I had an idea I outlined for the bot pilot. If we could trap the Attacker’s code bundle in a contained area and destroy it, we could regain control of the affected systems. But to get the Attacker to go into a contained area, we needed bait. We needed to know what the Attacker wanted/had been sent to do.

Bot pilot said that it wanted to destroy the ship and crew.

I said there had to be a reason. There was no profit for GrayCris in killing us, and a lot of risk in antagonizing the bond company by destroying a ship this expensive.

I reactivated my body, standing rigid in the passenger seating area. Ratthi was out in the corridor, doing rescue breathing on an augmented human crew member who had collapsed due to the attack on her augments. Gurathin was out there, too, both hands in a panel access, holding a corridor hatch open so crew could bypass the backbone and get to the drive. Pin-Lee and Mensah both sat on the floor with two crew members. All four had portable manual interfaces open and were frantically entering code, shoring up SecSystem’s walls. They weren’t fast enough, but what was left of SecSystem probably appreciated the thought.

I said, “Dr. Mensah, why do you think GrayCris is doing this? What do they want?”

Everybody flinched. “What is it doing?” a crew member demanded. “It could have been taken over by the—”

“Shut up,” Dr. Mensah snapped at the crew member. To me, she said, “We think it’s Milu. They must think you have the data you took from Milu with you.”

“It’s got to be that,” Pin-Lee added, not looking up from her display surface. “They could have killed us as soon as we arrived on TranRollinHyfa, but they wanted the money. It’s only been since they realized you were here that things got violent.”

You know, I bet that’s it. And I bet it had something to do with the memory clip I took from Wilken and Gerth. CrayGris must know it existed, must believe I had it. They were too late, since it was in the Preservation system by now, but I doubt they were going to believe that. But it did give me something to work with. “I need someone to trigger a manual disengage of the shuttle we arrived in.”

Mensah dropped her interface and shoved to her feet. “We’ll do it. Pin-Lee—”

“Coming!”

“Thank you for your assistance,” my buffer said, as I shut down again and went back to the bot pilot.

Back in accelerated time, I explained to the bot pilot what I wanted to try. It was fighting for control of its weapon systems, trying to follow the captain’s order to fire. It showed me an intel fragment from the boarding shuttle: manifest suggested a Combat SecUnit was aboard, along with an augmented human boarding team.