It was still a little hilarious.

My projectile weapon was designed to pierce armor but I needed to be close, and I needed cover.

As the hostiles came through into the private docks, I activated the new code I had been working on. Code: Deploy&Delay.

Simultaneously, three things happened. The hauler bots that StationSecAdmin had deactivated all reactivated and charged into the open floor. The load lifters hovering up by the ceiling dropped to skim low along the deck. My reserve drones split into multiple task groups and dove down, took up altitudes at knee and head level, and zoomed around through the other roving bots. In the dark, with just the gleam of the emergency lighting floor strips, it was kind of impressive.

A fourth thing happened: I started to run toward the stationside wall.

I’d spent a lot of my time in the hotel room writing this code when I could have been watching media, so it was nice to see it hadn’t been a waste. Basically it suppressed the bots and lifters’ safety features except for their ability to avoid each other, restricted them to an area, and sped up and randomized their movements. I’d originally meant it for the entire port, as a last-ditch distraction, and had had to change the parameters on the fly to make the affected area the private docks. And I was glad I hadn’t panicked and dropped it earlier; as a surprise, it was working great.

The first SecUnit to make it through the open gate from the public docks I designated Hostile One. It stopped abruptly to avoid a careening hauler bot, then dove sideways out of the path of a lifter. Hostile Two had a partial second of warning and cut to its right, toward stationside. Hostile Three was clever; it dove forward under the wild swing of a cargo lifter, came to its feet, and vaulted on top of a hauler bot. Random hostile drones, survivors of the fight, zipped in through the gate followed by my drones, still in attack mode.

I jumped onto the back of a hauler bot on the right trajectory and flattened myself against it. When Hostile Two sprinted around the bots, I fired an explosive projectile directly into the side of its helmet. It tumbled and went down.

I dropped off the hauler bot just as two projectiles hit it, right where my head and chest had been. As I ducked and scrambled I checked the image I’d caught of the impact points; bad enough with armor, those would have splattered me.