Eletra stood nearby, waving her arms and yelling, “Stop! What are you doing? Stop!” which was frankly the most sensible thing I had heard a human say in hours. It also told me this wasn’t a planned attack, which is what stopped me from putting a drone through Ras’s face. (Also, I was running out of drones.)

If I sound calm, I was actually not calm. I thought I’d had control of the situation (sort of control, okay? don’t laugh) and then it had unraveled rapidly.

I pushed off the hatch and walked over to pick up the weapon Ras had dropped. It was like or possibly identical to or possibly actually was the tube-like energy weapon Target Two had used on me. Ras must have picked it up while I was distracted by having an emotional breakdown. (Yeah, that was a huge mistake.) It had caused pain in my organic tissue but it hadn’t disrupted any processes so I knew it would be no use on the targetDrones. But at least it should work on the Targets. I put it in my jacket pocket. Then I stepped in, kicked Ras in the back of the kneecap, and caught Amena around the waist. He hit the floor and I set her on her feet.

Amena was almost as angry as I was. “What’s wrong with you?” she shouted at Ras. She glared at Eletra, who made a helpless, baffled gesture. You know, if Ras was going to turn on me, he might have at least warned Eletra first so she wasn’t standing around wondering what the hell was going on.

Ras shoved to his feet and said, “You can’t trust—any of them! It could be any of them—They control them—” He staggered back away from us. His eyes were unfocussed. “You don’t—any of them—”

Amena’s furious expression turned confused. “Any of what?”

That was a good question. I’d seen humans do irrational things (a lot of irrational things) and encounter situations that made them act in ways that were counterproductive at best. (This was not the first time I’d been shot in the head by a human I was trying to protect, let’s put it that way.) But this was odd, even granting the fact that I’d physically intimidated Ras earlier.

Eletra winced and pressed a hand to her head. “Ras, that doesn’t make sense, what—” Then her eyes rolled up and she collapsed.

Amena made a grab for her, then flinched away when Ras folded up and hit the floor. Then Eletra started to convulse. Amena threw herself down on the deck, trying to support Eletra’s head. Ras lay in a tumble, completely limp.

Amena looked frantic. I was a little frantic, too. “They took some medication from the emergency kit,” she said. She jerked her head toward the open kit and the container beside it. “They’re supposed to be analgesics—could they be poisoned?”

It wasn’t a bad suggestion, but if this was something in the medication, I thought the reaction would involve bodily fluids and be way more disgusting. Amena wasn’t affected, so it wasn’t something spread by contact or transmitted through the air system or the water containers. Eletra looked more like her nervous system was being jolted by a power source. Ras looked … Ras looked dead.