Nadia’s smile widened a millimeter as she rose to her feet. She kissed Michio’s cheek and left. A moment later, her voice came from down the corridor with Evans answering. The life of the ship continued, even with everything changing around it. Michio turned back to her lists, but she wasn’t sure what she was looking at anymore. Her mind kept sliding back to Fred Johnson’s soft, tired eyes. I have never seen that ethos betrayed more profoundly than this. She leaned forward and used her thumbnail to scrape a clean line through the center of the word Ceres. The gray of the wall showed through the center of the letters. But she didn’t rub it out.
When, eight hours later, the Connaught finally came within a light-second of the Hornblower, the newsfeeds had settled on their narrative about the retaking of Ceres. The phrase combined fleet became a kind of catch-all for the patchwork of Earther and Martian naval ships that were clustered there beside a ragged handful of Belter vessels. It was like going back to the days before Eros, when the alliance between the inner planets had seemed unshakable. Certainly there was some nostalgia among the inner planets’ commentariat, but the reports from Earth and Mars kept the wailing for the golden age of squeezing the Belt in perspective. Riots had broken out in Londres Nova and scuttled a meeting of the Martian parliament, and the best news from Earth was that the climbing death rate was linear instead of exponential, with hopes that it would level off as the most vulnerable and compromised parts of the globe finished dying.
Marco had gone quiet, though she assumed that meant he was busy planning his next steps with some part of his cabal that didn’t include her. That suited her fine. She had enough to think about already.
She had already recorded her message to the other captains under her command. It was ready for tightbeam transmission at her word, and once they went out, there’d be no going back. Nothing else, not even talking to Carmondy, was as irrevocable as that.
So why did putting in the connection request to the Hornblower feel like stepping out an airlock?
Carmondy accepted the connection request, and his face appeared on her screen with an icon that showed the communication was secure. His face was broad and placid. On another man, it might have given the impression of harmlessness, but Carmondy had already killed people on her order. She wasn’t fooled.
“Captain,” he said. “Wondered when I’d hear from you. Alles gut, yeah?”
“Alles interesting anyway,” Michio said with a smile that, to her surprise, was mostly genuine. “Looking at some changes to the plan.” The message went out to the Hornblower, and it came back. One second each way. It made Carmondy’s response seem considered and thoughtful. An illusion made from distance and light.
“I heard. Ceres. Hell of a thing.”
“Yes,” she said. “Ceres. More than Ceres too. Technically, I know you’re in Rosenfeld’s chain of command, but I’m about to issue some orders to you and your people. I’d appreciate it if you’d follow them.”
One second. Two. Carmondy’s eyebrows went up. Another second. “Interesting, sa sa? Tell me.”
You can turn back. You haven’t said it. No one knows but your family, and they’ll still support you if you back away. Put your faith back in Inaros. Or find another Himself out there to fall in line behind, since that always works out so well.
“I’m rerouting the Hornblower to Rhea. Cutting the prisoners loose. Redistributing the cargo.”
One second. Two. Or was it a little faster this time? How close were the ships now? “Rhea not one of ours.”
“It’s not aligned with the Free Navy, no,” Michio said. “That’s why I picked it.”
One second. No, the messages were definitely coming faster now. Carmondy nodded and sucked his teeth. A high, hissing sound as his eyes narrowed. She watched him understand and waited to see his reaction.
“Mutiny, then?”
“Won’t be my first,” she said with a lightness that she didn’t feel. “Taking as many ships from my command as will come. Mission’s the same. Get the colony ships and support the Belt. No drift.”
The pause seemed to last forever. “No drift,” Carmondy said and shrugged. “Bien. You want us to ride it there, or are we coming back on board?”
Alarms went off in Michio’s hindbrain. This wasn’t right. She shook her head. “Ah, Carmondy. We could have been beautiful. You’re coming on board. All your people. But you’re sending your arms and armor here first, and you’re coming in pairs.”
Pause. “Oh now, Captain, I don’t see how that happens.”
“I’ve got two options,” Michio said. “Bringing you and yours, armed and armored, onto the ship because I’m just so sure you’re loyal to me and not Marco? Not one of them.”
Pause. A smile she couldn’t quite read. Carmondy leaned in toward his camera. His hands weren’t in the square of the screen, but she imagined them folded together on his table. When he spoke, his voice was just as friendly but somehow flatter. “Que then?”
“Either you and yours come to me and I send the supplies to the Belt the way we always said we would, or I kill the Hornblower as a warning to al-Dujaili and Foyle and the rest that I’m serious.”
It took longer than two seconds this time. Longer than three. Michio kept her expression calm even while her heart was thudding against her ribs like it wanted out.
“Here’s what I say,” Carmondy said. “I turn this pinché ship to Pallas. You go your way, I go mine. A que comes between you and Inaros comes between you and Inaros. But you and me walk away, honor on all sides.”
Yes floated in the back of her mouth, ready to be said. She wanted this over. She hated conflict. How the hell had she wound up living in the middle of it?
“No,” she said. “Your arms and armor in a pack out the airlock within the hour or we break the Hornblower again. And we mean it this time.” She shrugged. She waited. About a second this time. Closer.
“Kill us to make a point?” he said.
“Kill you so I don’t have to kill as many other people later. Rather be loved than feared, but hey. Fallen world.” Pause.
“You can’t stop me getting the word out,” Carmondy said.
Michio sighed, shifted the feed, and sent out her message. The one that began, You have put yourself under my command out of loyalty to the Belt, and out of loyalty to the Belt I expect you to remain.
So that was it. Her time with Marco Inaros was over. Michio Pa, once OPA, once Free Navy, now just herself and her ship in a universe all too ready to see her destroyed. For all the consequences that were coming now, for all the pain and loss she’d just invited into her life, she still felt relieved. Like she was where she was supposed to be.
“They know,” she said. “Now can we get to the part where you surrender, or are you going to insist that I kill you?”
Chapter Sixteen: Alex
Seriously,” Arnold Mfume, one of Fred Johnson’s spare pilots, said. “You used a rail gun as a drive? To pull a ship up from a decaying orbit?”
Alex shrugged, but the little bloom of pride in his chest was warm all the same. “Naomi did all the math on it,” he said. “I was mostly babysitting the Roci while it followed her orders. But … well, yeah.”
“That is fucking insane,” Arnold said through his laughter.
“Didn’t really have any other choices,” Alex said. “We wind up doin’ a certain amount of improvisation, one way and another.”
Across the table from him, Sandra Ip smiled. He didn’t know if the way her eyes were locked on his was a sign of how drunk she’d gotten, the beginning of an erotic invitation, or a little bit of both. Either way, he found himself smiling back.
“Wish I’d been there,” Mfume said.
“I kind of wish I hadn’t,” Alex said. “It’s a lot more fun now that it’s not going on anymore. At the time, it was more in the oh-shit-we’re-all-going-to-die category.”
“That’s what adventures are,” Bobbie said, and Ip’s lazy smile tracked over toward her without changing much. So more about drunk maybe. “Shitty things that make for good stories later.”
“I heard you went hand-to-hand with a protomolecule soldier,” Mfume said.
“That’s not even a good story,” Bobbie said. Her smile kept it from being awkward, but that path of conversation was definitely closed. Mfume shifted, and Alex could see the temptation to push. To maybe get Bobbie to elaborate, even if it was only a little bit more.
“Now, you want to talk about flying,” Alex said, “you should hear about when Bobbie and me were trying to outrun the Free Navy.”