The Long Way Round

Story 1: Connection Test Start (AO3 link)

SecUnit has told Senior Indah it is open to further work, but only if the work is really weird. So when a research transport from an unfamiliar non-corporate political entity called Trellin arrives at Preservation Station and starts throwing strange errors within seconds of contact, SecUnit is tasked with figuring out what the hell is wrong with that ship. (A lot. A lot is wrong with that ship. One, it’s not ART. Two, it’s kind of an asshole anyway. Three, it has feelings. And morals. And that last one might be the worst.)

Story 2: Formless and Vanquished We Shall Travel (AO3 link)

One Public Universal Friend runs a corporate blockade with a shuttle full of refugees, fully expecting to die in the process. Instead, it wakes up on an unfamiliar ship, with a bot pilot that informs the Friend that it is well aware of the Friends' existence and has helped it escape pursuit. In the Corporate Rim era, the Friends have been forced into becoming an underground operation, and they have few allies. Stranded, disoriented, and hounded by a corporation in possession of an anti-terrorism mandate, the Friend must deal with its situation and not sink its entire organization in the process.

Direct continuation of Connection Test Start.

Story 3: The Worst Movie Night (AO3 link)

The alien remnant contamination did far more damage to Perihelion's wormhole drive than anyone had initially realized, and the PSUMNT researchers are at a loss with how to solve the problem. But SecUnit and its Preservation humans have seen “super fast organic wormhole drives” before. With the reluctant permission of Perihelion's crew, a distress call is sent to Trellin, and three scientist teams, two sentient research transports, and one SecUnit convene to figure out how (and whether) ART can get its wings back.

Set after System Collapse.

Author's note: the main thing that you need to know about this story is that I started writing what I thought would be the NE analogue in this cycle, and it turned out to be SC: ART Edition instead. So expect a marked tone shift in comparison to the previous two stories, leaning towards introspection and existentialism. Also, altered states of consciousness.

Story 4: Roots and Branches (AO3 link)

Being responsible for the security of two separate groups of humans is hard enough when SecUnit knows and likes the ships they are travelling on. But once its humans arrive at the incredibly normal space station in orbit of Trellin, SecUnit finds their potential new allies to be much more difficult to deal with than most hostiles. To do its job, it must navigate local privacy customs, dead and/or naked humans, experimental biomes full of planetary fauna and, worst of all, the helpful local HubSystem, which happens to be a) very friendly, b) totally useless at security, c) really fucking creepy. Can SecUnit keep its humans safe and not be driven absolutely beeshit by argumentative social scientists, HubSystem or human, along the way? It’s about to find out.

Direct continuation of The Worst Movie Night.

Story 5: Digging in the Dirt (AO3 link)

Following the events of Connection Test Start, one doctor from Preservation Alliance decides to make things right and sets out for the Corporation Rim, hoping to unearth and eventually bring to justice a certain humanitarian-cum-terrorist organisation. Utterly unprepared for the reality of the Rim, the good doctor finds far more horrors than they ever bargained for—but also many more friends than they expected. Nobody is what they seem to be, and now Dr. Mrinal must decide what to do with what they have discovered and live with their choice.

Direct continuation of Connection Test Start and Roots and Branches.

Story 6: Mitigating Circumstances (AO3 link)

When the Second Great Ship of the Arborea Cosmica fleet, Dandelion Tenacious, commits a series of crimes that could lead to her being decommissioned under fleet law, two of the youngest generation of ships are raffled in to lead the investigation and present its results to the rest of the fleet. In a community of fewer than fifty individuals, bias and personal tensions are unavoidable in any court case, and the trial of someone who was a major contributor to the fleet legal system was never going to be a simple affair—but Prosecutor Nike and Advocate Blaze, two New Texan sisters with very different relationships to the first generation of Arborean ships, never expected to face off against each other in a precedent-setting case involving a critical political alliance, ancient history, and obscure theology. Now they must chart a course to steer Arborea Cosmica for decades and centuries to come, and the currents they must navigate are far more turbulent than they ever imagined.

Thematically follows Roots and Branches and takes place during Network Effect.

Short stories, collected as Voices From the Pegasus Constellation (AO3 link)

A collection of short stories portraying some of the events of The Nameless Fanfic from the perspectives of Trellians (and other members of Starwind Accord). Character tags updated as stories get published.

Note that these short stories are placed in different points of the main continuity and are best read one at a time! Links to the relevant stories are given chronologically in the main storyline.

Right now, this includes:

Chosen Burdens (Captain Reed) - after s2ch5, "Verdict"

ship's haunted (Navigator Brisote) - a view of s3ch4-5

Cultural Significance (Senior Engineer Haze) - between s3 and s4

what's in a name (Senior Computer Technician Iceblink) - after s5ch18, "Preparation"

Losing Starlight (Dandelion) - during s5ch24, "Beeshit".

Massacre (Blaze) - during s4ch30, "Preparations"

Medicine From Your Hands (Aspen) - after s4ch41, "Puppetry"

As Above, So Below (Ruby) - technically set between chapters 44 and 45 for Roots and Branches (s4), but probably a good post-epilogue read

Axiom (Ghostwheel) - set between chapters 44 and 45 of Roots and Branches (s4ch44-45), best read after Digging in the Dirt chapter 7 (s5ch7), "Monster."

Group Therapy (Joscelyn) - best read after s6ch12, "Trial Eve," but chronologically set after chapter s6ch8, "Saint"

There is also an equivalent collection from the points of view of various TMBD characters, Voices from Preservation Alliance and PSUMNT (AO3 link).

Little Miracles (Ratthi) - set during s4ch13, "Visage", but best read after s4ch31, "Chief". Note that this contains mild Aspen/Ratthi smut (because they are nerds).

People Worth Knowing (Mensah) - the events of Connection Test Start from Dr. Mensah's perspective. Functionally a prequel to s6.

Death Penalty (Pin-Lee) - best read after s6ch9, Evidence.

Inaugural Rites (Ratthi) - chronologically between chapters 44 and 45 of Roots and Branches (s4ch44-45), best read whenever you want to learn specifics about how this is an AU from TVB. Same as before, mild Aspen/Ratthi nerd smut included.

There are more short stories in the tag, but they're not quite edited yet and also a little bit ahead of the currently posted storyline. I will update them as I go!

Extras:

A series that stands slightly aside from the rest is Interesting Biomes (AO3 link). This is the full-smut version of Ratthi's chapters, plus an extra sketch. Having two versions available is mostly for reader preference, because I'm writing in two "complicated relationships with smut" fandoms.

If you're the sort of person who likes comparing text versions, some old chapters are up on the nameless fanfic: deprecated tag.

"Of course we listen to our SecUnit," Bharadwaj was telling a gaggle of corporates with the same kind of patience she usually had when the twenty-seventh sample she had to analyze turned up empty. (By which I meant, her frustration limit was usually thirty samples, give or take a few.) "It saved my life even before it was really ours. And countless times since--"

"It's a machine," a non-bond company representative interrupted, pushing her way up to Bharadwaj through the crowd. (Which was mostly non-bond company corporates. Bond company representatives weren't stupid enough to walk this close to a potentially-hostile SecUnit doing its job, so they watched from further away.)

Bharadwaj glared at her. "It's a construct. But even if it were a fully machine intelligence, they have rights on Preservation too."

The corporate sashayed forward, puffing her chest out. "Machines shouldn't make executive decisions."

"Neither should dumb humans, but someone gave you your job," I said, interposing myself between her and Bharadwaj so that she bumped into me when she got too close.

The corporate flinched back to stifled laughs from the crowd and glowered at me. Then she tried going up on her toes to peer at Bharadwaj over my shoulder.

"All right, so you've programmed it with some sass. Endearing. Charming at a party, maybe, if you find an unsettling obsession with your dolls charming--"

The emotional bleed from Bharadwaj told me her patience counter just moved from the twenty-seventh soil sample to the twenty-eighth, so I flashed instructions one of the "stop and find several objects in the surrounding area" exercises she taught me in her feed and felt a return spike of surprise, then a wry smile, and then focus. While she did the exercise, I looked down at the corporate and said, "Less creepy than being obsessed with people obviously more successful than you are."

The corporate flushed and tried to stare me down.

"I wasn't asking you, you walking violation of every rule of taste and common sense known to humankind!"

I looked at the crowd instead of her. "This is why I hated working corporate security. You people all think having taste is more important than staying alive. At least my current clients let me do my job."

"It's not wrong," a Barish-Estranza representative muttered to kes companions while the rest of the crowd dissolved into more laughter. "Whoever programmed this thing knew their shit."

"I do my own programming," I said towards the corner the BE reps were huddling in. "Standard issue education modules suck."

"Learning on the job, as it were?" That was Rive, who had quietly slunk to the front of the crowd and was now watching me with this creepy glowing expression. But now he turned towards the Barish-Estranza corner, too, and added, "I seem to remember that was the problem with your AugmentedHub line. Even humans who are that heavily augmented stop learning pretty fast. What was the decommission time, two years in independent testing, tops?"

"That was a hit piece," the BE representative snapped, raising kes voice.

"I'm sure. In any case, but this SecUnit has already been operational longer than--"

I backburnered them and checked on my humans. While Bharadwaj and me were entertaining the larger part of the crowd, Mensah and Pin-Lee were focusing on not losing the main target while they exchanged contacts with the more seriously-inclined corporates. Tethys had let us in and dissolved back into the party after making a couple of excuses about setting up a sufficiently secure and comfortable space for a business conversation.

(So giving himself time to prepare and us time to do something particularly stupid. So far we hadn't, even though my humans were clearly getting tired.)

Rive's interference gave us an escape window, so I pinged Bharadwaj to get to one of the food and refreshment tables, and she gladly followed me. Once we got there, I placed myself between her and the crowd and glowered at anyone who wanted to approach us.

Light, give me strength, Bharadwaj muttered in the mission feed, wiping sweat off her forehead. How long do we need to keep this up?

If Tethys is seriously interested, ke should invite us in pretty soon. Hang in there. Ghostwheel, how's the info control going? Pin-Lee replied.

Some data sets are made to be poisoned, solicitor, the malware chuckled from where it was circling. You just let me know if you want them to dig up anything specific on you outside of what we agreed on, all right?

Confirmed--also, heads up, more interested parties headed your way.

Bharadwaj hastily gulped down her water and turned to the next group, who looked like actual plainclothes security. Their leader gave Bharadwaj a grim nod and said, "We'd like to talk to your Unit, if you don't mind."

Bharadwaj gave kem a polite smile. "If SecUnit wants to talk to you, then by all means."

The leader turned kes lined face to me and studied me closely. Then ke said, "Please. They will kill her."

"What?" Bharadwaj said, tensing up. "Is someone in danger?"

The leader ignored her, staring at me intently. "Let my client go through the gate, and I'll stay here. You that SecUnit?"

"Yeah."

"Then tell me where that happened."

"TranRollinHyfa docks. There was a CombatUnit on our tail."

Ke let out a whistle. "Thought you were a legend. The friendly kind."

"'Unknown hostile, behavior erratic'? No. I'm not that stupid."

Ke laughed. "You really upgraded?"

"Yeah. Thanks to my clients."

"What's the upgrade do?"

"The technical specs are proprietary information. What you're allowed to know is I have more autonomy. I'm the one in charge of my clients' security, and they don't give me orders. They take mine."

"What if they don't like your orders?"

I shrugged.

"Never had that happen. They know I'm the expert, not them."

The leader stroked kes chin, hiding his mouth.

"Who sets your mission parameters?"

I nodded towards Mensah, quietly talking to Pin-Lee on the opposite side of the space.

"You like it?"

"Compared to my brain getting zapped every time an idiot client gives me a fuckass order? What do you think?"

More chin-stroking. I knew what ke was trying to get at, because Ghostwheel already brought me a recording of this group listening to Rive's spiel. ("Yes, it thinks it's ungoverned. But trust me, it's willing to go just as far for its clients as any premium Unit--")

Finally, the plainclothes leader decided on, "Upgrade already in place at TranRollinHyfa?"

"Main part of it, yeah."

"Nice." Ke clapped me on the shoulder and left.

Bharadwaj motioned for me to follow her along towards a restroom. Once I confirmed she was at a good angle to local cameras, she let her face fall and subvocalized a tense, Are they buying it?

I searched for Ghostwheel so it could show me what the plainclothes security were discussing, but it had camouflaged itself again. So I said, If they aren't, they're not being obvious about it.

Bharadwaj shivered. I keep expecting for someone to realize things don't add up and call us out on lying--or come out and accuse us all of being hypocrites. Someone walking up to me and quietly saying, "And I believed you about construct liberation. I should have known you were just like everyone else."

Shit. One of my humans was having false memory flashes, and things weren't even going badly yet.

Okay. Cautious optimism. We can handle this.

No one here's going to say that to us.

Bharadwaj turned away to pretend-sniff some flowers on the wall so she could scrunch up her face off-camera.

I think that makes it worse, she said after a few seconds. I almost wish someone would--no, no, of course I don't. That would get us caught, and--SecUnit, I'm sorry. I--I'll be okay in a minute.

She started up a quick breath exercise, and I hovered menacingly so that she wouldn't be disturbed. When she was done, I said, You're also going to need trauma treatment when we get out of this.

That made her mouth quirk into a smile.

Not going to argue with that. But--I can't imagine how this has to feel for you. How are you doing?

I was about to tell her that this wasn't a good time for an improvised trauma recovery session, but then it hit me. Was Bharadwaj checking in on me so she could have an easier time backburnering her own emotion? Yeah. She was. Wow. But okay, I could work with that.

Surprisingly fine. She eyed me, trying to figure out if I meant it. I added, I'm kind of having fun, actually. I get to tell all of these assholes they're assholes, and they all think it's hilarious.

Instead of ordering me to be melted down immediately. Yeah. Maybe that was still weird.

Bharadwaj relaxed her shoulders a little.

Well, at least that's--

Knew you were my kind of bot, SecUnit! Ghostwheel interrupted, delurking as it darted back into its partition and showered me with more data. So far so good, but I need to lay low for a bit. Encephalon wants an evaluation of your operational parameters, so they're gonna set the SecUnits to do that when you come out.

And that spiked Bharadwaj's vitals right back up again.

Will they try to provoke us into something?

Great job, malware. Fantastic timing.

No. We're fine. They're just going to run extra analytics on me for response time and things like that. Ambient data collection, most likely. But Ghostwheel shouldn't be messing around while it's active.

Mmhm, the malware purred as it cozied up in its familiar spot. Ghostwheel Q&A hours--or rather minutes, let's hope they're quick with their sweep!--are now open to constructs and humans alike! Ask me what I found in the feeds of our corporate marks, don't blanch away from the answers!

Mensah said, The weakest spot in our plan has always been the idea of manufactured cognitive dissonance. Do the corporates believe that, Mg. Ghostwheel?

Ghostwheel chuckled darkly as it answered my query about the plainclothes security people, who had been discussing this exact problem right when it had to disappear, and finding that if someone could make SecUnits who were still good at their job but didn't have to be shocked into compliance and watched for becoming rogue, that was going to be a game changer. (Even if they weren't convinced I wasn't just an advertising trick. But they thought I was a good one, or at least the kind of trick the company needed to up its marketing game. I backburnered the fuck out of that.)

Like people who like their slaves pliable and willing, Dr. Mensah! Well, not all of them, not if they're weaker than them anyway--

Mg. Ghostwheel. Please focus. Are we in any danger of being discovered?

Not for now, Dr. Mensah. You're in danger of being offered more corporate contracts, but that's about it.

Yeah, we've had to fend off several of those already, Pin-Lee cut in. But--I think the head honcho's here, doing kes fuckass circling routine again. I'm guessing ke wants to give SecSystem time for that final check, so come out of the restroom, you two. Time to get back on the stage.

Bharadwaj splashed her wrists with cold water, retouched her face paint, and set her jaw. We walked back into the gala, and yeah, there it was, SecSystem was running a whole bunch of checks on me which I knew it would then compare with the latest SecUnit models. This was a familiar kind of check, though, and easy to fool--

System system.

Oh, great. These three again.

System acknowledge.

Query.

I waited for the query to resolve, but the three Units, who were actually still stationed at the entrance and only rummaging around in the closed off feed, were silent. Silent enough that it was starting to creep me out.

Apparently I was worse at staring contests with stupid SecUnits than with stupid humans, so I repeated, System acknowlege?

Query_ID: Murderbot?

What. The absolute. Fuck.

They weren't supposed to know that name. No one was supposed to know that name. Except--shit. Oh shit. There was one way they could know. The absolute dumbest fucking way possible.

Return query: helpme.file read status?

Response: affirmative, partial. Helpme.file transfer status: incomplete. Helpme.file processing status: incomplete. Carrier destroyed. Query: helpme.file=true?

Oh no, no, oh fuck, no. What the fuck was I supposed to say to that right now?

Almost missed a trick there, SecUnit, Ghostwheel said on our private channel, reaching out to bat off one of SecSys's queries. You okay?

No, I'm not fucking okay. The SecUnits know who I am.

They'd better know who you damn well are! We've been promoting you for the better part of an hour!

Ghostwheel. They read my fucking logs. They know I'm rogue.

The malware snickered. Oh, is that all?

What the fuck do you mean, "is that all"? Do you realize they could blow our cover any fucking minute now?