Chapter Text
unit offline
I opened my eyes. I was in the little hopper. Gurathin and Pin-Lee were leaning over me, tools in hand, trying to make repairs to a part of my chest that was blown open and burned.
Pin-Lee looked scared and upset. Gurathin looked pissed off, as though getting half-roasted by the emergency beacon's take-off had been part of a plan to personally insult and inconvenience him. Fuck you too, Gurathin.
I heard Mensah say, "We're almost there, — "
unit offline
I woke up in the dark. Something was wrong. My performance reliability was only at 30%. We were still in the hopper. Mensah was sitting beside me, holding my hand. I don't know if that was supposed to comfort me or her. Her injured arm was cradled in a sling. Why hadn’t anyone fixed it properly yet?
I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, some garbage automatic message would spill out, so I tapped Mensah's feed and asked, How long has it been? Is everyone okay? Aren't they here yet? The company should be tripping over their own feet to get here by now.
Her expression got even tighter. I could tell she was working hard to keep her composure.
We're okay. But help isn't coming. The beacon malfunctioned — it exploded before it could leave the atmosphere.
Fucking.
Cheap.
Company.
Equipment.
Then I think I must've passed out from rage.
unit offline
I woke up in a cubicle. This time my performance reliability had reached its maximum level. Then I remembered what Mensah had told me.
I shoved open the cubicle door, startling Ratthi, who was standing right outside. The skin under his eyes looked dark, probably from sleep deprivation. Not acutely fatal, but if they were all like that, it could be a big problem. Humans made stupid mistakes when they underslept, and we needed to think sharp and fast.
I looked around. "You brought me to the DeltFall habitat?"
Ratthi nodded. "Pin-Lee and Gurathin said they could hack the cubicle. Company equipment, like you said. It's all the same."
Volescu and Overse jogged past in the corridor outside the room, hefting equipment.
"You were in bad shape," Ratthi continued, handing me a soft uniform to put on over my half-shredded suit skin. He looked so relieved to see me now, with all of my insides on the inside. "We were so worried you wouldn't make it here." That was another shitty thing about humans and lack of sleep — their emotions tended to spill all over the place.
I reviewed the footage I had of the beacon blast. Those SecUnits were crispy fried, and GreyCris would be down three humans in the blast, too - Blue Leader, Yellow, and Green. But they still had one SecUnit left, and we had no reason to believe that the new commander of their operation would be any less ruthless than the last one. We could only hope there was some internecine shuffling and backstabbing about who would take control of the local survey.
Very soon, no matter who took control, GreyCris would be hunting for us. If I were hunting us, this is one of the first places I'd go.
These humans had taken an incredible risk by coming here to repair me. I tried not to have an emotion about that. They must have known I'm their best chance of surviving this mess. But my attempt at misdirecting myself didn't work. I knew by the flashes of memory of the trip here. I knew just by looking at Ratthi. They actually cared about me, and I was just going to have to live with that.
Mensah tapped my feed.
SecUnit, we have fifty kilos of weight allotted for security supplies, or anything else you think we might need. She sent me an inventory of the supplies they'd already collected, and the cargo space still available. (I liked that I wasn't listed as being part of the supplies, but I also liked being transported alone with the supplies so I didn't have to talk to anyone. There's a conundrum, right there.)
They'd managed to hack into one of DeltFall's little hoppers. The plan was to bring it with us, so we'd have three hoppers in total. Good. I knew humans had weird feelings about taking things from other humans who were dead. I was glad Mensah had the sense to realize that our situation was desperate. In order to tell anyone the truth of how the DeltFall humans had died, first we’d have to survive being hunted by GreyCris. For that, we’d need all the resources we could get.
I sent Ratthi to help you carry supplies, but I need you to watch him. I think he might be going into mental shock.
Yeah, that was a possibility. They shouldn't have let him come in here. There were still a lot of dead bodies, and seeing them on a camera is different from seeing them in real life.
Got it.
I looked at Ratthi, letting him make eye contact. It wasn't so bad if I knew it was necessary. "Help me carry these supplies, and we'll be out of here soon. We'll be fine, okay? Dr. Mensah has a great plan." I was sure she had a plan, and whatever it was, it was great.
Ratthi nodded and smiled like he believed me. "Yeah. Okay."
I did a quick scan of the room. DeltFall's security ready room was almost identical to the one in the PreservationAux habitat, except bigger. I knew where everything would be stored. The first thing I pulled out was a big case of drones, nestled in their little foam beds. If I could, I'd take fifty kilos of these. There must be a way to hack them to respond to our systems. It was worth bringing them to find out. I gave the drones to Ratthi while I took up a case filled with weapons, ammo, explosives, as well as a couple of spare suit skins and a new set of armour. We couldn't bring the cubicle, or Mensah would've already packed it. This might be the last time I'd see one for a long time.
Ratthi looked like he'd calmed down a bit.
"Good?"
He nodded.
"Let's go."
The hopper engines had already started. Less than two minutes after the end of my repair cycle, we were in the air.
**
We flew through the dark. I tapped the hoppers’ cameras to review the recordings of the hours I’d missed. They must've really punched it all the way here. Our last trip to the DeltFall habitat had taken over sixteen hours, and they’d made the trip in less than half that time.
They’d already decided on a spot to park the hoppers. It was a dense jungle, the same as our first hiding spot, thick with trees and greenery and fauna to hide us from sight and life-sign detectors. The hazard report indicated several dangerous species of fauna that had been observed on the continent, but nothing big enough to damage the hoppers. We wouldn’t be staying long.
While fleeing the GreyCris habitat, tired, hungry, injured, and dangerously stressed, Mensah and the others had collaborated over the comm to sketch out a rough plan for survival. We were going to run and hide. Couldn't have thought of a better plan myself. This planet was a big haystack, and we were a small needle. It would take GreyCris a long time to sift through it all.
Once they’d arrived at DeltFall, it had been a mad scramble to hack the cubicle, the hopper, and the MedSystem to download as much of it as they could, and to dig out all the equipment and supplies they thought they’d need.
Now they needed time to eat and sleep and hopefully calm down. In the morning, with clear heads, we would need to make careful preparations. We had to strategize. Figure out better ways to hide. Move around. Find ways to survive without leaving a recognizable trace. For the moment we had the luxury of just parking the hoppers in any spot where we could hide for a few days. The chances GreyCris would find us right away were really low. The chances they'd find us grew exponentially the longer we stayed.
We needed to plan to survive for as long as we could, and I needed to figure out what we would do if/when GreyCris caught up to us.
**
The first three day-cycles were the worst of our entire trip. Even worse than the one Bharadwaj and I were torn to shreds by Hostile One. (We all called these the first three cycles, even though we'd been on the planet for awhile now. Everything before was something else. This was the real shit.) That was because the first three cycles involved imagining every possible way GreyCris might come hunting for us, and every possible thing that might give us away, and then trying to figure out how to deal with all of that.
I made an orderly list. I'm just like that. I tried to imagine what I'd do if I needed to kill a group of eight humans and one SecUnit, hiding somewhere on a planet with three hoppers and limited supplies. It was a pretty long list. GreyCris plausibly had access to many kinds of visual/audio/energy sensors. We would have to hide from them all.
We also had to figure out how we could get the resources we would need to survive here once our stores ran out: food, clean water, purified air, and all the necessary human things. I could survive for hundreds of thousands of hours on my energy cell. I'd be okay. The humans could all die from exposure to temperatures even a few grades out from their planetary ranges. They could be killed by hungry fauna or toxic flora. Every microbial presence on the planet was a danger. The company-supplied habitats were cheap and mass produced, but they provided comprehensive life support for the humans who needed to inhabit them. We didn't even have those anymore. We had three hoppers and all the supplies they could carry.
While I was making orderly lists and sending them to Mensah, the rest of the humans were freaking out. To them, every single nightmare scenario would cause actual nightmares. It didn't matter that every day we made progress addressing everything on my list. None of the preparations made them feel any better. I added 'mental health crisis caused by acute stress' to the list of seriously threatening dangers, and I started watching them carefully for signs of psychosis.
**
At the end of the third cycle, Mensah and I sat together in the cockpit of the big hopper, which we'd designated Hopper One. The other humans were either sleeping or trying to sleep, huddled on the floor of the hoppers.
We put the finishing touches on the first version of a comprehensive survival plan. Everyone had given their input, and we'd included every scenario we could think of. As soon as everyone woke up, Mensah was going to present it to the whole team. That would kick off our move to the location we’d carefully chosen, where we would establish our first long-term camp.
Mensah asked, “Anything else you can think of? I mean anything." Eyes closed, she leaned her head back against the pilot's seat.
I skimmed over the plan again. “No. It's good work. A solid plan. I think it'll make everyone feel better.”
“I hope so,” Mensah sighed wearily. “Thank you for helping me.” Then she opened her eyes but avoided looking directly at my face, which I appreciated.
She asked, “What about you? Will you be okay?”
“I'll be fine, Dr. Mensah. As long as I'm not too damaged.” Without access to a cubicle I’d have to be more careful with myself. We'd included a section on Basic First Aid for Murderbots (though it wasn’t called that) in the medical guide. I wondered if I would ever get used to not being considered a piece of equipment.
She said, “That's not what I mean." She took a moment to think about how to clarify. “The first time I asked you to sit with us in the crew area, you looked appalled. Now, you're going to be in close proximity with us for a long time. I worry that it might get uncomfortable for you. We won't be able to help looking at you and talking to you. We're all going to be very close. Physically, and probably emotionally. It might be upsetting.”
“It's not so bad if it's an emergency. This counts as a long emergency.”
She took a long moment to consider this. “Okay. But if you need anything, if you need space, or you need someone to run interference, or if you ever want help adjusting to this. Ask me. I don't know very much about SecUnits. Not as much as I should. But I'll try to help.”
I didn’t think there was any way to make being around humans okay for me. I guess she could tell everyone to shut up and leave me alone. So far she'd been good at noticing when I needed that. Which was great because, despite her offer, I still wasn't sure how to ask for it myself.
“Okay.”
Then I did think about something that wouldn’t have been written in the survival manual. “What about you, Dr. Mensah? Will you be okay?”
She said, “I'll be fine.”
I knew why she said that. She didn't want to show any weakness. She didn't want anyone to worry about her. But she was the linchpin of this group. If she started crumbling, the way I could see the others already starting to crumble, we'd be in bad trouble.
“This is going to be difficult for you too. You won't do anyone any favours by pretending to be fine if you're not. Is there anything I can do to help you—" I wanted to say 'keep your shit together.' “Is there anything I can do to help you cope?”
She smiled and lifted her hand, palm up. “You're doing it now.”
“Oh. What am I doing?” I thought maybe it was something about how I could think and talk about all the horrible ways we might die, and not get overwhelmed by anxiety (on the outside anyways). It was a valuable trait and I was kind of proud of it.
She said, “You asked. You noticed. You care. No human likes to feel alone.”
I could say that she wasn't going to get a moment alone for the entire length of this ordeal, but I knew what she really meant. As the team leader, she was kind of alone, but I made her feel less alone. Wow. I think if she'd told that to me ten cycles ago, I would've made another appalled expression. That seemed like a big responsibility. And a weird thing to expect from a murderbot, especially this Murderbot.
But like she said, I was doing it now. I did notice, and I did care. I mean, I cared in the same way that I cared about keeping all of my limbs intact. We needed her, and we’d probably die without her. I couldn't not care. Humans tended to talk about caring in fuzzy, emotional terms, but sometimes caring was a simple matter of survival. But then, since humans were social creatures, sometimes survival and fuzzy emotions were linked. Sometimes the line was blurred. It felt blurry. Maybe it wasn't so scary after all. I could do this, I thought.
“Okay. I'm glad I can help you, Dr. Mensah.”
**
We all gathered in Hopper One after breakfast, when everyone was as rested and fed and as alert as they were going to get. The sun had gone down a couple of hours ago. We’d been travelling around the planet so much, their sleeping schedules had nothing to do with daylight hours anymore. This actually worked in our favour. We needed the cover of night to travel.
Mensah pushed the finished survival plan into the feed. I watched their faces with my drones while they took it in.
This was our situation:
GreyCris had gone to great lengths to prevent anyone from finding the evidence of alien remnants on this planet. We knew what they'd done. They’d have no reason to try and work out a deal. They were out to kill us, Mensah included. They could easily think of more bullshit to cover it up. (Probably raiders — you could blame anything on raiders. They were way more common than rogue SecUnits.)
Based on what Pin-Lee and Gurathin had recorded from their helmet cameras when they’d snuck in close to the base, we had an approximate idea of their resources. We could predict that GreyCris would be hunting us with a team consisting of one (or maybe two) SecUnits with armed human backup. Probably in a hopper. It wasn’t likely they’d bring in combat supplies or personnel from off-planet. That would almost certainly trigger a lot of pointed questions from the company, maybe even an immediate investigation. Luckily for us, they needed this to be a stealth operation.
Since GreyCris was supplied by the company, we knew more or less what kind of scanning capabilities they’d have, and we could work towards countering them. Mensah was way ahead of me there. A lot of the equipment they’d taken from DeltFall could be adapted to build several types of shielding. Life signs and energy readings could be masked with the same shielding the habitats used to protect their proprietary data. We had dampeners to protect the hopper’s systems and our feed. Theoretically, they could even build an array that would project a limited camouflage field that would make us invisible to visual scans. That would be a real asset. (I didn’t relish the idea of living entirely in the hoppers, or in a cave or an underground tunnel or something. That would be bad. No thanks.)
We were going to set up a wide sensor array to alert us if we were being approached or scanned. It would give us enough warning to hide, or run, if we really needed to.
As for resources, they’d been sure to bring an over-abundance of power cells. We had enough to last for years. We had enough meal pacs and emergency high-nutrient bars for a little over a hundred cycles. As soon as possible, they'd need to supplement their diets with nutrients gathered from the planet. They already had a list of edible plants they could gather and cultivate. Their water and air filtration systems were robust. They’d need to replenish them with a few base elements that could easily be gathered on the planet.
We knew the air here wasn’t great, but it would take several planetary years for damage to accumulate. They had their suits and the limited oxygen those could provide. They were also going to filter the air in their sleeping areas. That should help.
The one thing that still scared everyone a little (even me) was the possible length of this operation.
PreservationAux’s planetary survey was supposed to last, at most, one hundred cycles, and we’d already been here for a quarter of that. Since GreyCris had access to the habitat, they could easily send fake reports and extension requests for the survey, and they could do the same from the DeltFall habitat. PreservationAux’s contract with the company had a clause that allowed the survey to be extended to the maximum limit of seven hundred cycles.
So. It was possible that at any point, someone might notice their radio silence and send a ship to investigate. We might be rescued tomorrow. Maybe. But this was the company we were dealing with. As long as they had no evidence we were in danger, those lazy fucks had no reason to care about what was happening to us.
We needed to be prepared to survive here on our own for as long as possible. 'As long as possible' being potentially two planetary years.
Yeah, our situation wasn’t great. We’d be in active danger until the company got off their lazy asses and sent the pick-up transport. But Mensah wasn’t panicking, so neither were they.
She asked, "Is everyone ready?"
We were as ready as we’d ever be. We split up into the hoppers. I sent a status request into the feed so I knew they were all accounted for. We lifted off to find our new long-term hiding spot.