Babylon's Ashes

The body of the drum had been built spacious, more like a station than a ship even from the start. Like it knew what it was destined to become. Long corridors with high ceilings and full-spectrum light like what used to fall on Earth before Marco threw a bunch of their mountains into their sky. He caught one of the diagonal halls, curving off toward his cabin on the hypotenuse of the drum’s traffic grid, and let himself feel a little philosophical about the way the lights of Medina were like the memory of the species—an idea of brightness that had outlived the light that inspired it. The way Belters had. Belt-light. It was a pretty idea, and a little melancholy too, which made it even better in his mind. All beautiful things should have just a little sorrow about them. Made them seem real.

His cabin had been built for a single young Mormon living alone before marriage, but it was plenty enough for him. He stripped off his jumpsuit, tossed it in the recycler, combed his hair, and took his Free Navy uniform out of storage. He threw his image up on the wall screen to see how he looked. Fucking uncomfortable piece of cloth, the damned thing was. But for all that, he had to admit he did come over suave in it. Distinguished man, elder of his people, him.

To his surprise, he discovered that he was almost looking forward to this.

Medina had been on edge ever since word came through that Pa and her ships were rogue. But only a little. Everyone here had been OPA before they were Free Navy. And along with OPA, they’d been Voltaire Collective. Or Black Sky. Or Golden Bough. Or Union. Factions within factions within factions, sometimes with very different groups laying claim to a single name, was as Belt as red kibble and mushroom whiskey.

There was even a way that the split in the Free Navy was comforting. Not because it meant things were going well, but they were going to shit in a familiar way. Pa made a play for status; Marco was going to knock her back. Humanity still worked the way it always had. All the shooting was happening inside the orbit of Jupiter anyway. No one wanted it to spill out to the slow zone. If Duarte got nervous about it all, it was because he wasn’t from here. Whatever he and his were doing on the far side of the Laconia ring, they’d been Martians when they went out and they were Martians still.

So Duarte wanted to send more resources to Medina? Good. He wanted to put advisors on the station, make sure the locals were all trained with the equipment he was shipping in? Good. More for Medina and everyone happy. And plus all that, the Proteus was bringing it in. And everyone wanted to look at the Proteus. First ship to come in the gate that hadn’t gone out through it first. A peek at whatever Duarte and his people were building out there. Given the choice, Jakulski would still have been in the café with his tech team, drinking a little too much and flirting. But since that wasn’t happening, getting to see a little of the advisory force was okay for second place.

The Proteus had come through the gate earlier in the day, fast enough to coast to Medina without its Epstein and slow enough that its maneuvering thrusters could bring it into docking position down by the engineering decks. Jakulski’d heard rumors that the Martians were keeping the Epstein at a minimum so that no one could get a good look at their drive signature, but he didn’t see how that made sense. Paranoia, rumor, and superstition was all. The Proteus might be one of the first ships built at a shipyard on the far side of the rings, but it was just a ship. Wasn’t like they were flying there on the back of a dragon.

Captain Samuels—in charge of Medina because she was Rosenfeld Guoliang’s cousin, but a good administrator anyway—was at the lock in full Free Navy military dress. Jon Amash representing for security. And there, with her auburn hair in a braid and eyes the same soft brown as her skin, Shoshana Rindai for systems. Shului had a point, that one. If Jakulski had been thirty years younger, he could have seen developing intentions toward her too.

Samuels scowled at him, but not in a way that meant anything. “You’re for technical?”

Jakulski lifted an affirming fist and took his place in the line of floating grandees, ready to show the Marteños that the Free Navy was just as much a tight-assed military as the next coyo over. Medina had been meant for a generation ship once, and it still showed in the ship bones. Not much call for greeting visitors out in the wide nothing between stars, so the engineering lock opened onto a bare, functional decking with LED-white worklights and a rack of yellow-and-orange construction mechs on one wall. The air smelled of spent welding fuel and low-foam silicon lube.