I’ve got fast movers,” Naomi said over the blaring alarms. “The UN flagship is firing.”
Avasarala closed her helmet, watching the in-suit display confirm the seal, then tapped at the communications console, her mind moving faster than her hands. Errinwright had cut a deal, and now Nguyen knew it. The admiral had just been hung out to dry, and he was taking it poorly. A flag popped up on the console: incoming high-priority broadcast. She thumbed it, and Souther appeared on her terminal and every other one in the ops deck.
“This is Admiral Souther. I am hereby taking command of—”
“Okay,” Naomi said. “I need my real screen back now. Got some work to do.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Avasarala said, tapping at the console. “Wrong button.”
“—this task force. Admiral Nguyen is relieved of duty. Any hostilities will be —”
Avasarala switched the feed to her own screen and in the process switched to a different broadcast. Nguyen was flushed almost purple. He was wearing his uniform like a boast.
“—illegal and unprecedented seizure. Admiral Souther is to be escorted to the brig until—”
Five incoming comm requests lit up, each listing a name and short-form transponder ID. She ignored them all for the broadcast controls. As soon as the live button went active, she looked into the camera.
“This is Assistant Undersecretary Chrisjen Avasarala, representing the civilian government of Earth,” she said. “Legal and appropriate command of this force is given to Admiral Souther. Anyone rejecting or ignoring his orders will be subject to legal action. I repeat, Admiral Souther is in legally authorized command of—”
Naomi made a low grunting sound. Avasarala stopped the broadcast and turned.
“Okay,” Holden said. “That was bad.”
“What?” Avasarala said. “What was bad?”
“One of the Earth ships just took three torpedo hits.”
“It that a lot?”
“The PDCs aren’t stopping them,” Naomi said. “Those UN torpedoes all have transponder codes that mark them as friends, so they’re sailing right through. They typically don’t expect to be getting shot at by other UN ships.”
“Three is a lot,” Holden said, strapping into the crash couch. She didn’t see him touch any of the controls, but he must have, because when he spoke, it echoed through the ship as well as the speakers in her helmet. “We have just gone live. Everyone has to the count of twenty to get strapped in someplace safe.”
“Solid copy on that,” Bobbie replied from wherever she was on the ship.
“Just got the doc strapped in and happy,” Amos said. “I’m on my way to engineering.”
“Are we heading into this?” Alex asked.
“We’ve got something like thirty-five capital ships out there, all of them much, much bigger than us. How about we just try to keep anyone from shooting us full of holes.”
“Yes, sir,” Alex said from the pilot’s deck. Any vestige of democracy and vote taking was gone. That was a good thing. At least Holden had control when there had to be a single voice in command.
“I have two fast movers coming in,” Naomi said. “Someone still thinks we’re the bad guys.”
“I blame Avasarala,” Bobbie said.
Before Avasarala could laugh, gravity ticked up and slewed to the side, the Rocinante taking action beneath her. Her couch shifted and creaked. The protective gel squeezed her and let her go.
“Alex?”
“On ’em,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t mind getting a real gunner, sir.”
“Are we going to have enough time to get her up here safely?”
“Nope,” Alex said. “I’ve got three more incoming.”
“I can take PDC control from here, sir,” Bobbie said. “It’s not the real thing, but it’s something the rest of you won’t have to do.”
“Naomi, give the PDCs to the sergeant.”
“PDC control transferred. It’s all yours, Bobbie.”
“Taking control,” Bobbie said.
Avasarala’s screen was a tangle of incoming messages in a flickering array. She started going through them. The Kennedy was announcing that Souther’s command was illegal. The Triton’s first officer was reporting that the captain had been relieved of duty, and requested orders from Souther. The Martian destroyer Iani Chaos was trying to reach Avasarala for clarification of which Earth ships it was permitted to shoot at.
She pulled up the tactical display. Circles in red and green marked the swarm of ships; tiny silver threads showed what might have been streams of PDC fire or the paths of torpedoes.
“Are we red or green?” Avasarala asked. “Who’s who on this f**king thing?”
“Mars is red, Earth is green,” Naomi said.
“And which Earth ones are on our side?”
“Find out,” Holden said as one of the green dots suddenly vanished. “Alex?”