“Doesn’t have to go like that,” Bobbie said. “You know where that ends us. Your people dead. Mine too. Probably a lot of civilians if I have to ram this boat into the station to kill it. I said, Don’t touch those controls.”
The pilot flinched back, shot a look at Davenport. He stared hard at her, like he was looking at his death. Like he was trying to talk himself into being brave and hadn’t quite managed it yet. There was a chance there in the space between who he was and who he was trying to be. Killing these three wouldn’t fix the situation in engineering. Wouldn’t save Amos. Behind her, her team was floating up onto the command deck. She wished they wouldn’t. More pressure on the Laconians was only going to cement their position. When she spoke, she tried to make her voice calm and soothing.
“Here’s the situation. All your people die and all mine too, or all of us live. Now, you can decide whether this bunch of amateurs and assholes is worth a crew of Laconia’s best.”
“Hey!” one of her team said. She ignored him.
“You expect me to believe you won’t steal the ship?” Davenport said. Well, I wasn’t planning to until just now, Bobbie thought. But since you mention it …
“I’m not talking about the ship. I’m talking about you and yours either put out an airlock with suits and bottles or else killed here.”
“I’ve seen the way you people work,” he spat. “If we put down arms, you’ll kill us anyway. You have no honor.”
“Bite your fucking tongue,” Bobbie said. “I’m Martian Marine Corps. If you live through this, you go ask your old-timers what that means. They’ll tell you how lucky you are I didn’t crack your ass the other way just for saying it. If I say you and yours are safe, then you’re fucking safe.”
Davenport said nothing, but there was something behind his defiance. She thought it might be hope. She opened a connection to Amos.
“Hey, big man.”
“Hey, Babs,” he said. He sounded winded. “I got us into engineering. Gimme another five minutes, I can light this bastard up. May take a bite out of the station when we blow, but I figure that’s someone else’s problem. How’s it going up there?”
“Your team needs to stand down,” she said. “No aggressive action toward the enemy. Confirm that.”
There was silence on the line.
“That’s not the plan the way I heard it,” Amos said.
“Amos, listen to me. Stand down. Don’t blow the ship. And if anyone down there kills another Laconian, I will shoot them myself. Including you. Understood?”
“Yup.”
“Stand by. If I need you to go back to plan A, I’ll know in about a minute.”
Davenport looked from her to her team arrayed behind her. He scowled. Bobbie felt her breath go shallow. She waited.
“Thirty seconds, Mister Davenport,” she said.
“You joined the wrong side, gunny,” Davenport said. “You should have been one of ours.”
Twenty-five minutes later, the surviving crew of the Gathering Storm were tethered together in the cargo airlock. Their arms were secured behind their backs, their ankles were tied together, and the maneuvering thrusters on their vac suits didn’t have any canisters. Amos and one of his team went through checking their seals one last time and strapping emergency beacons to their knees. The Laconian commanding officer watched Bobbie now with the intensity of someone planning his revenge.
Amos knocked on Davenport’s faceplate to get his attention. “Can you breathe in there? Getting good air? ’Cause if you’re not, this is the time to say something.”
He nodded once, a perfect physical representation of resentment.
Outside the Storm, ships were fleeing through the gates following the schedule Naomi had built. By and large, they were going to the smaller colonies where there was less traffic parked waiting for the gates to reopen. But some were going to the well-established places like Bara Gaon Complex and trusting to their ability to evade any traffic monitoring on the other side to get them to safety. There was still a little more than an hour before the last of them was slated to go, and then the Storm, following up at last. If things went right, Medina’s sensors would be deep in their routing seizures for at least four hours. And the prisoners had enough air for ten. A six-hour window for pickup seemed like more than enough.
Amos gave her the thumbs-up, and Bobbie nodded him on. He undid the tether from the airlock deck, pushed off, and floated through to pull himself to a stop beside her. Bobbie cycled the lock, and when the outer door opened to the darker-than-space of the slow zone, she touched her radio.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s see if the controls work the way they said.”
“Copy that, bossmang,” her new Belter pilot said.
The Storm shifted, pushing gently to the side. The prisoners seemed to float away, though really Bobbie was the one moving. Out beyond them in the darkness, a distant drive plume glowed like a star, and then, passing through a gate, went out.
“Okay,” she said. “We’re good. Make sure we get far enough away before we light up the drive. I don’t want to save them just so you can burn them down in the drive plume.”
“Sa sa,” the pilot said.
“Alex?” she said, then remembered her suit was still on the low-power stealth settings. She changed it and tried again. “Alex? Where do we stand?”
A different voice answered. A man that it took Bobbie a few seconds to recognize. “We’re hugged close to Medina for the extraction.”
“Houston?” she said. “Is that you?”
“Now that you fuckers have come to your senses about the immorality of centralized power? Yeah, it’s me. And I’m ready to accept your apology as soon as you untwist your diapers.”
“He’s gonna be a joy,” Amos said placidly. “I kind of missed him.”
Bobbie killed her mic. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic. I need to know these things.” She turned the mic back on. “We have a change of plan. We won’t need pickup.”
“Negative,” Alex said. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
“We’re flying escort,” Bobbie said. “The Storm is ours.”
“No shit?” Alex said, then whooped. “Holy crap, you took a prize? Looks like you got yourself a ship after all, Captain Draper.”
Naomi’s voice cut in, clipping into Alex’s last syllables. “I’m coming out.”
“All right,” Alex said. “Two to pick up, and then we can get in the flight queue out of this dump.”
“One,” Naomi said. “One to pick up. We ran into a problem. Clarissa went down fighting. I wouldn’t have made it out without her. None of us would.”
Bobbie’s throat went tight. She looked over at Amos, and he smiled his usual amiable smile, shrugged. Just for a moment, she saw something underneath the expression. Pain and loss and sorrow and rage, and then he was just himself again.
“Damn,” Alex said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Okay,” Houston said. “I have you on the scope. We’ll slide over and get you.”
“Naomi,” Bobbie said. “When you get on the Roci, I’ll need you to find a safe place for the Storm in the escape queue.”
“I’m on it,” Naomi said. Now that Bobbie knew to listen, she heard the exhaustion in her voice. The weariness of grief. She turned off her mic, turned toward Amos, but he was pulling himself back toward the lift. She followed him, a little trickle of adrenaline coming in. Waiting to see what was coming next.
At the lift, Amos stopped and scratched his nose. “I was thinking I should probably get a few of the new kids. Go through the ship. Just make sure we don’t have anyone on board we didn’t mean to have on the ride.”
For a moment, she thought about letting it go. Letting Amos fall back into his usual self. It would be easier. It would feel more respectful.
It was what Holden would have done.
“I need to know if you’re okay,” she said.
“I don’t really—”
She pulled herself in close, almost nose to nose. She wasn’t smiling and he wasn’t either. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to talk. I said, I need to know. Whatever ship I’m the captain of, if you’re on it, that means you and I have clear, open, and honest conversations about your mental health. This isn’t friendship. This isn’t nurturing. This is me telling you how it goes. We both know what happens when you’re off the rails, and I’m not going to pretend that you’re anything more or less than what you are. So when I say I need to know if you’re okay, it’s an order. Are we clear?”
Amos’ jaw clenched and his eyes went flat. She didn’t back away. When he smiled, it wasn’t the empty, amiable expression he usually reached for. It wasn’t a version of him she’d seen before.
“I’m sad, Babs. I’m angry. But I’m okay. Going down fighting was a good way for her to go too. I can live with it.”
Bobbie let herself drift back. Her heart was going a little faster than she liked, but she kept it off her face. “All right, then. Take your team and go through the ship. I’ll warn you when we’re going on the burn.”
“I’m on it,” Amos said. And a moment later, “You know, you’re gonna be good at this captain thing.”
Chapter Fifty: Singh