Two midshipmen sat at a table, laughing and flirting until they saw Trejo. The old man scowled, and the pair saluted and scurried off to their duties. Singh realized that no one had spoken to them in the time since they’d left the admiral’s cabin. The tour might seem casual, but it was intended to be private as well.
In the same tone of voice one might use to ask what the time was, the admiral said, “Explain to me the tactical and logistical problems with controlling Medina.”
Singh stood a little straighter. Comfortable discussions of family were over. Now it was time to work. He pushed his sleeve back a bit to pull the monitor off his wrist, and flattened it onto the abandoned table. He pulled up the briefing. He’d been preparing it for weeks, and the sudden, irrational fear that he’d overlooked something obvious, something that would show the admiral that he wasn’t a serious person after all, still lurked in him. It was an old, familiar kind of fear, and he knew how to push it aside. A wire frame rendering of Medina floated in the air above the surface.
“Medina Station,” Singh said. “Assuming our intelligence is correct, it houses the hundreds of members of the planetary coalition and their personal staffs, including security. Add in the permanent staff and crew of the station, as well as trade union members passing through, and you get a conservative estimate of between three and five thousand people on the station at all times. I would guess the number is actually double that.”
“Assuming our intelligence is correct?”
“Passive monitoring, even over the course of years, will always have a greater opportunity for error than active examination. And the surface interference of the gates adds an additional level of error,” Singh said. The admiral grunted and waved him to continue. He spun the rendering of the station, and hard points on the surface became highlighted in red.
“The station itself is equipped with some defenses. A PDC network that provides missile defense brackets the station, and one torpedo launcher remains intact and usable from its Behemoth days. Eight rails, automated reloading system, we estimate a total capacity of forty missiles.”
“Nuclear?” the admiral asked.
“Almost certainly not. The lack of maneuvering capability and the confined nature of the ring hub makes high-yield weapons dangerous to the station itself.”
Singh adjusted the image and focused in on the hub station, a perfect sphere several kilometers across that sat at the center of the gate network. The purest and most active alien artifact in all the worlds they knew of. Dotted on the surface of the sphere were six massive rail-gun turrets.
“The station’s primary defense is an aging rail-gun network, first installed by Marco Inaros’ people, and disabled during the final conflict with his faction. These guns are placed so that at least three guns and as many as five can fire at any of the rings. They’re our design, from back when we were still supplying the Free Navy with weapons. Older, out of date now, but capable of sustained fire at thirty rounds per minute. Assuming, of course, that they haven’t made modifications to them.”
“The rail guns. In the ancient days back on Earth, they’d have cannons that could fire down into the harbors when enemy ships appeared. The defense of the sea from the land. We got rid of the land and the sea, but the logic of it stays the same. The more things change, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you think of them?” Trejo asked.
“The design is elegant. Placing the defense battery on the alien station is brilliant,” Singh said. He felt anxiety growing in his throat. Was this the answer Trejo was looking for? “Anyplace else, and the rail guns would have to compensate with thrusters. The station doesn’t move. Or maybe it moves and drags its entire local context with it. Either way, it avoids having to worry about Newton’s third law. And as long as it has ammunition, it can hold off attacks from any of the rings, or even several at once. Honestly, I’m going to be sorry to see it go.”
Trejo sighed. “Rebuiding them won’t be quick, that’s true. But we have to look at the long term. Even if a replacement battery takes months to install and test, it will last centuries. I wish we could take control of them ourselves. But that’s the Tempest’s first target, while you disable the station’s defenses. Then board and secure the station,” the admiral said.
“Yes, sir. Logistically, once the station’s defenses are secured and the rail-gun network is taken offline, the Gathering Storm’s Marines, which we’ve designated Task Force Rhino, can take operational control of the station within minutes. When we control their comm array and access to the hub space, we effectively control all communications and trade for the thirteen hundred worlds.”
“You’ll have operational control of the landing and securing Medina Station. Is the task force prepared?”
“Yes, Admiral. They’ve been drilling for this assignment for months, and my security chief is Colonel Tanaka. She is well respected.”
“Tanaka’s good. And good personnel are critical,” Trejo said. “What obstacles do you anticipate?”
“The ship traffic coming into and out from the hub space is unpredictable. It’s very likely that there will be one or more additional ships with some defensive capability beyond the use of drive plumes as weapons. How many and what their armaments are can’t be stated with certainty until we pass through the gate. Also, Medina Station has been in operation for decades, and with a mission significantly different from her original design. The information we have about the initial configuration will be badly out of date. When we take control, there is the possibility of some local resistance, though that should be minimal. After that, it’s a question of co-opting and improving the existing infrastructure, and coordinating the supply chains between the newer planets and the better established ones. Sol system included.”
“And then you fly a desk for a while,” the admiral said. “I’d have to think that’s the toughest part of your assignment. Getting thirteen hundred squabbling children to cooperate.”
“High Consul Duarte wrote the book on governmental trade-control theories, back when he was with the Martian Navy. It’s still the book we study at the academy. I’m prepared to enforce the new orders absolutely to the letter.”
“I’m sure you are. Duarte has an eye for talent, and he selected you personally,” the admiral said, then pointed at the briefing diagrams floating in the air between them. “And you certainly seem to have done your homework.”
“Yes, sir,” Singh said, then cleared his throat. “If I may speak freely, sir?”
“I think I already made my feelings on that clear.”
“Yes, sir,” Singh said, but the anxiety still tugged at him. “I’m absolutely certain of this portion of our plan. My worry is the Sol system. Intelligence says that the Earth-Mars Coalition has been steadily refitting and rebuilding their fleet. And that it is at least at the prewar levels of preparedness. When external resistance to our plan comes, it will come from them. And while we have newer ships, they have the benefit of an officer corps that fought in two serious wars in the last few decades. They will have vastly more battlefield experience to draw on.”
The admiral paused, considering him. The bright-green eyes seemed to dig under his skin. Singh couldn’t tell if the man was pleased or disappointed. When he smiled, it seemed genuine.
“Experience and home territory are real advantages for them, you’re right. But I think you shouldn’t worry about it overmuch,” the admiral said. “The Tempest was built for one purpose, and one purpose only. To render every other power in the known galaxy irrelevant.”
Chapter Nine: Bobbie
They sat in the galley, the same way they always did. Amos and Clarissa beside each other, Alex at the end of a table across from her. Holden a little apart, and Naomi closer to him than to the others. Bobbie felt the anxiety humming in her throat and legs like she was about to get in a fight. Worse, because there was a moment of calm that came with violence, and there wasn’t going to be one of those here.
The dinner was—had been—mushroom noodles in black sauce. But everyone had stopped eating when Holden cleared his throat and said he had an announcement. When he’d broken the news, he’d seemed rueful more than anything else, and he covered it up by talking about numbers and business. Going over their last few years, and the projections for the next few. His decision to step down, and Naomi’s too. His nomination of Bobbie to take his place and all his arguments for it. The others listened in silence while he turned to the details of the sale. The noodles had all gone cold and sticky in their bowls.
“Naomi and I are cashing out a quarter of our shares in the ship,” he said, “with a payment plan that pays out the remainder over the next ten years. That still leaves a pretty fair balance in the operating account. The payment plan has a sliding structure, so if things get a little tight at some point, we’re not going to sink you, and if things go really well, you can also pay us out early. So there’s flexibility built in.”
He thought he was being kind. That by making things formal, it would hurt the others less. Maybe he was right. Bobbie kept glancing around the room, trying to get a sense of how they were taking it. Was Alex leaning forward on his elbows because he was feeling aggressive, or did his back just ache a little? Did Amos’ affable smile mean anything? Did it ever? Would they agree to the idea? If they didn’t, what happened then? The anxiety in her gut stung like a scrape.
“So,” Holden said. “That’s the proposal at least. I know we’ve always voted on these kinds of decisions, and if there’s anything in this that anyone wants to look at or a counterproposal that anyone wants to make …”
The silence rang out louder than a bell. Bobbie clenched her fists and released them. Clenched and released. Maybe this whole thing had been a really bad idea from the start. Maybe she should have—
Alex sighed. “Well. Can’t say I didn’t see it coming, but I’m still a little sad now it’s here.”
Naomi’s smile was a ghost, barely there and unmistakable. Bobbie felt something like the beginning of relief loosening the knot in her stomach.
“As far as putting Bobbie in the captain’s chair,” Alex went on, “that’s barely going to be a change. She already bosses me around plenty. So sure. I’m good with that.”
Holden tilted his head the way he did when he was surprised and a little embarrassed, and Naomi put her hand on his shoulder. The unconscious physical grammar of long, intimate years together.
“You saw it coming?” Holden said.
Alex shrugged. “It’s not like you’re all that subtle. You’ve been getting more and more stressed for a while now.”
“Have I been an asshole and just didn’t know?” Holden asked, making it about half a joke.
“We’d have told you,” Amos said. “But there’s this thing for the last couple years, I guess, where you kept looking like you had an itch you didn’t want anybody seeing you scratch.”
“This has been a long damned tour,” Alex said. “If I’d re-upped for another twenty back in the day, I’d be out again by now.”
“Except your navy didn’t last that long,” Amos said.
“I’m just saying a good run’s a good run. I love you two, and I’m going to miss the hell out of you, but if it’s time for something new, then it is.”
Naomi’s smile grew less ambiguous. Holden rocked back a few centimeters on the bench. In her imagination, Bobbie’s best scenarios had involved weeping and hugs. The worst, anger and recriminations. This felt like relief only slightly colored by sorrow. It felt … right.
She cleared her throat. “When we get back to Medina, I’m looking to put out a call for some new hands. So, no rush, but I’m going to need to know if I’m filling more than two couches.”
Alex chuckled. “Not mine. The one thing I think my life experience has been unambiguous about is whether I’m good outside a pilot’s station. I’m here as long as you’ll have me.”
Bobbie relaxed another notch. “Good.” She shifted toward Amos.
He shrugged. “All my stuff’s here.”
“All right. Clarissa?” Claire was looking down. Her face empty and paler than usual. She put her hands on the table, palms down like she was pressing it back into place. Like there was something that could be put back. Her smile was forced, but she nodded. She would stay.
“Well,” Holden said. “Um. All right, then. That’s … I mean, I guess that’s it. Unless someone else has something they wanted to bring up?”
“Kind of a hard act to follow,” Naomi said.
“Well, yes,” Holden said, “but I mean—”
“How about this,” Alex said, standing up. “I’m going back to my cabin and getting the Scotch I’ve been saving for a special occasion. Let’s all have a toast to Holden and Nagata. Best damn command staff a ship could hope for.”
Holden’s expression shifted and his eyes took on a shine of tears, but he was grinning. “I won’t say no,” he said, then stood.
Alex went in for the hug, and then Naomi put her long arms around them both. Bobbie looked over at Amos and pointed a thumb at the knot of three. Is this a thing we should do? Amos rose and trundled over to them, and Bobbie followed. For a long time, the crew of the Rocinante stood locked together in a long, last embrace. After a few seconds, Bobbie even felt Clarissa against her side, pressing in as soft and fleeting as a moth.
Officially, nothing changed after that. The long float before the deceleration burn toward the gate and Medina Station beyond it went the way they’d planned it. Houston, in his cell, was sullen and uncomfortable but secured. Their duties and schedules, habits and customs, all had the same shape. The only thing that had altered at all was what they meant. This had become their last run together. Bobbie felt like something in her body had shifted.
James Holden had been a strange person from the start. Before she’d ever known him, he’d been the man who’d slandered Mars. Then the one who saved it. To judge from what the greater chunk of humanity thought of him, he was an opportunistic narcissist or a hero of free speech, a tool of the OPA or the UN or a loose cannon answerable to no one. She’d seen him that way too, more than she’d known, when she took her place on the Rocinante. Since then, day by day, sometimes even hour by hour, the man and his reputation had peeled away from each other. Captain James Holden of the Rocinante was a name to conjure with. The Holden she knew was a guy who drank too much coffee, got enthusiastic about weird things, and always seemed quietly worried that he would compromise his own idiosyncratic and unpredictable morality. The two versions of him were related the way a body and its shadow were. Connected, yes. Each inextricably related to the other, yes. But not the same thing.
And now he was moving on. And Naomi with him. Losing her was a strange thought too, but different. Naomi had fought against being a persona in the greater world, always letting her lover take the stage so that she wouldn’t have to. When she stepped away, it wouldn’t change the story that other people told about the Rocinante the same way, but Bobbie was going to feel her loss more. As much as Holden was the public face of the ship, Naomi was the person Bobbie had come to trust in their practical, day-to-day lives. Whatever Naomi said was true. And if that wasn’t strictly accurate, it was close enough that Bobbie and the others relied on it with confidence.
When they were gone, nothing would be the same. Bobbie felt the sorrow in that. But, to her surprise, the joy too. She found herself going through her rounds, moving through the ship to check everything that had already been checked, marking anything that looked off—a gas pressure level that was dropping a fraction too quickly, a doorway that showed wear, a power link that was past its replacement date—and the ship itself had changed too. It was hers now. When she put her palm on the bulkhead and felt the thrum of the recyclers, it was her ship. When she woke strapped into her crash couch, even the darkness felt different.
She’d been a Marine—she would always be a Marine, even after that role didn’t fit her anymore. Becoming the captain of
the Rocinante felt right for her in a way she hadn’t expected. The prospect of taking the captain’s chair had the same sense of threat and anticipation that pulling on her power armor had back in the day. It was as if her old suit had changed with time—changed as much as she had—and become a ship. A worn one, yes. Out of date, but dangerous. Scarred, but solid. Not just a metaphor of who Bobbie was but also who she wanted to become.
She believed the others—Alex, Amos, Clarissa—were as comfortable with the shift as they claimed. And before, she’d have left it at that. Before it was her ship.
Now that she was going to be captain, it was her job to check.
Amos was in the machine shop, as he usually was, paging through feeds on the strategies for keeping an old gunship like theirs flying and safe. A stubble of white along the back of his skull caught the light where he hadn’t shaved it in a couple of days. They were on the float, conserving reaction mass, but he was braced against the deck like he was anticipating a sudden change. Maybe he was, even if only out of habit. His thick, scarred hands tapped at the monitor, moving from subject to subject in the feed’s tree—lace-plating structural repair, overgrowth in microflora-based air recyclers, auto-adapting power grids. All the thousand improvements that study of the alien technologies had spun off. He understood them all. It was easy to forget sometimes the depth of focus and intelligence behind Amos’ cheerful violence.
“Hey, big man,” Bobbie said, pulling herself to a stop with one of the handholds.
“Hey, Cap’n Babs,” he said.
“How’s it going?”
He looked over at her. “Well, I’m a little nervous about the plating we put down by the drive at that depot back on Stoddard. Lot of folks are seeing flaking with that batch under radiation bombardment. Figure when we hit Medina, I should hop outside and take a peek. Hate to have that turn into baklava on us when we were counting on it.”
“That would suck,” Bobbie agreed.