Babylon's Ashes

“An unshakable faith in humanity.”

“It’s true,” he said, shaking his head. Or maybe nuzzling a little. “Against all evidence, I keep thinking the assholes are outliers.”

She leaned her head against him, taking a little pleasure in his simple presence. He had a peculiar scent, low and complex and pleasant as potting soil. She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of it. And he hadn’t shaved recently. The stubble of ragged whiskers tickled her ear like a cat’s tongue. On the monitor, the data broadcasts ticked over another tenth of a percent. Somewhere in the office, Bobbie was talking, her voice familiar and strong. The air recyclers clicked and hummed to themselves, the soft breeze smelling like plastic and dust.

She didn’t want to ask the question, but she couldn’t hold it in either.

“Any news from home?”

She felt him tighten. He sat back, and the part of her skin he’d been against felt cooler without him. She turned her chair so she could look at him. His face had the artificial mildness that meant he was trying to downplay something, as if by treating it casually he could diminish it. She’d seen all his expressions so many times, she knew what he meant, whatever he said.

“They’re coming. Free Navy. There’s still no sign of activity from Laconia at all, but Avasarala’s tracking fifteen ships converging on the gate. Mostly from the Jovian moons.”

“Any chance they’ll come through one at a time so Alex and Bobbie can shoot them?” she asked with a feigned innocence. It worked the way she hoped. Jim laughed.

“I’m pretty sure they’re all going to come through like a rugby team. If we could get a couple of the rail guns from the station working again, I think we’d have a chance. And some more rounds for them. Turns out shooting down a couple thousand targets can kind of burn through your supplies.”

“Do we have a plan?”

“A couple,” Jim said.

“Either of them good?”

“Oh, no. Not at all. Just different flavors of terrible.”

The data feed chimed. The batch sent off, and waiting for Naomi to pick something else. More messages, more bottles. “All right. What are they?”

“The classics. Fight or flight. We’ve got the Roci and the boats that still work as boarding craft. One option is that we fill up the boats with troops, place them around the edge of the ring, and try to get people onto the Free Navy ships. It won’t matter that they have ten times as many torpedoes as us if all the fighting’s corridor to corridor. The Roci and Medina’s defenses go after the ships we can’t take control of. Massive slugfest, and hopefully we come out on top.”

“And the chances that’ll work?”

“Terrible, terrible chances. Very low. Dumb plan on every level. Much more likely that the boats will all get turned into metal shavings by Marco’s PDCs before they even get close to boarding. And even if they do, those ships are going to have full crews to fight our people back.”

“And flight?”

“Stock up the Roci, pick a gate, and get the hell out of Dodge before the bad guys show up in the first place.”

“And leave Medina?”

“Medina. The Giambattista. Everything. Just turn tail and run like hell. Let the Free Navy hole back up in the slow zone and hope that the next wave the consolidated fleet sends can take it all back again and hold it next time.”

“Where’s the Pella?”

Jim sighed. “Oh, leading the howling pack.”

Naomi turned back to her screen. “Then we’re staying here.”

“I haven’t decided,” Holden said.

“No, you haven’t talked yourself into it yet,” she said. “You know if we go, Marco’s going to follow us. Maybe if we were a different ship or Marco was a different man, things wouldn’t play out this way. We’ve got the choice of fighting here, with a few allies and insufficient supplies, or fighting on the far side of a ring gate with even less. That’s the only distinction.”

“I… well…” Jim took a deep breath, blew out. “Shit.”

“How much of the debris from the wave of decoys can we police up?”

“Anything that hasn’t drifted out past the rings,” Holden said. “You’re thinking put it all just inside the Sol ring and hope the Free Navy runs into it?”

“The gate’s not that big,” Naomi said.

“Three-quarters of a million square klicks,” Holden said. “And fifteen ships coming through it. Even if we turned all our scrap metal into sand, the Free Navy’s more likely to miss them and not even know they were there.”

“I know,” Naomi said. “But maybe one will get a lucky hit. And then there’ll be one less. If we aren’t playing the long shots, we’re giving up. Long shots are all we’ve got left. And even if we lose—”

“I’m not looking at—”

“Even if we lose,” Naomi said, “how we lose matters. You didn’t set yourself to be a symbol of anything. I know that. It’s just something that happened. But after it happened, you used it. All those video essays you put out, trying to show everyone that the people on Ceres were just people?”

“Those weren’t about me,” Jim said, but the guilt in his voice said he didn’t believe it.