After Gurathin opens the barrier, Murderbot escapes the Combat SecUnit and rejoins Ratthi, Gurathin, and Dr. Mensah near the shuttle. Murderbot is badly damaged, especially in the knee, and Ratthi and Gurathin help Murderbot aboard while Mensah covers the retreat with a small energy weapon. Pin-Lee pilots the shuttle away as station authorities warn that a corporate ship is moving to intercept them.

Ratthi removes shrapnel from Murderbot’s knee while Murderbot deletes shuttle recordings and decides that avoiding GrayCris is more important than avoiding the company gunship. Murderbot uses company codes to request emergency retrieval for bonded clients. The gunship moves in, powers weapons, forces the Palisade/GrayCris ship to back off, and captures the shuttle.

Once aboard the gunship, the crew tries to keep Murderbot out because active SecUnits are considered too dangerous on armed transports. Mensah insists that Murderbot is her personal security consultant, and the company demands an additional safety bond. Murderbot, furious and frightened, privately tells Mensah it can take over the ship, but Mensah stops Murderbot by refusing to fear it and ordering it to calm down. Pin-Lee pays the bond, and the group is allowed aboard.

In a passenger compartment, Mensah confronts Murderbot about staying behind at the port. Murderbot admits it stayed partly because of a deal with PortSec and partly because it wanted to win, then says it does not want to be there. Before Mensah can discuss what comes next, the hostile ship uses stolen company comm codes to deliver a powerful code attack into the gunship’s systems.

The attack disables augmented crew, tries to open airlocks, attacks the drive, and blocks weapons while a boarding shuttle carrying a Combat SecUnit approaches. Murderbot protects nearby humans, fuses airlocks, and enters the gunship bot pilot’s hardware. Murderbot and the bot pilot identify the attacker as a conscious, disembodied construct or bot, then infer from Mensah and Pin-Lee that GrayCris is probably seeking the Milu data Murderbot once carried.

Murderbot uses compressed recordings from the Milu mission as bait, with Mensah and Pin-Lee ready to manually disengage their shuttle. The bot pilot drops defenses, Murderbot plants the false data in the shuttle, and the attacker transfers itself inside. Pin-Lee and Mensah release the shuttle, trapping the attacker away from the gunship. The gunship regains weapons, destroys the boarding shuttle and damages the Palisade ship, but Murderbot’s performance reliability crashes and Murderbot collapses.