Babylon's Ashes

The Martian Congressional Republic Navy had taken point in the battle, engaging early and trying to pull the Free Navy’s ships out of position in hopes that her own attack from the side would come unexpectedly. She remembered Oksana getting the tactical display. Fifteen of the enemy, nine friendlies. Oksana made a joke about how every ship in the battle had probably been built in the same shipyard. Evans had laughed, then sobered and said they were getting painted.

After that, Michio’s memory became less reliable. She’d gone over the logs. Things hadn’t turned on her that early, but the strike, when it came, was like a shotgun blast in her life. It took out a massive hole, but stray pellets had traveled forward and back in time, made smaller holes in her experience. She remembered giving the order to retreat, and Josep saying they’d lost core, but she didn’t remember the hit that had made her decide to run. She remembered the smell of her clothing and hair burning. But the long, terrible moments between identifying the torpedo that cracked the Connaught’s back and the actual impact were gone.

What she knew from the logs was that the Serrio Mal and the Connaught had fired down into the heart of the Free Navy formation, drawing the enemy fire and scattering their position to open up corridors and blinds where the enemy PDCs weren’t reinforcing each other. The Martian ships, being closer, had fired a massive barrage of torpedoes that managed to disable two Free Navy ships. She didn’t know if the round that took out her drive was from the Free Navy or from a stray from the MCRN, but an enemy torpedo had managed to thread its way through their defenses and blow hours out of Michio’s consciousness.

She had the strong impression of a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head and dark skin telling her he was going to make the pain stop but she had to put down the knife. She couldn’t place when that had happened. She vividly recalled waking in a hospital room, and then waking there again without any sense of having fallen asleep in between the two.

The beginning of what she thought of as “after” was when she came to and found Bertold sitting at the edge of her bed, massaging her feet and singing a low dirge under his breath. She’d asked about Laura first, which in retrospect made her think she’d known something was wrong with her.

Bertold said Laura had been hurt. Was in a medical coma. They’d need to regrow part of her liver and one of her kidneys, but Laura was the wife of the pirate queen, and the doctors promised she’d be fine, given time.

Then he’d told her about Evans and Oksana, and they’d cried together until she slept.

The quarters they’d assigned this new, smaller version of her family were beautiful. Three bedrooms with wide, soft beds enough like crash couches that they were comfortable and different enough to seem like luxury. A food station with a narrower range of options than they’d had on the Connaught and brighter chrome. What the resort called a “conversation pit” that looked like a long, curved couch that had burrowed into the floor. Skylights opened to the dome, boasting natural light. A soaking bath big enough for two. Bertold, Nadia, and Josep the only ones to share it with her. Everything about it seemed too large and too small at the same time.

She waited until the ointment had soaked deep into her new, artificial skin, then put on what she called her “captain’s uniform.” Nothing really more than a formal shirt and a jacket with a vaguely military cut. She pulled on pants and boots, even though they wouldn’t show in the message she sent back. Her mind was still fuzzy from the pain medications, and she didn’t understand quite why being formal about the message felt so important to her until she sat down, framed herself, and began her recording.

It felt important because it was a surrender.

“Madam Secretary-General, I am very sorry to say that I don’t have any aid to give. The ships I had to command are either dead or broken or scattered so far from the ring gate that they couldn’t catch up to the Pella without killing everyone on board before they got to it.”

The version of her on the screen looked tired. Bertold had cut her hair short so that the places where it had burned didn’t stand out. She didn’t like how it looked. A wave of grief washed over her, the way they often did now. The way they would on and off for the rest of her life.

“Thank you for your kind words about our casualties. They knew the risks when we took up this work. They were willing to die for the Belt. I wish they hadn’t. I would like them here with me.

“I wish I could have done more.”