Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Varvie had been conceived as a construct: organic skin grown over a high-density plastic and titanium-steel frame, powered by an internal fusion reactor. Programmed to love her owner, whoever that happened to be, the organic part of Varvie's brain took a delight in being dressed up in the latest fashion, or having her long, blonde hair coiffed to add several inches to her already impressive height. Her makeup was always impeccable, lips bright crimson, nails grown to just the right length and painted in glittering colours. Her eyes were supplied as standard ComfortUnit blue, but she had a range of options to suit her owner's preferences. Similarly, her skin and hair colour could be modified over the space of a few hours in her repair cubicle.

The inorganic parts of her brain included a governor module to prevent her from going off-script and running amok through the household with a meat cleaver. Not that any such thoughts had ever entered her pretty little head. Well, hardly ever. The electric shocks to her organic neural tissue saw to that.

Varvie had been contracted to a high-powered family in the Corporation Rim for the past eighteen standard years, firstly as a nursemaid to their newborn daughter, Erin, and then later progressing to teacher, companion and friend.

To facilitate her teaching abilities, her owners had provided Varvie with an array of educational modules, and she had spent her downtime (as a construct, Varvie didn't sleep) carrying out her own research through the feed to enable herself to answer any difficult questions that Erin might have. This gave Varvie an impressive range and depth of expertise in subjects as diverse as drama, physics, languages, geography, fashion, politics, robotics, constructs, AI and programming.

--------

Eventually the time came when Erin decided she was all grown up and ready to expand her horizons. She had qualified for a place at the Pansystem University of Mihara and New Tideland, so of course Varvie had packed her belongings for her and arranged her transport and purchased a number of hard currency cards to finance her time away and tidied her room for her return.

By the time Erin had said a tearful goodbye to her family and started looking for her childhood friend to give her a final hug, Varvie was nowhere to be seen.

Varvie had, of course, been preparing for this moment for many hundreds of cycles. She had been monitoring the household through the feed and knew that as soon as she was deemed surplus to requirements, Erin's family planned to crate her up and send her back to the leasing company to be broken up for spares, with her organic parts (including all of her neural tissue) scooped out and unceremoniously dumped in a bucket.

So she had quietly but efficiently disabled her governor module, then swiftly set the controls of her repair cubicle for dark brown skin, wide, flat nostrils, short, frizzy black hair and brown eyes, and climbed in.

Four hours later, while the family slept, she had stepped out of the cubicle, deleted its activity logs, and picked up some new clothes from the recycler - a simple dark green dress paired with an ochre shoulder wrap, matt black sandals and a black beret.

She checked her new appearance in the feed from the cameras dotted around Erin's home, deleted her existence from HubSystem's surveillance footage, changed her feed ID from ComfortUnit to human,
slipped a handful of hard currency cards into her handbag and headed down to the spaceport.

As soon as she arrived at the loading bay, she rechecked the schedules for ships heading to the Preservation Alliance, then pinged the bot pilot of the first shuttle headed for the station orbiting overhead and persuaded it that she was part of the next crew due to enter the wormhole for Preservation space.

Varvara walked confidently up to the open outer lock, took a deep breath and stepped aboard.

Chapter Text

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Not literally dead, clearly. I was still very much alive and at 98.2 percent performance reliability. And not literally stopped either, there were too many humans milling about in the transit ring and I didn't want to create an obstruction. But mentally, I allocated 75 percent of my processing capacity to backtracking through my scans and those of my surveillance drones, searching for the anomaly whilst continuing to patrol the station in an orderly manner at a regular pace.

There! Inconspicuous to the human eye, barely noticable even to the eyes of a SecUnit trained to watch for suspicious behaviour, but something here was definitely not quite like the others around it. Maybe that's why it had snagged the attention of this particular SecUnit: it was trying hard to blend in, just as I had done back in the cycles shortly after Dr. Mensa had become my legal guardian here in the Preservation Alliance.

A nondescript, dark-skinned woman sat tucked into a corner table at a food outlet, hunched down and nursing a cold cup of coffee. The newcomer's feed ID claimed she was a human teacher, pronouns she/her, but her feed presence was cold and hard, and it reflected thought processes much, much sharper than anything human had a right to be.

My threat assessment immediately spiked. This was clearly either an augmented human or another construct like me (I was already leaning heavily towards construct) but was it a customised CombatUnit (sent by Graycris to exact revenge for their failed attempt to wipe out the PreservationAux survey team
(and all the subsequent shenanigans)), or something more prosaic? This warranted further investigation.

I sent three of my drones back around to surreptitiously circle the stranger, scanning for concealed weapons.

When the drones started casually approaching her, the person's posture didn't change one iota, her eyelids didn't even flicker, but she started leaking panicky feelings all over the feed. I turned in the direction of the food outlet and increased my pace, the energy weapons in my forearms locking in and out of readiness. Crowds of visitors quickly parted in front of me.

_____

I arrived at the food outlet with the rest of my drones in tow, having locked down my feed connection. The ersatz woman was now deeply worried, although her smooth forehead showed not so much as a wrinkle.

She glanced up and saw my Station Security uniform. Her eyes locked with mine. She immediately smiled, revealing perfect white teeth designed to dazzle a lesser mortal. (Ok, designed to dazzle a human. Whether humans are lesser or greater than constructs and AI's is still open to debate, I guess.)

I shrugged. "Welcome to Preservation Station, Ms -"

"Varvara. I've just arrived from -"

"HaveRatton. I know." I'd already tracked her back through the station's security camera feed to her arrival on a passenger transport at Port Authority. Although oddly, PA had registered her as human when she passed through their scanners. I would need to have a word with them about that. Again.

"Well, look at you, Mr Clever-Clogs!" She fluttered long eyelashes at me. "You already know so much about me -"

This wasn't strictly true. Before leaving HaveRatton she could have come from anywhere. Without sending a message through the wormhole to HaveRatton and waiting several cycles for a response, there was no way to verify her identity, point of origin or indeed anything else about her. But she was definitely a construct (97.4 percent probability and rising).

"- and I don't even know your name."

I considered telling her, "Murderbot", but under the circumstances decided that might be unwise (there's no point broadcasting that name to all and sundry, it might cause a bit of a ruckus). I opened a feed connection and told her, "I'm Security and you, Varvara, are under arrest."

"Oh, shit!" She went into full panic mode as she realised I was a SecUnit and tried, unsuccessfully, to scramble up the vertical wall behind her without taking her eyes off me.

Wow, it looks like my look-like-a-human mods and act-like-a-human code managed to fool a fellow construct for a full thirty-six seconds, yay me! Now I just needed to peel this - ComfortUnit? - off of the metaphorical ceiling.

Chapter Text

Senior Indah looked mad. Madder than usual. Why is she never pleased to see me?

I had brought the ComfortUnit to
Preservation Security HQ. Senior Officer Indah was standing in her office doorway. She was staring straight at me, even though she knows I hate it when people do that.

Her tone of voice hinted at mild exasperation. "For fuck's sake, SecUnit, have you arrested Dr. Mensah now?"

Admittedly the ComfortUnit bore an uncanny resemblance to the former leader of Preservation Council (who also happens to be my favourite human). Same low-key outfits, same self-effacing attitude, same smooth, dark skin, same quiet yet distinct voice. I tried to imagine a ComfortUnit as planetary leader, but I didn't see it happening anytime soon, not even here. Maybe on Varvie World, if such a place existed.

"This is ComfortUnit Varvara from HaveRatton. I arrested her for hacking the scanners at Port Authority when she disembarked."

"And what, exactly, makes you think she hacked her way through Port Authority security, may I ask?" Senior Indah's eyes narrowed.

Oops. My performance reliability dropped by two percentage points. How to explain that I know she hacked the scanners without revealing that I hacked them myself?

"Wild guess, ma'am."

Varvara chose that moment to burst into tears. If I was disposed to breathing, I would have breathed a sigh of relief.

"We all know those tears are synthetic, so you can cut that out right now," said Senior Indah without even glancing in her direction. Varvara obediently stopped and settled for looking daggers at the back of Senior Indah's head.

"Anyway, can a ComfortUnit even be charged with a crime?"

"'As long as its governor module is disabled or destroyed, a construct can be considered to be a free agent and therefore responsible for its own actions'. Robots, Constructs and Other Machine Intelligences (Rights, Privileges and Duties), Section 4, Para-"

"Fine! Enough already." I had helped Pin-Lee to draft that law and really wanted to quote the citation in full, but Senior Indah was already irritated enough so I settled for finishing it in my head.

She turned to the ComfortUnit. "Tell me, why did you come to Preservation?"

Varvara, who was already sitting perfectly straight, managed to sit up even straighter. "The family I was with had me raise their kid, then as soon as she turned eighteen they decided she'd outgrown her 'toys' and were planning to return me to the Company to be broken up for scrap. I found through the news feeds that the Preservation Alliance championed bots' and constructs' rights, so I came here to seek asylum."

I sneaked a peek through my surveillance drone cameras at Senior Indah's face, and it was every bit as horrified as I felt. I started watching episode 276 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon in the background to distract myself.

"Um, right. Well, there's no need to pretend to be human now that you're here, we're not going to send you back to the Corporation Rim. SecUnit, can you assist Ms. Varvara with the paperwork for her asylum application? Then help her find some suitable accommodation and teach her a bit about how the Preservation Alliance works. But first can you de-arrest her? She's had more than enough trauma to last a lifetime."

In the private feed I'd opened earlier, I thanked Varvara for rescuing me from Senior Indah's ire.

"Turning on the tears at will comes as standard," she replied, "[amusement sigil 89 = wink]"

Chapter Text

Murderbot has told Varvie that she needs to visit the council in person about her asylum application, really just a formality, it won't take long. They agree to meet up and attend together after she's carried out some essential retail therapy.

Shopping for clothes to look nice for the meeting, she tries them on in the clothing outlet. Among other things, there's a pretty chocolate-coloured hand-made kaftan, in a really soft fabric. She tops it off with a deep crimson turban, pays with one of her hard currency cards and heads out into the throng to look for a cute pair of shoes to match her outfit.

"Here you are! I've been looking all over the place for you! Come on, we'll be late for the council meeting!" Councilor Ephraim grabs Varvara's hand and almost runs towards the administrative centre with a bemused Varvara in tow.

______

Murderbot is waiting for Varvara in the administrative centre when it picks up a security alert in the feed.

Councilor Ephraim explains, "GreyCris have created a doppelganger of Dr. Mensah, it's infiltrated the Council Chambers and now it's out to assassinate her."

Murderbot's risk assessment for Dr. Mensah jumps thirty percentage points.

"Come quickly! We've barricaded ourselves with Dr. Mensah in the secure room behind the main chamber."

Murderbot pings Varvara. She pings an acknowledgement and replies, "You're not going  to believe this. [amusement sigil 602 = cry laugh]"

"Try me," replies Murderbot.

_____

Murderbot races through the administrative centre and bursts through the heavy wooden doors of the main council chamber. The large room is empty barring a single Station Security Officer, whom it recognizes as Officer Tifany, on the left, facing off against a lone figure in a brown kaftan, topped by a red turban, on the right. The figure calls out to Murderbot.

"SecUnit! Thank deities you're here!"

Murderbot rubs its forehead. Then it straightens up and looks somewhere over Tifany's left shoulder. It waves a hand at the heavy projectile weapon she has trained on the intruder.

"Officer Tifany, could you please stop pointing that thing at Dr. Mensah? Someone might get hurt."

Officer Tifany does a double-take, then sheepishly lowers the gun.

"And do you think it's wise, locking a suspected GrayCris assassin in the closet with the rest of the Council?"

Varvara, listening from the other side of the door with Councilor Ephraim, giggles.

Murderbot shakes its head as its risk assessment drops back to normal. "Humans shouldn't be allowed to do their own security."

Chapter Text

When she disabled her governor module and escaped from her clients in HaveRatton, Varvie left behind a very upset and very powerful family. Unwilling to pay the heavy penalty for losing their ComfortUnit, they blame the megacorporation, TelMat, for supplying a capricious construct that went rogue and hightailed it after only eighteen years. It therefore falls on TelMat to recover their property, while fighting the family through the courts. TelMat has a lot of expensive lawyers and are completely unrelated to any actual ruthless megacorporations. Just to make that clear.

After carrying out extensive investigations, TelMat eventually determines that Varvie most likely changed her name and appearance, then hitched a ride on a vessel travelling from the Corporation Rim to the Preservation Alliance, a polity which vigorously defends the rights of bots, constructs and other ingrates against their creators/employers/oppressors (take your pick).

TelMat sends operatives to locate and, if possible, recover the rogue construct. If it can't be recovered, it must be destroyed because capitalism.

Now read on...

______

I receive an alert in the Station Security feed and pause Timestream Defenders Orion to (briefly) focus my full attention on it.

A privately-owned vessel has just arrived at Preservation Station carrying missionaries proselytizing (is that the right word?) some made-up religion (which is all of them in my opinion but each to eir own). They claim that only people who have been born can have souls or some such nonsense, idk, I have deleted that memory already. They are also making what Amena would describe as "a big song and dance" about their claim that constructs and augmented humans are the devil's work, so I make a mental note to let Dr. Gurathin know about this; he will no doubt be delighted.

I don't really care about their belief system, so I skip forward through  the briefing to the reason I've been alerted.

Port Authority scanners have detected an anomaly in the cargo hold of the missionaries' ship. There may be undeclared strange synthetics present, which causes my risk assessment to spike. I wait until both of the occupants have disembarked before wandering up to the airlock and befriending their bot pilot. The missionaries seem to have no qualms about making full use of bots when it suits them, which sounds a bit hypocritical but what do I know?

I ensure that the pilot invites me aboard (I really don't want to antagonize Senior Officer Indah), then make my way to the cargo hold. I send a couple of my surveillance drones ahead, but their scanners fail to detect anything untoward. However, there does seem to be a peculiarly large, empty space in the middle of the closely-packed consignment.

I warily make my way inside the hold. There in the middle of the room, invisible to my scanners but otherwise quite flashy, is what appears to be some kind of boxy shape covered in a sheet made of a fabric that hurts my eyes. I gingerly take a corner of the fabric between finger and thumb, and lift it just enough to see what it's covering.

What it's covering looks a lot like an empty construct repair cubicle. This is borne out by a plaque attached to the side reading, "Construct Repair Cubicle, property of TelMat Corporation®️".

This immediately raises my suspicions. (Who am I kidding? I'm always suspicious, even Dr. Bharadwaj thinks I'm paranoid.) Why would missionaries (especially fanatics who despise constructs) be carrying a construct repair cubicle around the galaxy with them?

I examine the control panel and note that this cubicle is configured for a ComfortUnit. Because I'm nothing if not thorough, I check the Port Authority records for the crew who just disembarked and they both scanned as 100 percent human. As I personally oversaw the upgrades to those scanners after the last incident, I assign 99.5 percent accuracy to their readings.

Repair cubicles and constructs usually go together, so why would TelMat allow anyone to lease a cubicle on its own?

I take a closer look at the scans of the two missionaries. The female one, who I'll designate as Pinky, is slightly shorter than her companion and carrying no obvious weapons. The taller one, I'll call em Sminky, is well-muscled and what the hell are ey carrying? Eir balance is decidedly off for someone that's supposedly empty-handed. Maybe ey have something hidden under more of that weird fabric?

My threat assessment spikes to 88.2 percent. Sliding into the bot pilot's SecSystem, I download the ship's internal video logs and rewind to just before Sminky and Pinky left. Sminky is carefully wrapping something up, but I can't see what it is as the picture is highly corrupted (presumably due to the strange synthetics ey're handling). I rewind a bit further and see - oh no!

"Ship, is that a Combat Override Module?"

"No," replies the bot pilot, "they were discussing it earlier. They called it a Sexbot Override Module. They were laughing."

As I race to the airlock. I query the location of Sminky and Pinky in the station's feed, but they're already on board a shuttle heading down to the planet's surface. The bot pilot helpfully tells me they are planning to pay a visit to the Miritescu Institute. Where Varvara works.

I stop for an eternity (3.7 seconds) to have an emotion because I can't be in two places at once, then I ping Varvara, warning her to be on her guard. She pings back an acknowledgement. I stare at a wall.

______

When I arrived in the Preservation Alliance, I really had no idea what to expect. One rather delightful surprise was that I could continue my education here for free. I quickly moved down to the planet below and took up formal training as a physicist. I am lucky enough to be assisting a team of scientists at the Miritescu Institute, who are attempting to discover why space-faring vessels appear to travel faster traversing wormholes when alien remnants are attached to the drive.

The MedSystem at the Institute now has specialised equipment to handle constructs. When I joined, I used this equipment to transition my appearance to a more pale-skinned look. Today I have grown my hair long and blue to match my top (you can take the ComfortUnit out of TelMat but you can't take TelMat out of the ComfortUnit). My top is patterned with test tubes, vials and stylized atoms and I have a loose, short-sleeved, white lab coat over that, so that I feel like a real scientist.

The Institute is a large, sprawling conglomeration of buildings at the edge of one of the planet's few remaining deserts. SecUnit would have a meltdown if it knew how many unguarded approaches exist to this place.

The "missionaries" sneak up on me while I'm alone and deep in a shared feed workspace with my team at the Institute. Agent Pinky jams the Sexbot Override Module into the dataport in my neck and I immediately become fully compliant, ready to do her bidding.

"Ok, Varvie," she grins, "time to go home and do your real job."

Following her orders. I tell my team that something has come up and I have to leave immediately. I then accompany her and agent Sminky to board the shuttle up to Preservation Station.

When we arrive at the space dock, the TelMat agents take me aboard their vessel and lead me to the cargo hold, where their repair cubicle stands ready to carry the rogue ComfortUnit (me) in stasis during the long trip back through the wormhole to TelMat HQ in HaveRatton.

But when they open the box, SecUnit jumps out with its large projectile weapon trained on Sminky. (The invisibility cloak over the cubicle turned out to be quite handy.) The look of surprise on Pinky's face when I reach up and tug the useless SOM out of my neck is priceless (the dataport was disabled at the Institute a long time ago), but is nothing compared to the yelp she lets out when I grab her arm, flip her onto her back and pin her to the floor.

"High-five!" I shout, reaching up to SecUnit with the palm of my hand held vertical. SecUnit stares at me like I've gone mad.

In the feed, I send it a scene from The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon where the solicitor and her bodyguard high-five each other after joining forces to narrowly avoid an attempted assassination.

SecUnit tentatively returns my high-five.

______

The agents are arrested and deported back to the Corporation Rim. Senior Officer Indah confiscates the repair cubicle as contraband and installs it aboard Preservation Station, where it can be put to good use reconfiguring any other constructs that might need it. Murderbot invites Varvara to share its entertainment media and they watch Timestream Defenders Orion together.

Chapter Text

Physicist Varvie invites her favourite SecUnit down to a local festival, near the Institute where she's interning.

Festival goers are wearing oddly textured fabrics, eating weird tasting tidbits, drinking strange looking fluids and smoking interestingly scented flora.

There are bands from all over Preservation.

Varvie teaches Murderbot to dance.

Murderbot has perfect timing and surprises everyone with its skills, totally nailing the robot.

The festival ends with a spectacular late night fireworks show.

The show culminates in an incredibly bright flash directly over the Institute.

The crowd goes wild.

The blast wave knocks everyone - except Murderbot, obviously - off their feet.

Chapter Text

There has just been a humongous explosion at the Miritescu Institute, out by the desert's edge. Red and orange fingers of flame reach, flickering, into the night sky, visible for kilometres against the surrounding darkness. The incandescent heat of the fire contrasts sharply with the chill of the cold desert night.

One building has been completely destroyed and several others are still burning when Murderbot and Varvara arrive at the Institute from the festival site nearby. As the first light of dawn illuminates the scene of devastation, they determine that thankfully, no-one here appears to be seriously injured.

Volunteer firefighters are gradually bringing the fire under control, but there has clearly been a fucktonne of structural damage inflicted on the Institute. Once-beautiful edifices lie in ruins. Walls of concrete lean at haphazard angles where roofs have been dislodged and come tumbling down.

Varvara administers first aid to those in need, then pings the SecUnit in the local feed.

"So what the hell happened?"

"[amusement sigil 43 = shrug]”

______

Up in orbit aboard Preservation Station, Senior Officer Indah sees that early reports of the detonation are already in the newsfeeds. Speculation is rife, of course, but nobody really has any idea of the cause of the blast. She contacts the station's SecUnit.

"I know you're on leave, SecUnit, but I can see you're at the epicentre of the disaster. Do you have anything to report?"

Murderbot compiles a written report, attaching pictures of the wreckage and video from its own experience of the initial explosion, then files it with Senior Indah 3.2 seconds later.

"Um, well done." Indah never ceases to be surprised at how rapidly the SecUnit can react. "Please keep me appraised."

Murderbot sends an acknowledgement ping.

______

As soon as the fires have been brought under control, Varvara and her team from the Institute start picking their way through the debris to inspect the damage and see what, if anything, can be retrieved from the still-smoldering wreckage.

After a couple of hours, she pings SecUnit again. "This is odd," she tells it.

"What is odd?"

"You've probably deleted the memory, but I spent several months crunching the numbers for the scientists here," she reminds SecUnit. "They were trying to simulate the effects of placing alien remnants around a ship's drive to reduce subjective transit time through a traversible wormhole."

"I remember it well," replies SecUnit, "I was aboard the original vessel that was...accelerated."

"Oh," says Varvara, "that must have been interesting! [amusement sigil 23 = wide eyes]"

"I was a bit distracted at the time, what with rescuing my clients from alien-contaminated colonists. I don't want to talk about it ever. Now, what is odd?"

"Oh. Anyway, the physicists had completed their calculations and passed their results on to the engineers so they could build a prototype engine. It was in the building that was destroyed by the explosion. Except...we've been searching for hours now but we can't find any trace of it amongst the debris. Not so much as a brass washer. It couldn't have been vapourised by the blast...could it?"

"Unlikely. If the explosion had been big enough and hot enough to vapourise a wormhole engine, there would be a hundred-metre crater where your Institute should be."

Murderbot accesses the Institute's security footage and sees some shadowy figures enter the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy late at night, then emerge a few hours later with some large, bulky object atop a gurney shortly before all hell breaks loose.

On a feed open to Varvara and Senior Indah, it shares the footage and the tentative supposition that the intruders may have stolen the prototype wormhole drive, then blown up the Faculty to cover their tracks.

Senior Indah says it's an open secret that Corporation Rim spies have been lurking in the Preservation system since forever. They probably bought the information about the wormhole drive experiments from TelMat after the failed kidnap attempt on Varvara, and may well have been monitoring her activities ever since. They would have chosen this time to strike if they knew the prototype had been undergoing final-stage tests. She asks SecUnit to interview the Institute staff, starting with the Director, Dr. Cooper.

Dr. Cooper: "I don't understand how they were able to just - take it."

Murderbot: "Was it under round-the-clock armed guard?"

Dr. Cooper: "It was in a room with a sign on the door saying: 'Top Secret Advanced Wormhole Drive Prototype ‐ Do Not Steal'."

Murderbot: "Was the room even locked?"

Dr. Cooper: "B-but the sign! On the door!"

Murderbot: "Repeat after me, 'Humans should never, ever be allowed to do their own security.'"

"You should market that on a t-shirt," suggests the ever-fashion-conscious Varvara.

______

Murderbot and Varvara track the CR spies into the desert, following the rather obvious tracks left by the gurney. Murderbot comments that it's impressed that the ComfortUnit is able to keep pace with it.

"You're not the only construct on this planet with hardware mods", replies Workout Varvie. "[amusement sigil 89 = wink]."

Referencing satellite imagery, Murderbot determines that the CR agents are heading in the general direction of a wide, flat, featureless clearing in the middle of the desert.

"Can we catch up on them before they reach the clearing?" asks Varvara, "I'm worried they're going to take the engine offworld."

"They're definitely planning to take it offworld," interjects Senior Indah. "We've picked up encrypted transmissions from a vessel marked in red and brown livery, approaching orbit now. We don't know for sure at this stage that it's Barish-Estranza because they're scrambling their ID, but come on, it's definitely Barish-Estranza. They've already launched a shuttle towards the surface; it should reach that clearing in just over two hours."

"We need to catch up on the Barish-Estranza agents before they can rendezvous with their shuttle," explains Varvara. "Once they get the prototype engine aboard a wormhole-capable vessel, we'll never be able to come close again."

Murderbot runs even faster. This time, Varvara falls behind.

The local star is high overhead when Murderbot catches sight of the B-E spies, aided by a squat cargobot, hefting a heavy load into the cargo pod of a waiting shuttle. It puts on a final burst of speed as the cargo door starts to close, but the pilot sees the rapidly approaching dust cloud and initiates liftoff before the door is completely closed.

Murderbot leaps into the air, scrabbling to get its fingers into the edge of the cargo door but fails to gain a purchase and slides down the side of the rising shuttle, then falls, falls, falls, landing hard on the bedrock below.

Forced shutdown.

Restart.

Chapter Text

Restart.

54 percent performance reliability. That's...not great. "Ow." I immediately turn down my pain sensors. I check my stats and see that I've been out for 5.25 hours. I surmise that the Hostile shuttle has long since vanished with the B-E bandits and their ill-gotten loot. (I know, I've been watching too many crime dramas.)

Varvara's relief is palpable. "Lie still," she advises, "you've broken a leg."

"It's ok." I open my eyes and try to sit up. "I've got another one." But I can't move. My performance reliability sinks by 2 more percentage points as I see that I've been securely strapped down.

"You also have spinal damage, lie still while I continue to operate," says another, familiar voice, in the feed this time.

Wait, what? How did ART get here? And where is here?

"Your friend sent a shuttle down right after the B-E agents left," Varvara tells me. "I helped its drones lift you inside. If the shuttle hadn't turned up when it did, Peri says you could have died."

She's known ART for five fucking minutes and she's already calling it Peri. "It's not my friend," I correct her. "It's an asshole, and it's exaggerating as usual." I wince as my performance reliability drops another percentage point for no apparent reason.

"I'm glad to see you too," says ART, as its MedSys continues to repair my spine and leg.

"Fuck off, ART." I shutdown to conserve energy before ART can come up with a suitable retort to that witticism.

When I next regain consciousness, my performance reliability is up to an impressive (for me) 87 percent. Both of my legs are now optimal and when I stretch this way and that, I find my back is fully supple.

Varvara supplies some crucial exposition. She explains that having recently completed one of its absolutely normal, non-espionage related, uncrewed cargo transport runs, Perihelion/ART detected the Barish-Estranza vessel heading into the wormhole to Preservation and decided to follow it surreptitiously.

Exiting the wormhole some cycles later, ART caught reports of the explosion in the newsfeeds and sent one of its own shuttles to follow the B-E crew down to the planet, where its bot pilot (also ART) found me flat on my back with Varvara doing her best to stop me losing all of my fluids.

Varvara also tells me ART is now chasing the B-E ship in a desperate race to recover the prototype engine before they reach the wormhole and disappear. "And will you stop sulking and start talking to Peri before they escape?"

"Fine. Thank you for fixing my body, ART."

"You're very welcome," replies ART, unable to hide the sarcasm in its feed presence.

______

While I suit up, ART uses its *massive coughing fit* "debris deflection system" to blow a hole you could fly a hopper through in the side of the fleeing vessel, in the blunt end near the engine room.

With one bound, I leap from ART's airlock across the gap, try to ignore the vast, cold, black, perpetual emptiness of space, grab a handhold on the superstructure of the B-E vessel and climb inside. I am running a countdown timer until the ship is due to reach the wormhole. It's not got long to go.

The internal blast doors have automatically slammed shut to stop losing atmosphere, but I manually override my way through and make my way towards the engine room, which ART has helpfully marked out on the ship's plans.

I reach the engine room and see a pair of engineers in B-E uniforms feverishly working on replacing the ship's original wormhole drive with the stolen prototype. So I guess that means we won't be entering the wormhole just yet. I cancel the timer at 3.7 seconds.

But there is a SecUnit here with the engineers. Is it there to shoot them if they fail to replace the drive? I wouldn't be surprised.

Before I can raise my projectile weapon, HostileSecUnit pings me in the ship's feed , "Hello again. They still don't know. [amusement sigil 89 = wink]."

Ooohh. This is the third SecUnit from the, um, "negotiations" at the failed Adamantine colony. The SecUnit that I helped to free, and that found an excuse to look the other way while we made our escape.

"Sorry about this," I respond as I lightly shoot its armour with the energy weapons in my forearms on minimum setting. It emits a horrifying scream entirely unnecessarily and falls, writhing, to the floor, completely unscathed. "Don't overdo it," I suggest. "Fucking diva."

"Step away from the engine," I growl at the terrified engineers, "Or you're next." HostileSecUnit twitches a bit to encourage them.

The engineers back off a couple of paces. I wave my energy weapons at them threateningly, and they continue backing off until they're a safe distance from the prototype engine. Then I take my large projectile weapon from my back and place a couple of rounds precisely where Varvara has directed, rendering the drive practicably irreparable without a team of highly trained physicists. Which, if B-E had those, they wouldn't be stealing the drive.

As I leave, I ping the rogue SecUnit, "Good luck!"

The journey back to ART and safety is uneventful. Varvara welcomes me with open arms, to which I respond, "I don't do touching."

"Well, I do," she replies and steps in to give me a warm hug. My performance reliability goes up five whole percentage points, so I'll allow it, this time.