The bounty hunter was an angel. Had she not arrived when she did, Leo would be leaking out of a half dozen new holes. As it was, he watched as one mining bot after another exploded into a hundred fragments. It looked like fireworks on First Contact Day.

Leo’s attention was pulled away from the onslaught by the sound of Skits’s high-pitched shout. He twisted just in time to see her looming over the top half of Number One, who lay helpless on the hangar floor. What remained of the Aykari service bot’s legs sat in a heap to the side, having been torn from the rest of her. One’s right arm was shattered as well, hanging limp from her torso by a couple of wires. She was using her left arm—and what remained of her power cells—to try to crawl away, but it was futile.

“Oooh no. You aren’t getting away from me,” Skits seethed. Her tanklike treads slowly rolled up and over what was left of Number One’s body, crushing it like an old soda can, inch by crinkling inch. “You ruined everything!” She crunched up toward One’s head now, moving slowly, no doubt relishing the splinter and fold of One’s armored chassis beneath her. There was a hiss and a pop as something inside Number One’s chest burst into a bright white flame and then just as quickly fizzled into smoke. The remains of One’s torso began to leak hydraulic fluid that spread in a slick pool around her. “We were going to be together forever!”

Leo watched through squinted eyes as Skits continued up over the neck and slowly crushed One’s head beneath her treads, caving in the robot’s metal skull, then reversing to flatten it even further. Number One emitted one last electronic wheeze.

“Rot in hell, you boyfriend-murdering scrap heap!”

And just like that, it was over. Number One was little more than a metal pancake. Likewise, her spontaneous army of mining bots had been coaxed from the hangar to their presumed doom—Leo could hear them exploding above the chasm outside.

He pulled himself up, wincing from the sharp pain in his leg. Thankfully the claw had barely even broken the skin. Leo had emerged relatively unscathed.

Crayt was a different story.

Leo moved close to him and inspected the wound in his side. He wasn’t entirely sure how the insides of an Aykari worked—lungs, liver, intestines, Leo didn’t even know if they had all those things, but he was pretty sure Zirkus Crayt had a heart, because something had to be pumping the silvery blood that soaked through his tunic.

Kat quickly joined them, tearing a swath of Crayt’s top with her artificial hand to use as a makeshift bandage. “Here, hold this,” she said to Leo. “Put pressure on it.”

Leo set the nullifier down gently beside him—still in one piece—and pressed both hands against the wound.

“You worry needlessly,” Crayt said, his voice raspy. “The Aykari have a naturally high tolerance for pain.”