My performance reliability hit 60 percent and I could talk again. I said, “Fuck you, ART.”

Amena leaned over the platform, watching me worriedly. “SecUnit, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Parts of the surgical suite were withdrawing and I could see her with my eyes now instead of just the drones. “Except that I’m being held prisoner by a giant asshole of a research transport.”

Ratthi hobbled over and stopped outside the sterile field. “Do you need anything?”

Amena said, “I saw what happened. I mean, I still had the view through your eyes when—” She stopped and swallowed. “That was intense.”

That was one word for it. I sat up as the rest of the suite pulled away. The skin on my back felt new and itchy. I hate that. “I need my jacket.”

ART said, It was damaged and is being repaired in the recycler.

It was very hard to say evenly, “I am not speaking to you.”

Ratthi lifted his brows. “So … how well do you two know each other?”

In the control area, Arada stood up. “Uh, Ratthi, let’s take that up later. Transport, will you answer our questions now?”

ART said, That depends on the questions.

I said, “The humans think I’m an asshole, wait till they get to know you.”

I thought you weren’t speaking to me.

Ratthi muttered to Amena, “I admit I’m a little worried right now.”

Amena told him, “SecUnit said bot pilots can kill people.”

ART said, SecUnit exaggerates.

Arada’s brow was furrowed. “Transport, where are we? We’ve accessed your sensors and we’re not receiving any contacts indicating a station. Is this an uninhabited system?”

This system has a numerical designation assigned by a corporation which was investigating it for salvage. It was the site of at least two attempts at colonization. The latest attempt was abandoned when the company funding it was destroyed in a hostile takeover, and the colony’s location was lost. ART paused for 8.3 seconds for no reason I could think of except to make the humans think it wasn’t going to answer the question. I have evidence indicating that it is inhabited.

Arada has a lot of expressions, even for a human. The one she was wearing now involved squinting one eye and twisting her mouth around and biting one corner of her lip. I didn’t know what it meant, except that she must be worried by what she was hearing. “It’s inhabited by these people—the hostiles?”

Circumstances suggest it.

Yeah, that was sarcastic.

Arada stopped biting her lip but her eye got more squinty. “What is your operational status? You said the alien remnant detached from your engines? Can we leave now via the wormhole?”

I am currently still in reinitialization mode and my normal-space maneuvering functions are not responding, possibly due to damage caused when the foreign device was installed on the wormhole drive. When reinitialization completes, I can begin self-repair. But I have absolutely no intention of leaving this system until I get what I want.