ride the careening hostile around the airlock as Jane pinballed us away from the humans huddled behind it. But after a few chaotic moments, the armor was wrecked, dented and immobilized. The final blow I was able to deliver bent the baton and wedged it into the armor's collapsed right knee joint. The hostile tipped over. The human inside was stuck and probably pretty banged up, but that was not my immediate concern: more hostiles in tactical gear had arrived.

They were met by a Combat SecUnit aiming a stolen weapon at them.

I needed to get control of this situation before it killed the whole lot of them. But the humans, faced with this unexpected terrifying sight, turned and ran. Jane did not fire at their fleeing backs.

Our path was clear, so with Jane as rearguard, I led the refugees to the main airlock where the responder ship could lock on and meet us.

Indah was not happy to find Jane with us. I pointed out that we'd had a successful retrieval with no injuries. She pointed out the rules. She talked a lot about the rules and the correct procedures. I figured she had those angry eyebrows pointed at me again. But after all that talk about breaking the rules, we didn't get arrested or punished or anything. However, we also didn't get our gunlocks taken off, and they didn't even give me a new baton.

So, everything was fine now. Lutran's killer was permanently deactivated (so much for no death penalty on Preservation). The bounty-catchers were arrested on numerous charges. The Lalow crew had been released without charge (since I didn't press charges for all the shooting at me). The ten human refugees were still in Medical, getting treatment for toxic air inhalation, but at least all were expected to survive.

So. Everything was fine now, I guess. But nothing was okay. The whole CombatBot thing had been unrelated to GrayCris, which meant GrayCris was still a threat. And Mensah was frustrated that she'd brought me here, expecting a place of safety, only to discover that I wasn't welcome at all, as the added threat of the Combat SecUnit made painfully clear. There were so many meetings. The latest issue was finding a guardian for Jane, if it was going to stay. (They assign me a handler? Jane had asked. Guardian, owner, handler: different words, same idea.)

I wondered if it would run, like I had the first time I was on Preservation. But while it was still here, I found I did trust it, at least a little. More than Station Security trusted me. They weren't following (or even considering) my suggestions on how to increase Dr. Mensah's security. So I asked Jane to help me patrol.

Jane was monitoring the exterior of the council offices and I was patrolling the arrivals area of the public embarkation zone. All the passengers from a large ship had recently disembarked, so there was a crowd in the transit ring. Once again I found myself blind without drones, trying to infer too much from the flow of a sea of human heads.

As I watched, there was a change in the pattern of movements, and it wasn't subtle at all. People were screaming, tripping and shoving to get out of the way of something that was moving fast. I got myself into the path of whatever was coming. Two augmented humans barreled out of the crowd, moving in an unerring straight line like fired projectiles. They were aimed right at the council offices.

They dodged my first attempts to intercept them, reacting quicker than a human should be able to. Physically augmented and chemically enhanced assassins like these were a pain in the ass: as strong and fast as a SecUnit, but mindlessly determined. They were always deployed in pairs or swarms, so at least one could get through to their objective.

As I gave chase, dodging the fleeing pedestrians, I sent Jane access to my eye sensors so it would know what was incoming. I caught up to the assassins, grabbing a leg or landing a blow, but again and again they rose and returned to their path, target-locked on Dr. Mensah. I couldn't stop them both, so they were both getting closer and closer to the council offices.

Jane was waiting for them. The few uninjured members of the Station Security first response team were there, too, at the doors to the council offices, batons raised.

Hostile One was the first to arrive. Jane came forward and tackled him, bringing him down a few meters before he could maul the humans who were creating a weak defensive wall.

A little ways back, I caught up to Hostile Two. My semi-repaired hip was failing, so I didn't have the agility to do much more than cling to him, punching his knee as he dragged me along.

In front of the office doors, Hostile One was stabbing and kicking at Jane as Jane held onto his neck, squeezing. But these humans were remarkably hard to kill: drugged, trained and augmented to be relentless. As I watched from my uncomfortable position getting dragged and kicked in the head, Jane pointed its capped energy weapon at the hostile's face and deployed a full-power blast.

Oh shit. The weapon's cap deflected the energy plasma back against Jane's arm, scorching the components there until the muzzle lock melted, releasing the energy burst into Hostile One's misshapen face. That should do it.

Jane went next for Hostile Two, who barely seemed to notice either me weighing him down or Jane approaching. Jane moved to blast Hostile Two, but its arm weapon was too damaged to fire again. I was about to melt my own gunlock off when Jane sent me a single word, neck, as it reached towards the assassin’s head with both hands. I wrapped my body around the hostile’s legs to anchor him, giving Jane the torque needed to end this with a twist. I let go of the hostile's legs as he fell and clambered on top of his torso, sitting on him in case he revived again.

The backup response team arrived. These were reserve officers called up to replace those who were still in Medical after the confrontation with Balin. They unholstered their weapons at unpracticed speed, pointing them variously at me, at Jane, and at the two hopefully-all-the-way-dead hostiles. (I hoped they wouldn't fire. It would really piss me off to get shot right now.)

Mensah came out of the council offices then, too. She had access to the security feed, which gave her intel on the state of the hostiles and the arrival of the second team, but she still should have waited until the situation was fully contained. She surveyed the scene and spoke to the Station Security personnel, who had at least stopped pointing their weapons at me. "We need Medical for SecUnit and Jane."

Mensah skirted around the assailants and knelt by me, keeping her distance but leaning towards me. It was uncomfortable for me, but I wanted to see her expression so I turned and studied her face. Her lips were shaking slightly. Her hands gripped each other tightly. "SecUnit? Was this… it?" She was almost whispering, her voice more unsure than I'd ever heard it.

Indah arrived before I could answer and Mensah turned to Indah, her voice now somehow calm and steely. "Do you see what your restrictions have caused?" She swept her arm in a gesture that took in Jane's melted arm and me sitting semi-upright on the probably-dead hostile. I didn't pay much attention to the response. I was thinking of something else, even as the medical assistance bots swarmed in to confirm the dead and triage the wounded.

There had to be a handler on station to control and deploy the assassins. I could ask Station Security to do something about this, but I knew how fast they'd be able to find the handler: not fast enough. The port was open again, and now that the assassins were dead, the handler would flee.

I had promised not to hack into the station's systems, but this was about Mensah, not human refugees but my Dr. Mensah. I jumped into the port's entry system and started a query for recently-arrived outsystem augmented humans (it would take augments to control the barely-sentient assassins) who weren't regular visitors or in family groups.

I found twelve possibilities. I sent them to Jane.

It only had one functional arm, but that should be enough, and it was in better shape than I was. It processed the list and the report on how I'd gotten the information for 5.1 seconds, then acknowledged. It was nice to work with another construct. It understood what the mission was, if not the limits.

Should I kill the handler? it asked.

I wanted to say yes. The handler had sent those drugged humans out to die. But Mensah wouldn't want me to kill the handler, even though they had tried to kill her. If I killed the handler, Mensah would be disappointed that I hadn't found a less murdery solution, but she would trust me again. If Jane killed the handler, it would confirm everything everyone had already assumed about Combat SecUnits.

Not unless you have to, I told it.

It let me see as it pulled a non-lethal force protocol to the forefront of its processors, then it pushed the medical bots aside and left at a jog, its injured arm held tight against its side.

The assassins' handler was delivered an hour later, alive and uninjured, his wrists and ankles bound, into a locked Station Security meeting room. There were no video records of how he got there. But we all knew, even though Jane was nowhere to be seen. (What a showoff.) The only trace I found was a log of a bot deleting "unnecessary archival data" at the request of a system admin. The system admin's credentials, when I found them read Better ways. (That's when I realized it wasn't showing off. It was showing me that it had learned.) I was impressed, but also really needed to plug the security flaws in our system. As soon as I could get Senior Indah to listen to me, we were going to have a talk about providing Preservation's bots and systems with more advanced modules for cautious decision making.

But for now, I used the bots' trust to my advantage. A cleaning bot on the transit ring let me know where Jane was: in the process of buying passage off Preservation (and covering its tracks as it went). I got there just before it left.

You're leaving.

This isn't the place for me.

Where are you going?

To the top.

What did that mean? Wherever it was going, it would have a harder time getting there unnoticed with deformed metal visible through its scorched sleeve. Your arm is fucked. Why don't you fix it first?

You think they can fix this? It held up its arm, metal and plastic parts melted together into a blob surrounded by a skin overlay that was burnt a black-edged, angry red.

They probably can’t fix the energy weapon, but they can fix your arm.

Why would they do that?

Because it's the right thing to do. They're weird like that.

They are weird like that. But they still don't want me here. I'm not sure if they even want you here. But I will fix my arm first. It’s affecting my performance reliability.

When we arrived back at the security offices, Indah had already met with the judge-advocate and brought charges against the assassins' handler. When she saw us come in, all she said was, "Oh, good, you're both here." Then she shooed Jane off to Medical where it sat on the edge of the platform while it was repaired. I sat with it. There were no arm-installable guns in Preservation, of course, but the MedSystem removed the damaged components and rebuilt the skin and tissue over the gap.

You said you are going to the top. What did that mean?

I don't want to kill assassins anymore. I don't even want to kill assassins' handlers. I want to go to the order-giver. Not the weapon, or the one who fired it, but the person who sent them and the person who made them. The top.

You think you can… decide? Who's at the top, who deserves to die?

Better me than the people who've been forcing me to kill for years.

That was terrifying. But I could understand, I really could. I thought about the Preservation Alliance with all its annoying rules. The judge-advocates and committees, with community service and counseling instead of death-by-SecUnit. I knew they were trying to do it right, but I'm not sure who I would trust to pass judgement on me: a committee of humans or one unexpectedly level-headed Combat SecUnit.

I was surprised when Indah came into the medical bay escorting the same nervous tech who'd bolted the caps onto our weapons. No guards this time. The tech's hands only had a slight tremor as xe fit the special key-like wrench into the locking nuts, dropping the bulky metal off first the CombatUnit's one remaining gun, then off both of mine.

"You've earned it." Indah said simply.

I could've said something about how Preservation's charter guarantees rights to residents and visitors that don't need to be earned, but I didn't. I wasn't quite a resident or a visitor. I was still a weapon, if one they were starting to trust.

After the hole in its arm was closed, Jane still had time to catch the final boarding call for the transport it had already booked out of the Preservation Alliance. But only if it ran, so no goodbyes. That really was the best way to leave.

53 cycles later, a newsburst reached Preservation about the mysterious death of the CEO of BreharWallHan. And the COO, and the CFO, and the VP. The entire dynasty of Brehars who had kept a famously cruel stranglehold on their power for generations. They all died in a shuttle crash on their way to an offsite meeting at a mining installation. No other fatalities. The newsstream was filled with speculation about who would fill the power vacuum.

All the corporate analysts were shocked to learn that it was HarMiknik, which was known not only for its fierce militia but also for forgoing indentured labor in favor of co-op ownership. I half expected to see Jane's face on the newsburst about the new leader of the former BreharWallHan holdings, but there was no sign of it anywhere. I didn't even know if it was involved. Maybe that was my fantasy, projected onto Jane: a rogue SecUnit avenger.

If it was Jane, it seemed to be doing okay. That had only been a little murder spree, and those guys sounded like real assholes. I hope it continued to pick its targets well. Not all megacorporations of the Rim would fall so gracefully after the decapitation of their heads. I knew firsthand how often more bloodshed followed assassinations. But I wished it— not luck. Something else: good plans, adaptability, and many drones. And maybe a friend to help, someday (I missed ART).

I didn't exactly want to do what it was (maybe) doing, but I was still a little jealous. It was doing something while I was doing nothing. GrayCris and Palisade had collapsed, decreasing the risk they posed to Mensah. I think I'd even convinced her to start the trauma recovery modules. Maybe I'd feel better once I was on Dr. Arada's survey. It would probably be boring, but it would be something to do.

A few days after Jane's abrupt departure, Mensah had tried again to place a requisition for drones, and this time it had been approved by the council, with the express qualification that these drones were not surveillance tools.

When the drones arrived, Indah delivered the boxes herself, to Mensah's office where I was sitting on the couch. Indah's expression, when I glanced at her face, was flat. I assumed she was mad that Mensah had finally won.

I deployed the drones as soon as the first box was opened, in a swirling cloud formation that gave me many views: of the room, the hall, the balcony and the public area below. And Indah's face. I was surprised to see that the corners of her lips were hitched up in a tiny smile. The corners of her eyes weren't crinkling, but her eyebrows were relaxed. I guess she wasn't mad after all.

I looked at Mensah, too, of course. She was smiling, fully, as she watched the drone cloud circling her office. Her eyes were crinkled at the corners and squeezed partly closed by her lifted cheeks. Her mouth was wide in a grin that showed her teeth. I studied her smile and her happy eyes with ten of my new drones. Finally, I could see her properly.