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Three, confirm contact with hostile, I sent, at the same time that I cleared the security pylon and hit my top speed heading in its direction.
Three is not responding, ART said, and Three’s feed connection pinged me back with an “in progress” canned response. We must assume that contact has been made—
“ART, shut up,” I said, because I was focusing on how to throw myself down the grav-shaft to Three’s last-pinged-location without squishing myself like a pancake before I could get there. There was a hanging cable across the open shaft from me, and it looked like some kind of fiber-optic for carrying the feed. I was (mostly) sure that they probably made that kind of stuff out of something heavy-duty enough to carry a SecUnit. I jumped into the shaft, grabbed the loose end of the cable, and swung myself down to the next level. Only four more until Three’s position.
ART decided to be helpful, and loaded an updated map of the station directly into my active vision filters, which only a little bit felt like taking an energy weapon to the skull. It had highlighted three possible routes down to Three—but none of the highlighted options included the grav-shaft. You cannot make it down that way, ART said, and live.
“ Fuck,” I said, and started running for the closest highlighted route, an emergency stair that was 17 meters to my right. Three: acknowledge. Hostile: must confirm. Status: needed. Still nothing. “ART, did you make any progress on access to internal sensors—“
There is another ship approaching the station. ART’s attention slipped away from me, leaving me with only 15% of it, rather than the 42% I’d been staggering under before. Fuck. FUCK. I hit the door to the stairs with my shoulder, breaking it open, and launched myself down, using the rail to boost my speed more than actually taking the stairs.
This wasn’t supposed to be a very complicated mission. Well, we knew that there was at least one combat bot on the abandoned station, and we knew from ART’s covert surveillance that it had killed the company workers here, and was probably still under orders to shoot anything that moved, but the plan had been for Three to connect ART to the station’s security system so we could track the thing, while I wandered around several floors away knocking shit over, generally making noise, essentially being bait so that the combat bot wouldn’t notice Three. So much for that plan.
Unlike Three, I was actually carrying a projectile weapon heavy enough to put some holes in a combat bot. I pretty much exploded out of the emergency staircase. According to the map, I was still 250 meters and a sealed bulkhead away from where Three had been working. I only had five shots in the projectile weapon, but I figured I could waste one on the bulkhead’s locking mechanism for the sake of getting myself to the fight faster. I slowed my speed enough to aim it properly, and the bulkhead opened—but only a fraction. I couldn’t jam myself through the tiny opening, but I could see the many, spiky arms of a combat bot throwing itself at a target. Fuck. FUCK. Fuck fuck fuck. (If I survived this, I was going to expand my list of appropriate combat expletives.)
I positioned the mouth of the projectile weapon through the open crack. There was no chance of making a successful kill shot at this angle, and it was possible that firing it was going to jam it completely in the door, but Three was alone in there. At the very least, this was going to make me look like a much bigger threat worth taking care of. I fired the weapon, and it glanced off the combat bot’s armor. (If you’re counting, that means I have three shots left.) Fortunately, the heat from the weapon firing did not fuse it to the broken bulkhead. As I yanked it back out, the combat bot threw itself at the crack, coming for me. Well, your plan worked, Murderbot, now all you have to do is survive it.
I had about four seconds to position myself, bracing my hips and legs against the weapon so I’d be ready to fire it as soon as the combat bot pried itself through the door. With a horrible metal screeching sound, the bot did exactly that. I was ready, so I fired. The bot swiveled its head trying to find me, and zeroed in on me right as the projectile went through the entire sensory array of that head. (Fuck. I’d been aiming for the power or brain cores in the chest.) The bot, undeterred even a little bit (fuck fuck fuck FUCK) scrambled towards me, sharp pincers spread wide to make sure I wouldn’t get away even if I dodged.
I was planning on throwing myself to the ground and trying a shot from below, but as my luck would have it, one of the combat bot’s legs was damaged (maybe Three had done that). So during its mad rush to attack me, it tripped, and one of its legs crumpled, sending the whole thing to the ground, still coming at me way too fast. I couldn’t dodge, so I held the projectile weapon very unsafely and ran straight behind me, as fast as I fucking could.
With its sensory apparatus damaged and one of its legs broken, it was looking like I had a better chance of taking it out, if I could just get close enough to it without getting sliced to pieces. I whirled back around to face it, but I hadn’t gotten far enough away, and one of the pincers snipped my weapon just about in half. I threw the useless piece I was still holding at the combat bot, and crunched down tight, protecting my neck, to try and roll away while I still could.
Right as it occurred to me that if I could manage it, I could probably use my inbuilt energy weapons to detonate the last two projectiles in the broken gun the bot was still holding, someone beat me to it. (I had managed to get myself into something like a roll, fortunately for me.) The blast of both projectiles going off at once did kill the combat bot, I noticed, as it also flung me a couple meters away with concussive force, knocking my hearing offline too.
I managed to get to my feet, expecting to see Three there, come to my rescue again. Instead, I was face to face with a group of corporates, probably the ones that owned this station. Two of them were wearing red uniforms, and a third was wearing yellow. I didn’t recognize the triangular symbol of the company that they all wore. And of course, they had a SecUnit.
It wasn’t wearing armor (well. Neither was I) and its skin suit was purple, hugging tight enough to its body that you could see the inorganic structure beneath. That thing definitely looked modified—the silhouette was far enough off SecUnit standard that I’d bet it would pass a basic security sweep. It wasn’t carrying any visible weapons, except for a small box of some kind, but SecUnits didn’t exactly need external weapons for most fights.
I pinged ART. It didn’t respond, and too late it occurred to me that it was probably dealing with the ship these corporates had arrived from. I had no idea how they’d gotten down here so quickly—we must have missed something on our initial sweep. The leader, a human with a face tattoo, raised their hands and said something that I didn’t hear, due to the concussive damage I’d taken from my primary weapon exploding a combat bot. I reached out to them on the feed, and to my immediate horror, they weren’t using it, not even an encrypted signal that I could pick up. Unsecured SecUnit, abandoned valuable station, no feed usage—this was not a safe situation for me. I raised my energy weapons and pointed them at the leader. Immediately, the two others raised their weapons at me. Huh. I’d been expecting them to try to send the SecUnit after me.
The leader made some kind of gesture at me that was probably meant to look calming. The SecUnit just stared at me, making a weird face. Fuck.
Well, they didn’t shoot me immediately. And my options were either to try to kill them all, right then, or put my guns away. I know I might be named “Murderbot,” but I’m actually not a huge fan of murdering humans, especially ones that hadn’t technically attacked me yet. At least I could hear again, only, so far the only thing I could “hear” was a loud ringing sound. I put my guns away, and pinged Three. No response. If these corporates had killed it, I was going to make them regret it.
The leader tapped the company logo on their torso, and said something else that I didn’t hear. The other humans lowered their weapons, which made me feel less like an idiot for putting mine away. I ignored them. I was going to go back through the broken bulkhead, find Three, and make sure that it was still alive. We could figure out what to do next after that—probably either continue the security system reconfiguration, or negotiate with the company, or both—but before I’d even taken two steps, a weird feeling engulfed my whole body. Tingly, and disorienting, like I’d been shoved out one of ART’s airlocks in the middle of a wormhole.
The large, spiky, mechanized thing shuddered when a large explosion went off on its head. It stopped trying to claw its way into the vent system after them, and turned around, going after whatever had shot it.
“Oh my god,” B’elanna had said. “Was that a borg drone?”
It had certainly looked like one. The away team followed the battle, and watched the drone try (and fail) to disable the spiky robot.
“Hit it with everything we’ve got!” Chakotay said. (Seven assumed that he meant the hostile creature, rather than the unaccompanied borg drone.) Someone’s phaser hit something explosive, and the thing detonated, throwing shrapnel in every direction around it. The borg drone had managed to roll out of the way, and now staggered to its feet.
It looked terrible, Seven noticed. There was a large pincer from the unidentified hostile stuck in what would be the lower stomach of a human, and it was bleeding profusely from the wound. Its body plan was unfamiliar to her, now that she could see it more clearly. She quickly scanned it.
“What do we do with the drone?” Paris said, looking to Chakotay.
“That is not a borg drone,” Seven said, checking her results. “The scan indicates…very unusual interior makeup. But this being is not affiliated with the Collective, or if they were, they are now rogue. Perhaps this is a cyborg of some unusual kind.”
“And they’re bleeding out,” Chakotay said, grimly. “They saved us when that thing had us pinned down in the vent; the least we can do is patch them up. B’elanna, Paris, stay here and keep trying to localize the source of the dilithium readings. Seven, you’re with me. Let’s make sure our new friend survives the next twenty minutes,” Chakotay said. He tapped his comm badge. “Voyager, this is Chakotay. Medical emergency. Three to beam directly to sickbay.”
The ‘cyborg’ seemed to be unaware of their injuries, Seven noticed, and moved as if they were attempting to go deeper into the abandoned station. The transporter lock established, and Seven, Chakotay, and the cyborg rematerialized in sickbay.
“Commander, this course of action may have been unwise,” Seven said. The ‘cyborg,’ still bleeding profusely, staggered sideways, as if they were nauseated by the transporter. “We have no confirmation that this entity will not immediately become hostile upon realizing they are in an unfamiliar location.”
“We can’t just let them die,” Chakotay said. “If we can just get them talking, the translator will be able to find an algorithm that will allow us to communicate. Then we can–”
The cyborg reactivated the phasers built into their arms, pointed them at Chakotay, and said, “⍙⊑⏃⏁ ⎅⟟⎅ ⊬⍜⎍ ⎅⍜ ⏁⍜ ⋔⟒?”
“The hostile does not seem interested in allowing that opportunity,” Seven said, in what she felt was an appropriately angry tone for the situation. A fluid of a color that did not match human blood oozed out of their large injury.
“⏁⟒⌰⌰ ⊬⍜⎍⍀ ⌇⟒☊⎍⋏⟟⏁ ⏁⍜ ⌇⏁⏃⋏⎅ ⎅⍜⍙⋏,” the cyborg said, emphasizing their point with the tip of their weapons. (The effect was somewhat lessened by a significant loss of coloration in their face.)
Chakotay held up his hands, palms out and clearly empty. “My name is Chakotay. Don’t worry. You’re safe here. What’s your name?”
“⍙⊑⟒⍀⟒ ⟟⌇ your ⎎⟒⟒⎅?” the cyborg gestured again, angrily. Seven accessed the translator algorithm on her device, currently spinning as it worked. Some progress was being made, at least.
The EMH materialized. “Please state the nature of the–oh.” The Doctor quirked one eyebrow. “Typically, patients with that level of fluid loss are more agreeable by this point.”
The cyborg glanced at the EMH for only a fraction of a second, before it turned its full attention back to Chakotay. Seven had already noted their speed and strength was increased in comparison to a standard human’s, and doubted that Chakotay had noticed the flicker of lost attention. “⌇⍜⋔⟒⍜⋏⟒⍜⋏⍙⍜⍀⌰⎅ ⊑⍜⌿⌿⟒⍀⌇⍙⍜⎍⌰⎅ ⊑⏃⎐⟒ ⌇⍜⋔⟒⏁⊑⟟⋏☌ ⎍⌇⟒⎎⎍⌰⏁⍜ ⌇⏃⊬ ⍀⟟☌⊑⏁⋏⍜⍙,” the cyborg growled threateningly.
The Doctor held up a medical scanner. “Hm. Fascinating internal structure.”
“At first, we thought it might be a solitary borg drone,” Chakotay said.
Seven stepped closer. The cyborg visibly flinched, and tried to swing their weapons towards her, but was clearly woozy. They couldn’t do much to resist the Doctor’s scans. The cyborg’s eyes flicked helplessly to Seven. She recognized the fear that she saw there–there were not many species in the Delta quadrant that had not encountered the Borg. Seven’s distinctive implants were visible, and made it all too obvious what she was. A species with high levels of technological integration like this would have great reason to fear attacks by the Borg.
“They’re some kind of hybrid–as far as the scanner can tell, we’re looking at a fusion of organic DNA with technology we’ve never even seen before,” the Doctor frowned, leaning close to examine the cyborg’s visible inorganic components. “The DNA seems human, but if it is, it’s been highly edited on the genetic level. Seven, I’ll need an extraction of your nanoprobes.”
“What for, Doctor?” Chakotay asked.
“It’s our only chance to stabilize the patient,” the Doctor snapped. “The nanoprobes should be able to integrate with the systems of this person, and repair their technology and organics simultaneously. I wouldn’t be able to do the same without extensive surgery–” the cyborg weakly batted their arms against the Doctor, who firmly took their in-built weapons in hand, saying “That’ll be enough of that, thank you. We’re trying to save your life.”
The cyborg’s face suddenly went very blank and soft. With a very different tone of voice and lack of facial expression, they said, “⏁⊑⟒ ⌇⊑⟟⍜⎍⏁ ⏁⊑⟒⍀⟒⍙⟟⌰⌰ ⌿⏃⊬ ⎎⍜⍀ ⋔⊬⌇⏃⎎⟒ ⍀⟒⏁⎍⍀⋏,” and then their eyes closed.
“We’re losing her!” the Doctor said. “Seven! I need those nanoprobes!”
Seven passed over the hypospray.
“Help me get them on the bed,” the Doctor said, as the cyborg went limp in his arms. Seven grabbed the legs, noting that the cyborg was heavier than they initially appeared, and together, they lifted their “guest” onto the bio-bed. “They’re losing fluids,” the Doctor said. “We need to–” and then he stopped, his hypospray just a few centimeters from the cyborg’s neck. Frowning, he pulled his arm back, and tried again.
“That’s…odd,” the Doctor frowned.
“What is it?” Chakotay asked.
“Is someone in engineering ⏃☊☊⟒⌇⌇⟟⋏☌ my program?” the Doctor asked, looking down at his hands. He flickered out of existence for just a moment, as if he was experiencing a glitch.
“Seven to engineering, please initiate a lockout of the Doctor’s systems immediately,” Seven said, pressing her comm badge. She moved to the control console where the Doctor’s program was stored, and saw that the altered coding seemed to be spreading. “There is something in our ship’s systems. It is affecting multiple systems. Seven to engineering,” she repeated, but there was no response.
“Can you do anything?” Chakotay asked. The Doctor, horrified, stared at his hands as they flickered in and out of visibility.
“I am trying,” Seven said, focusing on the data in front of her. “It is a highly mobile entity. I am attempting to encrypt the Doctor’s program.” Her fingers flew over the screen at speeds no human could match. “It is resisting,” Seven announced bitterly.
“⌇⏁⍜⌿ ⏁⊑⏃⏁,” the Doctor said, holding his hands over his ears. He crouched low to the ground, like he was trying to get away from something. He looked up at Seven, panic in his eyes. “Help–” he whispered, and then he was gone.
Seven confirmed the results with her tricorder. “The Doctor’s program has been deleted from sickbay,” she said.
The cyborg, visibly struggling, pushed themselves up onto their elbows, nodding their head as if they were dizzy.
“Did you do this?” Chakotay faced them, standing tall and proud, a commander on a Federation ship. “We’re only trying to help you.”
“I am reading a link being established between the remainder of the Doctor’s programmed systems and the cyborg,” Seven said. “They are accessing the translator.”
“⌿⟒⍀⎎⍜⍀⋔⏃⋏☊⟒ ⍀⟒⌰⟟⏃⏚⟟⌰–where am I,” the cyborg groaned in pain.
“You’re aboard the Starship Voyager. Release our Doctor, and we’ll resume treating your injuries,” Chakotay said. “If we don’t treat you soon, you’re going to die.”
The cyborg looked down at their stomach, appearing to notice for the first time the large pincer and sluggish flow of fluids. “That’s fair,” they said.
“Release our Doctor,” Chakotay said.
The cyborg squinted. “The med-bot?” They shook their head. “Tell…tell your SecUnit to stand down.”
“SecUnit?” Chakotay frowned. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“ That,” the cyborg said, gesturing one of their weapons woozily towards Seven.
“Seven isn’t going to hurt you. And she’s not…well,” Chakotay broke off. Many different species of the Delta quadrant referred to the Borg with different names, some steeped in myth and legend. They couldn’t be sure that, by the cyborg’s definitions, Seven wasn’t a “SecUnit.”
With a sudden dimming of the lights, the Doctor appeared again, standing upright and normal in the center of sickbay. ‘Normal’ may have been the wrong word. He moved stiffly, as if he wasn’t accessing behavioral protocols. “It’s me,” the Doctor said, in a deep, threatening, unfamiliar voice.
“ART,” the cyborg said, lowering their weapons, a visible look of relief crashing over their face.
“Seven, what do we…?” Chakotay looked at Seven, who was trying to make sense of the large quantities of data that had suddenly manifested in the Sickbay systems. She regrettably had no further analysis to give him.
“It is not our Doctor,” she told him, the only fact of which she was certain.
The thing-that-had-taken-over-the-Doctor cracked his head, moving it side to side in an inhuman parody of a stretching motion. “Doctor…” it mused to itself aloud. “I thought it felt like a MedSystem. SecUnit, stop moving. You’re badly damaged.”
“Well, fuck you,” the cyborg grumbled, and they let their head droop back onto the bio-bed. The ‘Doctor’ crouched next to them, and began scanning.
‘SecUnit.’ The cyborg had just used the same term to apply to her. What were they? What did they think she was?
Chakotay bravely tried again. “ART, was it? My name is Commander Chakotay. You’re intruding on the USS Voyager–”
“Yes, I’ve already accessed your ship’s library, I know who you, and Seven of Nine, and everyone else is,” ART said, still examining the cyborg from inside the Doctor’s body. It didn’t even look up at them, as if they were beneath notice.
“Release our Doctor,” Seven said, stepping forward. The cyborg flinched again, as if they were afraid of her, ducking behind the safety of the entity examining it. “Captain Janeway will not hesitate to destroy you if you attempt to keep us hostage.”
“Your med-bot is part of your crew?” ART raised one of the Doctor’s eyebrows in an odd imitation of his face, and said, “Consider us on equal footing. You have kidnapped my SecUnit, I have your ‘Doctor’.” The Doctor’s head cocked sideways, and a fraction of a second passed. “Yes, I’ll lift the communications blackout,” the entity said, turning to face Chakotay. “It appears our captains are ‘negotiating’. Do not interfere while I repair SecUnit.”
“Chakotay to Bridge,” Chakotay tapped his badge.
Go ahead, Commander , Janeway’s voice echoed back.
“We have a situation down here in sickbay,” Chakotay said.
Up here, too, Janeway said. Make it quick.
“An entity calling itself ‘ART’ has deleted and replaced the Doctor,” Chakotay said.
There was a long pause during which Janeway did not respond. ART manipulated the Doctor’s holographic body, summoning three more arms, each of which was equipped with a different medical tool in place of a hand. The effect was not pleasant. Seven and Chakotay watched as it ripped open the cyborg’s shirt, removed several panels of skin and metal, and began sealing off arteries and removing the large pincer.
“AAAAGHH,” ART groaned, responding to something that they couldn’t hear. It turned to glare at Chakotay. “I told Seth to tell your captain that I’ll let it go when I’m done stabilizing SecUnit.”
“‘M fine now, ART,” the cyborg coughed.
“ You can feel free to shut up,” ART turned a witheringly icy glare onto its patient.
“You’re scaring the med-bot,” the cyborg said, closing its eyes with discomfort.
“I’m sure its primitive system will recover,” ART said, rolling its eyes. The pincer successfully removed and the panels replaced, ART stood, glaring down at the cyborg. “Fine. I hope you’re happy. If you die, I’m killing everyone on this ship.” There was a distorted, waving motion through the hologram emitters, and then the image of the Doctor staggered. “Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” he said, the new arms collapsing awkwardly against his body. “What did it do to me?!?” the Doctor looked at the cyborg, horrified.
“I’ll help you fix it,” the cyborg said, its eyes still closed. “Sorry,” it winced. “ART…well, it’s always like that.” The Doctor’s image shimmered, the arms disappearing back into holo-nothingness.
“Your ‘friend’ is very rude,” the Doctor sniffed haughtily. Seven knew him well enough to be able to detect an edge of anxiety in his voice–he had not found the experience he’d just had to be pleasant.
“It didn’t actually mean what it said about deleting your code nanobytes at a time,” the cyborg mumbled. “It’s sorry.”
“It didn’t sound like it was joking,” the Doctor sniffed again.
“Doctor, you’re all right?” Chakotay asked.
“No thanks to you, Commander,” the Doctor sighed. “But yes, I’ll be fine.”
Janeway’s voice crackled over the comm line again. Chakotay, Seven of Nine, please report to the ready room. If our guest is feeling up to the task, bring it along too.
Chakotay looked at Seven. It? He mouthed.
Seven shrugged.
ART had managed to stabilize most of my damage, leaving me with a performance reliability of 65%, as opposed to 23%. Which. Was not perfect, by any stretched definition, but it was better than being dead in an unknown corporate ship. I was able to make myself walk on my own, which spared me the humiliation of needing the SecUnit or the human to help me stand up, but I was regretting telling ART to get out of the med-bot. ART had warned me that we wouldn’t be able to communicate, but…But. The way that the med-bot had squirmed, suffocating helplessly under ART’s control, wasn’t right. ART was scary to little systems even when it wasn’t trying to be, and, well. It had been trying to be.
The SecUnit either wasn’t connected to the feed, or the feed had been locked down so tightly that even ART couldn’t access it. That didn’t bode well, whichever it was. I followed it and the human in red, wherever we were going. ART had passed me a homemade language module and map of the ship while it was in the med-bot systems, but that still didn’t give me a lot of information to work with.
A tiny human–a fucking child??? --ran down the hall, approaching us. “Seven!” She smiled, arms wide for a hug. “You’re back from the station already?”
“Naomi Wildman. I am not currently free to resume our game of Kadis-kot,” the SecUnit said, allowing the child to hug it.
Wait.
Wait a second.
Wait a fucking second.
That was not a human child. It had horns in a small line down its forehead. My energy weapons felt itchy in my forearms. The human didn’t seem scared, and the SecUnit was a SecUnit, so it didn’t react much, but that was an alien.
That suddenly made the lack of feed make a lot more sense. Why would a corporate ship go out of their way to make sure there wasn’t even a scrap of usable feed anywhere on board? Maybe if they were trying to hide something seriously illegal. Whatever they’d done with or to alien remnants to make that …I was horrified. And it was running loose? How many more aliens were aboard this ship?
The child hugged the SecUnit one more time, then scampered away from us down another hallway. There were so many hallways–this place was at least as big as ART, if not bigger. It was all so weirdly bright and clean, like it was one big laboratory.
“You are afraid,” the SecUnit said, not looking at me.
I was tempted to talk to the human and ignore it, but…I felt like ART would probably be weird at me if I did that. For reasons related to “prejudice” and “cultural biases,” or whatever ART would say. So I said, “How does your governor module receive commands without a feed?” (Yeah, I know. Still not winning any points for good socialization.)
The SecUnit raised an eyebrow slightly at me. “I do not possess a ‘governor module.’ I am uncertain what you are referring to,” it said. “My name is Seven of Nine. The crew here calls me by the shortened form, ‘Seven.’ What is your name?”
It had the flat, emotionless tone of a SecUnit, and it was named like Three. Was it a rogue? On a corporate ship, that was abusing alien remnants?
“In our culture, we customarily respond to questions of that nature,” Seven prompted, which made me realize I was just staring at it.
“My humans call me SecUnit,” I said. Like hell I was going to tell them they’d kidnapped a Murderbot.
“Is that not a description of your biology, rather than a name?” Seven didn’t look at me. I was not sure that I was a fan of it. Three had been a little bit less…blunt? Direct? Passive aggressive? I wasn’t sure what the right word was.
“I’m Commander Chakotay,” the human in red said, for probably the fourth time since I’d downloaded his language. “It’s nice to meet you, SecUnit.” (He said it like he had no idea what I was. What the fuck was Seven, if not a SecUnit?) “We brought you here because you were dying, after fighting that thing on the station. We were only trying to help.”
“The combat bot,” I frowned. Okay, time to reassess this one–I was beginning to worry that these might not be corporates. Which would suggest that they were aliens that had made contact with human remnants, as opposed to the other way around. (That sounded like a stupid plot from my media files, but I was at 64% reliability and things just didn’t make sense. )
We made it to some kind of briefing room, with a bunch of humans (fuck, no, one of them had weird ears, and another was entirely alien with long hairs and spots all over its skin) sitting around a big table. There was a large media screen on one wall, and I could see Seth, Iris, Amena, and a few others gathered around it, calling into the meeting.
“You must be SecUnit,” a human said. She was also wearing red, and her hair was tied up into a bun. “I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway, of the Federation Starship Voyager.” She looked over my shoulder, rather than at my face, so she’d been told a little bit about me. “Your captain Seth informs me that there are some accommodations it may be necessary to provide you in order to facilitate your participation in this meeting. Please be seated next to Tuvok, who has the information prepared. Regretfully, due to our security measures, we cannot give you full access to our ship’s systems, but this should–”
“SecUnit!” Amena said, over the call. “You’re alive!”
I waved, awkwardly, and sat down next to the alien (or human with cosmetic ear augmentation. Probably alien.) in yellow. He handed me a data pad. I examined it. There were a few ports in the side, so I peeled up the skin on my arm to access my data cables.
“We don’t need to wait for it,” Seth said over the call. “SecUnit will process the data, and respond when it feels ready.”
I appreciated that. Seth didn’t seem to be panicking about the presence of aliens, and ART hadn’t said anything when it was sealing my parts back together, so I decided to table a few of my questions until I could assimilate the data they’d provided me. I sunk down in the chair, and plugged my cable into the pad, and all the humans (and aliens) started talking about things such as who they were and what they were doing at the same ostensibly-abandoned station at the same time.
They’d given me a lot of data, but I sifted through it with a few keywords to prioritize information that would be more immediately relevant. First, I ran through all the data they’d given me about their crew names, gender markers, species, etc. It turned out the Seven of Nine was actually not a SecUnit, but a human that had been kidnapped and modified with technology by aliens, and then freed from those aliens through a series of improbable events that really seemed like they belonged in my media files. I organized the rest of the data into categories, which included Information About The Ship (yes, it was much bigger than ART), What The Fuck They Are Doing Out Here (they claimed to be mostly humans, trying to cross the entire galaxy without wormhole travel, returning to their home planet), and Other Shit (this looked like it was some kind of “welcome aliens” greeting and information about human customs). Then, because there wasn’t exactly a firewall stopping me, I jumped from the data pad into the ship’s systems.
Ship was surprised to see me there, but I assured it that since I’d come in through one of its own data pads, I was definitely allowed to be there. Ship was apparently not used to being hacked in this way, since it decided that I must be correct. (It agreed with me so fast I almost felt guilty.)
Her name was Voyager. VoyShipSys seemed to have most of the rudimentary intelligence of a bot pilot, but in different ways, she was a lot smarter than that, too. Her humans seemed to use her functions mostly as a library system, apparently not thinking much about the amount of processor power it took to respond to prompts such as “show me all results in a given time frame related to this keyword, in the language I already speak.” I found a probing segment of ART nestled quietly in a corner of VoyShipSys, and I could feel my performance reliability going up with relief.
You stupid idiot, ART said, the affection bleeding over me.
It’s not my fault I got kidnapped, I sent, and ART said, you’re right, and directed me to the schematics of their “transporter,” brushing past a few “security measures” even more easily than I had.
Yeah, yeah, the cool alien technology was cool, or whatever, but a ship with this many humans, and even kids, had to have media. VoyShipSys was all too happy to help me search the files. There were several that looked interesting, but were in unreadable formats. I poked at one called Captain Proton.
ART, can you figure out why I can’t open this?
It’s an interactive media file that relies on a specific system in order to be consumed, ART said. They call it the holodeck. It functions very similarly to their Doctor, with a conversion of energy into matter that is scientifically fascinating, but will not interest you at all.
Interactive media? Like a game?
I believe so, ART said, digging into the file I’d poked. It seems that the narrative is progressed by the viewer’s behavior as if they were a participant in the story.
Ugh. Why would anyone want that? The whole point of media was that you didn’t have to actually be in danger or watch humans get hurt, you could just enjoy the story. Why would anyone want to have to be a part of the–
I got lost in a fantasy lasting 0.001 seconds, where I could tell Senator Bretwave from Sanctuary Moon exactly what I thought of him, when all of a sudden the humans started making noises in real life, and it occurred to me I should probably be paying a little more attention to the meeting than I was. I asked VoyShipSys to give me access to ship-wide cameras so that I could run back the conversation a few minutes, and she politely informed me that she didn’t have such a thing. Huh. But she did have audio logs, and those she was willing to provide, so I listened back to all the conversation I’d missed at ten times speed.
The Voyager crew was investigating the station because they’d detected dilithium there, which they needed to power their engines. The Perihelion crew was also investigating the station, trying to retrieve the data that its last corporate owners had left behind. The Voyager crew hadn’t been there long before they’d been attacked by a combat bot, and gotten trapped in the vents trying to escape. My stupid ass threw itself at the combat bot, and one of their phaser shots managed to explode my gun, killing the thing. Then they took me and half their team back to their ship with the transporter. They still had two crew members on the station, and the reason everyone started making noise was over the realization that ART and my humans had all assumed that Voyager had picked up both me and Three, and since they hadn’t, that meant Three was still down on the station, not responding to contact. The Voyager humans had tried contacting their crew, and discovered that they were out of contact too. Apparently, whatever had caused the station to shut down was a problem that was only getting worse. (The transporter thing had gone down.) I caught up to real time, where everyone was panicking about how to retrieve the two people and Three still on the station.
“Our SecUnit wasn’t able to verify that the station is clear of combat bots,” Seth was saying. “It will be very dangerous on the station without heavy weapons.”
“Our crew isn’t carrying any down there,” Janeway said. “What are the chances we can complete both of our missions without drawing the attention of another ‘combat bot?’”
“It could be doable,” Iris frowned. “Especially if only a small team went down there.”
“Our best chance is still to reactivate as many of the station’s systems as we can,” Martyn said. “That way, we can find the dilithium you need, retrieve the information we’re after, and we should be able to at least learn how many combat bots remain on the station.”
“Let’s do it,” Janeway nodded. “We’ll send an engineering detail down, and warn them to be on their guard. Once the station’s systems are online again, you can extract the data we both need with your technology. We’ll find our crew members, and we’ll know exactly how much dilithium is being stored there, and where. We’ll retrieve it, and be out before any hostile mechanisms can even register our arrival.”
“That sounds like a reasonable plan,” Seth bowed his head, “But I’m afraid I need to consult my ship’s security consultant before my crew will agree.”
Everyone in the room turned to look at me, and that made my performance reliability drop a point, but I stayed focused. “The security consultant does not approve,” I said. “Sending more humans down into a dangerous situation is the last thing we need right now.”
“Then what do you propose we do instead?” Tuvok asked.
“You all stay on your ships, where it’s safe, and I’ll take a shuttle down, or whatever, and deal with the combat bots myself,” I said. “When the station is clear, then you can look for your magic space crystals.”
“ Absolutely not,” Iris said. “Your contract specifically forbids us from letting you go on, quote, ‘suicidal’ missions alone. And it specifies ‘combat bots are involved’ under the definition of ‘suicidal’.”
I was going to have to make Pin-Lee edit that clause when we got back. “I’m the SecUnit, this is my job, ” I said, slowly, mostly for the benefit of the Voyager crew who still had no idea what I actually was.
“No one is going down there alone,” Janway said firmly.
“The larger the group of humans down there, the more likely a combat bot will notice and come to kill everyone,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Or…what if we could engineer a way around that?” Harry Kim piped up. “Like if we had something that would let us detect their presence from further away! Then we could send a small team, with a device like that, that could get in and out of the station’s systems while avoiding the killer robots.”
Huh. I actually liked that plan. It sounded like something I would have come up with, if I had a little more time, and less panic over Three and two humans being trapped on an abandoned station with hostiles in play. ART chimed in over its speakers, its voice sounding tinny carried over the viewscreen: SecUnit can assist in modifying your scanners to identify combat bots at a distance. I’ll send it all of my relevant data.
In a compressed form, ART continued, inside my head. We wouldn’t want your tiny processor overheating on such a simple task. I sent it a sigil that represented an expletive, and ART sent over the data packet.
“Do it,” Janeway nodded. “I want a team ready to return to the station within the hour. Two of our crew, two from the Perihelion.”
“I will go,” Seven said. “I have already visited the station once, and my implant will give me an advantage in interfacing with the station systems.”
“And I count as one,” I said, glaring at the view screen, “so if you send two humans over here, ART, I’ll–”
I know, I know, ART said, the sarcasm practically dripping out of the viewscreen.
“We’ll have one of our crew launch in a pod, and meet you at your airlock,” Seth said.
“All right, people, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Janeway clapped her hands. “You know the stakes; you know your jobs. Dismissed.”
Everyone stood up, and the viewscreen disconnected. Seven closed her data pad, and stood next to me. I had a weird sensation for a moment when I looked up at her, where I felt like maybe I should have kept those 2 centimeters in my legs. She said, “You will accompany me to my workstation. We will begin immediately.” I reflexively sent an acknowledgement ping, but of course, it bounced off nothingness.
Seven walked the way a SecUnit did–a strict posture, an inhuman gait, all the things that my movement software were supposed to help me suppress. And if you looked closer, you could see that the thing over her eye wasn’t like any technology I’d ever seen before, even though at a distance it could have just been an ordinary augment. Seven didn’t make random small talk, or look at me, or do any of the other things that humans do to make each other comfortable that creep out their local Murderbot. It was almost like working with Three, except for the lack of a feed connection between us.
Out of nowhere, still not looking at me, Seven said, “Three of what?”
It took me a moment to process that the question was directed at me. “What?” I said, stupidly.
“Your partner on the station,” Seven clarified, and before I could interrupt to explain that it wasn’t like that, she said, “My designation is Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01. I am curious regarding your Three’s full designation. Three, of what?”
“Oh,” I said, and I tried not to think about the SecUnits I’d found dead on that orbital platform so long ago. “Three of nothing, I guess. It’s just Three.”
Seven did that thing like she was trying to make a human facial expression, and moved an eyebrow at me. I didn’t like that. But she didn’t ask any further questions between then and when we reached our destination.
“This is where I regenerate,” Seven said, opening the door. “Borg technology is designed to integrate and assimilate other systems. We will use it to modify a tricorder to our purposes. Assist me.”
It looked like a cargo bay. There were a few “regeneration pods” or whatever lined up against one wall, glowing a creepy green color. They looked kind of like the insides of cubicles, except for the fact that cubicles had their internal mechanisms covered, and, you know. Have doors. I hadn’t been a huge fan of cubicles ever since I’d had the option to not use them, but in comparison to this, a cubicle was a private suite. Also, I noticed that everywhere in this room that wasn’t being used for the pods was stacked with crates. This was a cargo bay.
“You sleep here?” I asked.
“I do not sleep, I regenerate,” Seven said, already removing panels from one of the pods. “But yes, that is an accurate statement.”
“Just move one of these into your room or something,” I said, coming close enough so I could see what she was doing.
“I do not have assigned crew quarters,” Seven said, intently focused on the inner mechanisms of the pod.
“Why not?” I asked.
“There is limited space aboard Voyager, and I do not require personal space beyond what I have available to me here,” Seven said. “What method would you prefer for connecting to that console over there?”
I went over and examined it. There were a couple of ports that looked like they could connect to the data cable in my arm. The feed would be faster, but this would do. I removed the section of skin, and plugged the cable in, starting the download of the zipped file ART had sent me. “I have my own room,” I said. “On my ship.” Fuck. Did that sound like I was bragging?
Seven raised an eyebrow at me, and returned to her work. “I believe an appropriate response in this instance would be ‘good for you’.”
“I mean, at first I thought ART was being a big softie for giving me my own room,” I said, “But I’ve got. Um. A chair. A big screen, for media. Sometimes when my humans give me stuff, I put it in there.”
“This information is irrelevant to our current assignment,” Seven said.
There was a tingly, almost painful feeling in my organic parts, sort of like the way I’d felt that time we spent an hour trying to figure out from Three’s SecUnit-standard responses that it was trying to give me its company armor to wear. I didn’t feel bad for Three. I didn’t feel bad for Seven, either. And it wasn’t any of my business if the Voyager crew was treating their not-a-human, not-a-robot crew member like she wasn’t really a crew member. (For some reason, I got sentimental for Preservation, and wondered what Mensah was doing right then. She was going to love the story of all this, assuming we survived.) While I worked on unpacking the data in ART’s file into the console, and Seven did some kind of hardware modification to the not-a-cubicle and tricorder, I messaged the med-bot. The Doctor, sorry.
How are you doing that? Its– his response came back immediately, tinged with several emotional markers of anxiety and stress.
You can do it too, I sent. You’re a program, just talk to other systems like you would to me.
I don’t know HOW to talk to you, the Doctor responded, with several annoyance markers. What do you want NOW?
Is it weird that Seven doesn’t have her own room? I asked.
You know what? Thank you for bringing that up, the Doctor sent, with the tone of someone about to launch into a long rant. I’ve been meaning to bring it up to the captain. Living in the cargo bay is not good for her social integration with the crew aboard the ship! But Seven claims she doesn’t mind, he finished, with a heavy tone of disbelief.
Huh, I sent.
She won’t listen to me about any of my ideas, regarding exploring human romantic relationships, eating human foods, experimenting with different clothing…it’s quite frustrating! Perhaps you can talk to her about it.
Ignoring a large chunk of that uncomfortable information, I responded, I don’t eat.
You should really give it a try! The Doctor said. I can synthesize something that your organic systems will be able to process, but will still look, and more importantly TASTE like any number of dishes! Why, just last week, I–
I closed the connection. Ew. Okay, with that kind of encouragement, I could see Seven’s behavior making sense. If one of my humans had tried to offer me a lesson on romantic relationships, I would have done pretty much anything to convince them I was just a robot.
I have updated my opinion. It’s not merely your overbearing friend that’s rude, the Doctor said, reopening the connection, you are exactly the same. Wonderful. You seem perfect for each other, he said, dripping with sarcasm. (ART would have loved talking to him, if it could have gotten over its distaste for systems simpler than itself. I made a note never to let the two of them have a longer conversation, unless I wanted to die by artificially intelligent sarcasm.)
ART’s launcher pod connected to one of Voyager’s airlocks, and opened to reveal both Iris, and a drone.
“I said not to send more than one crew member,” I said, crossing my arms.
No, you said not to bring more than one human, ART-drone corrected me.
The human with a yellow uniform, the engineer that was supposed to come, took one look at ART’s drone and actually whistled. “Whew! That’s quite a feat of engineering.” He looked like he was in awe. “I’m Harry. Would…would it be rude to ask for a closer look at your internal systems?”
ART, who is prissy and stuck up and loves humans, preened at the attention, and said; I’m sure something can be arranged.
Of course it could. I rolled my eyes.
“Here’s your new projectile weapon,” Iris said, handing me a very large gun.
Don’t break this one too, ART sniffed.
“You have phaser weapons embedded in your forearms,” Seven said, looking me up and down. “Why is this additional weapon required?”
“Combat bots have armor that’s too tough for energy weapons to penetrate,” I said, attaching the gun to the holster on my back. “You need something that can pierce it.”
Janeway to away team, the engineer’s comm badge chirped. The shuttle is ready when you are.
“Then let’s go!” Iris said. She looked around with wonder as we started walking to the shuttle bay. “Wow! This ship might even be nicer than–”
Than what, ART said icily through its drone.
Iris laughed. “Than Holism’s new research module it’s so proud of, I was going to say.”
ART-drone vibrated, satisfied with that answer.
The shuttle was a vastly preferable experience to the transporter, which wasn’t working due to the same interference that had cut out communications. (Something on the station was progressively destroying its functionality, which was very bad for two reasons: 1) we needed that functionality to get the data, and 2) that thing could be an unidentified hostile.)
The shuttle was a lot like riding in one of ART’s space-to-space pod hopper things, only it actually had a recycler and replicator built into the wall–no wonder they had to use some kind of energy source we’d never heard of, their technology was cool. It was almost like a World Hoppers episode come to life, only I was trying not to think about that, because usually the disposable robot living-shields die heroically in stories like this. (I really needed Three to not be dead before we could go rescue it.)
The shuttle docked with the station. “All right–let’s move,” Kim said.
ART’s drone went out first, and it gave me a connection to its cameras. I didn’t see any combat bots, and Seven’s scanner didn’t pick up anything close by, either.
“Kim to Torres,” the engineer tapped his comm badge. “Kim to Paris. Please respond.”
“The interference on the station itself might decrease the further we are from the station’s exterior hull,” Seven said.
“Oh,” Iris said, touching her augment. “SecUnit just sent me the partial station map. Thank you. It looks like the main engineering control center would be that way,” she pointed. I nodded back at her. I would have sent it to everyone, but the Starfleet scanners didn’t work on the same feed that Iris, the drone, and I all used.
The station was just as dark and abandoned as I remembered it being. The lights occasionally flickered ominously as we made our way down the hallway, with ART-drone and myself in front, stopping at every room long enough to let Seven and Kim scan for combat bots.
Eventually, Kim whispered, “I’m picking something up. It’s in the corridor ahead of us. It, uh, it could be a combat bot. I’m reading two signals. One is just on the other side of that wall.”
I gestured for him to shut up, then, but it was too late–the closer signal had heard us. “HARRY?” came a muffled yell from the other side of the wall.
“B'elanna!” Kim yelped, then looked at me, nervous. “They can’t, uh, imitate humans, can they?”
“They can’t,” Iris said. I held the gun in both hands and went up to the wall. I peeked around the door frame, then relaxed and gave Iris the all-clear.
We all went inside. “Stay quiet,” the alien wearing a yellow Starfleet uniform and crouching over Three said. “Whatever that thing was is still close by.”
“Where’s Tom?” Kim asked.
“The last time I saw him, he was trying to make his way to the central computer processor,” the alien, B’elanna Torres, said. Finding her and Three meant that we had retrieved ⅔ of the missing crew. All that was left was Tom Paris (which was also the author name on a lot of the newer media files I hadn’t been able to open).
“Three,” I said, pinging it at the same time and feeling a flash of relief when it acknowledged.
“Performance reliability stable at 68%,” Three said.
“Another combat bot got her–sorry, it– in a hip joint,” Torres said. ART’s drone went close, examining Three’s damage. There wasn’t much blood, but the angle of one of the legs was not right. “It can’t walk.”
“The smart thing to do would be to have all of you go back to the shuttle now,” I said. “I’ll go find the other missing human, and–”
“And that wasn’t the plan,” Iris interrupted me.
“Your friend is correct. You require the services of someone who can reestablish power to the station,” Seven said. “I will go with you.”
Torres nodded. “That works for me. Kim, help me get Three up over our shoulders. Whoever you are,” Torres shot a glance at Iris, “you look like one of Three’s friends. And it’s heavy. We could use the help.”
“You should go back to the shuttle too,” I told ART’s drone, as the three of them helped Three up. “To look after Iris. She’d be upset if you got your drone destroyed for no reason.”
Be careful, ART pinged me, and then it flew off after the retreating humans.
“Do you have a plan?” Seven raised half an eyebrow at me.
“Well, the last time, my plan was to make enough noise to get all of the combat bots to chase me, so Three would have time to get to the computers,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Is there a problem with that?”
“It would be more efficient to use the station’s vent systems to get closer to our target destination,” Seven said.
“The what?” I asked.
Crawling through the vent system on my hands and knees, dragging the gun awkwardly along the ground, I was kind of pissed at ART for missing something as convenient as this on the partial station map, but also, really looking forward to getting out of there. There were weird scraping noises not coming from us, and dangerous looking scuffs and damage.
“At the next junction we will turn–” Seven fell immediately silent, and I wasn’t talking anyway, so it was dead silent in there. She held the scanner where I could see–there was a combat bot less than 10 meters away, and getting closer. I cycled my breathing lower, quieter. Combat bots sometimes had really advanced vision, with heat maps and whatever to try to detect escaping workers, but if we were lucky, this one would miss us in the ceiling over its head.
I could hear its footsteps. It wasn’t exactly trying to disguise itself–as far as it knew, it was alone on the station. (So we hoped. And also, that it just hadn’t found the human, as opposed to killed him.)
When Seven felt that it had passed, we kept moving.
We came out of the vents right in front of the main computer processor. “Freeze, robots!” somebody yelled.
“Cease your agitation,” Seven said, calmly.
“Oh, it’s you,” the human breathed a heavy sigh, putting his energy weapon (which would have been useless, if we were actually combat bots) away. He stared at me, which made me feel weird. “Huh. But I guess I was right to call you robots.”
There wasn’t really a point in correcting him. “Give me the scanner,” I said, and Seven handed it over.
“Are you all right?” Seven asked him, and for a moment, I thought it was a buffer phrase, it sounded so rehearsed.
“Yeah, just a little dinged up,” Paris said. “Just before communications went down, B’elanna told me she’d found someone, and it sounded like they were in trouble. I sealed myself behind the thickest door I could find, and, well,” Paris shrugged. “I don’t hear them anymore. Are those things gone?”
“There is at least one still threatening the station,” Seven said, activating the computer control panel.
I held the scanner at the sealed door, then traced it along the wall. “It doesn’t seem to be close by.”
“If I can determine the source of the progressive system damage, I believe I can use this system to send a shutdown command to the security systems,” Seven said, her fingers flying over the screen.
“Well, am I glad to hear that,” Paris smiled. “I was going to try escaping through the vents myself, except for the scary scraping sounds.”
He’d heard them too–my threat assessment suddenly hit 80%, all at once.
“That was likely our passage through the–” Seven started, and then the scrapper threw itself out of the open vent and into my face.
The combat bots on the station were left behind as a security measure, to stop any rival companies (or us) from accessing the information we wanted to access. They were a problem, but they were expected. The scrapper was not.
Scrappers were basically tiny metal mouths with attached legs. They were the sort of thing that you sent in when your goal was not just sabotage, but total destruction of a station like this. They could chew through anything, but their preferred “meals” were the exact kinds of metals that made up fragile computer insides, and also SecUnit insides. And when there was one, there was often a whole swarm.
The human screamed, which was annoying. I ripped the tiny teeth of the thing out of my face, which tore some skin. These, fortunately, were vulnerable to energy weapons, so I threw it to the ground, shot it five times, and then stomped on it with my foot until it was scrap. Seven had remained focused on her job, and said “I have some of the station’s systems back online. It appears they have been heavily damaged. Internal sensors read one combat bot, and a large quantity of those smaller mechanical creatures, particularly in the damaged areas.”
“Scrappers,” I said. “They're causing the progressive damage. We can’t let them get on your shuttle, or back to ART, or they’ll do the same thing to our ships.”
“Seven to away team, please respond,” Seven said.
“What do we do?” Paris looked panicked.
“Can you tell how many there are from scans?” I asked.
“No,” Seven said. “They seem to be gathered together in a large group, approximately 18 and a half meters from this position. Approaching slowly.”
I stared at the scrapper on the ground, trying to think. In the long run, this was much more dangerous than a few combat bots, especially if they broke containment. Three was lucky they hadn’t found it while it was too damaged to run. Scrappers would attack almost anything, primarily focusing on inorganic targets with high rare metal concentrations.They must have been chewing through the entire station, and only just started to run out of fuel to the point that they had to scout out more. Since this one didn’t go back to the others, it was a fair bet that the pack would be able to deduce there was something interesting this way. They’d be on us before long.
“We need to get out of here!” Paris said.
“We can’t use the door you sealed if there is a combat bot patrolling on the other side,” Seven pointed out.
“And if we don’t defend this area, when they get in they’ll chew the rest of the station’s systems. We’ll lose power, heat, oxygen, and any chance of escaping,” I said.
“Then what do we do?” Paris asked.
I tried to upload a data packet to Seven so that we could work on a solution together, but she wasn’t attached to the feed, so it bounced off of nothing. Frustrated, I wasted a few seconds trying to compile the information into a format that could work with the Starfleet systems, while Seven said, “would these scrappers attack the combat bot?”
“Yes, if they got close enough,” I said.
“Would they be able to kill it?” Seven asked.
“Yes,” I said, “or at least disable it pretty quickly.”
“How long would that take them?” Seven asked.
I considered it. I think I understood the outlines of the plan that was coming together. “Long enough to kick the combat bot into an airlock. But I’ll have to be careful not to let any of the scrappers attach to me,” I said, and this was the moment that a human character in a good media would shudder, but I didn’t see the point in wasting time mimicking the movement. “Open the door, I’ll go lure them into place.”
“Lieutenant Paris will complete the plan,” Seven said.
“What?” Paris squawked.
“Evidence suggests that the scrappers will have no interest in your purely organic form,” Seven raised an eyebrow.
“But that combat bot sure will!” Paris yelped.
“The other alternative is that the station is destroyed by the scrappers, and then they proceed to Voyager,” Seven said. “But you are the ranking Starfleet officer–please inform me if you have a different, better plan.”
“I’ll deal with the combat bot,” I said, working on the door seal.
“How am I supposed to deal with the scrappers?” Paris whined.
Paris stood next to the open vent, making a clicking tongue sound like he was trying to call a cat, and throwing bits of the tricorder we’d broken inside. “I think they’re coming!” he yelled.
I think that’s what he yelled. I was currently fighting the combat bot, which was doing its very best to kill me. I’d managed to blow off one of its legs, but it was nowhere near dead. Then the scrappers emerged from the vent, like a horrifying cloud of terror, and I took off running into the open airlock. The combat bot followed its fast-escaping moving target, and the hungry scrappers followed the combat bot. We made it inside, and Paris got the airlock door closed, trapping us all in there together as the scrappers began to devour the combat bot.
Everything very quickly went from “the human is going to die and I’m going to get blamed and feel shitty about it” to “holy shit, this is actually going to work. ” I slammed my fist into the airlock cycle panel and held onto a pipe sticking out of the wall. The writhing pile of combat bot limbs and scrapper parts flew backwards into space, along with the rest of the oxygen in the airlock. ART could deal with blowing the mass into pieces, now that it was out there.
Seven closed the outer door, and opened the lock that let me back into the rest of the station. I let go of the pipe, and hit the ground in an embarrassing way, but Seven helped me back up to my feet.
Janeway to away team, Paris and Seven’s comm badges buzzed in unison. Seven must have finished some of her repairs. We have you ready for emergency transport if needed.
“We’re all good here, captain,” Paris responded, tapping his badge. “Will someone please tell me my wife’s okay?”
We’re fine, Tom, Torres responded.
“You are an efficient partner,” Seven told me.
“You should get a feed-capable augment. It would be even better,” I said.
“I would consider it, if our paths cross again,” Seven said.
ART-drone cut into the comm badge signal, which, of course it did. Get back to the shuttle, you little idiot. I’m going to have to de-bug you for cycles.
“Fuck you, ART,” I coughed out.
“Your relationship with your ship is highly irregular,” Seven said.
“It’s not any of those things,” I grimaced. “A relationship, or my ship. And how would you know irregular?”
The human wisely decided he did not want to be involved in this conversation, and left quickly.
The shuttle stopped by ART to drop me, Iris, Three, and the drone off, before returning to Voyager. We finished collecting the data we needed, and they found their space crystals for their engine or whatever they’d needed on the station. Everyone had what I was sure were tearful and comedic goodbyes all around. I said goodbye to Seven, VoyShipSys, and the Doctor (the only ones that I actually wanted to talk to), and then went back to my own room, and settled down in my favorite chair with one of the big blankets. ART was part of the goodbyes, but it still gave me 30% of its focus for some media and decompression (and was using another percentage on repairing Three’s damage). But apparently, relaxing after stressful situations was “good for my mental health” or something else stupid that only applied to humans.
“Let’s not put on World Hoppers ,” I said. “I’m in the mood for something more unrealistic than usual.”
That can be arranged, ART said. But I should inform you, there will be a detour before we can return to the university.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
It is not a security threat, ART said. Yet.
That made me pay attention. “ART,” I groaned, sitting up. “Tell me what happened.”
It seems that Amena acquired an unusual alien pet from the other crew, ART said, that reproduces very quickly. Do not leave your quarters; the situation is under control.
I rolled my eyes, and curled up cozier in my chair. “You know what, just tell me when the trouble is over.”
Acknowledged, ART pinged me.
“Well,” I said, opening my new media files, “let’s see what ‘Photons, Be Free’ is all about.”