Cibola Burn (The Expanse) (60 page)

They were visibly closer now than they had been. They weren’t accelerating toward him, but they weren’t braking either. Havelock’s HUD made the calculation. They’d be at the
Roci
or the
Barb
or the tether between them in about twenty minutes.

“You guys need to slow down now,” Havelock said. “You’re still my people, and I don’t want to hurt any of you.”

The radio clicked to life. The chief engineer’s voice was thick with anger and contempt. “Don’t try to play that on us, you traitorous bastard. Your little friend’s PDCs are powered down. We saw that before we dropped. Do you think we’re stupid? We have orders to bring you and the Belter bitch back to the
Israel
and put you both in the brig.”

“Orders?”

“Straight from Murtry.”

Because, Havelock figured, it was precedent. RCE would be able to assert that it had protected its claim down to the last minute. Murtry’s legacy would be that he hadn’t given up a centimeter. Not on the ground, not in space, not on the abstract legal battlefield. Nowhere.

There was a time not that long ago when Havelock would have thought there was a kind of hard purity in that. Now it just seemed weird and kind of pathetic.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re right. The PDCs are down, but you haven’t thought the rest of this through. I am outside the ship. I’m armored. I have an integrated HUD and a weapon that can reach any of you right now. None of you have any cover. The reason you guys are alive right now is because you’re my guys, and I don’t want any of you hurt.”

He watched them react. It was less than he’d hoped. The
Roci
bucked again. The bolt of the rail gun and the attacking streaks of energy from the moons. Havelock reacquired the targets. It took a fraction of a second for the HUD’s alert to make sense to him. Four of the targets were moving. Fast. Four of the gas tanks, accelerating hard, a cloud of thin mist flowing out behind them as whatever residual vapor had been trapped in it froze into snow.

“You’ve got incoming,” Alex snapped in his ear, and Havelock lifted his gun. One of the missiles was clearly flying off course, a vicious spiral wobble leading it down toward the planet. He took aim at one of the three remaining and blew holes on both sides of the tube. The improvised missile wobbled as whatever steering device the
Israel
’s engineers had put on the back struggled to use the last of the escaping ejection mass to correct the course, but the venting gases were too destabilizing. It drifted up and began to turn. He shifted to the two remaining targets. He wasn’t going to have time to get them both, but he managed to sink two rounds in the one that was heading straight toward him, trying to knock out the payload.

The one remaining tube hit the
Roci
’s skin eight meters to Havelock’s right, and the world went white. Something pushed him, and something hurt, and the sound of his suit radio was still there, but it was faintly distant. His body seemed very large, like it had expanded to fill the universe or the universe had shrunk down until it fit in his skin. His hands seemed a very long way away. Someone was shouting his name.

“I’m here,” he said, and it felt like hearing a recording of himself. The pain started ramping up. His HUD was flashing red medical warnings, and his left leg was frozen stiff and unbending. The stars spun around him, New Terra coming up from below him and then spinning up past his head. For a moment, he couldn’t find the
Rocinante
or the
Barbapiccola
. Maybe they were gone. He caught a passing glimpse of the
Israel
, though, far off to his right, and so small he could almost have mistaken it for a tightly packed constellation of dim stars. His HUD spooled up a fresh warning, and he felt a needle fire into his right leg. A cold shudder passed through him but his mind seemed to clear a little.

“Havelock?” Alex said.

“I’m here,” Havelock said. “I’m not dead. I think I’ve been knocked off the ship, though. I seem to be floating.”

“Can you stabilize?”

“I don’t think so. The suit may be malfunctioning. Also I seem to have taken a lot of shrapnel in my left leg and hip. I may be bleeding.”

“Do you have containment? Havelock? Are you losing air?”

It was a good question, but his gorge was rising. The spinning was making him sick. If he puked in the helmet, things would go from bad to worse very, very quickly. He closed his eyes and focused on his breath until he thought he could stand to look again. When he did, he kept his gaze on the unshifting images of the HUD readout.

“I have containment. I can breathe.”

He heard Naomi sigh. It sounded like relief. He was flattered. The red dots of the militiamen spun past in the corner of his eye. He couldn’t tell if they were still getting closer or if they’d stopped. Something bright happened in the atmosphere. The rail gun firing again. The planet rose up from below him and disappeared over his head.

“Hang on, coyo,” Basia said. “I’m coming out.”

“Belay that,” Havelock said. “The guys from the
Israel
have more of their improvised missiles. They have guns. Stay inside.”

“Too late,” Basia said. “Already cycled out the lock. I just need too… Shit, that’s bright.”

Havelock twisted to the left, finding the
Rocinante
at last. The explosion hadn’t thrown him as far as he’d thought, but he was on the drift now. Every breath took him farther from the metal-and-ceramic bubble of air. He wondered if he stayed out here whether his body would outlast the ships. His air supply wouldn’t. The improvised missile had left a bright scar on the
Roci
’s outer hull, but didn’t look like it had made any holes. Tough little ship.

“Huh,” Basia said. “Well, they’re shooting at me.”

“Get back in the ship,” Havelock said.

“I will. In a minute. Now where did you… Ah! There you are.”

The grapnel struck his left arm, the gel splashing out and hardening in almost the same moment. At the first tug, his right leg shrieked in pain. But the vectors were such that his uncontrolled spinning slowed. The red dots of the militia were much closer now. Basia was in real danger of being shot. And there were still eight more improvised missiles.

The
Rocinante
jumped. The rail gun path through the high atmosphere glowed. Had it really only been five minutes? He had to have missed a couple of rounds. Or maybe getting blown out into space just changed how he experienced time. Or maybe he’d seen them and then forgotten.

“Don’t pull me too fast,” Havelock said. “You’re going to have to put just as much energy into stopping me once I’m there. I could knock you off.”
Or smash against the hull
, he didn’t say.

“I’ve been in low g more than I haven’t,” Basia said, a real amusement in his voice. “Don’t worry yourself.”

The slow-spinning
Rocinante
came closer, Havelock’s own spin making it seem like the universe and the ship and his own body were all in slightly different realities. Basia was a darker blot against gray ceramic and metal. Havelock’s HUD cheerfully informed him that his blood pressure had been stabilized. He hadn’t realized that it was unstable. The suit’s attitude jets were still off-line, but Basia jumped up to meet him before he touched the deck, wrapping arms around his shoulders in a bear hug while Basia’s suit slowed them.

“You need to get inside,” Havelock said as his left mag boot locked against the hull.

“I was about to say the same to you,” Basia said. “How much shrapnel did you take?”

Havelock looked at his leg for the first time. The suit was dotted with emergency sealant, the result of a dozen holes at least. “All of it, apparently.”

“I’ve got fast movers,” Alex said.

Havelock turned, rifle up, ready to shoot the missiles down before they reached him or die trying. It took a few seconds to find them. The green dots weren’t heading for him. They were tracking down toward the planet. Toward the
Barb
.

“Okay,” he said. “Hold on.”

“I think they’re still shooting at you,” Naomi said. He moved forward, his leg not painful now so much as eerily numb. The shifting of the
Rocinante
was throwing off his aim. His HUD showed a lock and he pulled the trigger. One of the missiles exploded. Basia was hunched down, hands and legs against the decking, a stream of obscenity coming from him sounding like a chant. Havelock tried to move his mag boots, but he couldn’t get them to respond. The
Roci
bucked.

“The crew of the
Barb
’s braced,” Alex said. “First impact in —”

A new brightness bloomed below them. Havelock felt it, the impact traveling through the tether to the
Roci
to his boots almost instantaneously. Through the radio, he could hear Alex groan.

“Okay,” Naomi said. “This is a problem.”

Below them, the
Barbapiccola
was starting to tilt. The force of the explosions just enough to give it a little velocity, a tumble so slow, he could almost pretend it wasn’t there. Almost. Not quite. The webwork of the tether was shredded. Two strands still held, but the others were drifting. One was cut in two, the others might have broken free of their foot supports or pulled the supports off the skin of the ship. He wasn’t sure. New Terra was so large below, it filled his field of vision. A wave of vertigo washed over him, and he had the near-hallucinatory sense that the planet was a monster rising up through a vast ocean to swallow them all.

“Alex,” Naomi said, “drop the cable.”

“No!” Basia shouted at her.

“Not responding,” Alex said. “The release seems to be damaged.”

The
Roci
bucked, and the tether snapped taut.

“Cease firing!” Basia shouted. “Stop firing the rail gun!”

“Sorry,” Alex said. “It was on automatic. It’s shut down now.”

“I’m going to the
Barb
,” Basia said. “I’ve got my welding rig. May be something I can do.”

“That’s not going to work,” Naomi said. “Just cut it.” The
Barbapiccola
was a good ten degrees off the stable orbit she’d had. Tumbling.

“I’m not coming back in,” Basia said. “And I’m not cutting it. I gotta go look.”

“You remember they’re still shooting at you, right?” Naomi said.

“I don’t care,” Basia said.

“I’ll cover him,” Havelock said. “I can do that.”

“Can you move?”

Havelock consulted his HUD. His shredded leg was immobilized and under pressure to contain the bleeding. One of his attitude jets had been holed. The air in his suit smelled sharp, like melting plastic. That couldn’t be a good sign.

“Not really, no,” he said. “But Basia can get me to cover. The outer airlock hatch on the
Roci
, maybe. I can stay there and snipe.”

“Hurry, then,” Naomi said. “They’re still getting closer, and eventually they’ll get to a range they might hit something.”

Havelock disengaged his mag boots and turned toward the Belter. “All right. If we’re going to do this, let’s go.”

Basia clapped a hand on Havelock’s arm and started dead hauling him down the ruined side of the ship. The pockmarks and bright spots where the debris of the shuttle had struck were everywhere, now joined by the scar of the improvised missile. A soft white plume curved into the void where something was venting. Time seemed to skip, and he was at the airlock’s outer door. It was open, waiting for him. The red dots showed that his men were still ten minutes away. The
Barb
was above him now, and the planet above that. Not a beast rising to devour him, but a whole clouded sky falling down to crush him.

“Are you all right?” Basia said. “You can do this?”

“I’ll live,” Havelock said, and immediately realized how completely inappropriate that had been to say. “I’m all right. Lightheaded, but my blood pressure’s solid.”

“Okay, then. I’ll be right back. Don’t let those sons of bitches screw this up any worse.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said, but Basia had already launched himself up along the tether. Havelock checked his rifle, his HUD. He still had to adjust for the
Roci
’s spin, but he found the little red dots quickly.

“All right, guys,” he said. “You’ve made your point. Now let’s just dial this back. There’s still time. I don’t want to hurt anybody.” The words were surreal. Like a poem from some other century. A litany for deescalating conflict. No one really appreciated how much of security work was just trying to keep things under control for a few more minutes, giving everyone involved in the crisis a little time to think it all through. The threat of violence was just one tool among many, and the point was not making things worse. If there was any way at all, just not making things worse. It occurred to him that Murtry was actually really bad at that part of the job.

His HUD marked a fast-moving object. A bullet or a slow meteor. From the angle, probably a bullet. Another one was moving on a track to pass Basia. It was going to miss too, but not for much longer.

“All right,” Havelock said, raising his rifle. “I’m counting to ten, and anyone that’s still on approach, I’m going to have to put a hole in you. I’ll try to just disable your suits, but I’m not making any promises.”

The red dots didn’t change their vectors.

It was strange. He’d come all this way, faced all these dangers. He was falling by centimeters into a planet and struggling for a few more minutes or hours of life. And the thing that worried him most was still that he was going to have to shoot somebody.

T
he cart had been designed for use on rough terrain and shipped out to a planet without roads. It wasn’t smooth, but it was fast, and the roar of the generator and the whirring of the motors had made a kind of white noise that Elvi’s brain tuned out after the first few hours, leaving her in something like silence. And all around them, the ruins of New Terra rose up and then passed away. The storm that had scoured First Landing into scraps and mud hadn’t been local. All of the landscapes they passed through were shattered and drowned, but they were still fascinating. Still beautiful.