Cibola Burn

“Welder?” Alex raised his eyebrows and grinned. “We got a pile of shit on the to-do list with Amos vacationing on the surface.”

Basia opened his mouth to reply but Naomi said, “Basia, meet Alex Kamal, our pilot, and the solar system’s worst vacuum welder.”

“Hello,” Basia said.

“Hello back,” Alex said, then turned to Naomi. “Hey, while I’m thinkin’ about it? You were right about that shuttle.”

“Yeah?” Naomi pushed off her chair and floated over to look at the screen next to Alex. He scrolled through what looked like video on fast-forward for a few seconds.

“See there?” Alex said, pausing it. “They detach it and park it a few hundred meters from the Israel then send an engineerin’ team out. They’re inside for a couple hours, then back to the Israel. It hasn’t moved out of that orbit since.”

“They’re doing all the shuttle runs with the other one,” Naomi said, pulling up video on a second screen and fast-forwarding through it. “I knew it.”

“Yeah, you’re very clever. Want to keep the ’scopes recording that, or do I aim ’em at the bugs?”

“The shuttle,” Naomi replied after a few more seconds of moving back and forth through the video.

Basia knew he’d been invited to sit with them. And it appeared they were talking about monitoring the RCE ship, which didn’t strike him as a personal conversation. But he couldn’t help but feel a bit out of place. Like an eavesdropper on a private moment. It was the comfortable shorthand the two members of the Rocinante’s crew had. They sounded like family discussing household matters. It was unsettling to think they were the only three people on the ship. It was too large. Too empty. He didn’t want to be alone in the silence of an unfamiliar ship, but staying felt wrong too.

Basia cleared his throat. “Should I go to my cabin?”

“Do you want to?” Naomi asked without looking at him. “There is nothing to do in there. It’s not even one of the ones with its own video display. All the good cabins are taken by crew.”

“You can get access to the ship’s library from there,” Alex said, pointing at the screen closest to Basia. “If you’re bored.”

“I’m scared as shit,” Basia said without knowing ahead of time he was going to.

Alex and Naomi both turned to look at him. The Martian’s face was kind. He said, “Yeah. I bet. But nothin’ bad is gonna to happen to you here. Until the captain says otherwise, treat this like home. If you want to be alone, we can —”

“No.” Basia shook his head. “No, but you’re talking to each other like I’m not here, so I thought…” He shrugged.

“Sorry. We’ve been together enough years we almost don’t need to talk anymore,” Naomi said. “I think the Israel has weaponized one of its shuttles. We’ve been monitoring the ship, and the activity around one shuttle was suspicious. I think they turned it into a bomb.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because,” Alex answered, “that’s an unarmed science ship and they flew into what they seem to see as a war zone. That shuttle could be used to attack another ship like a guided missile, or maybe as a bomb to flatten the colony.”

“They want to attack you?” Basia asked. Why would they do that? Wasn’t the Rocinante and her crew here to solve the conflict?

“I doubt it,” Naomi said. “More likely the Barbapiccola if she tries to break orbit and run.”

“Yeah,” Alex said with a laugh. “The Israel takes a swing at us, it’ll be the shortest dogfight in history.”

“First Landing. They could flatten the colony?” Basia said. “They don’t know that. You should warn them. My family is still down there.”

“Trust me,” Naomi said, “that won’t happen. Now that we know, we’ll keep an eye on that shuttle, and if it moves, we can stop it.”

“Should probably tell the boss, though,” Alex said.

“Yeah.” Naomi tracked through the video a few more times, then shut it off.

Alex unbuckled his restraint and pushed off toward the ladder. “Or… shit, XO, I can take care of it right now. I had the Roci go over the shuttle specs and calculate a rail gun shot that’ll cut her damn reactor in half.”

Naomi stopped him with a shake of her hand. “No. Just once I’d like to find a solution that doesn’t involve blowing something up.”

Alex shrugged. “Your call.”

Naomi floated quietly for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision and hit the comm panel. After a few seconds Jim Holden’s voice said, “Holden here.”

“Jim, I’ve got a problem and a solution I need to run past you.”

“I like that we already have a solution,” Holden replied. Basia could hear the smile in his voice.

“Two solutions,” Alex called out. “I’ve got a solution too.”