Expanse: Nemesis Games Part 33

Her opportunity.

She and Cyn spent the next half shift going through engineering and the machine shop, making sure everything was locked down. In a ship full of Belters, she had no doubt it all would be, and it was. The ritual of it was rea.s.suring, though. The sense of order and control over a ship's environment was a synonym for safety. Belters who didn't triple-check everything had been weeded out of the gene pool fast, and seeing the regularity of the shop gave her an almost atavistic sense of comfort. And also, without being obvious, she checked the location of the flawed toolbox with its misshapen hasp and then carefully didn't look at it again. She felt obvious, sure that by so clearly cutting the box out of her awareness, she was actually calling Cyn's attention to it.

The relationship between the dark thoughts and the nearly unbearable swelling of excitement in her heart didn't occur to her until Cyn's hand terminal chimed and he called the work to a halt.

"Wrocic' do tu crash couch, yeah," he said, touching her shoulder. His hand was gentle but strong. She didn't pretend ignorance, didn't try to disguise her anxiety. It would just read as being scared of the battle anyway.

When they got to her quarters, she strapped in and Cyn checked her. Then, to her surprise, he sat by her side for a moment, his ma.s.s shifting the balance of the couch. His muscles rippled under the skin with even his smallest movements, but he still managed to seem boyish and shy, like his body was a costume. "Zuchtig tu, sa sa?"

Naomi smiled the way she imagined she would have if she'd meant it. "Of course I'll be careful," she said. "Always am."

"La, not always, you," Cyn said. He struggled with something. She didn't know what. "Close quarters, means a lot of maneuvering. Don't have a couch to catch you, then you get a wall, yeah? Maybe a corner."

Fear flooded her mouth with the taste of copper. Did he know? Had he guessed? Cyn flexed his hands, not able to meet her gaze.

"En buenas mood, you. Happy, ever since you and Marco. So I'm thinking maybe you think there's something to be happy for, yeah? Maybe a way out don't have doors."

Suicide, she thought. He's talking about suicide. He thinks I'm going to unstrap in the middle of the battle and let the ship beat me to death. While she hadn't consciously considered it before, it was the kind of thing the dark thoughts would have brought her. And worse, the thought brought no surprise with it, but only a sense of warmth. Almost of comfort. She wondered whether that had been in her mind, whether the danger inherent in her plan was its drawback or a covert way for the bad thoughts to find their expression. That she wasn't sure unnerved her.

"I plan to be here when this is over," she said, biting the words as if to convince herself as much as her guard.

Cyn nodded. The ship's system sounded the maneuvers warning, but the big man didn't get off the couch. Not yet. "Esa? Hard for us and you both. We come through, yeah? All of us, and you too." He was staring at his hands now like something might be written there. "Mi familia," he said at last. "Remember that. Alles la son family, y tu bist also."

"Go strap in, big guy," Naomi said. "We can finish this after."

"After," Cyn said, shot a smile at her, and rose. The second warning came, and Naomi leaned back into the gel, just as if she meant to stay in its cool embrace.

On the bridge, Marco was no doubt being smooth and calm, playing the part of the Martian captain, rea.s.suring everyone he could that everything was under control now that he was there. They'd believe him too. He was in a Martian ship with a solid, known transponder. He was probably using Martian military encryption. That he could be anything other than what he seemed would be as inconceivable to them as it was obvious to her.

She wanted to care, but she didn't. She didn't have time.

The sound of missiles firing and the mutter of PDCs came as the room lurched thirty degrees to the left, her couch hissing on its gimbals. She popped the straps loose and sat up, pulling her leg away from the needle. If she'd been sure it wasn't a sedative, she'd have waited for the injections. Too late. The couch shifted back to neutral position. She hopped down to the floor and walked quickly and steadily for the corridor. She kept her arms wide, fingertips against the walls on either side, and slid her feet across the deck. Knees bent, center of gravity low, she told herself.

Be ready for the change when it comes. The ship twitched around her. The walls and deck showed nothing, her eyes promising her that everything was solid, quiet, and stable as her own ma.s.s pushed her, falling toward one wall and then the next, and then worst forward where there was nothing to catch herself against. It was worse than weightlessness. The struggles of a mind to interpret up and down in the absence of gravity could be disorienting, but this was something else. She rattled down the hallway like dice in a cup, moving forward when she could, bracing herself against the walls when the motion was too violent.

In the lift, she selected the machine shop and gripped the handholds as the mechanism dropped her down the body of the ship. A concussion rattled her. The Martians fighting back. That was fine. Let them. She couldn't give that struggle her attention. Not until hers was done.

The machine shop was empty, all the tools locked in place, but with enough tolerance that when the ship lurched, they all rattled: metal against metal like the ship itself was learning to talk. She went for the compromised toolbox, but the deck fell away under her. She stumbled, her head crashing against the metal shelves. For a few seconds, the rattling seemed to recede. She shook her head, and drops of blood pattered on the wall and the deck.

Not a big deal, she told herself. Head wounds always bleed a lot. It doesn't mean it's serious. Keep moving.

The PDCs chattered, the sound moving through the body of the ship. She found the toolbox, popped open the restraint, pulled it out, and sat on the deck, cradling it. For a long, sick second, she thought the lock was different, solid, unapproachable, but that was wrong. A trick of the mind. It was fine. She pulled at the latch, worked her fingertips into the crevice that shouldn't have been there, then pulled it wider, and pushed in again, driving her own skin and bone into it like a wedge. It hurt like h.e.l.l, but she ignored it. The pressure of her body against the deck suddenly grew terrible. They were accelerating. She didn't know why. Her back ached. It had been years since her spine had been asked to support her body during a heavy burn. Usually, she was lying on her back in gel around now.

With an indignant pop, the latch gave. The toolbox flew open, but nothing spilled. All the wrenches, epoxy welders, voltage meters, and cans of air and lubricant were strapped in place. She flipped through the close-packed layers to a line of Allen wrenches and plucked out the 10 mm. It was one of the advantages she had over Marco and his crew. She'd been living in a Martian ship for years. Knowing what tools opened which access panels was like recognizing the back of her own hand. She gathered up a voltage tester, a wiring crimp, and a light-duty soldering iron and stuffed them in her pockets. With any luck, she'd only need the wrench, but - The deck drifted away under her, gravity suddenly gone. She couldn't tell if she was spinning through the air or the ship was turning around her. She reached for the deck, the walls, but nothing was within reach besides the floating toolbox. That was good enough. She grabbed it in close to her belly, then pushed it away as reaction ma.s.s, and twisted to grab the workbench. Down came back, and the toolbox crashed down behind her as she stumbled. Another low boom rattled the ship. Knees and spine aching, she ran for the lift.

Gravity vanished again as she got into it. The PDCs were still chattering, but less now. She didn't remember the last time she'd heard a missile fire. The battle was winding down. She willed the lift to travel faster. If the all clear sounded and other people got out of their couches before she was done, then Holden and the Rocinante and possibly a fair percentage of Tycho Station would die. With every slow meter the lift took her, she imagined it: the drive cycling up and then spilling out, a fire brighter than light that ate everything. The ship moved, slamming her against the wall hard enough to bruise, then released her to float free again. She killed the lift between the crew quarters and the airlock, bracing herself so that the deceleration didn't leave her trapped in the middle of empty air.

The access panel was fifteen centimeters high and forty wide and opened on the major electrical routing through the center of the ship. If she'd cut through all the cables there with a welding torch, all the traffic would have rerouted instantly to other channels. Apart from a few warning indicators, nothing would happen. That was fine. She didn't want to break the ship. She wanted to use it. Braced with both feet and one hand in the wall handholds, she worked the Allen wrench. The screws were integral to the plate and didn't come free, but she felt it when the metal threads lost their grip. Three connections came off. Four. Five.

Six.

She could see the handset through the gap where the plate was beginning to come free. The ship shuddered under her, turning. She squeezed the wrench in her fist, seeing it fall away down the shaft even though it wasn't happening. A thick red-black clot of blood slipped free of her hair, smearing itself across the pale wall. She ignored it. Seven connectors were loose. Eight. She heard voices from the crew quarters. A woman saying something she couldn't make out, and a man answering no. Nine. Ten.

The plate came free. She scooped up the handset, checking its charge. The batteries were nearly full. Connection read good. She didn't know which circuit was the broadcast and the first one she tried threw an error code. Cursing musically under her breath, she set it to diagnostic mode and started querying. It seemed to take forever before it came back. She cycled through the report with her thumb until she found it. Channel eighteen was a comm array using the D4/L4 protocols that the Rocinante did for broadcast. She thumbed in the override code that would let her send thirty seconds of diagnostic tones out, then deleted the file that held the tones. When the error came up, she told it to override to manual. She was almost weeping now. Her right foot slipped, and she grabbed for the open access panel. Her knuckles sc.r.a.ped something sharp and toothy. She grunted in pain and put her annoyance aside. No time.

"If you receive this," she said, pressing the handset close to her lips, "please retransmit. This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. Message is for James Holden. The software controlling the magnetic bottle has been sabotaged. Do not start the reactor without reloading the hardware drivers from a known good source. If you hear this message, please retransmit."

Halfway through the last word, the handset chirped that the thirty seconds were up and returned to the base menu. She let the handset go, let herself go, floated back from the wall. She spread her arms wide and let the Allen wrench go. She hoped it had worked. It was the middle of a battle. There could be jamming to contend with if Marco wanted to keep what was happening unclear, but it was just as likely he was enjoying being a spectacle. And if she was right, if they were going after the Martian prime minister, the data coming off the battle would be gone over by the best intelligence services that still existed.

Jim wasn't safe, not yet. She knew it, but for a moment, she didn't feel it. The darkness would come back; the bone-crushing anxiety, and the guilt and the fear. She didn't doubt that, but now, right now, she felt only light. She'd made her plan, and it had worked. Her warning would reach him or it wouldn't. Either way, there was nothing more she could do. And on the bridge, right now, Marco was figuring out what exactly she'd done. The laughter that came boiling out of her throat felt like victory.

The voices from the crew quarters grew louder, more confused. Even though the all clear hadn't been called, she heard people moving around. She recognized Cyn's voice, raised in alarm. Her leg brushed against the wall, and she reached out to hook her wrist into the handhold. No point bothering with the lift. Hand over hand, she pulled herself along the shaft and then into the corridors. The faces that peered from the doorways were wide-eyed. One man started back when he caught sight of her. Naomi launched herself along the hallway with a kick and flew straight as an arrow, not even touching the handholds along the way to steady herself. Her shoulder ached. The wound on her scalp was bleeding again. She felt serene.

Cyn hauled himself around a corner, then braced and watched her, his jaw slack, his eyes round. She lifted a fist in greeting as she floated by.

"Anyone needs me," she said, "I'll be in my quarters, yeah?"

Chapter Thirty-three: Holden.

Most of human history had static maps. Even in times of change and chaos, when civilizations had fallen in the course of a single night, the places remained more or less the same. The distance between Africa and South America was going to stay what it had always been, at least over the span of human evolution. And whether you called it France or the Common European Interest Zone, Paris was closer to Orleans than Nice. It was only when they moved out to Mars and then the Belt and the worlds beyond it that the distance between the great centers of human life became a function of time. From Tycho Station, Earth and Luna were almost on the far side of the sun. Mars was closer, but retreating with every hour. Saturn was closer than either and the Jovian moons farther away. That everything came closer and then farther apart was a given in Holden's life; uncommented and unremarkable. It was only times like this that facts of orbital periodicity started to seem like a metaphor for something deeper.

As soon as Fred made the decision to go to Luna, Holden had moved his things back to the Rocinante. And then the rest of the crew's possessions too. He'd found Amos' clothes neatly folded and regimented in a rough canvas bag. Alex's had been thrown haphazardly in a case, half in a mesh bag and half not, though which set was clean and which bound for the laundry, Holden couldn't tell. Naomi's things had been in his suite. A spare pair of boots, an unpaired sock, underwear. She'd left a model of a Martian combat mech bright red and flat black and no bigger than his thumb on the bathroom counter. He didn't know if it held some special meaning to her or if she would even remember where she'd gotten it from. He was careful to take it with him, though. Careful to wrap it and put it in a cushioned box. It was the closest thing he had to taking care of the woman it belonged to, so that was what he did.

Being back in the Rocinante was like coming home, except that it was too empty. The narrow corridors of the crew deck seemed too wide. The occasional ticking and popping of the expansion joints adjusting to shifts in temperature were like the knocking of ghosts. When the repair team were somewhere he could hear them, Holden resented the voices and footsteps that weren't his crew's. When they were gone, the silence oppressed him.

He told himself it was temporary. That before long, he'd have Alex back in the c.o.c.kpit and Amos down in engineering. Naomi beside him, telling him gently what he was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up and how to do it better. He'd go to Luna, and they'd be there. All of them. Somehow.

Except he still hadn't heard from Naomi. He'd gotten a short text-only message from Mother Tamara that his parents were all right for now, but that ash was falling on the ranch like snow in winter. And nothing from Amos.

Sometimes people knew when they were saying their last goodbyes, but not always. Not often. Most people's last parting of ways were so small, the people involved didn't even notice them. Now, in the darkness of the command deck with a half-liter bulb of bourbon floating beside him and the audio system playing twelve-bar blues, Holden was pretty sure he'd said a couple of his own final goodbyes and not known it. He replayed everything in his head, his memories becoming less authentic and more painful every time he did.

"We're all that's left," he said to the ship. "You're all I've got."

The Rocinante didn't answer for a long moment, and then, weirdly, it did. A bright yellow incoming request alert appeared on his console. Holden wiped his teary eyes with a sleeve and accepted it. Fred Johnson appeared in a window, his brows furrowed.

"Holden?"

"Fred?"

"Are you all right?"

"Ah. Yes?"

Fred leaned forward, his head growing ma.s.sive on the screen. "I've been trying to reach your hand terminal for the past fifteen minutes."

Holden looked around the command deck, then nodded. "I may have left it in my pants. In my quarters. I think I did."

"Are you drunk?"

"I think I am." He had to concentrate not to slur.

"And you're not wearing pants?"

"I'm not ready to take our relationship there yet."

"Well, have the med bay give you something to sober you up and get your a.s.s covered. I'm sending the flight crew over."

Holden turned up the lights and killed the music feed. "What's going on?"

"We're getting reports. The Martian prime minister's under attack. The ships your man Alex found were decoys to draw off the escort."

"But," Holden said, "the new escort ships -"

"Are the ones shooting at him."

Holden cursed under his breath. "Alex is on that ship. Did we hear from Alex?"

"We haven't heard from anybody. I was keeping some radio telescopes pointed that direction, and this is what they're getting. I checked with Drummer and the engineering staff. They said the Roci's got a clean bill of health, and I'm less and less interested in sitting around here waiting for whoever's behind all this to take another swing at me."

Holden undid the straps on his couch, floating forward. His head was a little swimmy. He looked around at the command deck. It was like some part of his brain was still expecting to see Alex and Naomi and Amos there with him. He hadn't realized it was a habit, to look for his people before the Roci got under way. This, he realized, was the first time ever that they wouldn't be there. It felt like a bad omen.

"Okay," he said. "I'll clean up for company. When are you looking to go?"

"How soon is as soon as possible?"

"The reactor's cold, and we'd want to top up the air and water," Holden said. The alcohol fumes seemed to be burning away already, but he wasn't entirely sure if that was true or if it just felt that way. "Plus I'm reliably informed that I need to get something from the med bay to sober me up and get my a.s.s covered."

"Glad you were paying attention," Fred said. "So two hours?"

"I think we can manage that."

"Let's do."

Holden pulled himself down the lift shaft hand over hand. A new crew coming onto his Rocinante. It was the obvious thing, of course. It had always been the plan, but now the prospect filled him with dread. Unfamiliar faces at the controls and in the crew quarters. Voices in the ship that weren't the ones he'd gotten used to in the years since the Donnager. Even when they'd been carrying pa.s.sengers, his crew had been at the heart of the ship. This was something else, and he didn't like it.

He stopped at the med bay on the way to his quarters. Sober, the symbolic implications of a new temporary crew for the trip to Luna didn't seem quite as ominous, but the thought stayed at the back of his mind: without Naomi without all his crew the Rocinante wasn't going to be what she had been. When he checked his hand terminal, the only messages were from Fred. Alex's silence didn't help.

The transport tube's connection to the airlock was a gentle thump, like Tycho Station clearing its throat. Holden was at the airlock to let them in. Eight people six Belters, and two who looked like they'd come from Earth, all wearing Tycho Station flight suits and hauling small personal kits floated into the s.p.a.ce among the lockers. Drummer was with them, wearing her security uniform.

"Captain Holden?" Drummer said. "I'd like to introduce Captain Foster Sales and his crew."

The man who floated up, arms braced, looked too young to be a captain. Close-cropped black hair transitioned into a glossy beard that tried and failed to lend the boyish features some gravitas. He was introduced to the others pilots Arnold Mfume and Chava Lombaugh, engineers Sandra Ip and Zach Kazantzakis, weapons technicians Gor Droga and Sun-yi Steinberg, communications specialist Maura Patel. By the end of the little ceremony, Holden was pretty sure he'd already forgotten all of their names.

Drummer seemed to read his unease, because when the crew broke to their stations, she lingered and drew him aside. "They're good people, Captain. I vetted all of them myself. None of them are the bad guys."

"Yeah," Holden said. "That's good."

Her smile was weirdly gentle. "It's weird for me too."

"Yeah?" he said.

"On my watch, they broke into the station, stole the f.u.c.king protomolecule. They tried to kill the boss. I'm spending all day projecting an att.i.tude of calm and control, and come sleep shift, I'm grinding my teeth and staring at the wall. Now the old man's leaving? Honest to G.o.d, I'm s.h.i.tting bricks here."

Holden blew out a long breath. "Thanks for that."

"Anytime, sir. Everyone you meet's fighting a hard battle."

"Should I know anything about..." He nodded toward the door. Drummer briefed him in quick, simple sentences. Ip's roommate had been one of the turncoats, and she still felt betrayed. Steinberg and Mfume both had a hard time losing face, and while it wasn't usually a problem, if they got into a spat, someone would have to step in and deescalate. Droga had family on Earth, and he was worried and angry and grieving. Holden made a note to speak to the man if he had a chance. With every small detail, every fault and vulnerability, every strength and peculiar virtue, Holden felt something in his chest grow calmer.

Okay, these men and women weren't his family, but they were his crew. They wouldn't ever mean what Alex and Amos and Naomi meant, but for the next weeks, he was their captain. And that was enough.

For now, that was enough.

When Fred came through the airlock, Drummer was just finishing her rundown of Maura Patel's insomnia problem. Fred landed feetfirst on the wall, ankles hooked into the handholds like he'd been born in the Belt. He stood at ninety degrees to them, a rough smile on his face and a small personal kit strapped to his back.

"Well, what are you two doing?"

"Drummer is very gently telling me how to put on my big-boy pants," Holden said.

"Really?" Fred asked.

"It's possible I was getting a little maudlin."

Fred nodded. "Happens to the best of us from time to time. Where do we stand?"

Drummer answered. "The crew's initiating the warm-up. We haven't had anyone reporting trouble, so you should be good to go on schedule."

"Excellent," Fred said. "Of course, they've probably taken all the good bunks by now."

"All the bunks are the same," Holden said. "Except mine. You can't have mine."

"Wouldn't think of it, Captain," Fred said. "The Martian convoy's put out a distress call. The original escort's trying to burn back toward them, but the mystery ships are engaging in force now. As ambushes go, this one's looking pretty effective."

"Sorry to hear that," Holden said. "Still nothing from Alex."

"Well. We can hope for the best," Fred said. "Latest intel shows the attackers have stopped firing. So that makes it look like a boarding action."

Holden's blood went cold. "Protocol is they blow the ship if boarders get close to taking engineering or the CIC."

"That's so that the enemy doesn't compromise your codes," Drummer said. "They rode in on Martian naval ships. That damage is already done."