Chapter Eight

Murderbot infiltrates the hostile ship carrying refugees by using an old life-tender from the preserved colony ship, rescues six captives bound for bounty-catchers, and exchanges fire with the hostiles before the responder team arrives to secure the vessel. Upon return to the station, Indah proposes conducting a surveillance audit to identify the Port Authority traitor responsible for Lutran's death.

Murderbot travels through the preserved colony ship to locate an emergency life-tender, which it uses to approach the hostile vessel undetected by disabling the transponder beacon. The life-tender allows Murderbot to access the cargo module holding refugees—contract laborers fleeing BreharWallHan—without alerting the hostiles on the ship above. Murderbot takes control of the ship's bot pilot and SecSystem, then evacuates six refugees in the life-tender while keeping the module's manual release mechanism frozen. When the hostiles attempt to dump the module, Murderbot initiates a rescue, opening the jury-rigged lock and engaging an armored hostile with explosive projectiles while shielding the remaining humans. During the struggle, Human One shoots Murderbot with the hostile's weapon before Murderbot disarms her. The responder team arrives to find the other hostiles restrained. Murderbot receives medical treatment in the ship's galley. Senior Indah later arrives and questions Murderbot about the original investigation into Lutran's death. Realizing the perpetrator must be a local Port Authority employee with legitimate system access, Indah and Murderbot devise a surveillance audit strategy to cross-reference activity logs from multiple station systems during the incidents' timeframes to narrow the suspect pool.