Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) - Ann Leckie Page 0,129

to approach. Mercy of Kalr, white-hulled, awkward-shaped, its deadly engines larger than the rest of it, was somewhere out there. And beyond all of this, the beacons that lit the gates that brought ships from system to system. The station would have gone utterly, suddenly silent to them. The pilots and captains of these ships must be confused or frightened. I hoped none of them would be foolish enough to approach without permission from dock authorities.

My only other wired camera, aft, showed me the gray hull of the station. The last thunk of the undocking vibrated through the shuttle, and I set the controls on manual and started out—slowly, carefully, because I couldn’t see to either side. Once I judged myself clear, I picked up speed. And then sat back to wait—even at this shuttle’s top speed Mercy of Kalr was half a day away.

I had time to think. After all this time, after all this effort, here I was. I had hardly dared hope that I could revenge myself so thoroughly, hardly hoped that I could shoot even one Anaander Mianaai, and I had shot four. And more Anaander Mianaais were almost certainly killing each other back there in the palace as she battled herself for control of the station, and ultimately of the Radch itself, the result of my message.

None of it would bring back Lieutenant Awn. Or me. I was all but dead, had been for twenty years, just a last, tiny fragment of myself that had managed to exist a bit longer than the rest, each action I took a very good candidate for the last thing I’d ever do. A song bubbled up into my memory. Oh, have you gone to the battlefield, armored and well-armed, and shall dreadful events force you to drop your weapons? And that led, inexplicably, to the memory of the children in the temple plaza in Ors. One, two, my aunt told me, three, four, the corpse soldier. I had very little to do now besides sing to myself, and no one to disturb, no worries I might choose some tune that would lead someone to recognize or suspect me, or that anyone would complain about the quality of my voice.

I opened my mouth to sing out, in a way I hadn’t for years, when I was checked mid-breath by the sound of something banging against the airlock.

This sort of shuttle had two airlocks. One would only open when docked with a ship or a station. The other was a smaller emergency hatch along the side. It was just the sort of hatch I’d used to board the shuttle I’d taken when I’d left Justice of Toren so long ago.

The sound came one more time and then stopped. It occurred to me that it might only have been some debris knocking into the hull as I passed. Then again, if I were in Anaander Mianaai’s place, I’d try anything I could think of to achieve my aims. And I couldn’t see the outside of the shuttle with communications blocked, only those two narrow views fore and aft. I might well be bringing Anaander Mianaai to Mercy of Kalr myself.

If someone was out there, if it wasn’t just debris, it was Anaander Mianaai. How many of her? The airlock was small, and easily defensible, but it would be easiest not to have to defend it at all. It would be best to keep her from opening the airlock. Surely the communications blackout didn’t reach much farther away from the palace. I quickly made the changes in heading that would steer me away from Mercy of Kalr but still, I hoped, toward the outer edges of the communications block. I could speak to Mercy of Kalr and never go any closer to it. That done, I turned my attention to the airlock.

Both doors of the lock were built to swing inward, so that any pressure difference would force them shut. And I knew how to remove the inner door, had cleaned and maintained shuttles just like this one for decades. For centuries. Once I removed the inner door it would be nearly impossible to open the outer one so long as there was air in the shuttle.

It took me twelve minutes to remove the hinges and maneuver the door to a place where I could secure it. It should have taken ten, but the pins were dirty and didn’t slide as smoothly as they should have, once I’d released their catches. Human