in a corporatedominated spacefaring future planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the company exploratory teams are accompanied by companysupplied security androids for their own safetybut in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder safety isnt a primary concernon a distant planet a team of scientists are conducting surface tests shadowed by their companysupplied droida selfaware secunit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself though never out loud as murderbot scornful of humans all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it isbut when a neighboring mission goes dark its up to the scientists and their murderbot to get to the truth