“She was a fighter, but she wasn’t a warrior. She was always leading the struggle, but she did it by finding other ways to get the work done. Alliances, political pressure, trade, logistics. Her strategy was always that violence came last.”
“She had leverage,” Bobbie said. “She ran a planet. We’re a bunch of rats looking for cracks in the concrete. We’re going to do things differently.”
“We have leverage,” Naomi said. “And more than that, we can cultivate leverage.”
Bobbie put down her fork very carefully. The darkness in her eyes wasn’t anger. Or it wasn’t just anger, anyway. “Laconia is a military dictatorship. If you want anyone to stand against Duarte, we have to show people that he can be stood against. Military action is what shows people that there’s hope. You’re a Belter, Naomi. You know this.”
“I know that it doesn’t work,” Naomi said. “The Belt fought for generations against the inner planets—”
“And won,” Bobbie said.
“We didn’t, though. We didn’t win. We held on until something came in and knocked over the playing board. Do you really think we’d have gotten something like the Transport Union if the gates hadn’t appeared? The only way we succeeded was by something totally unexpected changing the rules. Only now we’re acting like it’ll work twice.”
“We’re acting?”
“Saba’s acting,” Naomi said. “And you’re backing him.”
Bobbie leaned back, stretching the way she did when she was annoyed. It made her seem even bigger than she was, but Naomi was a hard woman to intimidate. “I know you disagree with the approach, and I know you’re not happy that Saba didn’t put you in on the details, but—”
“That’s not the issue,” Naomi said.
“No one’s arguing against leverage. No one’s saying that we shouldn’t be looking for political angles too. But pacifism only works when your enemy has a conscience. Laconia has a deep tradition of discipline through punishment and I know—No, hear me out. I know that because it’s a Martian tradition too. You grew up with the Belt, but I grew up with Mars. You tell me that my way doesn’t lead to victory? Okay. I believe you. But I’m telling you that your soft approach doesn’t work on these people.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“Same place as always,” Bobbie said. “Doing the best we can for as long as we can and hoping something unexpected happens. On the upside, something unexpected almost always does.”
“That’s not as comforting as you think,” Naomi said with a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood.
Bobbie wasn’t having it. “Because sometimes the thing we don’t expect is that we lost Clarissa and Holden. Or that we lost Amos. Or that we lose me. Or Alex. Or you. But that’s going to happen. We’re all going to lose each other eventually, and that’s been true since before we were a crew. That’s what being born means. Everything else is just specifics. And my specifics are that I’m leading a top-secret military mission in Sol system using the enemy’s captured ship against them, because even if it’s a bad plan, it’s the only plan I have. And maybe my risk will get you your leverage.”
But I don’t want you to risk anything, Naomi thought. I’ve lost too much. I can’t stand to lose anything more. Bobbie’s features softened, just a little. So maybe she understood.
The familiar tap of a footstep outside the door was Alex as clearly as if he’d said his name. Naomi took a deep breath and forced herself to relax.
She didn’t want to spoil the reunion for him too.
Chapter Three: Alex
Bobbie and Naomi were at it again.
They played it cool when Alex came back into the room, but he could tell a heated conversation had been going on while he was away. Naomi was dipping her head, letting her hair fall in front of her eyes the way she did when she was upset. Bobbie’s face was a shade darker than usual, flushed with excitement or anger. Alex had lived on the same small ship with Naomi for decades, and Bobbie only a little less. There was almost nothing they could conceal from each other.
It hurt his feelings a little that they were even trying to hide it because that meant he had to hide it too.
“All settled up,” Alex said.
Bobbie nodded and drummed her fingers on the table. Naomi gave him a small smile through her hair.
Alex would have put money that their argument was the same one they’d been rehashing since they’d left Freehold. Pretending like nothing was wrong was the only safe choice. A wise man doesn’t get between two fighting animals, but even a dim bulb didn’t step into an argument between Naomi Nagata and Bobbie Draper. Not if he wanted to keep all his fingers. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
“So . . . ,” Alex started, letting the word draw out until it became awkward.
“Yeah,” Naomi answered. “I’ve got a lot to do before I climb back into my storage crate.”
Bobbie nodded, started to speak, and then stopped. In the blink of an eye she’d crossed the distance to Naomi and swept her up in her massive arms. While the two women were close to the same height, Bobbie outweighed Naomi by at least forty kilos. It was like watching a polar bear grapple a coatrack. But it wasn’t the beginning of a fight, because both women were crying and patting each other on the back.
“It was good to see you,” Bobbie said, hugging Naomi a little tighter and lifting her off the deck.
“I miss you,” Naomi answered. “Both of you. More than I can say.”
The both of you felt like an invitation, so Alex moved in and threw his arms around the two of them. A moment later, he was weeping too. After a while, when it felt right, they separated. Bobbie wiped her eyes with a napkin, but Naomi ignored the streaks down her face. She was smiling. Alex realized it was maybe the first real smile he’d seen from her since Holden had been taken to Laconia. It made him wonder how lonely her life was now, hidden away in her cargo container, moving from ship to ship and station to station. Even though it was the choice they’d all made together, he felt a pang of guilt for leaving her alone like that. But Bobbie had needed a pilot, and Naomi, in her wandering-statesman role, didn’t. And didn’t want one.
“When will we see you again?” Bobbie asked.
“I wish I knew,” Naomi replied. “You guys going to be in Sol long?”
“Not up to me,” Bobbie said with a shrug. In this case it was true, but even if it hadn’t been, the answer would have been the same. You never knew who was listening, and even here on a Transport Union station in the back room of an OPA sympathizer bar, the habits of secrecy died hard.
As if on cue, Alex’s hand terminal buzzed an alert at him. They were getting ready to transfer the Storm from its current ship to the new one. Naomi wasn’t the only one living inside a high-stakes shell game.
“Boss, gonna go oversee the transfer,” he said to Bobbie.
“I’ll come with,” she replied, then grabbed Naomi for one last fierce hug. “You stay safe, XO.”
“That’s all I do nowadays,” Naomi said with a sad grin.
Leaving her behind felt wrong. The way it always did.
Alex would never admit it out loud, but the Gathering Storm scared the shit out of him. The Rocinante was still his first love. Like a hand tool that grew to fit the shape of the hand that held it, the Roci was comfortable, familiar, safe. For all that it was a dangerous warship, it still felt like home. It felt right. He missed it terribly.
The Storm was like living inside an alien creature that was pretending to be an overpowered racing ship and then someone had strapped a shit-ton of firepower onto it. Where flying the Roci felt like a collaboration, the ship an extension of his will, flying the Storm felt like a negotiation with a dangerous animal. Every time he sat in the pilot’s chair he worried about getting bitten.
Bobbie had gone over the ship with her techs from stem to stern and reassured him that there was nothing in the specs that made the Storm dangerous to her crew, or at least not more than all spaceships were dangerous to their crews. Alex remained unconvinced. There was something about using the controls that felt like the ship wasn’t reacting to his inputs; it felt like the ship was interpreting them and agreeing with them, but also making its own damn decisions. The only person he’d ever confided this to was his copilot, Caspar Asoau.
“I mean, yeah, the controls feel a little loose I guess, but not sure that means the ship is fighting back,” Caspar had said, giving Alex a suspicious side-eyed glance. Alex hadn’t brought it up again. But Alex had been flying spaceships for a lot of years now, and he knew what he knew. There was more to the Storm than just metal and carbon and whatever that crystal-looking shit was. Even if no one else could see it.