Babylon's Ashes

She squeezed the grease crayon and released it. The soft click as it gave up its grip on her fingertips again and again like someone tapping on the door. With every mark she made, the fear in her chest shifted. It didn’t leave her—nothing as straightforward as that—but instead of feeling bright and jittery and jagged, her heart folded in on itself and let the crust of a lifetime’s failures and pains fall away. At least for a little while. It felt like getting on a treadmill and finding the perfect rhythm. One that brought her breath and her body and her mind together and stilled time.

When she’d started, she’d half hoped to find a reason she couldn’t go through with her mutiny. Now that she was engaged, the doubt was forgotten. Somewhere in the process, she’d gone from whether she should to how she was going to. Until Nadia spoke, Michio didn’t even notice she was there.

“Bertold still not letting you on the system?”

Michio sighed and shook her head. “Until we make the break, he wants everything off the computers. He’s got the local countermeasures ready to update. But you know how it is. Tipping our hand.”

“Do you think Marco is monitoring the ship that closely?”

“No,” Michio said. Then, “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s all right. Part of me likes working this way. It’s more… I don’t know. Tactile?”

“Can see that,” Nadia said. “We’re getting close.”

“I don’t want more than a second of light delay,” Michio said. “I can’t do this trading messages. I have to be able to talk.”

“We’re getting close,” Nadia said again, her voice a halftone lower. She understood.

Michio squeezed the grease crayon and relaxed. Tick. “How long?”

“By tonight,” Nadia said. She stepped in close, considering the wall and all of its markings. She was half a head shorter than Michio, and the first scattering of gray hair complicated her temple. She sighed to herself and nodded.

“Checking my work?” Michio said, teasing a little.

“Yes,” Nadia said seriously. “This was a complicated situation before. We’re about to make it much more. Times like this, we check the seals we just checked.”

Michio sat on her crash couch and let her wife go over all the ships and stations. Nadia put her hands to her hips in fists and made small sounds in the back of her throat. Michio thought they were approval. It would be easier when she had the ship’s system available to plot it all out, place each ship and its vector on a single interface. Even with her wall a mass of careful handwriting, there were other lists—longer lists—of critically important information. The warships under Marco’s direct control. The elite guard force that Rosenfeld held in reserve. The thousands of supply containers from Pallas and Vesta and Callisto that had already been scattered to the care of the overwhelming void. Michio stretched her back against the one-third g braking burn, feeling the ache between her ribs.

“When are we going to steal it all?” Nadia asked.

“When I talk to Carmondy,” Michio said. “Earlier than that, and Himself might notice. Later, and he might be warned.”

“Ah, Carmondy,” Nadia said with a sigh. “It bothers me.”

“Me too,” Michio said. Nadia turned from the wall to consider her. The air of checking for errors didn’t change.

“What bothers you?” Nadia asked.

Michio nodded at the wall. “All this. Doing what I’m about to do.”

“You don’t think it’s right?”

“I don’t know if that matters. I mean, Marco does what he thinks is right. And Dawes. And Earth. All of them do what they think is right, and tell themselves that they’re moral people with the strength to do the necessary things, however terrible they seem at the time. Every atrocity that has been done to us had someone behind it who thought what they did was justified. And here I am. A moral person with the strength to do this. Because it’s justified.”

“Ah,” Nadia said. “You don’t think Carmondy will join us.”

“I don’t. And then I think I’ll have to make an example of him so that the others will take me seriously.”

“It’s not much of a pirate queen who leaves survivors in peace,” Nadia said. And then, “You’re wrong about one thing, though. Not every evil thing is done by the righteous. Some people do harsh things for the pleasure. But that isn’t what bothers me.”

Michio lifted her hands, asking the question.

“Working with Carmondy,” Nadia said. “I don’t know what it is. The man annoys me.”

Both of their hand terminals chirped a connection request from Laura on a family-restricted channel. Nadia nodded to Michio to accept and then sat at her side so they could both see the screen. Laura was on the command deck, the backsplash of her control screen lightening her cheeks and dancing in her eyes. Icons of all the others except Nadia appeared along the side.

“What is it?” Nadia asked.

“Newsfeeds just arrived,” Laura said. “The inners have Ceres. Making an announcement.”

They were all silent for a moment. Knowing that it was coming pulled the punch, but Michio still felt it in her gut. “Play the feed,” she said.