Babylon's Ashes

Something was wrong with the air mix. Marco wasn’t getting enough oxygen. His heart was beating fast, his breath coming faster.

“Where are they going?”

Chapter Forty-Three: Holden

Inertia was one problem. Location was the other.

The Giambattista was a massive ship, hard to bring up to speed and hard to slow down. A testament to the inconvenience of mass and Newton’s first law. It was already braking toward the ring gate, pouring out energy and reaction mass in order to bring it to an orbit matching the gate. Between those two datapoints—where it was going and how quickly it was shedding momentum to get there—the fast-attack ships knew within a narrow range of possibilities where they would be and when they would be there.

Holden’s calculus was built from unknowns. How many gs could the Giambattista endure during a hard brake? How many of the ships she carried in her vast belly would fail under that strain? The cold equations of velocity, energy transfer, and relative motion could draw idealized curves to describe any number of scenarios, but experience added on a permanent and indelible unless something unexpected happens, and then who the hell knows.

“Best guess, Alex,” Holden said. “What are we looking at?”

Alex rubbed a hand over his thinning hair and made a distressed chuffing sound under his breath. The galley smelled like chamomile tea and cinnamon, but Naomi and Clarissa were both empty-handed. The Roci’s deceleration was about a g and a half, matching the Giambattista. It made Holden feel like he was tired even though he wasn’t.

“If I was them,” Alex said, “I’d plan to overshoot. Time my braking run so that I’d go by just before that big bastard out there got to the ring. Group both ships together, because there’s an attack opportunity during that pass. Drop a shitload of torpedoes that could use my velocity as a boost, hope I got a few good hits in. Once I’d passed, my torpedoes would be fighting against my velocity instead of building on it, so I’d likely save my powder until I could kill off what was left of my speed. Then come back to finish up anything that survived that first pass.”

“Sounds plausible,” Naomi said. “And what would you do if you were us?”

“Get to the ring as quick as I could,” Alex said, more quickly this time. “Make them hurry to catch up to us so that the loop back took as long as possible. Then use whatever that window was to get Bobbie and her forces in through the gate, let her take over the rail guns, and get our butts into the slow zone so she could splash those bastards when they got back.”

“Going to be unpleasant trying to keep the Giambattista alive once they get back,” Clarissa said. “Two of them. One of us. That boat’s a big target.”

“All right,” Holden said. “What about their drive plumes? If they’re braking toward us, how big a threat are they?”

Alex shook his head. “The speeds we’re looking at, if we get in their plume, we’ll be in their laps.”

Clarissa’s voice was small, calm. “If it’s a suicide mission?”

Alex sobered. “Well, ah, then… Yeah, that would suck.”

“If we break the Giambattista with too hard a burn,” Naomi said, “we can still stage the attacks from out here. We’re already unloading the first wave from outside the gate. There’s no reason we can’t launch the second one from here too. The command crew can’t be much larger than the Canterbury’s was. We’ll evacuate them on the Roci if we have to.”

“Unless whatever we break interferes with us deploying the boats,” Clarissa said. “Then Naomi and I are out there with welding torches trying to pop Bobbie’s stuff loose when the attack ships get back, and everyone has a bad day.” It was weird hearing Amos’ idioms spoken in her voice. The two had spent a lot of time together, though. So maybe it wasn’t.

Holden rubbed his palm across the cool surface of the table. The weight of the moment pressed on his shoulders. “I’ll talk to Bobbie and Amos. They’re there. They can make our case. Cut the deceleration now, go on the float until the last minute, and then burn like hell to brake. Make them chase us.”

“Going to be hard selling that to Belters,” Naomi said. “My people aren’t fans of high g.”

“Alternative being torpedo strikes makes a compelling argument, though.”

Naomi shrugged. “It does.”

After that, the hours stretched. Sleeping would have been a good idea, but it wasn’t possible. He hit the gym, pulling against resistance bands until the ache distracted him from the attack ships bearing down on them. But as soon as he stopped, it flooded back in on him. Wondering whether the enemy would target the Giambattista because it was the larger target or the Rocinante as the bigger threat. If the plan to take Medina would work. If it would work in time. What the Free Navy would do if it worked, if it failed.