Chapter Six

Murderbot and the assessment team make their escape from the terraforming facility. While securing the geo pod and preparing to return to the shuttle, Murderbot deduces that Wilken and Gerth were sent by GrayCris to destroy the tractor array rather than kill the team. The team fights off combat bots, evacuates the facility, and narrowly prevents the array's destruction, but a final bot breaches the shuttle during their escape, resulting in Miki's death as it sacrifices itself to protect its human companions.

With knowledge of their destination, Murderbot carefully extracts its lift from the facility's system and leads the assessment team to the geo pod hub. While Miki assists in removing shrapnel from Murderbot's injuries, Abene powers up the digger control systems. Murderbot receives a ping from its drone indicating no combat bots are positioned to ambush them at the shuttle, complicating its understanding of the situation. Murderbot shares a decision tree with Abene and Miki, and they deduce that Wilken and Gerth were sent not to kill the team but to trigger the tractor array's destruction through an encrypted signal they transmitted. A structure launched from the engineering pod is heading toward the array with a combat bot aboard. The team quickly evacuates the geo pod, with Murderbot using three diggers as a distraction to force an emergency evacuation of the shuttle and freeze Gerth's armor. They board the shuttle as a combat bot attacks, destroying it with explosives before the hatch seals. The shuttle moves away from the facility. The team decides to use the shuttle to knock the work zipper off course, successfully preventing the tractor array's destruction. However, a final combat bot clings to the shuttle's exterior. As it breaches the inner hatches, Miki defies Abene's priority change commanding it to save itself, instead choosing to protect its friends. In the crew area fight, Miki launches itself at the combat bot to distract it, and Murderbot uses a core cutter to destroy the bot, but the blast recoil and depressurization leave Miki crushed and dead. Murderbot escapes the shuttle in an evac suit, meeting Ship in space and departing toward the wormhole. Discovering identity markers and memory clips in Wilken's gear, Murderbot decides to personally deliver the geo pod data to Dr. Mensah rather than simply transmitting it.