And the Targets had reasons not to be too worried about SecUnits. They had seen the Barish-Estranza SecUnits ordered to stand down, made helpless by the governor modules.

Overse said, “Hmm. SecUnit, this is showing log entries from two drop boxes.”

Well, that was interesting, but I’d pulled ART’s schematic of the dock already and checked—there was only the one shaft, the box tucked up into its lock below where we were in the control area. ART, who hates to be wrong, said, Physical structure indicates only one.

Overse scrolled through a file, her helmet light turned off so it didn’t wash out the floating display. “Wait, yes … It’s not a box, it’s a small maintenance capsule. It’s inside the structure of the shaft.”

I started to run what there was of DockSecSystem’s video, skimming through it at a much faster rate than a human could view it. The camera placement and lighting was bad, but I could see figures in red-brown Barish-Estranza environmental gear as they moved back and forth through the main corridor. I had to run it back to make sure, but the contact party’s initial boarding of the drop box wasn’t on here. Stupid humans, being impatient and not nearly paranoid enough, they had screwed up the load of their new SecSystem and then hadn’t even waited until it was fully active to head down to the planet. No wonder their contact party had gotten grabbed by the Targets. The activity lessened as the humans returned to the explorer. I spotted one of the SecUnits patrolling the central corridor, but not the one we’d found.

Thiago pointed over Overse’s shoulder. “It did make a trip to the planet, then returned.”

“Right, but that was…” Overse huffed in exasperation. “Hold on, I need to convert these time stamps.”

Then ART said, Hostile contact, ETA six minutes out.

What the hell? How could it get that close? “Six minutes? What were you doing?”

Contact did not appear on scan until now, that’s what the fuck I was doing, ART replied.

I put my video review on hold. “Do they see you?” Okay, it was a stupid question.

ART said, Of course they see me.

I pulled a view of ART’s control area. Arada was in a station chair, Ratthi and Amena standing on either side, all watching ART’s big display. ART was annotating the displays in the feed so it wasn’t just a mash of numbers and lines and colors.

Frustrated, Arada said, “Something blocked Perihelion’s ability to scan the explorer. I bet we’re dealing with more alien remnant technology.”

It’s probable, ART said. I don’t know what the humans heard, but I read deadly, furious calm. A variation on their ability to interfere with short-range drone scans.

I saw from ART’s feed that the explorer was acquiring target lock. The DockSecSystem, trying to come fully online, sent a belated warning through the feed. We didn’t have time to get back to the lock, put on the EVAC suits, and return to ART. The explorer was in range and could fire on us at any moment. The dock wasn’t designed to be shot at but it was more protection than an EVAC suit. Besides, I hadn’t finished my review of the security video and we hadn’t checked the drop box and its maintenance capsule for physical evidence yet. On the feed, I said, ART, you know what you have to do.