“Affirmative, Clandestine One.” Dead air. “Err, do you know your skiff is drifting down to Bloodroot?”

“Repeat?”

“The Clandestine is in the gravity well and—”

“What?”

“Not only that, buddy. The Ragtime is convulsing. I don’t know what’s going on, but you have to get out of there.”

“Stand by, Rowdy. Clandestine One out.” Aaron switches channels. “Clandestine, come in, come in.”

“She cannot answer you,” says a new voice, cold like ice water dripping down his spine.

Aaron stops, holds on to a rail. The juddering is loud in here, but at least there’s not as much debris floating around any more.

“Who is this? Who the hell is this?”

“My name is Carmilla and I am taking your ship.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Ragtime: Brisbane

“We’re hurting people,” says Brisbane. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I was only here for Yan Maxwell. This isn’t good. This is not good.”

“Stop thinking about that and go where I tell you,” says Carmilla. “I’ve got a ship for us. You are barely clinging to life and your movements are mostly the suit right now. We still have a mission, and I am going to make sure that—”

New, searing pain rips through Brisbane’s left flank. He sees globs of blood float and he can feel the suit adjusting, applying pressure, sealing itself. He looks around to find the danger and he sees the woman taking aim again.

“We’ve lost your left kidney,” says Carmilla. “Follow the arrows, Brisbane. Move.”

He does, though he feels cold and has no awareness of his body or any intentionality to his actions. He is on automatic. He traverses tunnels drilled into the Ragtime that weren’t meant to house humans.

“Stop,” says Carmilla.

Sturdy-looking bots await, dozens of them, poised at a wall. Carmilla instructs them and they cut and drill through. Even in his near-delirious state, where the bots look like carnivores eating prey, Brisbane notes that as they cut, their tools become blunt and are replaced. They’ve been working at this for a long time. They’re at the shielding.

“Wait, are we—”

The hull opens to space and Brisbane is flushed out along with the bots and fragments of the Ragtime. He may have been screaming, from pain or fear, or both.

There’s something in front of—

He slams into a waiting ship and bones crack, which, in his narcotised state, he does not even feel.

He opens his palms and grasps whatever will hold him.

“Good. Good,” says Carmilla. “Welcome to the Clandestine.”

Chapter Thirty-two

Ragtime: Shell

Shell and Fin arrive at the bridge, and Ragtime seals it after them.

“Ragtime, can we shut any of these alarms off? I have a headache. One would think dying would be more peaceful than this,” says Shell.

“Can we also have some music? I don’t want to die to the hum of engine vibrations,” says Fin. “Where’s Joké?”