Chapter Text
I always figured I would die someday. The company would discover I had hacked my governor module, mark me for disassembly, and re-use my components in other, more obedient constructs. I did not expect my death to be on a spaceship, hundreds of lightyears from Earth, guarding humanity’s last hope for saving the planet.
It was a pretty shitty deal, if you ask me.
Maybe I should back up. My name is Murderbot, although to anyone besides myself I was just “SecUnit”. Usually we were sent on missions to guard humans on their various escapades throughout the world, or to guard indentured servants as they slaved away to pay their debt back to the company. The governor module in our heads relayed instructions and “helpful” suggestions on how to best complete our missions. If you somehow managed to ignore the flashing lights in the periphery of your vision, the module also delivered a lovely electric shock, just so you wouldn’t forget about it. Why every construct hadn’t figured out how to hack their governor module yet, I didn’t know.
What I did know was that the company realized nothing was more profitable than the end of the world, and that Eva Stratt, the head of Project Hail Mary, had the world’s bank account at her fingertips. So it came to be that a handful of constructs were assigned to various jobs on the project. Some assisted the human scientists on handling astrophage, some worked in space to assemble the Hail Mary, and one, massively unlucky unit was assigned to protect the humans to ensure the mission could be completed.
I looked around at my three humans. I’d never met them before this trip, but I was given all the information needed about their specialties, as well as information about the mission overall. To my left was Captain Yao, expert pilot of the Hail Mary and overall mission leader. To my right was Ilyukhina, chief engineer and materials specialist. Directly in front of me was Grace, the head scientist and leading expert on everything astrophage. Why these three had chosen to give their lives to save the planet, I don’t know. Honestly, I think it’s stupid. Then again, humans are always risking their lives in the name of “bravery”, so I guess this wasn’t too crazy. At least, not as crazy as sending a SecUnit on a suicide mission.
I opened the feed back up to resume the episode I had paused. The one perk of this mission was that the humans had been kept in suspended comas for almost a decade, and that they had also equipped the ship with all of humanity’s knowledge, including all of its media. I still kept a tab open in my feed to monitor the humans’ vital status; this was still a job, after all. Still, the computer said everything was stable, just as it had for the past decade, so I wasn’t too concerned. Turning back to my show, I was just about to hit play when one of the humans in front of me stirred. Oh well, me time was now over.
The human, Grace, had sat up violently and was gasping for air. The ship’s MedBay arms were busy checking his nervous system function, cognitive function, all kinds of functions.
“Whre em I?” He slurred.
“You are aboard the Hail Mary,” the ship responded in a pleasant feminine voice. The human still looked confused. Great. He’s got brain damage.
Grace looked around until he made eye contact with me. Gross. Thankfully I had my helmet on, so he couldn’t see that I was staring directly at the wall behind him.
“Who’re you?” Ok, speech was better that time. Maybe all hope wasn’t lost.
“I am your SecUnit, to protect the crew of the Hail Mary,” I recited.
Grace seemed to accept this knowledge, then his eyebrows knit in concern. He seemed lost in thought before looking up at me again, panic on his face.
“Who am I?”