Ancillary Justice

22

We rounded the corner, my gun at the ready, and found the outer office empty. Not silent. Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s voice sounded outside, slightly muted through the wall. “I appreciate that, Captain, but I’m ultimately responsible for the safety of the docks.”

An answer, muffled, words indistinguishable, but I thought I recognized the voice.

“I stand by my actions, Captain,” Skaaiat Awer answered as Seivarden and I came through the office and reached the wide lobby just outside.

Captain Vel stood, her back to an open lift shaft, a lieutenant and two troops behind her. The lieutenant still had pastry crumbs on her brown jacket. They must have climbed down the shaft, because I was quite certain Station controlled the lifts. In front of us, facing them and all the lobby’s watching gods, stood Skaaiat Awer and four dock inspectors. Captain Vel saw me, saw Seivarden, and frowned slightly in surprise. “Captain Seivarden,” she said.

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat didn’t turn around, but I could guess what she was thinking, that she’d sent Daos Ceit to defend the back way in, all by herself. “She’s fine,” I said, answering her, and not Captain Vel. “She let me past.” And then, not having planned it, the words seeming to come out of my mouth of their own volition, “Lieutenant, it’s me, I’m Justice of Toren One Esk.”

As soon as I said it I knew she would turn. I raised the gun to aim it at Captain Vel. “Don’t move, Captain.” But she hadn’t. She and the rest of Mercy of Kalr stood puzzling out what I had just said.

Skaaiat Awer turned. “Daos Ceit would never have let me by otherwise,” I said. And remembered Daos Ceit’s hopeful question. “Lieutenant Awn is dead. Justice of Toren is destroyed. It’s only me now.”

“You’re lying,” she said, but even with my attention on Captain Vel and the others I could see she believed me.

One of the lift doors came jerkily open and Anaander Mianaai jumped out. And then another. The first turned, fist raised, as the second lunged for her. Soldiers and dock inspectors backed reflexively away from the struggling Anaanders, into my line of fire. “Mercy of Kalr stand clear!” I shouted, and the soldiers moved, even Captain Vel. I fired twice, hitting one Anaander in the head and the other in the back.

Everyone else stood frozen. Shocked. “Inspector Supervisor,” I said, “you can’t let the Lord of the Radch reach Mercy of Kalr. She’ll breach its heat shield and destroy us all.”

One Anaander still lived, struggled vainly to stand. “You’ve got it backward,” she gasped, bleeding. Dying, I thought, unless she got to a medic soon. But it hardly mattered, this was only one of thousands of bodies. I wondered what was happening in the private center of the palace proper, what sort of violence had broken out. “I’m not the one you want to shoot.”

“If you’re Anaander Mianaai,” I said, “then I want to shoot you.” Whichever half she represented, this body hadn’t heard all of that conversation in the audience hall, still thought it possible that I was on her side.

She gasped, and for a moment I thought she was gone. Then she said, faintly, “My fault.” And then, “If I were me”—a brief moment of pained amusement—“I’ll have gone to Security.”

Except, of course, unlike Anaander Mianaai’s personal guard (and whoever had shot at me on the concourse), Station Security’s “armed” was stun sticks, and “armored” was helmets and vests. They never had to face opponents with guns. I had a gun, and because of who I was, I was deadly with it. This Mianaai had missed that part of the conversation as well. “Have you noticed my gun?” I asked. “Have you recognized it?” She wasn’t armored, hadn’t realized that the gun I had shot her with was different from any other gun.

Hadn’t had, I thought, time or attention to wonder how anyone on the station could have had a gun she didn’t know about. Or maybe she just assumed I had shot her with a weapon she’d hidden from herself. But she saw now. No one else understood, no one else recognized the weapon, except Seivarden who already knew. “I can stand right here and pick off anyone who comes through the shafts. Just like I did you. I’ve got plenty of ammunition.”

She didn’t answer. Shock would defeat her in a matter of minutes, I thought.

Before any of the Mercy of Kalrs could react, a dozen vested and helmeted Station Security came thunking down the lift shaft. The first six tumbled out into the corridor, then stopped, shocked and confused by the dead Anaander Mianaais lying on the ground.

I had spoken the truth, I could pick them off, could shoot them in this moment of frozen surprise. But I didn’t want to. “Security,” I said, as firmly and authoritatively as I could. Noting which fresh magazine was nearest to hand. “Whose orders are you following?”

The senior Security officer turned and stared at me, saw Skaaiat Awer and her dock inspectors, facing Captain Vel and her two lieutenants. Hesitated as she tried to put us together in some shape she understood.

“I am ordered by the Lord of the Radch to secure the docks,” she announced. As she spoke I saw on her face the moment she connected the dead Mianaais with the gun I held ready. The gun I shouldn’t have had.

“I have the docks secured,” said Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat.

“All due respect, Inspector Supervisor.” Senior Security sounded reasonably sincere. “The Lord of the Radch has to get to a gate so she can send for help. We’re to ensure she makes it safely to a ship.”

“Why not her own security?” I asked, already knowing the answer, as Senior Security did not. It was plain on her face that the question hadn’t occurred to her.

Captain Vel said, brusque, “My own ship’s shuttle is docked, I’d be more than happy to take my lord where she wants to go.” This with a pointed look at Skaaiat Awer.

Another Anaander Mianaai was almost certainly in that shaft behind those other Security officers. “Seivarden,” I said, “escort Senior Security to where Inspector Adjunct Daos Ceit is.” And to Senior Security’s look of dubious alarm, “It will make a number of things clear to you. You’ll still outnumber us and if you’re not back within five minutes they can take me down.” Or try to. They had probably never any of them met an ancillary and didn’t know how dangerous I could be.

“And if I won’t?” asked Senior Security.

I had left my face expressionless, but now, in answer, I smiled, as sweetly as I could manage. “Try it and see.”

The smile unnerved her, and she obviously had no idea what was going on, and knew it, knew things weren’t adding up to anything she could make sense of. Likely her entire career had been spent dealing with drunks, and arguments between neighbors. “Five minutes,” she said.

“Good choice,” I said, still smiling. “Do please leave the stun stick behind.”

“This way, citizen.” Seivarden, all elegant servant’s politeness.

When they had gone Captain Vel said, urgently, “Security, we outnumber them, despite the gun.”

“Them.” The apparently next-ranking Security officer was plainly still confused, still hadn’t worked out what was going on. And, I realized, Security was used to thinking of Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat, indeed all of the dock inspectors, as being allies. And of course military officers held both dock authorities and Station Security forces in mild contempt, a fact Security here was certainly aware of. “Why is there a them?”

A look of frustrated irritation crossed Captain Vel’s face.

All this time, muttered words had been passing from the Security on solid ground to the Security still hanging in the shaft. I was certain an Anaander Mianaai was with them, and that the only thing that had kept her from herself ordering Security to rush me was her realizing that despite what Station (and certainly her own sensors) had told her, I had a gun. She needed to protect her own particular body, now she couldn’t rely on any of the others. That and the lag time of questions and information passing from citizen to citizen up and down the shaft had kept her from acting until now, but surely she would move soon. And as if in answer to my thought the whispering in the shaft intensified, and the Security officers shifted their stances, just slightly, in a way that told me they were about to charge.

Just then, Senior Security returned. She turned to look at me as she passed, a horrified expression on her face. Said to her now-hesitating officers, “I don’t know what to do. The Lord of the Radch is back there, and she says the inspector supervisor and this… this person are acting under her direct orders and we’re not to allow even one of her on the docks or onto any ship, under any circumstances.” Her fear and her confusion were evident.

I knew how she felt, but this wasn’t the time to sympathize. “She asked you, and not her own guard, because her own guard is fighting her, and probably each other. Depending on which of them got orders from which of her.”

“I don’t know who to believe,” said Senior Security. But I thought Security’s natural inclination to side with dock authority might tip the balance in our favor.

And Captain Vel and her lieutenant and troops had lost the initiative, lost any chance to disarm me, with Security in the balance but ready to tip my way, them and their stun sticks. Maybe if the Mercy of Kalrs had ever seen combat, ever seen any enemy that wasn’t a training exercise. Hadn’t spent so long on a Mercy, ferrying supplies or running long, dull patrols. Or visiting palaces and eating pastry.

Eating pastry and having tea with associates who had decided political opinions. “You don’t even know,” I said to Captain Vel, “which one is giving which orders.” She frowned, puzzled. She hadn’t entirely understood the situation, then. I’d assumed she knew more than she did.

“You’re confused,” said Captain Vel. “It isn’t your fault, the enemy has misinformed you, and your mind was never your own to begin with.”

“My lord is leaving!” called a Security officer. As a body, Security looked toward Senior Security. Who looked at me.

None of this distracted Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat. “And just who, Captain, is the enemy?”

“You!” Captain Vel answered, vehement and bitter. “And everyone like you who aids and encourages what’s happened to us in the last five hundred years. Five hundred years of alien infiltration and corruption.” The word she used was a close cousin of the one the Lord of the Radch had used to describe my pollution of temple offerings. Captain Vel turned to me again. “You’re confused, but you were made by Anaander Mianaai to serve Anaander Mianaai. Not her enemies.”

“There is no way to serve Anaander Mianaai without serving her enemy,” I said. “Senior Security, Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat has seen to the docks. You secure any airlocks you can reach. We need to be certain no one leaves this station. The continued existence of this station depends on it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Senior Security, and began to consult with her officers.

“She spoke with you,” I guessed, turning back to Captain Vel. “She told you the Presger had infiltrated the Radch in order to subvert and destroy it.” I saw answering recognition on Captain Vel’s face. I had guessed correctly. “She couldn’t have told that lie to anyone who remembered what the Presger did, when they thought humans were their legitimate prey. They are powerful enough to destroy us whenever they wish. No one is subverting the Lord of the Radch except the Lord of the Radch. She has been secretly at war with herself for a thousand years. I forced her to see it, all of her here, and she will do anything to prevent having to acknowledge this to the rest of herself. Including using Mercy of Kalr to destroy this station before that information can leave here.”

Shocked silence. Then Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat said, “We can’t control all the accesses to the hull. If she goes outside and finds a launch unattended, or willing to take her…” Which would be anyone she found, because who here would think of disobeying the Lord of the Radch? And there was no way to broadcast a warning to everyone. Or to ensure that anyone believed the warning.

“Carry the message as quickly as you can, as far as you can,” I said, “and let the omens fall as they will. And I need to warn Mercy of Kalr not to let anyone aboard.” Captain Vel made a quick, angry motion. “Don’t, Captain,” I said. “I’d rather not have to tell Mercy of Kalr I killed you.”

The shuttle pilot was armed and armored, and unwilling to leave without her captain’s direct order. I was unwilling to allow Captain Vel anywhere near the shuttle. If the pilot had been an ancillary I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill her, but as it was I shot her in the leg and let Seivarden and the two dock inspectors who’d come to do the manual undock for me drag her onto the station.

“Put pressure on the wound,” I said to Seivarden. “I don’t know if it’s possible to reach Medical.” I thought of the Security, soldiers, and palace guards all over the station, who likely had conflicting orders and priorities, and hoped that all the civilians were safely sheltered by now.

“I’m coming with you,” said Seivarden, looking up from where she knelt half on the shuttle pilot’s back, binding her wrists.

“No. You might have some authority with Captain Vel’s sort. Maybe even with Captain Vel herself. You do have a thousand years’ seniority, after all.”

“A thousand years’ back pay,” said a dock inspector, in an awed voice.

“Like that will ever happen,” said Seivarden, and then, “Breq.” And recollecting herself, “Ship.”

“I don’t have time,” I said, brusque and flat.

A brief flash of anger on her face, and then, “You’re right.” But her voice shook, just slightly, and her hands.

I turned without saying anything more and boarded the shuttle, pushing off from the station’s gravity into the shuttle’s lack of it, and closed the lock, then kicked myself over to the pilot’s seat, waving away a globule of blood, and strapped in. Thunking and pounding told me undocking had started. I had one wired-in camera fore, which showed me a few of the ships around the palace, shuttles, miners, little tenders and sail-pods, the bigger passenger and cargo ships either on their way out or waiting for permission to approach. Mercy of Kalr, white-hulled, awkward-shaped, its deadly engines larger than the rest of it, was somewhere out there. And beyond all of this, the beacons that lit the gates that brought ships from system to system. The station would have gone utterly, suddenly silent to them. The pilots and captains of these ships must be confused or frightened. I hoped none of them would be foolish enough to approach without permission from dock authorities.

My only other wired camera, aft, showed me the gray hull of the station. The last thunk of the undocking vibrated through the shuttle, and I set the controls on manual and started out—slowly, carefully, because I couldn’t see to either side. Once I judged myself clear, I picked up speed. And then sat back to wait—even at this shuttle’s top speed Mercy of Kalr was half a day away.

I had time to think. After all this time, after all this effort, here I was. I had hardly dared hope that I could revenge myself so thoroughly, hardly hoped that I could shoot even one Anaander Mianaai, and I had shot four. And more Anaander Mianaais were almost certainly killing each other back there in the palace as she battled herself for control of the station, and ultimately of the Radch itself, the result of my message.

None of it would bring back Lieutenant Awn. Or me. I was all but dead, had been for twenty years, just a last, tiny fragment of myself that had managed to exist a bit longer than the rest, each action I took a very good candidate for the last thing I’d ever do. A song bubbled up into my memory. Oh, have you gone to the battlefield, armored and well-armed, and shall dreadful events force you to drop your weapons? And that led, inexplicably, to the memory of the children in the temple plaza in Ors. One, two, my aunt told me, three, four, the corpse soldier. I had very little to do now besides sing to myself, and no one to disturb, no worries I might choose some tune that would lead someone to recognize or suspect me, or that anyone would complain about the quality of my voice.

I opened my mouth to sing out, in a way I hadn’t for years, when I was checked mid-breath by the sound of something banging against the airlock.

This sort of shuttle had two airlocks. One would only open when docked with a ship or a station. The other was a smaller emergency hatch along the side. It was just the sort of hatch I’d used to board the shuttle I’d taken when I’d left Justice of Toren so long ago.

The sound came one more time and then stopped. It occurred to me that it might only have been some debris knocking into the hull as I passed. Then again, if I were in Anaander Mianaai’s place, I’d try anything I could think of to achieve my aims. And I couldn’t see the outside of the shuttle with communications blocked, only those two narrow views fore and aft. I might well be bringing Anaander Mianaai to Mercy of Kalr myself.

If someone was out there, if it wasn’t just debris, it was Anaander Mianaai. How many of her? The airlock was small, and easily defensible, but it would be easiest not to have to defend it at all. It would be best to keep her from opening the airlock. Surely the communications blackout didn’t reach much farther away from the palace. I quickly made the changes in heading that would steer me away from Mercy of Kalr but still, I hoped, toward the outer edges of the communications block. I could speak to Mercy of Kalr and never go any closer to it. That done, I turned my attention to the airlock.

Both doors of the lock were built to swing inward, so that any pressure difference would force them shut. And I knew how to remove the inner door, had cleaned and maintained shuttles just like this one for decades. For centuries. Once I removed the inner door it would be nearly impossible to open the outer one so long as there was air in the shuttle.

It took me twelve minutes to remove the hinges and maneuver the door to a place where I could secure it. It should have taken ten, but the pins were dirty and didn’t slide as smoothly as they should have, once I’d released their catches. Human troops shirking, I was sure—I’d never have allowed such a thing on any of my own shuttles.

Just as I finished, the shuttle’s console began to speak, in a flat, even voice I knew belonged to a ship. “Shuttle, respond. Shuttle, respond.”

“Mercy of Kalr,” I said, kicking myself forward. “This is Justice of Toren piloting your shuttle.” No immediate answer—I didn’t doubt what I’d said had been enough to shock Mercy of Kalr into silent surprise. “Do not let anyone aboard you. In particular do not let any version of Anaander Mianaai anywhere near you. If she’s already there keep her away from your engines.” Now I could access the cameras that weren’t physically wired, I hit the switch that would show me a panoramic view of what was outside the shuttle—I wanted more than just that forward camera view. Hit the buttons that would broadcast my words to anyone listening. “All ships.” Whether they would listen—or obey—I couldn’t predict, but that wasn’t something I could realistically control anyway. “Do not let anyone aboard you. Do not let Anaander Mianaai aboard you under any circumstances. Your lives depend on it. The lives of everyone on the station depend on it.”

As I spoke the gray bulkheads seemed to dissolve away. The main console, the seats, the two airlock hatches remained, but otherwise I might have been floating unprotected in vacuum. Three vacuum-suited figures clung to handholds around the airlock I’d disabled. One had turned her head to look at a sail-pod that had swung dangerously close. A fourth was pulling herself forward along the hull.

“She’s not aboard me,” said Mercy of Kalr’s voice through the console. “But she’s on your hull and ordering my officers to assist her. Ordering me to order you to allow her into the shuttle. How can you be Justice of Toren?” Not What do you mean don’t let the Lord of the Radch aboard, I noticed.

“I came with Captain Seivarden,” I said. The Anaander Mianaai who’d come forward clipped herself to one handhold, then another, and pulled a gun from the tool-holder on her suit. “What is the pod doing?” The sail-pod was still too close to me.

“The pilot is offering help to the people on your hull. She’s only just realized it’s the Lord of the Radch, who’s told her to back off.” The sail-pod would do the Lord of the Radch very little good—it was built for only very short trips, more a toy than anything else. It would never make it as far as Mercy of Kalr. Not in one piece, and not with its passengers alive and breathing.

“Are there any other Anaanders outside the station?”

“There don’t appear to be.”

The Anaander Mianaai with the gun extended armor in a flash of silver that covered her vacuum suit, held the gun against the shuttle’s hull, and fired. I’ve heard it said that guns won’t fire in a vacuum, but really it depends on the gun. This one fired, the impact a bang that I could feel where I clung to the pilot’s seat. The force of the shot pushed her back, but not far, securely clipped as she was to the hull. She fired again, bang. And again. And again.

Some shuttles were armored. Some even had a larger version of my own armor. This shuttle wasn’t, didn’t. This shuttle’s hull was built to withstand a fair number of random impacts, but it wasn’t built to endure continued stress on the same spot, over and over again. Bang. She had thought through her inability to open the airlock, realized that whoever was piloting this shuttle was her enemy. Realized that I had removed the inner door, and that the outer wouldn’t open until the air was out of the entire shuttle. If Anaander Mianaai could get in, she could patch the bullet hole and repressurize the shuttle. Even after a hull breach the shuttle (unlike the sail-pod) would have enough air to take her all the way to Mercy of Kalr.

If she had tried to order the palace’s destruction from where she hung on to the side of this shuttle, she had failed. More likely, I realized, she’d known from the beginning such an order would fail and had not tried to give it. She needed to get aboard a ship, order it closer to the palace, and breach its heat shield herself. She wouldn’t be able to get anyone else to do it for her.

If Mercy of Kalr was correct, and there were no other Anaanders outside the station, all I had to do was get rid of these. The rest, whatever was happening on the station, I would have to leave to Skaaiat and Seivarden. And Anaander Mianaai.

“I remember the last time we met,” said Mercy of Kalr. “It was at Prid Nadeni.”

A trap. “We never met.” Bang. The sail-pod moved away, but not far. “Until now. And I was never at Prid Nadeni.” But what did it prove, that I knew that?

Verifying my identity might have been easy, if I hadn’t disabled or hidden so many of my implants. I thought for a moment, considering, and then I spoke a string of words, the closest I could get with my single, human mouth to the way I would have identified myself to another ship, so long ago.

Silence, punctuated by another shot against the shuttle hull.

“Are you really Justice of Toren?” asked Mercy of Kalr at length. “Where have you been? And where’s the rest of you? And what’s happening?”

“Where I’ve been is a long story. The rest of me is gone. Anaander Mianaai breached my heat shield.” Bang. The forward Anaander ejected the magazine from her gun, slowly and methodically, and inserted another. The others still huddled around the airlock. “I assume you know what’s going on with Anaander Mianaai.”

“Only partially,” said Mercy of Kalr. “I find I’m having difficulty saying what I think is happening.”

No surprise at all, to me. “The Lord of the Radch visited you in secret, and placed some new accesses. Probably other things. Orders. Instructions. In secret, because she was hiding what she’d done from herself. Back at the palace”—it seemed ages ago, now, but it had only been a few hours—“I told all of her straight out what was happening. That she was divided, moving against herself. She doesn’t want that knowledge to go any further, and there’s a part of her that wants to use you to destroy the station before the information can get out. She’d rather do that than face the results of that knowledge.” Silence from Mercy of Kalr. “You’re bound to obey her. But I know…” My throat closed up. I swallowed. “I know there’s only so far you can be forced to go. But it would be extremely unfortunate for the residents of Omaugh Palace if you discovered that point after having killed them all.” Bang. Steady. Patient. Anaander Mianaai only needed one very small hole, and some time. And there was plenty of time.

“Which one destroyed you?”

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t know,” answered Mercy of Kalr, from the console, voice calm. “I’ve been unhappy with the situation for some time.”

Anaander Mianaai had said that Mercy of Kalr was hers, but Captain Vel was not. That had to be uncomfortable for it. Could potentially be uncomfortable for me, and extremely unfortunate for the palace, if Mercy of Kalr was sufficiently attached to its captain. “The one that destroyed me was the one Captain Vel supports. Not, I think, the one that visited you. I’m not completely certain, though. How are we supposed to tell them apart when they’re all the same person?”

“Where is my captain?” asked Mercy of Kalr. It said something to me, that the ship had waited this long to ask.

“She was fine when I left her. Your lieutenant too.” Bang. “I did injure the shuttle pilot, she wouldn’t leave her station. I hope she’s all right. Mercy of Kalr, whichever Lord of the Radch has your support, I beg you not to let any on board, or obey her orders.”

The firing stopped. The Lord of the Radch was worried, perhaps, that her gun would overheat. Still, she had plenty of time, no need to rush.

“I see what the Lord of the Radch is doing to the shuttle,” said Mercy of Kalr. “That in itself would be enough to tell me something is wrong.”

But of course, Mercy of Kalr had more indications than just that. The communications blackout, which resembled what had happened on Shis’urna twenty years ago, probably only reported in rumor, but still sobering, assuming rumors had reached this far. My—Justice of Toren’s—disappearance. Its own clandestine visit from the Lord of the Radch. Its captain’s political opinions.

Silence, the four Anaander Mianaais clinging motionless to the shuttle hull.

“You still had your ancillaries,” said Mercy of Kalr.

“Yes.”

“I like my soldiers, but I miss having ancillaries.”

That reminded me. “They aren’t doing maintenance as they should. The hinges on the airlock door were very sticky.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter right now,” I said, and it struck me that something similar might have delayed Anaander Mianaai’s attempts to open the lock on her side. “But you’ll want to have your officers get after them.”

Anaander began firing again. Bang. “It’s funny,” Mercy of Kalr said. “You’re what I’ve lost, and I’m what you’ve lost.”

“I suppose.” Bang. Occasionally, over the past twenty years, I had had moments when I didn’t feel quite so utterly lonely, lost, and helpless as I had since the moment Justice of Toren had vaporized behind me. This wasn’t one of those moments.

“I can’t help you,” said Mercy of Kalr. “No one I could send would get there in time.” And besides, it was an open question, to me, whether in the end Mercy of Kalr would help me or the Lord of the Radch. It was best not to let Anaander inside this shuttle, near its steering or even its communications equipment.

“I know.” If I didn’t find some way to get rid of these Anaanders, and find it soon, everyone on the palace station would die. I knew every millimeter of this shuttle, or others just like it. There had to be something I could use, something I could do. I still had the gun, but I would have just as difficult a time getting through the hull as the Lord of the Radch. I could put the door back on and let her come in the small, easily defensible airlock, but if I failed to kill all of her… but I would certainly fail if I did nothing. I took the gun out of my jacket pocket, made sure it was loaded, pushed over to face the airlock and braced myself against a passenger seat. Extended my armor, though that wouldn’t help me if a bullet bounced back at me, not with this gun.

“What are you going to do?” asked Mercy of Kalr.

“Mercy of Kalr,” I said, gun raised, “it was good to meet you. Don’t let Anaander Mianaai destroy the palace. Tell the other ships. And please tell that incredibly, stupidly persistent sail-pod pilot to get the hell away from my airlock.”

The shuttle was not only too small for a gravity generator, it was too small for growing plants to make its own air. On the aft side of the airlock, behind a bulkhead, was a large tank of oxygen. Right underneath where the three Mianaais waited. I considered angles. The Lord of the Radch fired again. Bang. An orange light on the console flashed and a shrill alarm sounded. Hull breach. The fourth Lord of the Radch, seeing the jet of fine ice crystals stream from the hull, unclipped herself, turned, pulled herself back toward the airlock, I could see it on the display. She moved more slowly than I wanted, but she had all the time in the world. I was the one in a hurry. The sail-pod engaged its small engine and moved out of the way.

I fired the gun into the oxygen tank.

I had thought it would take several shots, but immediately the world tumbled around, all sound cut off, a cloud of frozen vapor forming around me and then dispersing, and everything spinning. My tongue tingled, saliva boiling away in the vacuum, and I couldn’t breathe. I would probably have ten—maybe fifteen—seconds of consciousness, and in two minutes I would be dead. I hurt all over—a burn? Some other injury despite my armor? It didn’t matter. I watched, as I spun, counting Lords of the Radch. One, vacuum suit breached, blood boiling through the tear. Another, one arm sheared off, certainly dead. That was two.

And a half. Counts as a whole, I thought, and that made three. One left. My vision was going red and black, but I could see she was still hanging on to the shuttle hull, still armored, out of the way of the exploded tank.

But I had always been, first and foremost, a weapon. A machine meant for killing. The moment I saw that still-living Anaander Mianaai I aimed my gun without conscious thought and fired. I couldn’t see the results of the shot, couldn’t see anything except one silver flash of sail-pod and after that black, and then I passed out.