Fugitive Telemetry, a novella by Martha Wells, is a sequel to Exit Strategy and a prequel to Network Effect, the previous entry in the Murderbot Diaries series.

The cyborg identifying as ‘SecUnit’ to the public, if they absolutely must have a name, has a hard time getting along with people who a) distrust anything from the Corporate Rim, where SecUnit was created and it’s legal for constructs like SecUnit to be slave labor, b) buy into the idea that SecUnits are too dangerous to be around humans, and/or c) don’t appreciate paranoid snarks with energy weapons in their arms.

The head of Security — who meets the a) and b) criteria and maybe c) — on the Preservation space station resents being told to work with SecUnit to find a killer. A plot is uncovered involving a locked spaceship mystery, generational indentured labor, and betrayal. Meanwhile, SecUnit also has to deal with prejudices, job performance anxiety, and (ugh) talking to people. This may be SecUnit’s most harrowing mission yet (no, not really, but still). 

With humor and a fair bit of action, this novella fills a gap in The Murderbot Diaries, demonstrating how SecUnit earned the trust of the space station’s crew.