James Corey - Abaddon's Gate

The slip was telling. Not UN. Earther. Bull felt the blood in his neck. Ashford’s casual racism and incompetence was about to get them all killed. He gritted his teeth, lowered his head, and raised his voice.

“Sir, there’s a calculation happening right now with Earth and Mars both—”

“This is a potentially volatile situation, Mister Baca—”

“—where they have to decide whether to take direct response or let Holden win—”

“—and I am not going to be the one to throw gas on the fire. Escalating to violence at this point—”

“—and once they start shooting at him , they’re going to start shooting at us .”

Pa’s voice cut through the air like a single flute in a bass symphony.

“He’s right, sir.”

Bull and Ashford turned toward her. Ashford’s surprise was a mirror of his own. The man at the sensor station muttered something to the woman next to him, the hiss of his voice carrying in the sudden silence.

“Mister Baca’s right,” Pa said. “Holden’s identified himself as a representative of the OPA. He’s taken violent action against the Earth forces. The opposing commanders will have to look on us as his backup.”

“Holden isn’t a representative of the OPA,” Ashford said. The bluster made him sound unsure.

“You called Ceres,” Bull said. “If you’re not sure, they’re not either.”

Ashford’s face flushed red.

“Holden hasn’t had any official status with the OPA since Fred Johnson fired him over his handling of Ganymede. If there’s a question, I can clarify with the other commanders that Holden doesn’t speak for us, but no one’s taking any action. The best thing is to wait and let things cool down.”

Pa looked down, then up again. It didn’t matter that she’d humiliated Bull and Sam in front of the command staff. All that counted was doing this next part right. Bull wanted to reach out, touch her arm, lend her the courage to stand up to Ashford.

It turned out she didn’t need it.

“Sir, if we don’t take the initiative, someone else will, and then it’s going to be too late for clarifications. Denials are fine if they’re believed, but Holden and his crew were known to be working with us previously and they’re claiming to represent us now. We’re four hours’ lag to Ceres. We can’t wait for answers. We have to make the division between us and Holden unequivocal. Mister Baca’s right. We need to engage the Rocinante .”

Ashford’s face was gray.

“I’m not going to start a shooting war,” he said.

“You listening to the same feeds as me, Captain?” Bull asked. “Everyone already thinks we did.”

“The Rocinante ’s one ship. We can take her out,” Pa said. “If we fight Earth or Mars, we’ll lose.”

The truth lay on the floor between them. Ashford put a hand to his chin. His eyes were flickering back and forth like he was reading something that wasn’t there. Every second he didn’t respond, his cowardice showed through, and Bull could see that the man knew it. Resented it. Ashford was responsible, and didn’t want the responsibility. He was more afraid of looking bad than of losing.

“Mister Chen,” Ashford said. “Get a tightbeam to the Rocinante . Tell Captain Holden that it’s an urgent matter.”

“Yes, sir,” the communications officer said, and then a moment later, “The Rocinante isn’t accepting the connection, sir.”

“Captain?” the man at the sensor array said. “The Rocinante ’s changing course.”

“Where’s she going?” Ashford demanded, his gaze still locked on Bull.

“Um. Toward us? Sir?”

Ashford closed his eyes.

“Mister Corley,” he growled. “Power up the port missile array. Mister Chen, I want tightbeam connections to the Earth and Mars command ships, and I want them now.”

Bull let himself sag back. The sense of urgency giving way to relief and a kind of melancholy. One more time, Colonel Johnson. We dodged the bullet one more time .

“Weapons board is green, sir,” the weapons officer said, her voice crisp and excited as a kid at an arcade.

“Lock target,” Ashford said. “Do I have those tightbeams yet?”

“We’re acknowledged and pending, sir,” Chen said. “They know we want to talk.”

“That’ll do,” Ashford said, and began pacing the bridge like an old-time captain on a wooden quarterdeck. His hands were clasped behind his back.

“We have lock,” the weapons officer said. Then, “The Rocinante ’s weapons systems are powering up.”

Ashford sank into his couch. His expression was sour. He’d been hoping, Bull realized, that it might be true. That the OPA might be making a play to control the Ring.

The man was an idiot.

“Should we fire, sir?” the weapons officer asked, the strain in her voice like a dog on a leash. She wanted to. Badly. Bull didn’t think better of her for it. He glanced at Pa, but she was making a point of not looking at him.

“Yes,” Ashford said. “Go ahead. Fire.”

“One away, sir,” the weapons officer said.

“I’m getting an error code,” the operations officer said. “We’re getting feedback from the launcher.”

Bull’s mouth tasted like a penny. If Holden had put a bomb on the Behemoth too, their problems might only be starting.

“Is the missile out?” Pa snapped. “Tell me we don’t have an armed torpedo stuck in the tube.”

“Yes, sir,” the weapons officer said. “The missile is away. We have confirmation.”

“The Rocinante is taking evasive maneuvers.”

“Is she returning fire?” Ashford said.

“No, sir. Not yet, sir.”

“I’m getting errors in the electrical grid, sir. I think something’s shorted out. We might—”

The bridge went dark.

“—lose power. Sir.”

The monitors were black. The lights were off. The only sound was the hum of the air recyclers, running, Bull imagined, off the battery backups. Ashford’s voice came out of the darkness.

“Mister Pa, did we ever test-fire the missile systems?”

“I believe it’s on the schedule for next week, sir,” the XO said. Bull tuned his hand terminal screen to its brightest, lifting it like a torch. He glanced up at the emergency lighting set into the walls all around the room, sitting there as dark as everything else. Another system that hadn’t been tested yet.

A few seconds later, half of the bridge crew pulled flashlights out of recessed emergency lockers. The light level came up as beams played across the room. No one spoke. No one needed to. If the Rocinante fired back, they were a dead target, but the chances were that they wouldn’t lose the whole ship. If they’d waited until they were in pitched battle against Earth or Mars or both, the Behemoth would have died. Instead, they’d just shown the whole system how unprepared they were. It was the first time Bull was really glad to be just the security officer.

“XO?” Bull said.

“Yes.”

“Permission to release the chief engineer from house arrest?”

Pa’s face was monochrome gray in the dim light, and solemn as the grave. Still, he thought he saw a glint of bleak amusement in her eyes.

“Permission granted,” she said.

“Well,” Amos said. “That’s just fucking peculiar.”

The message began to repeat.

“This is Captain James Holden. What you’ve just seen is a demonstration of the danger you are in…”

The ops deck was in a stunned silence, then Naomi began working the ship ops panel with a quiet fury. In Holden’s peripheral vision, Monica motioned to her crew and Okju lifted a camera. The tacit decision to let the “no civilians on the ops deck” rule slide suddenly seemed like it might have been a mistake.