Babylon's Ashes

“The Panshin acknowledges, sir,” Evans said. “Captain Rodriguez is on the port.”

“Then the port it is,” Michio said, unstrapping herself. “Oksana, the ship’s yours.”

“Sir,” Oksana said, but there was a little disappointment in the word. She’d wanted to come along too, but someone had to keep an eye on Evans, and those two had been coming closer of late. Maybe having some time alone with Oksana would put Evans in a place where he could talk about what was bothering him. Better if the impulse came from him. Ordering someone to disclose their private fears wasn’t good leadership. And no matter how much Michio was his wife, she was also his captain.

The Connaught came to her place less than a kilometer from the Panshin and Eugenia port. That was Oksana showing off a little, but Michio didn’t mind. It made her transit short and easy. The vac suit was Martian, armored but not powered. Well-made, like everything Marco had bartered for. Bertold and Nadia came with, each carrying a sidearm. They passed out of the Connaught’s airlock and into the gap, moving slow to conserve fuel and talking about whose turn it was to cook that night while the stars slid between their feet. Michio felt the unexpected tug of happiness. It was amazing to think that people lived their whole lives on a planet’s surface and never had even one moment like this one, the closeness of intimate family and a vastness to rival God in the same breath.

The airlock was set halfway into one of the shipping containers, the walls cutting off the spread of the galaxy before they reached the door. All three cycled in together. As soon as the indicator went green, Michio checked her suit to confirm and then turned off her own oxygen supply and cracked open her seals.

The air inside the port stank of spent oxy-fuel and overheated metal. The percussion of someone’s music carried farther than the rest of the song, making the port throb a little. A steady, mechanical heartbeat. The lights were all unsoftened LEDs, sharp-edged shadows creeping along the ceramic walls as they pulled themselves through the long corridors. Magnetic pallets clung to the surfaces, making no distinction between wall, floor, and ceiling. Old hand terminals had been fixed to each, showing what it contained, where it had come from.

A woman in a transport mech shifted away to the side as they passed, the arms of the mech pulling in close like a spider. She saluted to Michio and Bertold and Nadia equally, with an air that said she didn’t know who they were and didn’t care. So long as they were on the same side, they were good with her.

They found Captain Rodriguez in one of the hubs. Nine containers opened their mouths in each of the six directions, fifty-four in all, and were meant to be packed full. Michio could tell at a glance that they weren’t. Ezio Rodriguez was a thin-faced man with a trim beard streaked with white, though the rest of his face looked young. He wore his hair cut to the scalp. His suit, like hers, was Martian design. Unlike her, he’d customized it: a starburst blazon on the back between his shoulder blades and the split circle of the OPA as if it were on an armband. Half a dozen other people were moving pallets in the containers around them, shouting to each other through the free air instead of using their radios. Their voices echoed.

“Captain Pa,” Rodriguez said. “Bien avisé. Been too long.”

“Captain,” Michio said. “The Connaught’s come to relieve you. Take our turn building and standing guard, sa sa?”

“Welcome to it,” Rodriguez said, spreading his arms. “Not much, y not nothing.”

Each of Michio’s little fleet—alone or in pairs—had taken turns building and guarding the port while the others hunted colonists or gathered the supplies scattered into space, dodging Marco’s ships while they did it. The Solano had taken another of the colony ships—the Brilliant Iris out of Luna—and was escorting it toward Ceres to pay their dues to Caesar. Eugenia port was too small to accommodate a ship that large anyway. The Serrio Mal, on the other hand, was picking up the dark containers flung off Pallas and Ceres. Those were destined for Eugenia, and from there to wherever they were needed most. Delivering the supplies to Kelso and Iapetus was the most dangerous duty, and Michio reserved it for herself.

Worse than that would be not going.

“Looks thin, que,” she said.

“Looks because is,” Rodriguez said. “Gathering up’s been ralo these last times. Not getting what we were before. Some though.”

“Enough?”

Rodriguez laughed like she’d made a joke. “Got something interesting, though. Something for you.”

Michio felt the hair at the back of her neck stand up. This felt wrong. She smiled. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Couldn’t pass it by,” Rodriguez said, firing his suit’s thruster toward an access way. “Over this way. I’ll show.”