Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) - Ann Leckie Page 0,130

troops shirking, I was sure—I’d never have allowed such a thing on any of my own shuttles.

Just as I finished, the shuttle’s console began to speak, in a flat, even voice I knew belonged to a ship. “Shuttle, respond. Shuttle, respond.”

“Mercy of Kalr,” I said, kicking myself forward. “This is Justice of Toren piloting your shuttle.” No immediate answer—I didn’t doubt what I’d said had been enough to shock Mercy of Kalr into silent surprise. “Do not let anyone aboard you. In particular do not let any version of Anaander Mianaai anywhere near you. If she’s already there keep her away from your engines.” Now I could access the cameras that weren’t physically wired, I hit the switch that would show me a panoramic view of what was outside the shuttle—I wanted more than just that forward camera view. Hit the buttons that would broadcast my words to anyone listening. “All ships.” Whether they would listen—or obey—I couldn’t predict, but that wasn’t something I could realistically control anyway. “Do not let anyone aboard you. Do not let Anaander Mianaai aboard you under any circumstances. Your lives depend on it. The lives of everyone on the station depend on it.”

As I spoke the gray bulkheads seemed to dissolve away. The main console, the seats, the two airlock hatches remained, but otherwise I might have been floating unprotected in vacuum. Three vacuum-suited figures clung to handholds around the airlock I’d disabled. One had turned her head to look at a sail-pod that had swung dangerously close. A fourth was pulling herself forward along the hull.

“She’s not aboard me,” said Mercy of Kalr’s voice through the console. “But she’s on your hull and ordering my officers to assist her. Ordering me to order you to allow her into the shuttle. How can you be Justice of Toren?” Not What do you mean don’t let the Lord of the Radch aboard, I noticed.

“I came with Captain Seivarden,” I said. The Anaander Mianaai who’d come forward clipped herself to one handhold, then another, and pulled a gun from the tool-holder on her suit. “What is the pod doing?” The sail-pod was still too close to me.

“The pilot is offering help to the people on your hull. She’s only just realized it’s the Lord of the Radch, who’s told her to back off.” The sail-pod would do the Lord of the Radch very little good—it was built for only very short trips, more a toy than anything else. It would never make it as far as Mercy of Kalr. Not in one piece, and not with its passengers alive and breathing.

“Are there any other Anaanders outside the station?”

“There don’t appear to be.”

The Anaander Mianaai with the gun extended armor in a flash of silver that covered her vacuum suit, held the gun against the shuttle’s hull, and fired. I’ve heard it said that guns won’t fire in a vacuum, but really it depends on the gun. This one fired, the impact a bang that I could feel where I clung to the pilot’s seat. The force of the shot pushed her back, but not far, securely clipped as she was to the hull. She fired again, bang. And again. And again.

Some shuttles were armored. Some even had a larger version of my own armor. This shuttle wasn’t, didn’t. This shuttle’s hull was built to withstand a fair number of random impacts, but it wasn’t built to endure continued stress on the same spot, over and over again. Bang. She had thought through her inability to open the airlock, realized that whoever was piloting this shuttle was her enemy. Realized that I had removed the inner door, and that the outer wouldn’t open until the air was out of the entire shuttle. If Anaander Mianaai could get in, she could patch the bullet hole and repressurize the shuttle. Even after a hull breach the shuttle (unlike the sail-pod) would have enough air to take her all the way to Mercy of Kalr.

If she had tried to order the palace’s destruction from where she hung on to the side of this shuttle, she had failed. More likely, I realized, she’d known from the beginning such an order would fail and had not tried to give it. She needed to get aboard a ship, order it closer to the palace, and breach its heat shield herself. She wouldn’t be able to get anyone else to do it for her.

If Mercy of Kalr was correct, and there were no other