Leviathan Wakes (12 page)

In the dim blue cabin light, he thought about the kind of man who followed an order to kill a civilian ship.

He’d done some things in the navy that had kept him awake nights. He’d followed some orders he vehemently disagreed with. But to lock on to a civilian ship with fifty people aboard and press the button that launched six nuclear weapons? He would have refused. If his commanding officer had insisted, he’d have declared it an illegal order and demanded that the executive officer take control of the ship and arrest the captain. They’d have had to shoot him to get him away from the weapon post.

He’d known the sort of people who would have followed the order, though. He told himself that they were sociopaths and animals, no better than pirates who’d board your ship, strip your engine, and take your air. That they weren’t human.

But even as he nursed his hatred, drug-hazed rage offering its nihilistic comforts, he couldn’t believe they were idiots. The itch at the back of his head was still
Why? What does anyone gain from killing an ice hauler? Who gets paid? Someone always gets paid.

I’m going to find you. I’m going to find you and end you. But before I do, I am going to make you explain.

The second wave of pharmaceuticals exploded in his bloodstream. He was hot and limp, his veins filled with syrup. Just before the tabs finally knocked him out, Ade smiled and winked.

And blew away like dust.

The comm beeped at him. Naomi’s voice said, “Jim, the P and K response finally came in. Want me to send it down there?”

Holden struggled to make sense of the words. Blinked. Something was wrong with his bunk. With the ship. Slowly, he remembered.

“Jim?”

“No,” he said. “I want to watch it up in ops with you. How long was I out?”

“Three hours,” she said.

“Jesus. They took their sweet time getting back to us, didn’t they?”

Holden rolled out of his couch and wiped off the crust that held his eyelashes together. He’d been weeping in his sleep. He told himself it was from the juice crash. The deep ache in his chest was only stressed cartilage.

What were you doing for three hours before you called us back?
he wondered.

Naomi waited for him at the comm station, a man’s face frozen mid-word on the screen in front of her. He seemed familiar.

“That isn’t the operations manager.”

“Nope. It’s the P and K legal counsel on Saturn Station. The one who gave that speech after the crackdown on supply pilfering?” Naomi said. “ ‘Stealing from us is stealing from you.’ That one.”

“Lawyer,” Holden said with a grimace. “This is going to be bad news, then.”

Naomi restarted the message. The lawyer sprang into motion.

“James Holden, this is Wallace Fitz calling from Saturn Station. We’ve received your request for help, and your report of the incident. We’ve also received your broadcast accusing Mars of destroying the
Canterbury.
This was, to say the least, ill advised. The Martian representative on Saturn Station was in my office not five minutes after your broadcast was received, and the MCR is quite upset by what they view as unfounded accusations of piracy by their government.

“To further investigate this matter, and to aid in discovering the true wrongdoers, if any, the MCRN is dispatching one of their ships from the Jupiter system to pick you up. The MCRN
Donnager
is the name of this vessel. Your orders from P and K are as follows: You will fly at best possible speed to the Jupiter system. You will cooperate fully with instructions given you by the MCRN
Donnager,
or by any officer of the Martian Congressional Republic Navy. You will assist the MCRN in their investigation into the destruction of the
Canterbury.
You will
refrain
from any further broadcasting except to us or the
Donnager.

“If you fail to follow these instructions from the company and from the government of Mars, your contract with P and K will be
terminated, and you will be considered in illegal possession of a P and K shuttle craft. We will then prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.

“Wallace Fitz out.”

Holden frowned at the monitor, then shook his head.

“I never said Mars did it.”

“You sort of did,” Naomi replied.

“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t entirely factual and backed up by the data I transmitted, and I engaged in no speculation about those facts.”

“So,” Naomi said. “What do we do?”

“No fucking way,” Amos said. “No
fucking
way.”

The galley was a small space. The five of them filled it uncomfortably. The gray laminate walls showed whorls of bright scrapes where mold had grown once and been cleaned off with microwaves and steel wool. Shed sat with his back against the wall, Naomi across the table. Alex stood in the doorway. Amos had started pacing along the back—two fast paces, then a turn—before the lawyer had finished his first sentence.

“I’m not happy about it either. But that’s the word from the home office,” Holden said, pointing at the galley’s display screen. “Didn’t mean to get you guys in trouble.”

“No problem, Holden. I still think you did the right thing,” Shed replied, running one hand through his limp blond hair. “So what do you think the Martians will do with us?”

“I’m thinking pull our fucking toes off until Holden goes back on the radio and says it wasn’t them,” Amos said. “What in the holy hell is this? They attacked us, and now we’re supposed to
cooperate?
They killed the captain!”

“Amos,” Holden said.

“Sorry, Holden. Captain,” Amos said. “But Jesus
wept.
We’re getting fucked here and not the nice way. We’re not gonna do this, are we?”

“I don’t want to disappear into some Martian prison ship forever,” Holden said. “The way I see it, we have two options. Either we go along with this, which is basically throwing ourselves on their mercy. Or we run, try to make it to the Belt and hide.”

“I’m voting for the Belt,” Naomi said, her arms crossed. Amos raised a hand, seconding the motion. Shed slowly raised his own.

Alex shook his head.

“I know the
Donnager,
” he said. “She’s not some rock hopper. She’s the flagship for the MCRN’s Jupiter fleet. Battleship. Quarter million tons of bad news. You ever serve on a ship that size?”

“No. I wasn’t on anything bigger than a destroyer,” Holden replied.

“I served on the
Bandon,
with the home fleet. We can’t go anywhere that a ship like that can’t find us. She’s got four main engines, each one bigger than our whole ship. She’s designed for long periods at high g with every sailor on board juiced to the gills. We can’t run, sir, and even if we did, her sensor package could track a golf ball and hit it with a torpedo from half the solar system away.”

“Oh, fuck that, sir,” Amos said, standing up. “These Martian needle dicks blew up the
Cant
! I say run. At least make it hard for them.”

Naomi put one hand on Amos’ forearm, and the big mechanic paused, shook his head, and sat down. The galley was silent. Holden wondered if McDowell had ever had to make a call like this, and what the old man would have done.

“Jim, this is your decision,” she said, but her eyes were hard.
No, what you are going to do is get the remaining four members of your crew to safety. And that’s all.

Holden nodded and tapped his fingers against his lips.

“P and K doesn’t have our back on this one. We probably can’t get away, but I don’t want to disappear either,” Holden said. And then: “I think we go, but we don’t go quietly. Why don’t we go disobey the spirit of an order?”

Naomi finished working on the comm panel, her hair now floating around her like a black cloud in the zero g.

“Okay, Jim, I’m dumping every watt into the comm array. They’ll be getting this loud and clear all the way out to Titania,” she said.

Holden reached up to run one hand through his sweat-plastered hair. In the null gravity, that just made it stick straight out in every direction. He zipped up his flight suit and pressed the record button.

“This is James Holden, formerly of the
Canterbury,
now on the shuttle
Knight.
We are cooperating with an investigation into who destroyed the
Canterbury
and, as part of that cooperation, are agreeing to be taken aboard your ship, the MCRN
Donnager.
We hope that this cooperation means that we will not be held prisoner or harmed. Any such action would only serve to reinforce the idea that the
Canterbury
was destroyed by a Martian vessel. James Holden out.”

Holden leaned back. “Naomi, send that out broadband.”

“That’s a dirty trick, Boss,” said Alex. “Pretty hard to disappear us now.”

“I believe in the ideal of the transparent society, Mr. Kamal,” said Holden. Alex grinned, pushed off, and floated down the gangway. Naomi tapped the comm panel, making a small, satisfied sound in the back of her throat.

“Naomi,” Holden said. She turned, her hair waving lazily, like they were both drowning. “If this goes badly, I need you… I need you to… ”

“Throw you to the wolves,” she said. “Blame everything on you and get the others back to Saturn Station safely.”

“Yeah,” Holden said. “Don’t play the hero.”

She let the words hang in the air until the last of the irony leeched out of them.

“Hadn’t crossed my mind, sir,” she said.