Free Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber

Langhorne wouldn’t want preserved and who could have guided—or at least influenced—the new colony’s development through its most dangerous stages. Unfortunately, there was no time to implement that idea, even if there’d been any way Operation Ark’s planners would have signed off on any such notion. And even if the mission planners had agreed to it, someone like Langhorne would almost certainly order the ‘adviser’s’ destruction once he was out on his own.
    â€œBut Elias was very struck by your observation, and he pointed out, in turn, that the only thing preventing an existing, off-the-shelf PICA from being used to fulfill the same role were the protocols limiting PICAs to no more than ten days of independent operation. But those protocols were all in the software . He was relatively certain he could hack around them and deactivate them. And a single PICA, especially one with its power completely down, would be relatively easy to conceal—not just from the Gbaba, but from Langhorne.”
    The PICA on the table, which had decided she might as well continue to think of herself as the young woman named Nimue Alban, whose memories she possessed, would have nodded if she could have moved her head. Doctor Elias Proctor had been the most brilliant cyberneticist Nimue had ever known. If anyone could hack a PICA’s software, he could. Of course, trying to would have been a felony under Federation law, punishable by a minimum of fifteen years in prison.
    â€œUnfortunately”—Pei Kau-yung’s expression turned sad once again—“the only last-generation PICA belonging to anyone we knew we could trust was yours, and there wasn’t time to acquire another. Certainly not without making Mission Control wonder what in the world we wanted it for. In fact, you were the one who pointed that out to us. So I signed off on a last-minute cargo adjustment that included your PICA in your personal baggage allotment, on the basis that it might prove useful for hostile environment work somewhere along the line. And then, after all our personnel and cargo had been embarked, you volunteered to transfer to Kau-zhi’s staff aboard Excalibur .”
    Nimue’s eyes went very still, and he nodded slowly, as if he could see them.
    â€œThat’s right. You volunteered for service on the flagship, knowing it would be destroyed if Operation Breakaway worked. And when you were transferred to Excalibur , the official manifest on your gear included everything you’d brought aboard Gulliver , including your PICA. But you didn’t actually take it with you, and I personally transferred it to a cargo hold where it could be permanently ‘lost.’ It was the only way to drop it completely off all of the detailed equipment lists in Langhorne’s computers.”
    His image seemed to look straight into her eyes for several seconds. Then he drew a deep breath.
    â€œIt wasn’t easy to let you go,” he said softly. “You were so young, with so much still to contribute. But no one could come up with a counterscenario that offered us as good a chance of success. If you hadn’t been…gone before we reached Safehold, the master manifests would have shown you still holding the PICA. You would have been forced to turn it over to Langhorne for destruction, and if you’d announced you’d ‘lost’ it somehow, instead, all sorts of alarms would have gone off, especially given how late in the process it was added to your allotment. So, in the end, we really had no choice. Yet to be perfectly honest, despite the fact that you’d chosen to deliberately sacrifice your life to give us this option, we all hoped we’d never actually need it.
    â€œUnfortunately, I’m afraid we do.”
    He settled back in his chair, his face hard, set with an expression she’d seen before, as Gbaba warships appeared on his tactical