Fugitive Telemetry

An unidentified human body is found in a quiet mall junction on Preservation Station, a place so unused to homicide that Medical and Station Security respond with frustrating slowness. SecUnit estimates the time of death from scan data, and Tech Tural later confirms the estimate. Senior Officer Indah distrusts SecUnit, but Dr. Mensah worries the death could be connected to GrayCris or another corporate threat and pushes for SecUnit to assist the investigation. SecUnit agrees on the condition that security around Mensah is increased, making the case both a murder inquiry and a test of whether SecUnit can work within Preservation’s systems.

SecUnit’s status on the station has already been tense. After Mensah revealed what SecUnit is, Indah and other security leaders feared it might seize station systems or harm residents. Mensah defended SecUnit as a person rather than a weapon, while Pin-Lee prepared legal pressure in the background. The resulting compromise lets SecUnit remain as a consultant, but restricts its access to non-public systems and prevents it from hacking station bots or drones. These limits shape the investigation, forcing SecUnit to work around systems it could easily penetrate but has promised not to violate.

At the crime scene, SecUnit notices that the victim’s clothes and body show too little contact DNA, suggesting a cleaning field was used. It also concludes the victim was probably killed elsewhere because there is too little blood and tissue at the junction. The distinctive clothing looks like visitor wear, possibly a disguise, and SecUnit reasons that if the victim came through transit he should have had a travel bag. Station Security begins searching for it.

SecUnit then investigates transient housing with help from Tellus, the hostel bot. Tellus finds footage of the dead man and helps SecUnit identify an unoccupied room connected to the name Lutran. The room contains a scarf matching the victim’s clothing, tying the dead man to that identity. Since SecUnit cannot legally search Station Security arrival data, it goes to the transit ring and contacts docked transports directly. After many routine checks, it finds a damaged Corporation Rim cargo hauler whose garbled responses suggest that something aboard has gone badly wrong.

SecUnit brings Ratthi and Gurathin as witnesses and support, then forces open the hauler. Inside, it finds bodily fluids and a blue bag in the crew lounge, confirming that Lutran was killed aboard the transport. Station Security arrives, and Special Investigator Aylen questions SecUnit sharply, even asking whether it was involved. Gurathin pushes SecUnit to provide an alibi, and SecUnit sends footage showing it was with Mensah when Lutran died. Aylen reveals the real mystery: dock surveillance shows Lutran entering the transport, but no one else entering or leaving. His body was later removed in a delivery cart, implying sophisticated concealment or jamming.

The next lead is the Lalow, a cargo ship linked to the hauler’s scheduled cargo. Aylen, Supervisor Gamila, officers Farid and Tifany, the bot Balin, and SecUnit go to the ship. When the Lalow crew demands that only Aylen and Gamila enter, SecUnit stays outside until the hatch closes, feeds are cut off, and jamming activates. SecUnit breaks into port systems through SafetyMonitor, boosts Aylen’s blocked distress signal, and storms the ship with drones. It disables the armed crew and rescues Aylen and Gamila.

Interrogation reveals that the Lalow was not carrying ordinary cargo. Miro admits that Lutran was the contact for a group of escaped contract-labor refugees from BreharWallHan, a mining corporation system. The Lalow had been smuggling enslaved laborers’ children and other refugees toward safety, and Lutran was supposed to help them move onward. But surveillance shows the refugees leaving the Lalow and then vanishing inside the Merchant Docks. SecUnit suspects system tampering, and after demonstrating how easily Station Security can be breached by taking over displays with an episode of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, it convinces Indah to allow a diagnostic.

SecUnit finds no clear hack, but the search uncovers a missing pressurized transfer module. SecUnit reconstructs what likely happened: Lutran moved the refugees into the module, returned to his transport to receive them, discovered the module had been diverted, and was killed by someone waiting there. Because Port Authority systems and communications may be compromised, Indah covertly moves the investigation to Mensah’s secure council office. Using separate systems, they locate the missing module attached to a hidden ship near the old colony ship hull. The refugees may still be alive, but any alert could cause their captors to kill them and flee.

SecUnit enters an unrestored section of Preservation’s original colony ship to find a covert way to reach the hidden ship. Ratthi and Gurathin help it identify an obsolete life-tender whose transponder is hidden under the old colony ship’s delisted comm ID. SecUnit uses the life-tender to approach unnoticed and seal around the missing module. Inside, it finds the BreharWallHan refugees alive but frightened, bruised, and trapped in a cargo container. They explain that bounty-catchers sent by their supervisors abducted them.

SecUnit begins evacuating the refugees, but discovers that the module is dangerously jury-rigged to the hostile ship with a manual release. When the bounty-catchers try to dump the module and escape, SecUnit intervenes directly, disables the hostile trying to release it, disrupts others with drones, and gets the remaining refugees into the ship. One rescued refugee, panicking after realizing SecUnit is a SecUnit, shoots it with a dropped weapon. SecUnit disarms the refugee without filing a complaint, then captures the hostiles before the responder’s armed team boards.

The case is still not solved: Lutran’s killer and the local collaborator remain unidentified. SecUnit proposes a surveillance audit as a trap. Indah prepares to use Mish, one of the rescued refugees, as bait because Mish could plausibly have overheard the bounty-catchers. Before the plan proceeds, SecUnit receives a suspicious message supposedly from Aylen. While crossing the empty Public Docks, it realizes Lutran’s assigned cargo bot might hold records related to the module transfer. Then a hover crane drops toward SecUnit. Its drones warn it in time, and SecUnit confirms Aylen never sent the message.

SecUnit identifies the culprit as Balin, the Port Authority bot that had been present during the Lalow response. In Supervisor Gamila’s office, SecUnit orders Gamila to run and confronts Balin. Balin attacks through code and physically, revealing that its general-purpose shell contains a CombatBot with military-grade armor. SecUnit deduces that BreharWallHan interests acquired Balin’s command codes and activated it to kill Lutran, stop the refugee pipeline, and deliver the refugees to bounty-catchers. The fight spills into the Public Docks, where JollyBaby and other station bots gather. Recognizing a CombatBot presence inside Balin’s feed, they treat it as an intruder that destroyed Balin. Outnumbered, Balin shuts itself down.

Afterward, while SecUnit is repaired, it and Indah review the solution. Balin approached from outside the station, killed Lutran through the module lock with hatch-decoder rods, sterilized the body and clothing, damaged the transport bot pilot, dumped the corpse in the mall, and returned by the hull. Indah admits they were wrong to assume the killer entered from inside the station. She also tells SecUnit she did not leak its image to the newsstreams and acknowledges that they are on the same side. SecUnit leaves to meet Mensah, and when Indah offers future work, it says only if the work is really weird.