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Still, she had to say it. “You killed Gersten.” You killed Gersten real casual-like. You killed him.

He nodded, impassive.

“His dog tags—”

“Forget the dog tags. You gotta rip the bodies up,” Rimmer said, like he was telling her how to heat noodle soup properly. “That’s not dead enough. Gotta destroy the body or they just come back.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Benti couldn’t keep her voice from cracking. “He’s dead. He’s dead.” But the fact was, even if her heart couldn’t accept it, she knew what they were now. She had an idea of just how right Rimmer could be.

“He ain’t! He’s infected!” Rimmer stepped forward. He’d found a chisel. “We gotta take him apart, he’s going to come back!”

Benti had her rifle pointed at him before she knew it. A mistake, seeing the Elite’s posture change, and Clarence’s hand coming down heavy on her shoulder. Clarence had her back. Always. And he’d just shot Gersten.

She’d just about lost control of the situation, but then, she thought with an odd kind of relief, there was hardly anyone left under her “command” anyway.

“Clarence,” she said, her voice steadier than her thoughts. His hand slid up her arm and with light pressure lowered her rifle. She couldn’t resist. “You’re not—”

Rimmer lurched back again, chisel held out pathetically. In the water pooled on the floor, ripples . . .

Clarence pivoted, shot Gersten, and killed him a second time.

Benti didn’t turn around. She’d seen her fill, enough for the rest of her life. She wanted to sit, but didn’t. She wouldn’t have the strength to get back up.

“You see?” Rimmer said. “You see? They come back. You leave them enough, all the important body bits, and they all come back. Me and Henry here, we’re the last ones. They didn’t know we were here. But now you’ve let them know. I mean, I’m not blaming you, not really. But they’ll try to get in. We have to move. There are more of you coming, right?”

“Right,” she said without feeling. No, wrong. The radio had been silent for too long. Too much interference. Benti knew that if more were coming, it wouldn’t be to help them.

Henry looked at her, then Clarence, and the Elite’s shoulders sagged in a universal sign of disappointment. It read Benti’s expression just fine. Its shoulders sagged further when, beyond the door, came a crash and rumble.

“There’s another way out of here?” Benti asked.

“Yeah,” the prisoner said reluctantly, “but we’ve heard them things outside that hatch too.”

“Just show us the way out,” Benti said impatiently.

Cricket bat resting up against his shoulder, Henry pointed without enthusiasm to a ladder and hatch leading up to the next deck.

“We’ll have to chance it. You’re on a prison transport, you must be badass.” Despite befriending a Covie. “Get Gersten’s gun and use it.”

Rimmer shook his head emphatically. “Not that badass. Nobody’s that badass. He touched it, I’m not touching it. I’m not going near it.” She wasn’t going near it either, which was the point.

Clarence retrieved Gersten’s rifle, took a wipe from the pouch Benti had half opened, cleaned the weapon, and thrust it at Rimmer. Benti he might argue with, but under Clarence’s glare, Rimmer took the rifle. Reluctantly.

“What about Henry?” Rimmer asked. “Henry deserves a better weapon.”

Clarence gave the two of them a look like, Isn’t it enough we haven’t blasted him to hell? Benti just gave a humorless laugh. Even with the odds stacked against them, no way would she willingly hand a rifle to a Covenant.

“Let him keep his cricket bat,” Benti said. “And he can be the one on point. If he doesn’t like it, tough.”

Henry didn’t seem surprised. Rimmer seemed about to argue, then thought better of it.

“Henry, Rimmer, me, and Clarence, that order. One of us drops—”

“We leave them,” Rimmer said. “Or make sure they don’t come back.”

She put her foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. If there was anything up there, she couldn’t hear it over the din back in the recycling plant.

“Covenant are not in charge of this ship.” It wasn’t framed as a question.

Rimmer snorted. “The Flood got out. There’s no one in charge of this