James Corey - Nemesis Games

“You’ve got a ship. There’s nothing we can do here,” Alex said. “Seems like something we could do.”

“Anyone shot at us, at least we’d see it coming,” Bobbie said, her nonchalance radiating a kind of excitement. Or perhaps it was the alcohol and the prospect of being in a pilot’s chair again making Alex see what he wanted to see.

“We could go,” he said. “Take a look. Probably it’s nothing.”

Chapter Eighteen: Holden

The construction sphere of Tycho Station glittered around Holden, brighter than stars. Ships hung in their berths in all states of undress, the Rocinante just one among many. Other ships hung in the center, awaiting clearance to leave. The sparks of welding rigs and the white plumes of maneuvering thrusters blinked into and out of existence like fireflies. The only sound he heard was his own breath, the only smell the too-clean scent of bottled air. The dirty green-gray EVA suit had TYCHO SECURITY stenciled on the arm in orange, and the rifle in his hand had come from Fred’s weapons locker.

Station security was on high alert, Drummer and her teams all set to watch each other on the assumption – and Holden was too painfully aware that it wasn’t anything more – that if there was a dissident faction within them, they’d be outnumbered by the ones loyal to Fred. When they’d started out from the airlock, Holden had turned on the security system. It highlighted slightly over a thousand possible sniper’s nests. He’d turned it off again.

Fred floated ahead of him strapped into a bright yellow salvage mech. The rescue-and-recovery kit looked like a massive backpack slung across the mech’s shoulders. A burst of white gas came from the mech’s left side, and Fred drifted elegantly to the right. For a moment, Holden’s brain interpreted the dozens of shipping containers clustered in the empty space outside the massive warehouse bays as being below them, as if he and Fed were divers in a vast airless sea; then they flipped and he was rising up toward them feetfirst. He turned the HUD back on, resetting its display priorities, and one container took on a green overlay. The target. Monica Stuart’s prison, or else her tomb.

“How’re you doing back there?” Fred asked in his ear.

“I’m solid,” Holden said, then curled his lip in annoyance and turned his mic on. “I’m solid except that this isn’t my usual suit of armor. The controls on this thing are all just a little bit wrong.”

“Keep you from dying if they start shooting at us.”

“Sure, unless they’re good at it.”

“We can hope they’re bad,” Fred said. “Get ready. I’m heading in.”

As soon as they’d identified the container, Holden had thought they’d send out a mech, haul it into a bay, and open it. He hadn’t thought about the possibility of booby traps until Fred pointed it out. The container’s data showed awaiting pickup, but the frame that should have said what ship it was slated for was garbled. The image from Monica’s feed didn’t show anything beyond the access door. For all they knew, she could be sitting on tanks of acetylene and oxygen wired to the same circuit as the docking clamps. What they knew for certain was that the main doors were bolted and sealed. But even those could be wired to a trigger. The lowest-risk option, according to Fred, was to cut a hole into the visible doorframe and send someone in to take a look. And the only someone he was sure he could trust was Holden.

Fred positioned himself in front of the container’s doors, and the mech’s massive arm reached back and plucked the r-and-r pack loose. Fred unpacked it with a speed and efficiency of movement that made it seem like something he did all the time. The thin plastic emergency airlock, a single-use cutting torch, two emergency pressure suits, a distress beacon, and a small, sealed crate of medical supplies all took their places in the vacuum around him like they’d been hooked in place. Holden had spent enough years bucking ice to admire how little drift each piece of equipment had.

“Wish me luck,” Fred said.

“Don’t blow up,” Holden replied. Fred’s mic cut out on his chuckle, and the mech’s arms swung into motion with a surgical speed and precision. The welding torch bloomed, slicing through the metal while a sealant foam injector followed to keep the air in the box from venting. Holden opened a connection to the lab and the captured image from Monica’s feed. A brightness like a star shone there.

“We’ve got confirmation,” Holden said. “This is the right one.”

“I saw,” Fred replied, finishing the cut. He smoothed the airlock over the scar, pressing the adhesive against the surface, and then opened the outer zipper. “You’re up.”

Holden moved forward. Fred held out a bulky three-fingered mech claw, and Holden gave it the rifle, scooping up the medical bag and emergency suit.

“If anything looks suspicious, just get back out,” Fred said. “We’ll take our chances with a real demolitions tech.”

“I’ll just pop my head in,” Holden said.

“Sure you will,” Fred said. The angle of the faceplate made Fred’s smile impossible to see, but he could hear it. Holden pulled the outer sheet of the lock over him, sealed it, inflated the blister, and opened the interior sheet. The cut was a square, a meter to each side, black scorch marks with a pale beige foam between them. Holden put a foot on the uncut container door, locking the mag boot in place, and kicked in. The foam splintered and broke inward; the cut panel floated into the container. Dull buttery light spilled out.

Monica Stuart lay strapped in a crash couch. Her eyes were open but glazed, her mouth slack. A cut across her cheek had a ridge of black scab. A cheap autodoc was clamped to the wall, a tube reaching out to her neck like a leash. There didn’t seem to be anything else there. Nothing with a big CAUTION EXPLOSIVES sign anyway.

When Holden grabbed the edge of the crash couch, it shifted on its gimbals. Her eyes looked into his, and he thought he saw a flicker of emotion there – confusion and maybe relief. He took the needle out of her neck gently. A tiny spurt of clear liquid bubbling and dancing in the air. He cracked the emergency medical kit open and strapped it over her arm. Forty long seconds later, it reported that she appeared sedated but stable and asked if Holden wanted to intervene.

“How’s it going in there?” Fred asked, and this time Holden remembered to turn on the mic.

“I’ve got her.”

Three hours later, they were in the medical bay on Tycho Station proper. The room was sealed off, four guards posted outside and all network connections to the suite physically disabled. Three other beds sat empty, the patients, if there were any, rerouted to other places. It was half recovery room, half protective custody, and Holden could only wonder if Monica understood how much of that security was just theater.

“That wasn’t fun,” Monica said.

“I know,” Holden said. “You’ve been through a lot.”

“I have.” The words were slushy, like she was drunk, but her eyes had the sharpness and focus Holden was used to seeing in them.

Fred, standing at the foot of the bed, crossed his arms. “I’m sorry, Monica, but I’m going to have to ask you some questions.”

Her smile reached her eyes. “Usually goes the other way.”

“Yes, but I usually don’t answer. I’m hoping you will.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. What do you have?”

“Why don’t we start with how you wound up in that container,” Fred said.

Her shrug looked sore and painful. “Not much to tell there. I was in my quarters and the door opened. Two guys came in. I sent an emergency alert to security, screamed a lot, and tried to get away from them. But then they sprayed something in my face and I blacked out.”