It was kind of obvious. The dock had a comm system linked to the planet but the only people likely to be on the other end were the Targets. There was no way to contact ART’s crew except by going down there.

I had two choices. (1) Go down to the surface alone, leaving the humans here, where the Targets could return or some unknown factor could randomly appear and kill them and then Mensah and Arada would never speak to me again, which might not be a factor if I never got off the planet. (2) Take the humans with me, where I could get them killed and/or die with them. (3) Sit here until the explorer destroyed/captured ART and returned, or ART destroyed/captured the explorer and returned, in which case I would still need to go to the surface anyway, possibly with even more humans trying to butt in and come with me so they could get killed, too. Three, that was three choices.

When you put it like that, option 2 was looking pretty good.

Overse and Thiago watched me. I said, “Threat assessment is…” I checked it. “Never mind.”

Overse did her version of one of Arada’s rueful eye-squinting expressions. “Arada will think I’m trying to get back at her for going to talk to those corporate predators on the supply transport.”

Thiago patted her shoulder. “Tell her you were the voice of reason but you were outvoted.”

“Are we doing this?” Overse asked me. “Because I think we need to.”

Yeah, I thought we needed to, too. But not via the giant drop box. I said, “Yes, but we’re going to be sneaky about it.”

While I went to get our EVAC suits, Overse checked over the maintenance capsule, running its diagnostics and making sure it was still in operational condition. It hadn’t been used in thirty-seven corporation standard years, but everything showed it was still functional. It was tiny next to the drop box, about the size of one of ART’s shuttles, with ten padded chairs lining the bulkheads on the top platform and then three levels of small securable storage racks below, and a selection of unused tools for shaft and drop box maintenance.

Since the Targets hadn’t been using it, I was hoping they had forgotten it existed, if they had ever known about it. The Barish-Estranza crew might not have known it existed, either, depending on how much time they had had to review the dock’s schematics before being attacked.

Whatever, it was better than trying to make a sneak approach in a gigantic drop box that probably arrived on the surface with automated warning sirens and, considering the effort Adamantine had put into branding this place, possibly its own theme music.

I also recorded a full report with all my video and the excerpts of the DockSecSystem video, compressed it, and stored it in a drone which I was leaving hidden aboard the dock. When ART came back (hopefully ART was still alive to come back) the drone would deliver the report.