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I’ve watched too ht, but couldn’t quite abandon the idea The ist and suicidal ideation into honor and noble sacrifice

She picked up the torso asse the last bits of dust andto the outside The smell of metal and lubricant filled the air And while she bolted ar back onto the fras and scratches, she stopped fighting the urge to ritualize the task and just let it happen She was very likely asse on how the final battle went, this ceraht house her corpse for the rest of eternity

She flipped the torso assee in the enae across Ganyht in front of her She picked up a wrench, then put it back down, tapping on the deck with her knuckle

Why then?

Why had the monster blown itself up at that moment? She re froht, that was the moment the constraint systems that Mao’s scientists had installed failed And they’d set the bo out of their control But that just pushed the question one level back Why had their control over the creature’s physiology failed at that precise ood place for constraint systeunfire as it had charged their lines It hadn’t seemed to hurt it at the time, but each wound represented a sudden burst of activity inside the creature’s cells, or whatever it had in place of cells, as the rowth to slip the leash

Maybe that was the answer Don’t try to kill the ram starts to break down and the self-destruct kicks in She wouldn’t even have to survive, just last long enough to harm the monster beyond its ability to safely repair itself All she needed was enough time to really hurt it

She put down the ar on and picked up the hele of the fight on it She hadn’t watched it again after Avasarala’s presentation to the crew of the Roci She hadn’t been able to

She pushed herself to her feet and hit the comm panel on the wall “Hey, Naomi? You in ops?”

“Yep,” Naoeant?”

“Do you think you can tell the Roci to talk to ot the radio on, but it won’t talk to civilian stuff This is one of our boats, so I figure the Roci has the keys and codes”

There was a long pause, so Bobbie put the helmet on a worktable next to the closest walla radio node that the Roci is calling ‘MCR MR Goliath III 24397A15’”

“That’s me,” Bobbie said “Can you send control of that node down to the panel in the machine shop?”

“Done,” Naomi said after a second

“Thanks,” Bobbie said, and killed the comm It took her a moment to re-familiarize herself with the Martian military video software, and to convince the systeorithe fro on the screen She set it to endless loop and sat back down on the deck with her suit

She finished bolting the back ar the torso’s power supply and h She tried not to feel anything about the inificance to them or think of them as a puzzle to be solved She just concentrated on her work on the suit with her mind and let her subconscious chew on the data fros occasionally as she worked, but that was fine She wasn’t on a deadline She finished attaching the power supply and hts lit up on the hand tered into the suit’s brain On the wall screen by her helmet, a UN soldier was hurled across the surface of Ganyed away When the ie steadied, both the UN Marine and her friend Tev Hillan reattaching it to the torso The monster had picked up a soldier in a suit of arh force to kill instantly There was no defense against that kind of strength except not to get hit She concentrated on putting the arain, the feed had restarted Thethe UN soldiers It killed one of the, followed by her entire platoon opening up

The creature was fast But when the UN soldiers suddenly turned to open a firing lane for the Martians, the creature didn’t react quickly So ht line, but not a lot of lateral speed That ain to the UN soldier being thrown into Private Hillh they didn’t slow it down She thought back to the video she’d seen of Holden and Ao hold It had largely ignored the it, and then it had erupted into violence

But the first creature had attacked the UN troop station So at least to soree, they could be directed Given orders Once they no longer had orders, they seeet increased energy and break the constraints While in that state, they ignored prettybut food and violence The next time she ran into one, unless it had specifically been ordered to attack her, she could probably pick her own battleground, draw it to her where she wanted to be That was useful too

She finished attaching the arm assembly and tested it Greens across the board Even if she wasn’t sure whootten how to do her job

On the screen, themech Yojimbo and tore the pilot’s hatch off Sa’id, the pilot, was hurled away Again with the ripping and throwing It th and virtual iht at your opponent, then ripping the heavy objects at lethal speeds went hand in hand with the strength And kinetic energy was a bitch Arht help cushion i off all the kinetic energy ih speed At least not in soarbage Duun