Volume 2 collects two more of the Murderbot novellas and they are just as much fun as the first two.

In “Rogue Protocol”, Murderbot finds a news story with Dr. Mensah talking about the evil GrayCris corporation and its latest evildoing – wrecking a planet while trying to terraform it.  Since Murderbot has only a slight interest (read: intense) interest in Dr. Mensah and a slightly higher interest in the doings of GrayCris, it starts to wonder if GrayCris’ shenanigans on Milu (the almost-terraformed planet) are related to the alien remains on Deltfall; so, in the absence of anything better to do, it decides to go to Milu and see if there is any evidence it could send to Dr. Mensah.  Not because it cares, mind you, but if the situation was resolved then Dr. Mensah could go home and be safe…from GrayCris.  And this would be less anxiety for Murderbot. 

Once on the abandoned space station that serviced Milu, Murderbot discovered it wasn’t alone.  There were four other humans and a human-appearing bot there to assess the condition of the planet.  Murderbot intends to just wait for them to complete their job and then have the place to itself to investigate.  Unfortunately, the pet bot, Miki, manages to find Murderbot and it deliberately lies to the naïve pet bot; convincing it that Murderbot is an undercover human security consultant hired by Mensah’s company to insure the team’s safety.  This works, with Murderbot in the shadows and prompting Miki to push her team to safety, all the way up to the moment another SecUnit appears on the station.  There’s no hiding from another SecUnit so Murderbot has to make some quick decisions regarding the priority of its mission to secure Dr. Mensah against the potential safety risks of Miki’s humans.  There’s also the problem of probable saboteurs but whether they are there to sabotage the station itself or Miki’s team’s investigation isn’t immediately clear.  But none of those concerns affect Murderbot as much as its realizations about human relations.

“Exit Strategy” picks up right after the events of the previous story.  Murderbot is simply putting distance between itself and Milu when it gets a news story that tells it that Dr. Mensah has disappeared and is apparently in the clutches of the evil GrayCris.  And that this is probably due to Murderbot’s activities on the GrayCris terraforming station orbiting Milu that GrayCris had been trying to destroy which Murderbot prevented. Making GrayCris think that Dr. Mensah had deliberately sent Murderbot there to mess with them. (Apparently, they still think Murderbot is operating under Dr. Mensah’s orders since she is their owner. No one has yet suspected a rogue murderous SecUnit is autonomous.) They intend to force her, as the planetary leader of Preservation, to drop the lawsuit Preservation had filed against GrayCris’ evil activities.  Her team, Ratthi, Pin-Lee and Gurathin are trying to find a way to rescue her when Murderbot happens upon them.  Murderbot is torn about whether to contact them or not; are they friends and if they are, what emotion should Murderbot be feeling about them? Emotions are so inconvenient and messy. Media feed entertainment is so much easier to decipher.

Several thrilling and action-filled sequences later and Murderbot has another problem. Can it trust Mensah and their new friends?  But, maybe more importantly, does Murderbot even know what it wants to do?

These stories are an agreeable blend of suspenseful plot, a little mystery, exciting action sequences and yes, a little Murderbot self-analysis.  The latter of which is what makes this series so addictive. After all, what’s not to love about a cynical yet vulnerable, brutal but compassionate, killer cyborg/droid?  Who can be deeply pessimistic retreating into fictional human drama on its media feed, yet brutally honest about its own motivations…once it identified them as such.  Not that it happens that often… Again, emotions are so…difficult.  ~~ Catherine Book

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