Cibola Burn

“We’re taking one of the light shuttles for the drop,” Murtry said slowly, as if he were thinking it through while he spoke, even though that clearly wasn’t the case. “The one that’s left? I want you to weaponize it. Take off anything that’d keep its reactor from overloading, and set it with a hardened remote ignition. Lock out all the standard nav controls and put in something that just you and me have access to.”

“Captain Marwick too?”

Murtry’s smile was an enigma. “Sure, if you want.”

“Give me half a day, I’ll get it done,” Havelock said.

“Good.”

“Sir? Who are you thinking we’d be using this against? The Belter camp?”

“We’re just buying options, Havelock. I hope not to use it at all,” Murtry said. “But if I decide I’m going to, I’ll want it fast.”

“You’ll have it.”

“I feel better knowing that,” Murtry said, and put his hand on the desk to push off.

“Sir?”

Murtry lifted his eyebrows. Havelock felt a sudden flush of embarrassment, and almost didn’t go on. And then he did.

“I know it’s a small thing, sir, but when I was on the call, Cassie said she was hungry. I told her we’d bring her a sandwich.”

Murtry’s expression was empty as stone.

“I was wondering if you could take her a sandwich, sir.”

“Might could manage,” Murtry said, and Havelock couldn’t tell if the man was amused or annoyed. Maybe both.

~

Havelock floated at his desk. The cells of the brig were all empty. His skeleton crew – the four most junior security staff and a technician they’d borrowed from the ship’s maintenance crew – were quietly modifying the one remaining light shuttle. Making the bomb. On his monitors, the shuttle drop and the Rocinante’s final deceleration burn, and the internal monitors of the station with Cassie and Doctor Okoye, each had their own window. Havelock watched them all, waiting for the next thing to go wrong. Every minute seemed to stretch. The air recycler hummed and clicked. He chewed his thumbnail.

When the incoming message chime sounded, he started and had to put his hands to the console to keep from drifting off. He shifted to his message queue. The new one came from the RCE corporate offices on Luna, and the subject was listed as POSSIBLE STRATEGIES FOR DEESCALATING CONFLICT ON NEW TERRA: CALL FOR INPUT. The timestamp was five hours ago.

Somewhere out near the ring gates, the radio signals had passed each other, waves of electromagnetism passing through the void with human meanings coded into them. The distance it had taken a year and a half to travel in person, the message had managed in five hours.

Five hours, and still too goddamn slow.

Chapter Eleven: Holden

The Rocinante did the last of its deceleration burn on a tail of white fire and dropped into a high orbit around Ilus. Below, the planet looked enough like Earth that the fact that it didn’t look like Earth was unsettling. Holden had looked down on alien worlds before. The rust red and white of Mars, the swirls and eddies of Saturn and Jupiter. They were totally unlike Earth’s blue and brown and white. But Ilus had open sea and sky with puffs of cloud, all the markers that Holden’s brain connected with his home world.

Except that there was only one large continent, and thousands of islands strung across its one giant ocean like brown beads on a necklace. The mix of alien and familiar made his head hurt.

“Rocinante,” the Edward Israel broadcast at them. “Why are you target locking us?”

“Uh…” Holden slapped at the comm panel until he opened a channel to them. “No, that’s just standard range finding, Israel. Nothing to worry about.”

“Roger that,” a not quite convinced voice replied from the other ship.

“Alex,” Holden said, switching to the internal channel. “Please stop poking the bear.”

“Roger that, Cap,” Alex said, exaggerating his drawl and stifling a laugh. “Just lettin’ the locals know there’s a new sheriff in town.”

“Stop it. Give us an hour for the final check and get us dirtside.”

“Okey dokey,” Alex said. “Long time since I landed one of these.”

“Is it going to be a problem?”

“Nope.”

Holden climbed out of the ops chair and floated to the crew ladder. A few minutes later he was on the airlock deck with Amos. The mechanic had laid out two suits of their Martian-made light combat armor, a number of rifles and shotguns, and stacks of ammunition and explosives.

“What,” Holden said, “is all this?”

“You said to gear up for the drop.”

“I meant, like, underwear and toothbrushes.”

“Captain,” Amos said, almost hiding his impatience. “They’re killing each other down there. Half a dozen RCE security vanished into thin air, and a heavy lift shuttle got blown up.”

“Yes, and our job is not to escalate that. Put all this shit away. Sidearms only. Bring clothes and sundries for us, any spare medical supplies for the colony. But that’s it.”

“Later,” Amos said, “when you’re wishing we had this stuff, I am going to be merciless in my mockery. And then we’ll die.”