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No one was in sight. Just a deck that looked like a machine shop with tool lockers and workbenches and a ladder set into one wall. Bookending the ladder were two hatches, one going toward the front of the ship, the other toward the back. A
Yellow LEDs set into the walls came on a moment later, and a genderless voice said, “Core dump, emergency power only,” and repeated it several times. Her helmet muffled the sound, but there was clearly still air in the ship. She pulled the helmet off and hung it from her harness.
A
Inside, Melba was murdering someone.
A Belter woman with long dark hair and a greasy coverall was having her throat crushed by the mechanical arms Melba wore. The woman—A
A
Naomi’s face was turning a dark, bruised purple. Her breath the occasional wet rasp. Somehow, the Belter managed to raise one hand and flip Melba off. A
She missed, but the results were impressive anyway.
Instead of hitting the fabric of Melba’s suit, the taser’s two microdarts hit the mech dead center. The trailing wires immediately turned bright red and began to fall apart like burning string. The taser got so hot A
“Who are you?” Naomi Nagata asked, drifting in a way that told A
“A
After the third injection, Naomi took a long, shuddering breath and said, “Who’s A
“A
“UN? You don’t look like navy.”
“No, a passenger. I’m a member of the advisory group the secretary-general sent.”
“The dog and pony show,” Naomi said, then hissed with pain as A
“Everyone keeps calling it that,” A
“That’s because it is,” Naomi said, then reached up with her good hand to grab a rung of the nearby ladder. “It’s all political bullsh—”
She was cut off by a mechanical-sounding voice saying, “Reboot complete.”
A
“Fuck me,” Naomi said. She sounded a
A
“This way,” Naomi said as the hatch slid open above them. A
Naomi pulled her leg through just in time to avoid being grabbed by the mech’s claw, then tapped the locking mechanism with her toe and the hatch slammed shut on the mech’s wrist. The hatch whined as it tried to close, crushing the claw in a spray of sparks and broken parts. A
“Go,” Naomi said, her voice tight with pain, her good hand pointing at the next hatch up the ladder. After they were both through, A
After they’d passed through the hatch into the next level, Naomi stopped to tap on the small control screen for several seconds. The emergency lights shifted to red, and the panel on the hatch read security lockdown.
“She’s not trapped down there,” A
“That’s twice now someone has done that,” Naomi replied, pulling herself up the ladder. “Anyway, she’s wearing a salvage mech rig, and she’s in the machine shop. Half the stuff in there is made to cut through ships. She’s not trapped. We are.”
This took A
“Medical bay,” Naomi said, pointing down a short corridor. “That way.”
That made sense. The frail-looking Belter woman was getting a gray tone to her dark skin that made A
“Pressure doors,” Naomi said. “Harder to get through.”
“But we’re on this side of them.”
“Yeah.”
“Is there another way in?” A
“No. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” A
Naomi turned to look at her, frowned as if she’d only really seen A
“I have two injured men in there. My crew. They’re helpless,” Naomi finally said. “Now they’re as safe as I can make them. So you and I are going to go up to the next deck, get a gun, and make sure she follows us. When she shows up, we’re going to kill her.”