By the time I got there, the reservation system showed that Hostile Five had switched his transit status from indeterminate to soonest available. Yeah, that’s you all right.

There were no cameras in the corridors or rooms of the port housing block, registration was via kiosk, and the bot that took care of the area wasn’t around because Preservation work regulations mandate stupid regular rest periods, even for bots. Drones couldn’t get in while Hostile Five’s room door was sealed and I needed to do this before any bystanders came down the corridor. (The transient housing on Preservation Station was free to short-term visitors, anyone who was here to work or to request permanent status; literally anybody could wander in here.) Several groups of humans saw me walk through the foyer, but none were port staff who might recognize me.

I had to stand in the corridor and pretend to be having a conversation on the feed until yet another group of humans cleared out. Then I went to Hostile Five’s door and told the feed to send a visitor alert to its occupant and a notice that Station Security wanted to enter. (I could force it open from the outside, but this was faster.)

This could have gone a number of ways, but the fact that he had changed his booking told me he thought he had a chance to get out alive, so he probably wasn’t in there with an explosive device or anything. Probably.

The door slid open and I stepped in. He stood against the wall on the right side and tried to stab me in the neck with an inert blade, probably the only weapon he could be sure to smuggle past port detectors. I put my hand up, the blade lodged in my palm, and I twisted it away from him. Then he tried to hit me and I punched him in the face.

He hit the floor, still breathing through a broken nose but unconscious. And I stood there.

I had come here to kill him and I really should do that. The station had gone on comm blackout as soon as I had triggered the first alarm, putting all outside comm activity on hold, so no messages would be carried on departing transports. But the best way to make sure GrayCris never found out how close they had come to succeeding was to kill him.

I’d come here meaning to kill him, covering my tracks along the way. But now I was just standing here.

Oh, this was hard. I pulled the knife out of my hand and put my face against the cool surface of the wall. In the Corporation Rim, transients were lucky to be able to pay for tubes to sleep in, tubes that were slightly less comfortable than the crates used to ship SecUnits to contracts. Here on Preservation Station, they got a whole room with a bed, a chair and a worktable, and a bathroom cubby and a floating display surface for the feeds. His was showing the local newsstream, of course, since he had been waiting to see if the attack was successful.