Babylon's Ashes

The galley was packed like a party. The whole crew, it seemed, gathered together in front of the newsfeeds that announced the death of the Butcher of Anderson Station. The heat of their bodies made the room feel stifling. His father was in among them, smiling and strutting and clapping people on the shoulder like the groom at a particularly fortunate wedding. All the sulking and menace were gone from his expression. When he caught sight of Filip across the crowded room, he put his hands together in front of his heart making a celebratory double fist.

This was, Filip realized, the first real victory since the first attack on Earth. Marco had been claiming success after success, but they’d all been for retreats and scuffles or the discipline killing of mutineers like the Witch of Endor. From the moment they’d left Ceres, the Free Navy had needed a solid, unequivocal success, and this was it. No wonder even the sober seemed drunk with it.

The newsfeed shifted, a Free Navy logo appearing in its place, and the roar of the group grew even louder as each told the others to be quiet. Someone cut the music and put the audio for the newsfeed in its place. When Marco appeared on the screen, more dignified and statesmanlike than the actual grinning man in the room, his voice rang all through the Pella.

“Fred Johnson claimed to speak for the same people he oppressed. He began his career by slaughtering Belters, then pretended to be our voice. His years as a representative of the OPA were marked by pleas for complacence, patience, and the constant deferment of the freedom of the Belt. And his fate will be the fate of all who stand against us. The Free Navy will defend and protect the Belt from all enemies, internal and external, now and forever.”

The speech went on, but the crew began cheering so loudly, Filip couldn’t hear it. Marco lifted his arms, not to quiet them but to bathe in the noise. His shining eyes found Filip again. When he spoke, Filip could read the words on his lips: We did it.

We, Filip thought as Aaman jostled into him, pressed a bulb of something alcoholic into his palm. We did it. When it was a mistake, it was mine. When it was a victory, it was ours.

In the center of the joyful storm, Filip felt himself growing still. A flicker of memory came to him, strong and rich with import as an image from a dream. He couldn’t place its source. A film he’d watched, he thought. Some drama where a stunningly beautiful woman had looked into the camera and in a voice made from smoke and muscle had said, He put blood on my hands too. He thought it would make me easier to control.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Alex

“Good morning, Sunshine,” Sandra Ip said.

Alex blinked, closed his eyes, cracked open just the left one. He’d been in the middle of a dream where apple juice had gotten into the coolant feeds on a ship that was both the Rocinante and his first ship back when he’d been in the Martian Navy. The sense that he was supposed to fix something lingered even as the details faded. Sandra, naked, smiled down at him and he stopped trying to hold on to the dream.

“Hey to you too, Pookie,” he growled. The night’s sleep left his voice deep and gravelly. He stretched up his arms, palms flat against her headboard, and pressed to stretch down between his shoulder blades. His toes reached out past the edge of the blanket, and she pinched them playfully as she walked back toward the shower. He lifted his head to watch her retreat, and she looked back to watch him watch her.

“Where you headed?” he asked, partly because he wanted to know, partly just to keep her in the room a few seconds more.

“I’ve got a shift on the Jammy Rakshasa today,” she said. “Drummer’s making sure all these OPA bigwigs feel like we’re taking care of them.”

“Jammy Rakshasa,” Alex said, laying his head back down. “That’s a weird name for a ship.”

“It think it’s some kind of in-joke with Goodfortune’s people. Decent ship, though.” Her voice echoed a little from the bathroom. “The weirdest ship I ever worked was called the Inverted Loop. Gravel miner made out of a salvaged luxury yacht. The captain had this thing about open space, so they’d cut all nonstructural walls and decking out.”

Alex frowned up at the ceiling. “Seriously?”

“When that thing was under thrust, you could drop a bearing in the cockpit and listen to it hit every deck down to the reactor. It was like flying in a balloon full of sticks.”

“That ain’t right.”

“The captain was a guy named Yeats Pratkanis. He had some issues, but his crew loved him. Nothing like the stupid shit people do for a captain when they’re really invested in not seeing how fucked up he is.”

“S’pose that’s true.”