James Corey - Babylon's Ashes

The Behemoth never came back through the gate. They’d stripped her down, spun up the drum, and rechristened her again as Medina Station. Michio Pa, they’d sent back to Tycho on a Martian naval vessel. After the dead had been removed, there’d been plenty of extra space. As soon as she’d gotten back to her quarters, she’d resigned. She didn’t even shower first. She quit her official job on Tycho, her militia rank in the OPA, everything. Fred Johnson had sent her personal messages. She didn’t know what was in them. She’d deleted them without listening.

And she’d gotten lost, taking one job and another. Trying to keep her nightmares and crying jags to herself. She ran a ship for a salvaging company that sometimes verged over into piracy. She oversaw a trading co-op that didn’t announce itself to the tariff boards, which was technically smuggling. She was managing a supply warehouse complex on Rhea for a half-criminal labor union based out of Titan when Nadia and Bertold found her. It had taken six months before she’d realized that she was in love with them and four more before she understood what it meant that they loved her too. The day they first made a home together in a thin, inexpensive hole half a klick below the moon’s surface was one of the best she’d ever had.

The others had come in their own way. Laura and Oksana together. And then Josep. Evans. Each new person folded into the marriage had felt like an expansion of her tribe. Her people. Not the politicians, not the war leaders, not the men who loved to wield power. There was a difference between, on the one hand, the Belt and its fight to exist in the face of the gate she’d helped open and, on the other, the voices and bodies of her family.

But the dream didn’t die. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the idea of a Belter navy that could stand toe-to-toe with Earth and Mars and demand to be respected lay dormant but alive.

And so when Marco Inaros came with his proposal in hand, she’d heard him out. She was still remembered in Belter circles as the captain who’d stepped up in the slow zone. People respected her name. When the time came, he needed someone who would coordinate rounding up the colony ships he was keeping out of the slow zone and see that the supplies made it to Belters in need. Take from the rich inners and give to the poor of the Belt until things were even. Until they reached the utopia of the void.

But not yet. Now he just needed small favors. Moving some contraband through to Ganymede. Overseeing a prisoner transfer. Helping set up a band of hidden relays outside Jupiter. He had cultivated her with a grand vision and small steps.

And by cultivated , she might have meant seduced .

“How many ships do we have coming to Ceres?” he asked, walking beside her. The administrative levels of Ceres Station had the smell of living plants, the polished floors and walls that were meant as a boast. Michio felt a little out of place there, but Marco didn’t. He managed to make wherever he was feel like his natural habitat.

“Seven,” she said. “The closest’s the Alastair Rauch . It’s been braking for a while. Should hit dock in three days. The Hornblower ’s the farthest, but Carmondy can up the burn if we need him to. I’m trying to have the fleet conserve reaction mass.”

“Good. That’s good,” Marco said, putting his hand on her shoulder. His guards stopped at the door to the conference room, and Michio started past them. Marco held her back. “We’re going to need to shift them.”

“Shift them?”

“Route them to other ports. Or run them dark and just let them be for a while.”

Michio shook her head. It wasn’t actual rejection as much as her body expressing her confusion. Half a dozen responses came to her: They all need to refuel someplace and We have stations running low on food and fertilizer that are already coming here to get it and Are you kidding me?

“Why?” she asked.

Marco’s smile was warm and charming. Excited and bright. She found herself smiling along with him without knowing why.

“Situation’s changed,” he said, and then walked into the conference room ahead of her. His guards nodded to her as she passed them, and she wondered for a moment where Marco’s son was.

The others were around the conference table. The wall where Marco had spent days outlining his vision of the future Belt had been cleared, and in its place, a picture of an ancient warrior. The man was dark-skinned with an ornate mustache and beard, a turban, a long, flowing white robe, a crimson sash with three swords tucked in it, and an ancient rifle cradled in one arm.

“You’re late,” Dawes said to Marco mildly as Michio took her seat. Marco ignored them both.

“Consider the Afghan,” Marco said. “Lords of the Graveyard of Empires. Even Alexander the Great couldn’t conquer these people. Every great power who attempted it exhausted themselves and failed.”

“But they barely had a functioning economy,” Sanjrani said. Rosenfeld touched the other man’s arm and put a finger to his own lips.

Marco paced before the image. “How did they manage it? How did a technologically primitive, scattered people defy the greatest powers in the world for century after century?” He turned to the others. “Do you know?”

None of them answered. They weren’t meant to. This was a performance. Marco’s grin widened. He lifted a hand.

“They cared about different things,” he said. “To the enemy, war was about territory. Ownership. Occupation. To these geniuses, it was about controlling the spaces they did not occupy. When the English armies came to an Afghan city, ready to take the field of battle, they found … nothing. The enemy faded into the hills, lived in the spaces that the enemy discounted. For the English, the city was a thing to be owned. For the Afghan, it was no more sacred than the hills and the desert and the fields.”

“That’s a bit romantic , don’t you think?” Rosenfeld said, but Marco ignored him.

“These brave people. They were the Belters of their age and place. Our spiritual fathers. And the time has come for us to honor them. My friends, the Azure Dragon has fallen, as we knew it would eventually. Earth is preparing to lash out in its pain and ignorance.”

“You’ve heard something?” Dawes asked. His face was pale.

“Nothing new,” Marco said. “We always knew that Ceres was a target for them. They’ve been biding their time since the OPA’s takeover, but our cousin Anderson here was always careful to balance his power with appeasement. It was never their greatest concern. Not until now. The UN Navy is redeploying. They are heading for Ceres. But when they get here …?”

Marco lifted his two closed fists to his mouth, then blew on them and spread his fingers. It was an illusion, but Michio felt she could almost see the ashes blowing off his hands.

“You can’t mean …” Dawes choked.

“I’ve already started the evacuation,” Marco said. “All our soldiers and materiel will be off the station well before they arrive.”

“There are six million people on the station,” Rosenfeld said. “I don’t know that we can take them all.”

“Of course not,” Marco said. “This is a military action. We take the military ships and supplies that we need, and cede the territory to Earth. They won’t let Ceres starve and die. The only thing they have is the chance to play victim and wring sympathy out of the simpleminded. If they don’t take care of Ceres, they’ll lose even that. And us? We’ll be in the emptiness that is our natural home. Unassailable.”

“But,” Sanjrani said. Almost whined. “The economic base.”