“It was a precaution, in case I wanted to take my life peacefully.”

“Yeah. There is nothing peaceful about that thing.”

“No,” Misato agreed, inspecting it. “Hm. Perhaps not. Perhaps that works to our advantage. Come on, we need to fix this. For Tuva?”

Rosalyn nodded, panting, then transferred the multi-tool to her left hand, gripping it tightly. Tap, tap, tap. There went the code. No turning back. The shield went up with a quiet hiss, and she joined Misato in the quivering darkness. She felt suddenly aware of every sound, every breath, every reverberating buzz of the ship’s body. There was a metallic click-clack behind Misato, and Rosalyn reached to pull the older woman back. JAX teetered into view, not a single light shining on his chassis or head.

“It’s okay,” Misato said, twisting out of her grasp. “He’s with us.”

“But how?” Rosalyn whispered. “I thought Rayan hacked his functions.”

“The kid? Sure. But I’m an engineer. I could make JAX perform Swan Lake if I wanted to,” she replied, inching carefully down the corridor.

“Isn’t that programming?”

“Yeah, obviously.” Misato snorted, JAX sticking close to her side. “I had to even the odds for us. Piero has to be stopped.”

Rosalyn caught up to her, brandishing her multi-tool knife at the darkness. “He was already a murderer, now . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what he did to himself. This is getting out of control. I mean, it was already impossible, but it seems like the Foxfire is accelerating or something. I’m not . . . can I tell you things? Is it safe to say anything to you, or will you just feed it back to them and betray me?”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Misato replied, coming to a stop. “Edison shared it all. Your plan, that is.”

“What? That . . . but he . . . he didn’t tell me that . . .”

“No, because you don’t trust anyone here, but he does. Maybe you should consider it, too. Just a friendly suggestion.”

Rosalyn considered that, standing there frozen and afraid in the darkness. What was she going to do? Take on a woman with a homemade machete and her faithful Servitor? Alliances had to be made, as much as she hated it. As much as she still didn’t fully trust any of it. This was as close as she was going to get, she thought, not real, deep friendship or trust but a convenient partnership, one that would hopefully last long enough to survive this sudden mutiny. There was a plan to enact as long as they could wrest control of the ship back from Piero.