Babylon's Ashes

They were sitting across the table from each other, leaning in like two kids dissecting the same frog. The display between them glowed blue and gold. Holden looked tired, but Amos had seen him looking worse one time and another. Holden was the kind of guy who smoked himself down to the filter if he thought it was the right thing to do.

“We should talk to Pa again,” Holden said, looking up at Amos and nodding. “If we go for the station, we risk losing a lot of people.”

Amos ambled to the food dispensers. They were topped up fresh, so he had a lot of choices. There was a part of him that liked it better when it was just a few.

“It’s called war for a reason, sir,” Bobbie said. Even though she didn’t hit it, the sir had a sting. A reminder that it wasn’t just them anymore. “We know the fire rate. We know the retrain rate. We can do the math. If we can get even a small team onto the surface—”

“Of the alien station that we totally don’t understand but strapped a bunch of artillery to anyway,” Holden said. Bobbie wouldn’t be interrupted.

“—we can take control of them. The lack of protection on the station is the best shot I have.”

Amos keyed in noodle soup. The dispenser hummed and chugged for a second while Holden raised his eyebrows.

“Best shot you have?”

“I’ll lead the team,” Bobbie said.

“No. Look, I’m not getting you into this just because you want a fight.”

“Don’t be insulting. Name one other person you know you’d rather combat-drop onto a hostile station and I’ll bow out.”

Holden opened his mouth to reply, then just froze, gaping like a fish. When he finally closed it, his only reply was a shrug of defeat.

Amos chuckled. Both of the others turned to look at him as the bowl popped out, steaming and smelling like salt and reconstituted onion. “Anyone who can shut the cap’n up like that wins the ass-kicking contest every time,” he said, taking a spoon. “I’m not the boss of anything, but seems to me like having Babs here and not putting her in the front line? You use a welding rig to weld things. You use a gun to shoot things. You use a Bobbie Draper to fuck a bunch of bad guys permanently up.”

“Right tool for the job,” Bobbie said, and it sounded like thank you.

“You’re not tools,” Holden said. Then sighed. “But you’re not wrong. Okay. Just let me consult with Pa and Avasarala and the OPA Council, or whatever we’re calling it. In case someone has a better idea.”

Amos took a spoonful of noodle, sucked it up, and smiled while he chewed.

“All right,” Bobbie said. “But guideline? A decent idea now is way better than a brilliant plan when it’s too late.”

“I hear you,” Holden said.

“All right,” Bobbie said. “What about this Duarte asshole? What’s Avasarala’s guess on his reaction?”

“You know,” Amos said around his noodles, swallowed, “I hate to bust in, but you think I could borrow the cap’n for a few minutes?”

“Problem?” Holden asked at the same moment Bobbie said, “Sure.”

“Just need to check something,” Amos said, smiling.

Holden turned to Bobbie. “You should get some rest. I’ll fire off our notes. If we get enough sleep and eat breakfast after, we might even get some replies back.”

“Fair enough,” Bobbie said. “You’re going to sleep too, right?”

“Like the dead,” Holden said. “Just got to finish the stuff first.”

Bobbie rose up and headed out, tapping Amos’ shoulder with her knuckles as she passed. A silent Thanks for having my back. He liked her, but that’s not why he’d agreed with her. When you got a nail to drive, use the fucking hammer. Just made sense.

Amos sat down in her vacated spot, but sideways, with his back against the wall and one leg running along the bench. His hand terminal chimed. Some update that Peaches had been running sending its system clear message to the team. As he watched, the Roci updated him: Alex was back on board. Amos shut the alerts off.

Holden looked like shit. Not just tired, exactly. His skin got waxy and his eyes sort of sank back in the sockets when that happened. Not exhaustion, then. Something else. He looked like a kid who just realized he’d jumped in the deep end of the pool and was trying to figure out whether he should embarrass himself by shouting for help or drown with a little dignity.

“You doing all right?” Holden asked before Amos had quite gathered his thoughts.

“Me? Sure, Cap’n. Last man standing. That’s me. What about you?”

Holden gestured, hands out to the walls and bulkheads, the dock and station beyond it. The universe. “Fine?”

“Yeah, so. Peaches and I were doing the post-fight spit and polish.”

“Yeah?”

“I went over the battle data. You know, usual thing. Make sure the Roci was doing all the stuff we expected her to do. Didn’t need anything pinched or crimped or whatever. And, you know, part of that’s looking at the armament performance.”