They moved to the lift, the two marines before and behind them. The lift car gave Alex a moment of orientation as it pushed them down into the heart of the ship. It only took a few seconds to match velocity and go back to floating, but it was enough of a cue that his mind made one direction into down, the other into up. The lift car was wide enough for three times the load. The marines took stations at the door, ready to face danger if there was any. The prime minister took a place at the side near the front, where there was a little cover. No one commented on it. It was just a thing that happened. The dynamics of political power as positions in an elevator.
Naomi was here. Right here. Maybe less than ten thousand kilometers away. It was like he’d turned a corner and she was there. Except, of course, that she wasn’t. Even close-quarters battle meant distances that were vast in any other context. If the ship had been transparent, the enemy vessels would only have been visible by their drive plumes – dots of light in a sky filled with them. The Pella could be as far from him right now as Boston was from Sri Lanka, and it would still be almost intimate in the vast scale of the solar system.
“You’re thinking of your friend,” Smith said.
“Yes, sir,” Alex said.
“Do you know why she would be on the Pella?”
“I don’t know why she wouldn’t be on the Rocinante. And no offense, but I’m wondering why I ever got off my ship too. Longer I’m away, the worse an idea leaving it turns out to have been.”
“I was thinking the same about my house,” Smith said.
One of the Marines – taller, and with a slushy accent that Alex couldn’t place – nodded. “You should take cover, sir. We’re going to have to pass through some territory we might not control.”
He meant that the enemy had already cut off the path between them and the hangar. Alex pressed himself against the wall that the prime minister hadn’t claimed and braced. The lift slowed, what had been down became up, then even that gentle gravity went away again. The marines stepped back, raised their weapons, and the doors opened. An eternal half second later, they moved out into the corridor, Alex and the prime minister following.
The corridors of the ship were empty, the crew strapped in their couches for the battle or else on the move elsewhere, keeping these halls safe while the four of them moved down them. The marines took turns moving forward from doorway to intersection to doorway. The distance behind them grew greater with every little jump, and Alex was deeply aware of the doors they’d passed that could open without any guards between him and whoever came out. The marines didn’t seem worried, so he tried to take comfort in that.
The halls had the same anti-spalling covering that the bridge and the mess had had, but marked with location codes and colored strips that would help navigate the ship. One line was deep red with HANGAR BAY written in yellow Hindi, English, Bengali, Farsi, and Chinese. Where the red line went, they followed.
They went quickly and quietly and Alex was almost thinking they’d make it to the bay without trouble when the enemy found them.
The ambush was professional. The slushy-voiced marine had just launched forward when the firing started. Alex couldn’t see where it was coming from at first, but he braced automatically and risked looking forward. At the intersection ahead of them, he caught the flare of muzzle flashes and the small circle of helmets. The attackers were standing on a bulkhead looking up the corridor, like they were shooting into a well. Even if he’d had a gun, there was a very small area to target.
“We’re taking fire,” the other marine said, and it took Alex a quarter second to understand he wasn’t talking to them. “Tollivsen’s shot.”
“Still in the fight,” the slushy accent shouted.
Across the corridor from Alex, Prime Minister Smith was huddled behind the lip of a doorway. Most civilians tried to press against the wall and ended up launching themselves into the middle of the firing lines. Smith hadn’t done that. So score one for training.
Another burst of fire sang past, tearing long black strips from the walls and deck and filling the air with the smell of cordite.
“Oyé,” one of the attackers called. “Hand up Smith y we let you go, sa sa?”
The first marine fired three rounds in fast succession, and the attackers’ laughter followed it. Alex couldn’t be sure, but he thought the people firing at him were wearing Martian military uniforms and light armor.
“Hey!” Alex called. “We’re not going to be any good to you dead, right?”
There was a lull, like a moment of surprise. “Hoy, bist tu Kamal?”
“Um,” Alex said. “My name’s Kamal.”
“Knuckles’ pilot, yeah?”
“Who’s Knuckles?”