James Corey - Babylon's Ashes

When Fred spoke, his voice was quieter, but cold. “I see why Avasarala likes you so much.”

“Is that true?” Holden said. This time they heard him. “The OPA isn’t coming?”

“It’s taking a little longer to arrange than I’d hoped. I may need to change venue for it. Find a place that’s neutral territory.”

“Neutral territory,” Jim said, skepticism in his voice.

“Some of these people are lifelong enemies of the inner planets,” Fred said. “The combined fleet makes them nervous. They need to be reassured that our whole focus is on the Free Navy and not them. That’s all.”

Fred and Bobbie stood awkwardly, the momentum of their anger spent but both resisting being the first one to step back from it. Naomi coughed, though she didn’t need to, then rose and went to the sideboard to pour herself a glass of water. It was enough. Bobbie took her seat, and then a moment later, Fred did as well. Jim hunched in his chair. She poured a glass for him too and brought it to him when she sat back down.

“This Captain Pa?” Bobbie said, speaking now to Jim directly. “She’s an in. If we can get her to where she’s willing to provide intelligence for protection, she might be able to give us something we need to crack Inaros.”

Fred shook his head. The anger was gone from his voice, but not the resolve. “Pa is a loose cannon. She has a history of mutiny and defection.”

“The last time she mutinied, she saved my life,” Holden said. “And just maybe every human in existence. A little context here.”

“She isn’t coming to us as an ally. She isn’t offering to stop her piracy or even slow it down. Cooperating with her means every ship she hijacks from now on will be our fault too!” Fred punctuated the end of his tirade by slapping his thick hand on the table.

“She’s offering to give supplies to Ceres,” Bobbie said.

“That she stole—maybe killed—to get.”

Fred spread his hands, but Jim wasn’t looking at him. Naomi sipped her water. It was cold with the bite of minerals, and it did nothing to loosen the lump in her throat. She had to resist the urge to pluck her hair down over her eyes. Bobbie had brought him here as someone to fight beside her. Someone Fred Johnson knew and respected. But the Martian didn’t know Jim the way she did. Even loyalty—even love—wouldn’t let him compromise his sense of right and wrong. She wondered if Bobbie would stay on the Rocinante after this. She hoped so.

Anyone who didn’t know him better would have said he looked thoughtful. Naomi could see the grief in the corners of his mouth and the angle of his eyebrows. The sense of loss. She put down her glass. Took his hand. He glanced up at her like he was remembering she was there. She was looking into his eyes, and imagined that she saw a light within them go out. Or no, not out. Not extinguished. Only wrapped in something. Armor. Or regret.

“Okay,” he said. “How do we get in touch with Pa?”

Naomi blinked. Fred mirrored her surprise and confusion.

“You’re going to try to force my hand?” Fred said. “We aren’t going to do it.”

“You can pull your people off the Roci if you need to,” Jim said, nodding as if he were agreeing with something. Fred scowled in a way that said he thought talking to Pa himself might only be the second-worst plan on the table. “If we have to do this alone, we’ll be less effective. But we’ll do what we can.”

“We will?” Naomi asked.

He squeezed her fingers. “We’re going to need someone like her,” he said so gently it was like someone whispering a love song.

She wasn’t sure what he meant, and it didn’t make her feel better.

Chapter Twenty-One: Jakulski

Favór,” Shului said. “Won’t ask you nada alles. Only do this for me, sa sa?”

Jakulski shook his open hands, waving the younger man off. With Kelsey visiting the head, they were alone in Medina’s technical command center. Because it was outside the drum, it was one of the only places on Medina that was always on the float. The couches were bolted to what would be the floor if the station ever went under thrust again. Angels wearing blue and gold pushed archways toward a God who, with them on the float, seemed like He was looking at them sideways. The only part that made any sense to Jakulski was the stars.

Shului was a picture of despair: mouth twisted in distress, hands out before him, eyes imploring Jakulski. The thick, crusty sty on the upper lid of his left eye looked like something out of the Book of Job.

“Can’t,” Jakulski said. “Promised my team I’d buy tonight.”

“Will instead. Clear sus tab, y alles la,” Shului said. “ Favór .”

It had been a long shift already, and the truth was, Jakulski was looking forward to sitting down someplace with just a little gravity and a decent scotch. And the white kibble at the café that Salis and Vandercaust usually went to reminded him of his childhood. The prospect of staying another half shift—and worse, another half shift wearing the pinché Free Navy formal uniform—so he could be part of the greeting ceremony in Shului’s place had no charm to it.

But the distress in the young man’s expression was hard to look at. If he was smart, he’d just keep saying no, and hold to it until Kelsey got back. It’d be easier if there were someone else there. Keep Shului from debasing himself. Can’t. Sorry. Be done.

“For for?” Jakulski said. “Just a greeting ceremony, yeah?”

Shului looked embarrassed and pointed to his infected eye. “Rindai gonna be there. She sees this? Favór, brother.”

“Che! You still tasting her air? She’s not gonna bite you. Talk to her.”

“Will, will,” Shului said. “Only after esá bastard heals up, yeah?”

“Bist bien,” Jakulski said, shaking his head. Then, with a sigh, “Favór.”

He thought for a moment Shului was going to embrace him, but thankfully the young man only took him by the shoulders and nodded in a curt way he probably thought was manly. Being young was undignified. Being young and in love was worse. He’d been a pup himself once, filled with all the same lusts and fears that every generation suffered. That he’d grown out of them now didn’t mean he couldn’t remember what it had been like. And fuck, but that pus-caked eye was hard to look at.

He sent a message to the technical team—Vandercaust, Salis, Roberts—that he’d been called on for extra duty and that he’d meet them after it was done if he could. Vandercaust sent back a generic acknowledgment. That was probably all he’d get from them. But maybe he could sneak away from the ceremony quick enough to catch the team. Cover for Shului and not have the tech team feel like he was putting himself above them. Eat his cake and still have it after. It would be a tired night if he could get it all done, but some nights were tired.

People. No matter where he went, no matter what he did, it was all still people.

Kelsey came back from the head and took her place at the main crash couch with the angels looking beneficently down over her shoulder. When Jakulski said he needed to get off shift a few minutes early so he could get back to his cabin and change, Shului jumped in to say how it was all okay and he’d take care of anything that needed doing.

The transition from the command center at the top of the ship into the drum was a long, curving ramp, and Jakulski rode down it in a cart with wheels that gripped the decking at any g, all the way down to the inner surface of the drum, and then down from there, going under the false ground like a caveman driving down into the underworld. His own cabin was back toward engineering. If he’d known he was going to have to go meet the Proteus and the grandees from Laconia, he could have brought his good uniform at the start of shift and taken the lift that ran the length of the ship outside the drum, but leaving early was almost as good.