Babylon's Ashes

Three more days on the float, and Filip knew it wasn’t only the crew of the Pella who were feeling anxious. Every hour, it seemed, brought another round of contact requests. Encrypted tightbeam messages flooded into the Pella’s queue and waited there for Marco’s response. Rosenfeld, as part of the inner circle, stepped in where he could. He went so far as to appropriate the command deck as a kind of private office. The war center in absentia until Marco “came back out of his tent”— whatever that meant.

For Filip, it was all an exercise in projecting confidence. His father had a plan. He’d gotten them all this far, and there was no reason to doubt he would get them the rest of the way. The others agreed with him, or at least seemed to when he was in the room. He wondered what they said when he was elsewhere. They’d all been through battle together. They’d shared their victories and the long, patient hours waiting for their traps to spring. This was different. The waiting was the same, but not being sure what they were waiting for made it feel like maybe they were waiting for nothing. Even for him.

Near the end of the third day, Rosenfeld asked Filip to join him in the command center. The older man looked tired, but his cyst-ridden skin made reading his expressions difficult. Rosenfeld had turned all the screens off. The command center felt smaller without their displays to give the illusion of depth and light. Rosenfeld floated beside one of the crash couches, his body canted a few degrees from the ship in a way that made him seem both taller and subtly threatening.

“So, young Master Inaros,” Rosenfeld said, “it seems we have a problem.”

“Don’t see it,” Filip said, but the amusement in the older man’s eyes was enough to show how weak his words sounded. Rosenfeld pretended Filip hadn’t spoken.

“The longer we go without responding to… call them ‘changes in the situation’? The longer we go, the more doubt starts to grow, yeah? Father Inaros is the face and voice of the Free Navy. Has been since the beginning. His skill, yeah? His peculiar gift. But—” Rosenfeld spread his hands. But he isn’t here.

“He has a plan,” Filip said.

“We have a problem. We can’t wait for him much longer. Haven’t told anyone. Hasn’t found its way to the grapevine. But the problem’s now, not tomorrow. Even the light lag may make us too late now.”

“What is it?” Filip asked.

“Witch of Endor. It’s at Pallas. All the cache-safes we threw out into the void? Captain al-Dujaili has started gathering them back up. Says it’s under orders from his commander, and he doesn’t mean us. That’s the fifth ship broken for Pa. Meantime, the Butcher’s on Ceres, his ass keeping Dawes’ chair warm. Calling for a meeting of the OPA clans, yeah? Black Sky. Carlos Walker. Administration on Rhea is looking to send a delegation. Free Navy made a statement when we broke Earth’s chains. Statement was, The revolution is already over. That we’d won. Inevitable. Already happened, us. Only now, maybe not.”

Filip’s gut was tight. Anger warmed his throat and shoved his jaw forward like a tumor at the base of his jaw. He didn’t know who he was angry with, but the rage was deep and powerful. Maybe Rosenfeld saw it, because his voice changed, became softer.

“Your father, he’s a great man. Great men, they’re not like you or me. They have other needs. Other rhythms. It’s what sets them apart. But sometimes they go so far into the void we lose sight of them. They lose sight of us. That’s where little people like me come through, yeah? Keep the engines running. Keep the filters clean. Do the needful things until the great man comes back to us.”

“Yeah,” Filip said. The rage still shoving its way up his neck, filling his head.

“Worst thing we can do is wait,” Rosenfeld said. “Better that we point all our ships the wrong direction than that we leave them too long floating. Change it later, bring them back, they think the situation shifted. Put them on the burn, they know they’re going somewhere.”

“Yeah,” Filip said. “See that.”

“Time comes to say it, if it’s not him, it’s going to be me. For him, yeah, but me. Not a bad thing if you stood with. Make everyone know it’s me for him, not another Pa.”

“You want to give orders to the Navy?”

“I want orders given,” Rosenfeld said. “Don’t care who does it. Barely care what the orders are. Just there are some.”

“No one but him,” Filip said. There was a buzz in his voice. His hands ached, and he didn’t know why until he looked and saw them in fists. “My father made the Free Navy. He makes the calls.”

“Then he has to make them now. And he won’t listen to me.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Filip said. Rosenfeld lifted a hand in thanks and blinked his thick, pebbled eyes.