“Don’t move,” Natalya answered, cold. She looked at Park as if she didn’t recognize her. “I will kill you if you move.”

“This isn’t necessary,” Taban was saying. “Please, there’s no need for violence—”

She pointed the glass shard at him. “Shut up.” Then, to Park: “What the fuck are you even doing down here? Where’s Boone?”

Park didn’t answer her. Instead she touched the back of her head—her fingers came away damp and red—and tried to piece a thought together. Natalya’s trying to kill me. Why?

Natalya saw her thinking and lunged. Taban made another warning sound, but this time Park was ready; suddenly she felt filled with some swift, savage power, and she rolled to the side, seizing the metal legs of the desk behind her. She heaved with all her might, and the whole thing came tipping down onto Natalya, console and all. Park scrambled to her feet as the surveyor screamed—Taban yelled something about letting him out—but she didn’t look back. She had to get out of there, away from Natalya, out of the secret chamber where no one could hear or find her. She needed to find help: Fulbreech—Sagara—hell, even Boone. She ran for the gravity chute just as she heard Natalya rolling to her feet, breathing hard and cursing. Her mind was moving too fast for her to catch her own thoughts. Weapon—I need a weapon—where are the fucking weapons on this ship?

She could not stop to consider why her own crewmate was attacking her. Natalya had always hated Park, that much was clear; maybe she had become unhinged, her brain pried loose by the unity rain. Or maybe it was something she’d been plotting all along, and she was using the cover of recent events to stage Park’s murder.

Maybe she had already done that with Wick.

Sagara has weapons, she thought as she toppled into the gravity chute and slammed her fist into the panel that would activate it. And Boone. She needed to get to them.

The gravity chute activated in a flare of light and sent her body bulleting upwards. She heard Natalya give a scream of fury somewhere below her: two people couldn’t use the chute at once. That gave Park maybe a sixty-second lead. And Natalya was in much better shape than she was.

She tumbled out of the utility room and felt arms catch at her. Park shouted, swinging wildly—but then she saw the pair of lambent gray eyes and realized that Jimex was holding her. He’d still been standing there, waiting for her to come back up—but why hadn’t he stopped Natalya from going down? Behind him, the other robots were watching silently.

“Danger,” Park blurted, over the desperate hammering of her heart. “Natalya—”

“We know,” Jimex said. “We tried to stop her—but we still have to obey direct orders. Our protocols still bind us.”

“You need to run,” Dylanex added.

“I’ve got to find Sagara and the others—”