The Murderbot Diaries, #7
System Collapse
by Martha Wells
Contents
Chapter One
Overview
SecUnit returns to the alien-contaminated colony planet despite having agreed to stay aboard ART, because Ratthi, Iris, and Tarik are trapped by a contaminated agricultural bot. SecUnit’s improvised plan nearly fails when the bot shows unexpected intelligence, but a Barish-Estranza SecUnit destroys it at the last second.
The rescue creates a new danger: SecUnit must conceal its identity from Barish-Estranza while the corporation’s presence grows more aggressive and better armed. Iris’s tense exchange with Dellcourt confirms that the corporate team is actively investigating the contaminated bots, raising the stakes of the colony crisis.
Summary
The narrator opens by admitting that planets are dangerous in ways that make them deeply uncomfortable, especially when investigating a possibly alien-contaminated Pre-Corporation Rim site in an environmental suit rather than armor. The chapter then shifts back 47.43 hours to a mission on the colony planet, where ART demands a status report while SecUnit moves through rockfall and tall agricultural plants toward a router installation.
Ratthi, Iris, and Tarik are trapped inside the router installation after a contaminated agricultural bot forces a limb through the open hatch. ART cannot use its weaponized pathfinders because the blast would endanger the humans and the router site, so SecUnit has been sent down despite a prior agreement that it would stay off the planet because of an unstated recent trauma. Seth gives SecUnit a recall beacon, which can launch transponders high into the atmosphere but can also function as an improvised explosive weapon at close range.
SecUnit first tries to find a firing position, but calculations show that the launcher is too slow and has too little ammunition for a direct attack. SecUnit changes plans, moves through the agricultural field for cover, drops two primed transponders as remote charges, and calls the ag-bot away from the trapped humans. The bot reacts with unexpected intelligence, apparently enhanced by alien contamination, jumping over the first blast and aiming to land on SecUnit.
Before SecUnit can fire the final transponder, another SecUnit pings nearby. SecUnit realizes it is not Three but a Barish-Estranza SecUnit, part of a new corporate explorer group that has recently arrived and begun pressuring the situation around the colonists. The Barish-Estranza unit destroys the ag-bot’s processor with explosive projectiles, saving SecUnit but cutting the margin so close that ART calls it nearly a murder attempt.
Because Barish-Estranza must not learn that SecUnit is a rogue SecUnit, SecUnit locks down its feeds, recalls drones, pretends to be an injured human, and has Ratthi help it stand. Iris confronts Sub-Supervisor Dellcourt with tense politeness while both sides posture over why they are at the router site. The chapter ends with Iris thanking the Barish-Estranza SecUnit despite Dellcourt’s dismissal of it as property, and SecUnit’s group leaves with the launcher and remaining transponder.
Who Appears
- SecUnitNarrator; improvises a risky rescue while hiding trauma and its true identity.
- ARTTransport intelligence; directs SecUnit, monitors the rescue, and warns about Barish-Estranza.
- RatthiTrapped in the router installation; later helps SecUnit pretend to be injured.
- IrisTrapped with Ratthi and Tarik; confronts Dellcourt with sharp diplomatic hostility.
- TarikPart of the router team; shelters inside and helps maintain the human disguise.
- B-E Unit1Barish-Estranza SecUnit; destroys the ag-bot but nearly kills SecUnit.
- DellcourtBarish-Estranza sub-supervisor; leads the corporate party and spars verbally with Iris.
- SethProvides SecUnit with the recall beacon used as an improvised weapon.
- ThreeAbsent backup SecUnit; assigned to protect Karime during an important colonist meeting.
- KarimeAway at a colonist meeting, making Three unavailable for the rescue.