“Ouch,” Miki commented. SecUnit, why don’t you talk to me on the feed anymore?

Miki knew why, or it wouldn’t have asked.

I stepped around it and went down the access corridor. Miki said in the feed, I didn’t tell on you until I had to.

I went up the corridor toward the crew area. Miki picked up Gerth and followed. In the comm audio, I had been monitoring Abene while she gave the others the quick version of what had happened with Wilken, how I had saved Hirune, how Wilken had shot Miki’s poor hand off, how I had saved her and Miki, and so on, whatever. I had my geo pod data for Dr. Mensah, I had saved Miki’s stupid humans, I just wanted to get out of here. The shuttle was moving away from the facility and I could feel the transit station’s feed just on the edge of my range.

I stepped into the crew area. Kader and Vibol were up in the cockpit, but the others were here, though Ejiro and Hirune were collapsed into seats. Ejiro looked woozy but more alert than Hirune, who probably needed to be stuffed into the MedSystem. Miki set Gerth on her feet, and everyone stared at her for a second, then at me.

Brais stood, facing the floating display. It showed a sensor view of the tractor array above the facility. “Yes, there it is. The object is heading toward the tractor array.”

Abene looked grim. “We think it’s a work zipper from the engineering pod. One of the combat bots is aboard.”

I said, “Don Abene, we need to return to the transit station as soon as possible. When the tractor array fails, it could damage the shuttle.” I guess it could. I don’t know, it sounded good.

In my feed, Miki said, I never talked to a bot like me before. I have human friends, but I never had a friend like me.

I had to bite my cheek to keep my expression at SecUnit neutral. I wanted to block Miki’s feed, but I needed to keep monitoring it in case the humans started plotting against me. (I know, it sounds paranoid. But Miki and Abene knew I’d made Consultant Rin up, and I needed to get away before they told that to a human who knew just how not normal that behavior was for a SecUnit.)

On the comm from the flight deck, Kader said, “We’ve got to commit in the next minute, are you sure about this?”

Wait, what? I ran back my recording and listened to Brais say, “We can use the shuttle to knock the zipper off course. Our shielding will protect our hull—”

Squinting at the display, Ejiro said, “But wouldn’t the zipper be able to return and try again?”

Brais shook her head, still watching the flight projection. “I’ve pulled the specs on that model of zipper. It’s meant for facility maintenance and needs a feed connection to the engineering pod to operate. We can push it out of range and it’ll lose navigation control.”