I thought about it for a moment. "I don’t know. But that deep scan I did just before we destroyed our pursuers showed all fabrication systems had been removed to make room for the larger SURGE-based missiles. I didn’t think that through at the time, but now it looks like this may have been a last-ditch effort on the part of the Brazilian Empire. Maybe they were getting stomped, and the probe project was all they had left. They ‘volunteered’ some guy—someone disposable—, stuck his replicant into the ships, and tried to use them as gunships."