The humans were quiet, taking that in. Then Ratthi said, “Poor ART. Excuse me, poor Perihelion.”

Arada grimaced in agreement. “It’s disturbing. The B-E explorer must have arrived in the system first and was attacked. Taken over? By our friends the Targets. But if the supply transport actually exists, where is it now?”

Overse frowned. “It might have been destroyed. We have to assume Perihelion’s crew are being held prisoner on the explorer.”

“Is the explorer armed?” Ratthi asked worriedly. “I hate being shot at.”

Again, ART didn’t answer. I said, “Probably.” For a reclamation project in a technically uninhabited system, it would be easier for Barish-Estranza to afford a license and bond for an armed ship.

Thiago paced in front of the med platform, his arms folded. “Perihelion and I have translated the speech that SecUnit recorded and it was … confusing at best. The Targets—and we are going to have to come up with something else to call them—spoke of a need to complete their mission, but never said what the mission was.”

Ratthi added, “And they all have implants like Eletra’s.”

The other humans looked like they didn’t know what to think about that. I didn’t know what to think about it, either.

Arada said, “But could you tell if there was alien remnant exposure?”

“The scan isn’t showing anything that matches the list of known strange synthetics or organic alien remnants.” Ratthi glanced at Thiago for confirmation. “But that doesn’t eliminate the possibility.”

Thiago said, “Statistics suggest there are many undiscovered alien remnant sites, and many others that no one has been able to get close enough to to analyze their component materials. And the scan is turning up traces of unidentifiable elements in their bodies. We can’t tell if they’re naturally occurring elements or strange synthetics until we have planetary survey data to compare them to.”

Ratthi gestured and sent some scan results into the feed for the others to look at. “And those suits they’re wearing do have a factory code stamped on them. I can’t read it and Perihelion’s database can’t identify it, though that might be because of the reinitialization or the memory archive issues. But I suspect they came in the supplies for one of the two colonies, either the original one or the corporate colony seeded by Adamantine.”

Thiago said, “What we do know for certain is that the Targets were altered to look as they do. We don’t know if they did it to themselves or if it was an accidental exposure to a dangerous alien remnant. If they weren’t all dead, we could ask them.”

Yeah, that was aimed at me.

“If they weren’t all dead, they’d be trying to kill us, or stick implants in us,” Amena grumbled, still off-feed and crunching vegetable matter.

Overse spread her hands. “Where does this leave Eletra? Were SecUnit and Amena meant to rescue her and her friend? Were they meant to be … spies, possibly?”

“I think that’s too far-fetched.” Arada’s forehead scrunched in thought. “The Targets couldn’t have any idea SecUnit would be capable of seizing control of the ship when they brought it aboard. They thought they were looking for a weapon, not a person, so why set an elaborate trap with spies?”