Chapter 2

Murderbot and Three infiltrate a cargo dock on a massive Barish-Estranza–controlled torus station by riding a cargo bot through an airlock. Murderbot hacks the dock's security systems while Three serves as the physical distraction, triggering a cascade of chaos through hauler bots and safety systems before making their escape.

Murderbot and Three approach a planetary torus space dock in an armored suit designed to mimic older Wilken-Gerth armor, clamped to a shuttle hull. They transfer onto a cargo bot heading toward the dock entrance. Inside, Murderbot penetrates the dock's feed systems and discovers security personnel posing as workers throughout the cylindrical cargo-sorting facility. When the workers panic, indicating Barish-Estranza suspects an intrusion, Murderbot initiates their distraction plan: Three charges an inventory kiosk, triggering a security guard to fire an armor-piercing projectile that Murderbot uses to destabilize a powered cargo module, causing it to tumble and set off all proximity alarms. Murderbot then deploys haulerfight.file code to make cargo bots move unpredictably across all dock levels, creating mass chaos. Three navigates toward an identified exit route while Murderbot, which is running as a partial instance on Three's hardware to avoid detection, prepares to upload to a secure feed link and initiate their exit phase.