Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4)

by Martha Wells

And I bet it had something to do with the memory clip I took from Wilken and Gerth.

They were too late, since it was in the Preservation system by now, but I doubt they were going to believe that.

“I need someone to trigger a manual disengage of the shut...

I could feel Attacker bearing down on bot pilot, on me.

I told bot pilot we needed to protect this important information so the company could retrieve it later and that I would hide it in the shuttle.

Attacker transferred itself into the shuttle’s system.

Attacker was gone, trapped in the shuttle.

I stayed long enough to enjoy the boarding shuttle disappearing in one explosive burst,

Performance reliability at 45 percent and dropping. Catastrophic failure— I felt my body crumple, but I didn’t feel myself hit the deck.

My human neural tissue, normally the weak link in my whole data storage system, couldn’t be wiped. I had to rely on it to put the fragments back in order

A complex series of neural connections, all positive, led me to a large intact section of protected storage … What the hell was this? The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon?

And boom, hundreds of thousands of connections blossomed.

I don’t have any organic parts on my feet and they don’t look like medical augments for an injured human.

this was space, and we were on approach to a station.

“I don’t like planets. There’s dust and weather, and something always wants to eat the humans. And planets are much harder to escape from.

We’re coming up on Preservation Transit Station,

You extended yourself too far when you were fighting off the code attack on the company ship.

Dr. Mensah said, “No one else on this ship knows you’re a SecUnit. They think that you’re a person with a large number of augments, who was injured while helping us, and that you’re being brought to Preservation as a refugee.”

The crew think you’re a special security agent who betrayed the company to save us.

On Port FreeCommerce, I thought you would need a great deal of assistance before you could fit into human society. I was wrong about that and I apologize.”

“In a hotel?” “If you like.” “With a big display surface.” She smiled. “That can probably be arranged.”

Love

I got a set of rooms to myself, though they were connected to the suites where the others were staying. It was a little like a mini-hotel inside a big hotel.

Mensah had quarters in another part of the station, used for when she was here on government business, and a large portion of her family had come up to see her and be excited about the fact that she wasn’t dead.

When humans I didn’t know came to visit, I hid back in my room.

Murderbot is a stand-in for introverts.

Just lying on the bed with local media playing on the display surface was all I could do for three to four hour periods.

Love

the bond company was still mad about the attack on the gunship and had declared war on GrayCris.

Rebuild Process Complete at Cognition Level 100 percent

I went to a section of the station mall that was listed as a “Welcome Center.”

It had kiosks and information displays about all the planets and stations in the Preservation Alliance.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m your mother’s pet security consultant.”

“Your mother saved me, too. She shot a SecUnit with a sonic mining drill.”

you’ve received a job offer from GoodNightLander Independent.”

“They want to hire someone who may or may not be called Rin,

“They want to hire a SecUnit.” “They want to hire the person who saved their assessment team

There’s been a small movement for a while in the Preservation Alliance to press for full citizenship for constructs and high-level bots.

you have friends here you can discuss things with, whatever you decide to do, or wherever you decide to go.