Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)

by Martha Wells

But the whole point of hacking my governor module was that no one got to tell me to kill a bunch of humans if I didn’t feel like it. (Or even if I did feel like it.)

I said, “If I thought he was going to hurt you, I’d be disposing of his body. I don’t fuck around, either.”

They were my clients, that was all. Like Mensah, like Ratthi and Pin-Lee and Bharadwaj and Volescu (who had opted to retire from active survey work, which gave him the award for most sensible human) and yes, even Gurathin. Just clients. And if anyone or anything tried to hurt them, I would rip its intestines out.

I decided to go with my first inclination and kill the shit out of some ass-faced hostiles instead. I told the Targets, “Angry, then afraid, then dead. Is that the right order?”

It had ART’s crew logo on the jacket, but somehow that didn’t bother me as much as usual.

ART replied, only to me, It is safer. I’ve lost my crew, I won’t lose you.

I said, “I just really like you. Not in a weird way.” “I like you, too,” Mensah said.

Iris: “Peri, you can’t bomb the colony.” Perihelion: “You are incorrect, Iris, I can bomb the colony.”

Iris said, “No, Dad, this is the SecUnit Peri told us about, the one it was going to bomb the colony over.”

“I don’t want to not see you again.”