I scanned to make sure nothing was recording us and stopped Rami. Te and the others looked up at me and I said, “The person you’re going to meet with just tried to kill you.”
Rami blinked, Maro went wide-eyed, and Tapan drew breath to argue. I said, “The shuttle was infected with killware. It destroyed the bot pilot. I was in contact with a friend who was able to use my augmented feed to download a new pilot module. That’s the only reason we didn’t crash.”
A module could have put the shuttle into a safe orbit, but wouldn’t have been sophisticated enough to manage
the tricky, flawless landing. I was hoping they wouldn’t realize that.
Tapan closed her mouth. Shocked, Maro said, “But the other passengers. The crew person. They would have killed everybody?”
I said, “If you were the only casualties, the motive would have been obvious.”
I could see it was starting to sink in. I said, “You should return to the transit ring immediately.” I checked the public feed for the schedule. There was a public shuttle leaving in eleven minutes. Tlacey wouldn’t have time to trace my clients and infect it if they moved fast.
Tapan and Maro looked at Rami. Te hesitated, then set ter jaw and said, “I’ll stay. You two go.”
“No,” Maro said instantly, “we’re not leaving you.” Tapan added, “We’re in this together.”
Rami’s face almost crumpled, their support weakening ter when the prospect of death hadn’t. Te controlled terself and nodded tightly. Te looked at me and said, “We’ll stay.”