“Not at all,” Trejo said with a smile. He was about a thousand times better at lying than the host. “But I see how people would come to that conclusion. What happened with Medina was a tragedy, and I mourn the loss of life as deeply as anyone. But I have been assured by the Science Directorate and the high consul himself that the situation is under control. I’m just an old sailor heading for his next post. Nothing more dramatic than that. Vice Admiral Hogan is a good man and ready to take command. I have absolute faith in him.”
A third window opened on the screen, pushing Trejo and the host a little smaller and more masked by the interference. Vice Admiral Hogan was a serious-faced young man in Laconian blue. He could have been Caspar’s older brother.
“Well, speaking for the citizens of Sol system, I’d like to thank you for—”
The recording ended. Bobbie typed up a response with one thumb. THAT’S INTERESTING. She leaned against the wall. Trejo was leaving Sol system. Maybe was already on his way. A new officer—a Laconian officer, not an MCRN veteran—was taking command of the Tempest. It might have been enough to convince her, if she hadn’t already decided.
The Storm sat on a mobile landing platform wide enough to fit three more like her. The platform’s treads were taller than Bobbie, and designed to roll it through the massive cavern it was hiding in. Half a klick into the darkness, the passage angled up to a concealed hangar on the moon’s surface. For the moment, the ship stood tall as a tower in its gantry crane, the drive cones almost resting on the platform and the top of the ship lost in the shadows above her.
She made her way up the crane to the airlock, climbing the metal ladder hand over hand rather than calling the powered lift. When the airlock cycled open and she stepped in, she disconnected her hand terminal from the Callisto system before she synced up with the Storm. It wasn’t likely that a dual connection would give them away, but it wasn’t impossible, and every unnecessary risk was unnecessary.
The ship told her Alex was in the machine shop, and that four of her crew besides him were in various parts of the ship. All that mattered to her at the moment was that Alex was alone. This wasn’t a conversation she needed the others to hear. Not yet, anyway.
The machine shop looked less like the manufacturing workshop that the Rocinante had and more like a showroom or a spa. The cabinets were set into gently curving walls, the seams too fine to see. The light came from the walls themselves, the skin of the ship glowing softly and uniformly to make the space gentle and shadowless. Alex stood at one of the benches with a manufacturing printer that looked like it had been grown from a seed more than built. He was thinner about the middle than he’d been when he was married. What was left of his hair had gone white, and a stubble of pale whiskers marked his dark cheeks. He reminded her of the man who’d run the ice cream shop by her school when she’d been a child. He looked up at her and nodded, and the memory faded. He was only Alex again.
“Something broken?” she asked, and pointed to the printer with her chin.
“The center brace on my crash couch was showing some wear. I broke down the old piece and I’m printing up a replacement,” he said. “What brings you back to the ship?”
“I was looking for you,” she said. “We need to have a conversation.”
“I thought we might.”
“The things you said before? About why I was . . . reaching for something. You may have been right.”
“Thank you.”
“But you aren’t now,” she said. “The situation’s changed on us. The calculus shifted when they closed the gates.”
“There are still Transport Union ships we could meet with. The gates will open at some point. I mean, they can’t keep them closed forever, I don’t care what happened out there.”
“But until they do, we’re stuck in Sol system. But that’s not the big point. They lost the Typhoon. They only had three of these monsters. The Heart of the Tempest controlling Sol system because that’s the place with the power and the resources. The population.”
“The history,” Alex said. “It has the story of a time when Laconia wasn’t in charge.”
“That too,” Bobbie said. “The Eye of the Typhoon to control the gates. The Voice of the Whirlwind back in Laconia protecting their home system. Now they’re down one because of whatever this disaster was. And they’re scrambling. Trejo’s been called back to Laconia. No one’s in control of the ring space. Everything I said before about showing people that the fight is winnable is still true, and if it works we’ll be taking their fleet down to a single battleship. Maybe they’ll keep it in Laconia. Maybe they’ll take it to the ring space if they think whatever that was won’t happen again. They won’t bring it here. Sol system will get a lot easier for the underground to navigate. It’s still the most important system, and we can go a long way toward taking it back. It’s not just a symbolic win anymore. It’s tactical and strategic too. I can’t let the opportunity go.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” Alex said.
The printer ticked to itself for a few seconds.
“I know you have reservations,” Bobbie said. “I respect them. Seriously.”
“No, it’s not that,” Alex began. “I just—”
“I don’t want you in on this if you aren’t certain. No, listen to me. It’s a long shot. The Tempest is the deadliest machine humans have ever built. We both know what it stood up to in the war. Even if we do manage to deliver the package, I don’t know for certain that the antimatter will be enough to kill it. You have a kid. And before long, he’s probably going to have a kid. Holden’s gone. Amos is gone. Naomi’s doing her hermit thing. The Roci’s mothballed. And . . . if this doesn’t work, the Storm’s gone too. If you want out, that’s not a wrong thing.”
“If I want out?”
“If you want to retire. We can get you a fresh name, or do more background for the one you’ve got. Set you up with a job on Ceres or Ganymede or here. Whatever. You could actually get to know Kit and his wife. No one will think less of you for wanting that.”
“I might,” Alex said.
“I need you a hundred percent or nothing.”
Alex scratched his chin. The printer chimed that its run was finished, but Alex didn’t open it to take out the new brace.
“You’re speaking as the captain of this ship,” he said. “You actually pronounce things a little differently when you’re being in charge. You know that? It’s subtle, but it’s there. Anyway, as the captain, I know what you’re saying. And I know why you’re saying it. But as my friend, I need a favor from you.”
No favors, no compromises, either you’re in or you’re out popped to her lips.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“Run it by Naomi. If she says it’s the wrong thing, listen to her. Hear her out.”
Bobbie felt herself pushing back against the idea. The old fight was like a knot in her gut, hard as stone. But . . .
“If she agrees?”
Alex squared his shoulders, lowered his center of gravity, and smiled amiably. No one else on the ship would have recognized the imitation of Amos, but she did.
“Then we go fuck some motherfuckers permanently up,” he said.
Interlude: The Dancing Bear
Holden woke up with the light of dawn streaming through the high window and casting shadows across the ceiling. The last trails of a dream—something about crocodiles getting into a water recycler and him and Naomi trying to lure them out with a salt shaker—slipped away. He stretched, yawned, and pulled himself up out of the wide bed with its soft pillows and plush blanket. He took a moment at the foot of the bed to take everything in. The flowers in the vase by the window. The subtle pattern woven into the sheets. He worked his toes against the soft, warm rug. And he recited silently what he always did, every morning since the beginning.
This is your cell. You are in prison. Don’t forget.
He smiled contentedly because someone was watching.