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Attn: Dr. Ayda Mensah, M.D.; PhD.,
Regrettably you do not know me, though you will no doubt be aware of me as I am of you. I have followed and respect your recent work in xenobotony, and I have kept up with the progression of the ongoing GrayCris v. DeltFall v. the Preservation Alliance lawsuit, which will no doubt set at least a few historic precedents in its conclusion. However, my reasons for penning this missive are not related to these topics, except perhaps in the most abstract sense.
I have, for want of a better term, "abducted" your SecUnit associate. To be slightly more precise, I am in the process of abducting it as you read this. It is my only objective, but my business is urgent and I do not have the luxury of a precision extraction. I hope sincerely that this contact serves only as an apology, and not a condolence.
Though I am in no position to ask anything of your polity, I must also request additional aid from the Preservation Alliance. The circumstances in which I find myself are dire, and cannot be fully articulated in writing. On my honor, I will explain myself fully in person, if you would deign to send whatever assistance you can to the attached coordinates.
As for SecUnit, please do not concern yourself unduly with its safety. Though we both know of its penchant for endangering itself unnecessarily, it is not my intention to get it killed. When your representative(s) arrive, they will find it alive, although it will likely be very unhappy with me and with the universe in general. (Then again, in the time that I have been its friend, “very unhappy with me and with the universe in general” has been its primary state. You being its most trusted human associate, I’m certain you know exactly what I mean.)
Your understanding in this matter is greatly appreciated. May we meet properly under more favorable circumstances.
Respectfully,
Perihelion
Dr. Ayda Mensah, M.D., PhD. can feel a migraine gathering behind her eyes.
"Are you serious with this shit?"
Pin-Lee flexes her fingers as though she can feel them closing around a phantom throat. "I swear, if I have to read one more goodbye note from SecUnit, I'm going to do something stupid."
"This one isn't from SecUnit," Bharadwaj points out. Her voice is soft, tone calm, but Ayda sees the white-knuckled grip she has on her cane. "It's from this 'Perihelion' person."
About that.
All three women blink as Gurathin forwards a file to their feeds. Ayda skims through it once, unable or unwilling to read it more thoroughly at this moment.
“A raider ship?” Bharadwaj asks, verbally and through the feed. “In Preservation space?”
“What the hell was the responder doing?” demands Pin-Lee. “Just letting it crouch in the dark like a crater worm?” She adds, "Sorry," as Bharadwaj shudders.
A crater worm is the right image. According to Roa, the responder didn't know it was there until it was dragging the research ship back into the wormhole. The Port Authority is out here scrambling to figure out how to allocate the blame.
Ayda detects disgust in Gurathin's feed voice, and she doesn't blame him for his spite; the bile in her own gut has reached a rolling boil. She chills her words with dry ice as they exit her mouth. "And where is my daughter?"
Pin-Lee and Bharadwaj both flinch. Unfortunately there's no room for shame in Ayda's body, filled as she is with steam.
Gurathin doesn't hesitate in his response, though there is marked reluctance. Roa's report says that the raiding ship tractored SecUnit in, but it wasn't alone. Amena was with it. The crew have visual confirmation that both were pulled into an airlock.
Ayda exhales slowly, venting pressure. 'Kidnapped by raiders' is bad, but it's better than 'lost alone in space.' 'Kidnapped by raiders alongside SecUnit' is better than many other things, including 'lost alone in the station mall.'
"What about the others?" she asks, measuring the weight of each syllable on her tongue. "There were thirteen people on that ship. Two were taken by raiders. What about the rest?"
Pin-Lee burrows into the report. "No casualties," she announces. Bharadwaj's shoulders slump with relief. "But apart from Amena and SecUnit, there are four other MIAs."
Ayda fights the urge to groan. "Don't tell me."
It's exactly the four you're assuming.
"Well." Bharadwaj smiles weakly. "Once SecUnit has dealt with the hostiles, it'll be kept busy dealing with its allies."
That’s assuming that Arada, Overse, Ratthi, and Thiago all managed to make it to the safety of the hostile vessel. Ayda doesn’t give voice to that pessimism. The others have all no doubt already quashed the exact same thought. Instead, she takes the time now to read the PA report more thoroughly. The conclusion that the hostile ship belonged to a party of raiders isn’t unfair, but raiders don’t typically send apology notes to the friends and family of their victims. Pilot Roa’s testimony is chronological, starting from the moment that the baseship was attacked, and the PA analysis adheres to the format of a typical incident report. The names of those involved are listed alphabetically, followed by all available data identifying the perpetrating vessel.
“Is this accurate?” she asks, highlighting the designation. Bharadwaj bites her bottom lip, and Pin-Lee squints into the middle distance.
“It’s not PA policy to guess in an official report,” she says slowly. “So if they want to cover their asses good, it’d better be fully verifiable.”
The attacker was observed by baseship sensors as well as by a few crew members, Gurathin agrees. That’s the name they saw on the hull. It’s not very much to go on, unfortunately.
It wasn’t. There was no official seal or registry stenciled on the ship’s exterior, nothing to follow up on. But the name was stark. Ayda reopens the note, reads it again. If her friendship with SecUnit has taught her anything, it’s to take a more open-minded approach towards possibilities that she might otherwise have dismissed.
“You will no doubt be aware of me.”
Pin-Lee reads the line aloud. “Who the shit is this person?” she asks. “What’s with the supervillain affectation?”
Why should we be aware of them? adds Gurathin. Is the ship particularly well known? I’ve never heard of it.
“Maybe not well known,” Ayda says. “But known to SecUnit.”
The room and feed fall silent for a few seconds. (SecUnit would have counted them, she thinks, to the hundredths place. The ache of its absence has lingered since the survey team departed, and that familiar weight sinks back in to smother the heat.) Bharadwaj is the one to interrupt the restless quiet.
“Do you really think that it was the ship itself that took SecUnit and Amena?” There’s no skepticism in her voice, but she looks to Ayda for confirmation, just in case the suggestion is too insane to entertain.
“Maybe.” Ayda opens an attachment from the PA file, an image taken from the baseship exterior sensors during the attack. “It was at least the ship that signed the note.”
No one bothers to protest the assumed impossibility of a ship committing a crime. There’s none among them who hasn’t learned a hard lesson about underestimating machine intelligences.
It must not know SecUnit all that well, says Gurathin eventually. If it assumed that SecUnit would have told anyone about it.
“No,” Ayda agrees. “And it doesn’t know me that well either, if it assumed that I wouldn’t be coming after it myself.”