I designated the intruder as targetControlSystem.

I hoped it was sentient enough to hurt when I killed it.

I had a lot of work to do before that point. And the image of the steaming bodies of Targets One and Three inside ART’s pristine control area was taking up way too much processing space.

I had a few scout drones still in the corridors near the control area and I told them to start mapping any motion and anomalous activity and plot it to my copy of ART’s schematic. I had to find a way to advance-detect the targetDrones.

A drone (designated: Scout Two), parked on the ceiling of the foyer outside the crew meeting area, picked up activity. More Targets converged on the foyer and tried to get the hatch open, but Target Three had apparently used a manual emergency control to seal it from the inside. The new Targets—let’s call them Four, Five, and Six—fumbled around with the controls but didn’t seem to know how to undo the seal. And whatever was going on with their weird feed and targetControlSystem, they couldn’t seem to access ART’s systems with it.

ART was dead.

I wanted to stop and lean my head against the bulkhead, but there was no time.

Behind me, my drones saw Eletra had an arm around Amena’s waist, helping her walk. Ras limped, too, trying to watch behind us and keep an eye on me at the same time. All three were either shivering or sweating from what was probably shock.

Right. Humans. Humans with needs. Mensah’s juvenile human, and the two new humans who were obviously hurt.

Murderbot, you need to get your act together.

“Do you know how many Targets are aboard?” I said.

“Targets?” Ras repeated.

“It means the gray people,” Amena said, gritting her teeth as she put weight on her bad leg.

“I’ve seen five, but I don’t know if that’s all,” Eletra said.

“At least five,” Ras agreed. “They had a lot of those bots, drones, whatever they are. We should try to get to the engineering module. Tell your SecUnit—”

“It doesn’t listen to me, I told you,” Amena said, exasperated.

I’d already identified six total Targets, with three still active (counting the messily dead ones), so the humans’ intel was useless. (Not a surprise.) I arranged the drone scouts in front of us into a cloud formation and sent them ahead with their scan functions tuned all the way up.

Scout Two showed me that Targets Four, Five, and Six had stopped ineffectually poking at the hatch. They were hastily adjusting their protective suits, sliding plates reconfiguring their helmets to cover their whole heads. That was a problem. Seven drones to kill two Targets had been overkill (Though one Target had already been wounded. Say seven to kill one and a half Targets.) especially when my supply of drones was limited. I had no real intel on how good their armor was at deflecting drones, and trying to find out might mean wasting another squad.