“Sure,” Captain Tseng said without a moment’s hesitation. “I’ll have the destroyer Sally Ride pull alongside for munitions transfer.”
“Uh,” Holden said, shocked by the instant agreement. He’d been prepared to negotiate. “Thanks.”
“I’ll pass along my intel officer’s breakdown of the fight. You’ll find it interesting viewing. But the short version is that first kill, the one that broke open the UN defense screen and ended the fight? That was yours. Guess they shouldn’t have turned their backs on you.”
“You guys can take credit for it,” Holden said with a laugh. “I had a Martian Marine gunnery sergeant doing the shooting.”
There was a pause; then Tseng said, “When this is over, I’d like to buy you a drink and talk about how a dishonorably discharged UN naval officer winds up flying a stolen MCRN torpedo bomber crewed by Martian military personnel and a senior UN politician.”
“It’s a damn good story,” Holden replied. “Say, speaking of Martians, I’d like to get one of mine a present. Do you carry a Marine detachment on the Cydonia?”
“Yes, why?”
“Got any Force Recon Marines in that group?”
“Yes. Again, why?”
“There’s some equipment we’ll need that you’ve probably got in storage.”
He told Captain Tseng what he was looking for, and Tseng said, “I’ll have the Ride give you one when we do the transfer.”
The MCRN Sally Ride looked like she’d come through the fight without a scratch. When she pulled up next to the Rocinante, her dark flank looked as smooth and unmarred as a pool of black water. After Alex and the Ride’s pilot had perfectly matched course, a large hatch in her side opened up, dim red emergency lighting spilling out. Two magnetic grapples were fired across, connecting the ships with ten meters of cable.
“This is Lieutenant Graves,” a girlish voice said. “Prepared to begin cargo transfer on your order.”
Lieutenant Graves sounded like she should still be in high school, but Holden said, “Go ahead. We’re ready on this end.”
Switching channels to Naomi, he said, “Pop the hatches, new fish coming aboard.”
A few meters from where he was standing, a large hatch that was normally flush with the hull opened up into a meter-wide and eight-meter-long gap in the skin of the ship. A complicated-looking system of rails and gears ran down the sides of the opening. At the bottom sat three of the Rocinante’s remaining ship-to-ship torpedoes.
“Seven in here,” Holden said, pointing at the open torpedo rack. “And seven on the other side.”
“Roger,” said Graves. The long, narrow white shape of a plasma torpedo appeared in the Ride’s open hatch, with sailors wearing EVA packs flanking it. With gentle puffs of compressed nitrogen, they flew the torpedo down along the two guidelines to the Roci; then, with the help of Bobbie’s suit-augmented strength, they maneuvered it into position at the top of the rack.
“First one in position,” Bobbie said.
“Got it,” Naomi replied, and a second later the motorized rails came to life and grabbed the torpedo, pulling it down into the magazine.
Holden glanced at the elapsed time on his HUD. Getting all fourteen torpedoes transferred and loaded would take hours.
“Amos,” he said. “Where are you?”
“Just finishing that last patch down by the machine shop,” the mechanic replied. “You need something?”
“When you’re done with that, grab a couple EVA packs. You and I will go get the other supplies. Should be three crates of PDC rounds and some sundries.”
“I’m done now. Naomi, pop the cargo door for me, wouldja?”
Holden watched Bobbie and the Ride’s sailors work, and they had two more torpedoes loaded by the time Amos arrived with two EVA packs.
“Lieutenant Graves, two crew from the Rocinante requesting permission to board and pick up the rest of the supplies.”
“Granted, Rocinante.”
The PDC rounds came in crates of twenty thousand and at full gravity would have weighed more than five hundred kilos. In the microgravity of the coasting ships, two people with EVA packs could move one if they were willing to take their time and recharge their compressed nitrogen after every trip. Without a salvage mech or a small work shuttle available, there wasn’t any other choice.