“But who is it?” Arada waved her hands. “We know whoever it is must have hacked control of the satellite.” In the security camera, I saw her look toward me. “Is that how they took control of the DeltFall SecUnits? Through a download?”
It was a good question. I said, “It’s possible. But it doesn’t explain why one of the three DeltFall Units was killed outside the hub with a mining drill.” We weren’t supposed to be able to refuse a download, and I doubted there were other SecUnits hiding hacked governor modules. “If the DeltFall group refused the download for their SecUnits because they were experiencing the same increase in equipment failure that we were, the two unidentified Units could have been sent to manually infect the DeltFall Units.”
Ratthi was staring into the distance, and through the feed I saw he was reviewing my field camera video of the DeltFall habitat. He pointed in my direction, nodding. “I agree, but it would mean the DeltFall group allowed the unknown Units into their habitat.”
It was likely. We had checked to make sure all their hoppers were there, but it had been impossible to tell if an extra one had landed and taken off again at some point. Speaking of which, I did a quick check of the security feed to see how our perimeter was doing. The drones were still patrolling and our sensor alarms all responded to pings.
Overse said, “But why? Why allow a strange group into their habitat? A group whose existence had been concealed from them?”
“You’d do it,” I said. I should keep my mouth shut, keep them thinking of me as their normal obedient SecUnit, stop reminding them what I was. But I wanted them to be careful. “If a strange survey group landed here, all friendly, saying they had just arrived, and oh, we’ve had an equipment failure or our MedSystem’s down and we need help, you would let them in. Even if I told you not to, that it was against company safety protocol, you’d do it.” Not that I’m bitter, or anything. A lot of the company’s rules are stupid or just there to increase profit, but some of them are there for a good reason. Not letting strangers into your habitat is one of them.
Arada and Ratthi exchanged a wry look. Overse conceded, “We might, yes.”
Mensah had been quiet, listening to us. She said, “I think it was easier than that. I think they said they were us.”
It was so simple, I turned around and looked directly at her. Her brow was furrowed in thought. She said, “So they land, say they’re us, that they need help. If they have access to our HubSystem, listening to our comm would be easy.”
I said, “When they come here, they won’t do that.” It all depended on what this other survey group had, whether they had come prepared to get rid of rival survey teams or had decided on it after they got here. They could have armed air vehicles, Combat SecUnits, armed drones. I pulled a few examples from the database and sent them into the feed for the humans to see.
MedSystem’s feed informed me that Ratthi, Overse, and Arada’s heart rates had just accelerated. Mensah’s hadn’t, because she had already thought of all this. It was why she had sent Pin-Lee and Gurathin to shut off HubSystem. Nervously, Ratthi said, “What do we do when they come here?”
I said, “Be somewhere else.”
*
It may seem weird that Mensah was the only human to think of abandoning the habitat while we waited for the beacon to bring help, but as I said before, these weren’t intrepid galactic explorers. They were people who had been doing a job and suddenly found themselves in a terrible situation.
And it had been hammered into them from the pre-trip orientation, to the waivers they had to sign for the company, to the survey packages with all the hazard information, to their on-site briefing by their SecUnit that this was an unknown, potentially dangerous region on a mostly unsurveyed planet. They weren’t supposed to leave the habitat without security precautions, and we didn’t even do overnight assessment trips. The idea that they might have to stuff both hoppers full of emergency supplies and run for it, and that that would be safer than their habitat, was hard to grasp.
But when Pin-Lee and Gurathin shut down HubSystem, and Volescu unpacked the satellite download that was meant for me, they grasped it pretty quick.
Bharadwaj outlined it for us on the comm while I was getting my last extra suit skin and my armor back on. “It was meant to take control of SecUnit, and the instructions were very specific,” she finished. “Once SecUnit was under control, it would give them access to MedSystem and SecSystem.”
I got my helmet on and opaqued it. The relief was intense, about even with finding out that the combat override module had been removed. I love you, armor, and I’m never leaving you again.
Mensah clicked onto the comm. “Pin-Lee, what about the beacon?”
“I got a go signal when I initiated launch.” Pin-Lee sounded even more exasperated than usual. “But with HubSystem shut down, I can’t get any confirmation.”
I told them over the feed that I could dispatch a drone to check on it. A good beacon launch was pretty important right now. Mensah gave me the go-ahead and I forwarded the order to one of my drones.
Our beacon was a few kilos away from our habitat site for safety, but I thought we should have been able to hear it launch. Maybe not; I had never had to launch one before.
Mensah had already got the humans organized and moving, and as soon as I had my weapons and spare drones loaded, I grabbed a couple of crates. I kept catching little fragments of conversation over the security cameras.
(“You have to think of it as a person,” Pin-Lee said to Gurathin.
“It is a person,” Arada insisted.)
Ratthi and Arada sprinted past me carrying medical supplies and spare power cells. I had extended our drone perimeter as far as it could go. We didn’t know that whoever hit DeltFall would show up at any second, but it was a strong possibility. Gurathin had come out to check the big hopper and the little hopper’s systems, to make sure no one other than us had access and that HubSystem hadn’t messed with their code. I kept an eye on him through one of the drones. He kept looking at me, or trying not to look at me, which was worse. I didn’t need the distraction right now. When the next attack came, it was going to be fast.
(“I do think of it as a person,” Gurathin said. “An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us.”
“Then stop being mean to it,” Ratthi told him. “That might help.”)
“They know their SecUnits successfully gave our SecUnit the combat module,” Mensah was saying over the comm. “And we have to assume they received enough information from HubSystem to know we removed it. But they don’t know that we’ve theorized their existence. When SecUnit cut off HubSystem’s access, we were still assuming this was sabotage from the company. They won’t realize we know they’re coming.”