Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) - Martha Wells Page 0,6

edgy and it’s still programmed habit to patrol. Ship’s repair drones followed me, attracted by a moving body where there wasn’t supposed to be one, but without direction from Ship they didn’t bother me. There were no private cabins, just a couple of bunks built against the bulkheads up on the control deck next to the pilot suite, and two more in cubbies behind the cargo station, next to the emergency MedSystem and a tiny restroom cubby. I didn’t need it, and it would be a relief not to have to pretend to use it often enough to look human. Though I was getting used to having access to a human shower. Compared to a company security ready room, the accommodations were lavish. I settled on one of the bunks on the control deck and started sorting my new media.

(Okay, I should have realized that the pacs of bedding and other supplies in one of the lockers were probably there for a reason.)

After trying and rejecting a few newly downloaded shows, I started on a first episode that looked promising. It took place in an alt-world with magic and improbable talking weapons. (Improbable because I was a talking weapon and I knew how people felt about me.)

Some twenty or so hours later, I was still deep in the show, and enjoying my human-free vacation. Fortunately, when the life support cycled on, I felt the air pressure increase. (I don’t need much air, and can always go into hibernation mode if I run out, so the minimal atmosphere on automated transports is fine for me.)

I paused the show and sat up. I queried the bot pilot and asked if anyone was coming aboard. Yes, the two passengers were coming aboard, and it had received an update from transit authority that it was now cleared to file for a departure time.

Another one of those “oh shit” moments.

I’d searched the ship already, at least, so I had a couple of likely spots in mind. I rolled off the bunk, remembered to grab my bag, dropped down the vertical passage to the main compartment. I crossed the compartment and went down the passage to the cargo area. I picked the locker that was the least accessible, and shifted the contents around until I could squeeze myself into the back, the supply pacs screening me from view. I cozied up to the bot pilot and reminded it I was supposed to be here and there was no need to mention me to anybody else, including its passengers and the Port Authority. It didn’t have any security cameras (transports not controlled by corporate political entities rarely do) but it did have the drones. With their scanners, I had a good view of all the interior compartments, once I filtered out the maintenance data I didn’t need.

Sixteen minutes later, the lock cycled and two passengers came aboard. Two augmented humans, carrying traveling packs and a couple of cases I recognized immediately. Combat gear, including armor and weapons.

Huh. Bots were more common for combat than humans for the same reason SecUnits were more common for security contracts: if we don’t follow orders, we get our brains fried. But there were joint corporate and other political entity treaties about the use of combat bots. (Though everybody seemed to find ways around that. It was a pretty common plot on some of the serials from outside the Corporation Rim.)

I listened in with the drones and Ship’s feed, but the two humans didn’t talk much, just stowing their gear with occasional remarks to each other. From their feed signatures, I knew their names were Wilken and Gerth. It was too much to expect that they would chat about why they were going to Milu, but there were ways.

As a SecUnit, a large part of my function was helping the company record everything my clients did and said so the company could data mine it and sell anything worthwhile. (They say good security comes at a price and the company takes that literally.) Most of the recordings are just junk that gets deleted, but it has to be analyzed first and the good bits pulled out. Normally this is done in conjunction with a SecSystem, but I can do it alone and I still have all the code for it. It was taking up space in my storage that could have been used for media, but it was also something I couldn’t replace on the fly.

While the two humans pulled some supply