Free Approaching Omega by Eric Brown

perhaps half a dozen 'bots, feeling a kick of elation with every strike. But still returning laser fire came from the deck, exploding amid the wreckage around him and Emecheta.
    Then the 'droids saw the women, still bobbing down the side of the cliff-face, and turned their attention to them.
    Latimer watched, horribly aware of his inability to help, as one of the women released her grip and powered herself through the vacuum towards where he and Emecheta crouched — Li or Renfrew he could not tell. She was firing her laser as she descended, spraying a dozen bolts at random across the sheared deck.
    Shafts of blinding white light lanced past her, and Latimer thought it only a matter of time before she was hit.
    She came tumbling in at speed, unable to right herself. As she was about to hit the deck, Latimer stood and made a grab for her suit. He caught hold of her bulky leg as she cut her powerpack, then hauled her behind the flange. It was Renfrew, he realised as he took in her terrified expression behind the faceplate of her helmet.
    Jenny Li was still up there, clinging to the cliff-face as if paralysed with fear.
    As he watched, willing her to move herself and descend to safety, he saw movement in the sheer face of the bulkhead beside her. A hatch opened quickly. If the sight of it hadn't been so fraught with horror, Latimer might have appreciated the comic aspect of the sudden flapping open of the hatch, for it resembled nothing so much as the door of an ancient cuckoo clock.
    Then something crab-like scuttled out, reached for Jenny Li with a claw, and grabbed her. He saw her EVA suit spasm with fright, and then commence a frantic struggle as the roboid dragged her back towards the hatch.
    On the way in, Li managed to snag the side of the opening with a gloved hand. For a second she held on, and Latimer could only imagine the terror that moved her to resist.
    Then she could hold on no longer. She vanished within the opening and the hatch snapped shut with terrible finality. It was as if the onlookers had been spared, then — but the respite was only short lived.
    Jenny Li opened radio communication with them and screamed: "Help me! Somebody please help-!"
    Then silence.
    He had a sudden flashback of Jenny Li, childlike in her red bodysuit, and choked down a sob.
    He faced the others, gestured for them to huddle. On their knees, like supplicants, they faced each other and touched helmets.
    "What now?" Latimer said.
    "She's dead," Emecheta snapped. His voice sounded tinny.
    Latimer thought about that in the absolute silence that ensued. Then he said: "I don't think so."
    Emecheta: "What?"
    "I said, I don't think they'll kill her—"
    "So all that fire back then," Emecheta said, "they weren't trying to kill us, Ted?"
    "I... I don't think they were. They were trying to separate us. And it worked.  Think about it. They said they wanted Jenny — so why try to kill her?"
    Emecheta said: "And now they've got her... the firing's stopped."
    "Jesus Christ," Renfrew whispered
    "So," Latimer said, "what now?"
    Emecheta said: "We go on as before. Down to the core. Burn Central. That's the only way to save her. The only way to save us, too."
    Latimer's wrist-com flashed. He realised that the others were being paged, too. He stared at the screen embedded in the arm of his suit.
    Renfrew said, staring at her own screen: "Christ, it's Jenny. She's signalling."
    Emecheta pulled the softscreen from his sleeve and pasted it to the deck. The knelt, like kids around a board game, as Emecheta jacked the softscreen into his wrist-com.
    Seconds later a schematic of the Dauntless showed on the 'screen. Emecheta tapped at the key of his wrist-com, and on the schematic of the cross-sectioned decks a bright light flashed. It was moving.
    "That's Jenny," Emecheta said.
    "Where are they taking her?" Renfrew whispered.
    Latimer stared at the schematic, tried to make sense of the labyrinthine complexity of passages and levels. Then he had it.
    He hit