Cibola Burn (The Expanse) (32 page)

The remaining crew of the
Rocinante
wasn’t doing anything to change their opinions.

“If you try to break orbit,” the man on the screen said, “your ship will be disabled.”

His name was Alex Kamal, and he was the acting captain of the
Rocinante
. If RCE’s intelligence was accurate, he was also the only remaining crew member of the corvette, and had the one remaining squatter terrorist on the ship with him awaiting transport back to Earth for trial. Havelock crossed his arms and shook his head as the list of threats went on.

“If we find that any harm has come to Naomi Nagata, your ship will be disabled. If she is subjected to torture, your ship will be disabled. If she is killed, your ship will be destroyed.”

“Well, ain’t that just ducky,” Captain Marwick said. “You recall we were talking about
not
having people want to kill my ship?”

“It’s just talk,” Havelock said as Kamal went on.

“We have already sent our petition to the United Nations and Royal Charter Energy demanding Naomi Nagata’s immediate and unconditional release. Until that petition is answered and she is back on the
Rocinante
, the
Edward Israel
and all RCE personnel and employees are advised to do everything in their power to avoid any further escalation of this situation. This message serves as final verbal notification before the actions I’ve outlined are taken. A copy of this message is being included in the packet to the UN and RCE’s corporate headquarters. Thank you.”

The round-faced, balding man looked into the camera for a moment, then away, and then back before the recording ended. Marwick sighed.

“Not the most professional production,” he said, “but made his points effectively enough, I’d say.”

“Sneeze, and he shoots us,” Havelock said. “Look like we’re going to sneeze, and he shoots us. Make sure his chief engineer doesn’t catch cold, or he shoots us. Give her a blankie at night and a cup of warm milk, or he shoots us.”

“Did have a certain sameness to his thinking, didn’t he?” Marwick said.

Havelock looked around the cabin. The captain’s rooms were smaller than the security station, but he’d placed steel mirrors at the sides and along the tops of the walls to make it feel big. It was an illusion, of course, but it was the kind of illusion that could make the difference between sanity and madness over the course of a few years in confined spaces. The screen set into the wall hiccupped and shifted to a starscape. Not the real one outside, but the one from Sol. Seeing the old constellations was disconcerting.

“Who’s seen this?” Havelock asked.

“Sent to me and Murtry,” Marwick said. “Don’t know who Murtry’s shown it to, but I’ve run it past you.”

“All right,” Havelock said. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Want? I want you to pop the lady free and set her back home with a stern talking-to,” Marwick said. “After that, I want to get my ship back under thrust and go the hell home the way my contract said. What I expect is that you find out whether this is really all talk, or if my ship’s going to come under fire.”

“They have the firepower.”

“I’m deeply aware of that. But do they have the will and expertise to use it? I’m only asking because the lives of my crew are in threat here, and it’s making me a bit nervous.”

“I understand,” Havelock said.

“Do you, now?”

“I do. And I’ll find out what I can. But in the meantime, let’s start by assuming that he means it.”

“Yeah,” Marwick said, running a hand through his hair. He sighed. “When I signed up for this, I was thinking it was a hell of an adventure. First alien world. No stations or relief ships if things went pear-shaped. A whole new system full to the top with Christ only knows what. And instead, I get this shite.”

“Right there with you, sir,” Havelock said.

Havelock’s paintball militia, emboldened by the capture, had pressed for immediate action. They had the emergency airlock. The orbital mechanics of the
Rocinante
had clearly brought it close enough for a transit. Go now, they’d said, take the
Rocinante
when they weren’t expecting it, and get the whole charade over with. Havelock had been tempted. If he hadn’t seen what point defense cannons could do to a human body, he might have given the go-ahead.

Instead, they’d pulled power on the prisoner’s suit and hauled her back to the
Israel
before she suffocated. Since then, she’d been in the drunk-tank cell in Havelock’s office. With the security team down to less than a skeleton crew, he’d given the prisoner access to the privacy controls. He didn’t have enough women left on the team to put one on guard duty full-time.

In fact, when he got back to his office, the place was empty except for Nagata in her cell. She looked over, greeting him with a little chin-lift. She wore a red paper jumpsuit and her hair floated around her head in a dark starburst. Enemy capture protocol didn’t allow her hairband, a hand terminal, or her own clothes. She’d been in the cell for the better part of two days. Havelock knew from training exercises that he’d have been half crazed with claustrophobia by now. She’d gone from looking embarrassed to retreating into her own thoughts. It was a Belter thing, he assumed. A few generations living and dying without a sky, and enclosed spaces lost the atavistic terror of premature burial.

He sloped across the room to her.

“Nagata,” he said. “I had some questions for you.”

“Don’t I have the right to an attorney or union representative?” she asked, her voice making it clear that she was at least half joking.

“You do,” Havelock said. “But I was hoping you’d help me out of your kind and generous spirit.”

Her laugh was sharp, short, and insincere. He pulled up the video file on his hand terminal and set it floating just outside the steel mesh of the cell door.

“My name is Alex Kamal, and I am acting captain of the
Rocinante
. In light of recent events —”

Havelock shifted back to his desk, strapping himself in at the couch from force of habit more than anything. He watched Naomi’s face without actually staring at her. The woman had a great poker face. It was hard to tell whether she felt anything at all as she watched her shipmate of years threaten them all on her behalf. When the file ended, he reached out and pulled the hand terminal back to himself.

“Don’t see what you need me for,” she said. “He used small words.”

“You’re hilarious. The question I have is this: Are you really going to let your shipmates turn themselves into criminals and murderers so that you can postpone answering for your crimes?”

Her smile could have meant anything, but he had the sense he’d touched on something. Or close to it. “I feel like you’re asking me for something, friend. But I don’t know quite what it is.”

“Will you tell the
Rocinante
to back off?” Havelock said. “It won’t do you any damage. It’s not like we’re letting you go regardless. And if you cooperate, that’ll speak well for you when we get back to Earth.”

“I can, but it won’t matter. You haven’t shipped with those men. When you listen to that, you hear a list of threats, right?”

“What do you hear?”

“Alex saying how it is,” Naomi said. “All that stuff he told you? Those are just axioms now.”

“I’m sorry to hear you say that,” Havelock said. “Still, if you’ll record something for him assuring him that you’re in good condition and aren’t being mistreated, it’ll only help.”

She shifted, the microcurrents of air and the constant drift of microgravity bringing her back against the cell’s far wall. She touched it gently, steadying herself.

“Alex isn’t the problem,” she said. “Let me tell you a little about Jim Holden.”

“All right,” Havelock said.

“He’s a good man, but he doesn’t turn on a dime. Right now, there’s a debate going on in his head. On the one hand, he was sent out here to make peace, and he wants to do that. On the other hand, he protects his own.”

“His woman?”

“His crew,” Naomi said, biting the words a little. “It’s going to take him a while to decide to stop doing what he agreed to do and just tip over the table.”

Havelock’s hand terminal chimed. It was a reminder to review the next week’s schedules. Even in the depths of crises, minor office tasks demanded their tribute. He pulled up the scheduling grid.

“You think he will, though,” Havelock said.

“He’s got Amos with him,” Naomi said, as if that explained everything. “And then they’ll assault the ship and get me out.”

Havelock laughed. “We’re stretched a little thin, but I don’t see how they can expect to get through to you.”

“You’re talking about the man who got a load of people off Ganymede when it was still a war zone,” Naomi said. “And went onto the alien station at Medina by himself. And scuttled the
Agatha King
by himself when it had two thousand protomolecule zombies on it. He fought his way off Eros in the first outbreak.”

“Rushing in where angels fear to tread,” Havelock said.

“And making it through. I can’t tell you how many last goodbyes I’ve had with him, and he always comes back.”

“Sounds like a rough guy to have for a boyfriend,” Havelock said.

“He is, actually,” she said with a laugh. “But he’s worth it.”

“Why?”

“Because he does what he says he’s going to do,” she said. “And if he says he’s going to pop me out of this cell, then either that will happen, or he’ll die.”

Her expression was calm, her tone matter-of-fact. She wasn’t boasting. If anything, he thought there was a hint of apprehension in her voice. It disturbed him more than the acting captain’s list of threats.

He closed the scheduling grid, considered his hand terminal for a few seconds. It would be afternoon on the surface, a little over halfway through one of the long, fifteen-hour days.

“Excuse me,” he said to the prisoner. “I’ve got to make a call.”

He thumbed the privacy controls down, and the steel mesh of the cage deformed into a pearly opacity. He requested a connection to Murtry, and a few seconds later his boss appeared on the screen. The sun had darkened his skin, and a tiny scab on his forehead looked almost like a caste mark. He nodded to Havelock.

“What can I do for you?” Murtry said.

“I wanted to touch base with you about the prisoner,” Havelock said. “Check our strategy.”

“Saw the pilot’s little tantrum, did you?”

“You know, boss, all that you said before about how they have the biggest guns and if they want to take us down, they can? Because that’s still true.”

In the background of the feed a door slammed, and Murtry looked up, nodded, and refocused on Havelock. “Less an issue now than ever. As long as one of theirs is on the ship, they won’t shoot.”

“Won’t?”

“Will be less likely to,” Murtry amended.

“And what’s the plan when RCE orders us to release her?” Havelock said. “It might be worth cutting her loose early. Get out in front of it, get some goodwill back.”

“We’re way past goodwill.”

“I’m just not sure we have the authority to hold her, and if —”

“Are you in her brig?”

Havelock blinked. “Sorry?”

“Are
you
in
her
brig?”

“No, sir.”

“Right. She’s in yours. You have the jail and you have the pistol, that makes you the sheriff,” Murtry said. “If the home office doesn’t like what we’re doing, we’ll appeal the decisions. If we lose the appeal, they can send someone out and have a meeting face-to-face. By that time, all this will look so different they might as well not try. And the home office knows that, Havelock. What we’ve got here is a very free hand.”

“Yeah. All right. I just wanted to check.”

“My door’s always open,” Murtry said in a voice that meant maybe Havelock shouldn’t bother him with any more stupid ideas. The connection dropped, and Havelock considered the default screen for a few seconds before he pulled the grid back up. A few seconds later, he deactivated the privacy shield. Naomi was floating in the cage, pushing herself from side to side like a bored kid.

“Your privacy equipment sucks,” she said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You heard that, then?”

“ ‘A very free hand,’ ” she said.

“Sorry. That was supposed to be between me and him.”

“I know, but it came right through. Honestly, can you hear me peeing in here?”

“Just that the vacuum comes on,” Havelock said, feeling a little blush in his neck and a sharp embarrassment at being embarrassed. “It’s pretty loud.”

“Old ships,” she said.

He went back to the business of running his staff. A report came in complaining of theft from one of the ship technician’s personal lockers. He routed it to the woman on duty. As long as things stayed pretty calm and the crew was all focused on the dangers outside, he could hold the place together. Having a common enemy actually helped with that. A lot of common enemies. Naomi started humming to herself, a soft melody that hovered just on the edge of recognizable. Havelock let himself enjoy it a little. It was that or be annoyed.

“He wasn’t the only one,” he said.

“Sorry?” Naomi said.

“He wasn’t the only one who got off Eros during the outbreak. My old partner was there. He got off too. Then he went back later. When it hit Venus.”

“Wait. You knew
Miller
?”

“Yeah,” Havelock said.

“Small universe.”

“He was one of maybe six decent people working Ceres Station when Star Helix had the contract. Warned me to quit Protogen before they imploded too. I was sorry about it when he died.”

“He’ll be flattered,” she said.

“We’re not the bad guys here. RCE didn’t start any of this. You said you liked Holden because he always does what he says he’ll do? That’s us. RCE are the ones who asked permission and made a plan and came out here to do what everyone agreed we should do.”

“Not the people in First Landing. They didn’t agree.”

“No, because they were breaking the rules that we were following. I’m just… I know how weird and dangerous this all is, but before your friends start blasting rail gun rounds through our reactor, I want you to see that we’re not the bad guys here.”