The Dragon's Path

by Daniel Abraham

  “Let’s get there. Maybe we can get some people off the ship after it’s hit. Help with damage control,” Holden said. “Alex, got that plot figured out?”

  “Roger that, XO. Bleeding-g burn-and-flip laid in. Angled approach course so our torch won’t burn a hole in the Cant. Time to rock and roll?” Alex replied.

  “Yeah. Naomi, get your people strapped in for high g,” Holden said, then opened up a channel to Captain McDowell. “Captain, we’re coming in hot. Try to survive, and we’ll have the Knight on station for pickup or to help with damage control.”

  “Roger,” McDowell said, and killed the line.

  Holden opened up his channel to Ade again. “Ade, we’re going to burn hard, so I won’t be talking, but leave this channel open for me, okay? Tell me what’s happening. Hell, hum. Humming is nice. I just really need to hear you’re all right.”

  “Okay, Jim,” Ade said. She didn’t hum but she left the channel open. He could hear her breathing.

  Alex began the countdown over the general comm. Holden checked the straps on his crash couch and palmed the button that started the juice. A dozen needles stuck into his back through membranes in his suit. His heart shuddered and chemical bands of iron gripped his brain. His spine went dead cold, and his face flushed like a radiation burn. He pounded a fist into the arm of the crash couch. He hated this part, but the next one was worse. On the general comm, Alex whooped as the drugs hit his system. Belowdecks, the others were getting the drugs that kept them from dying but kept them sedated through the worst of it.

  Alex said, “One,” and Holden weighed five hundred kilos. The nerves at the back of his eye sockets screamed at the massive load of his eyeballs. His testicles crushed themselves against his thighs. He concentrated on not swallowing his tongue. Around him, the ship creaked and groaned. There was a disconcerting bang from belowdecks, but nothing on his panel went red. The Knight’s torch drive could deliver a lot of thrust, but at the cost of a prodigious fuel-burn rate. But if they could save the Cant, it wouldn’t matter.

  Over the blood pounding in his ears, Holden could hear Ade’s gentle breathing and the click of her keyboard. He wished he could just go to sleep to that sound, but the juice was singing and burning in his blood. He was more awake than he’d ever been.

  “Yes, sir,” Ade said over the comm.

  It took Holden a second to realize she was talking to McDowell. He turned up the volume to hear what the captain was saying.

  “—the mains online, full power.”

  “We’re fully loaded, sir. If we try to burn that hard, we’ll tear the drive right off the mounts,” Ade replied. McDowell must have asked her to fire up the Epstein.

  “Mr. Tukunbo,” McDowell said, “we have… four minutes. If you break it, I won’t bill you.”

  “Yes, sir. Bringing mains online. Setting for maximum burn,” Ade said, and in the background Holden could hear the high-g warning Klaxon. There was a louder clicking as Ade strapped herself in.

  “Mains online in three… two… one… execute,” Ade said.

  The Canterbury groaned so loud Holden had to turn the comm volume down. It moaned and shrieked like a banshee for several seconds, and then there was a shattering crash. He pulled up the exterior visual, fighting against the g-induced blackout at the edge of his vision. The Canterbury was in one piece.

  “Ade, what the hell was that?” McDowell said, his speech slurred.

  “The drive tearing a strut. Mains are off-line, sir,” Ade replied, not saying Exactly like I said would happen.

  “What did that buy us?” McDowell asked.

  “Not much. The torpedoes are now at over forty klicks a second and accelerating. We’re down to maneuvering thrusters,” Ade said.

  “Shit,” McDowell said.

  “They’re going to hit us, sir,” Ade said.

  “Jim,” McDowell said, his voice suddenly loud over the direct channel he’d opened. “We’re going down, and there’s no way around it. Click twice to acknowledge.”

  Jim clicked his radio twice.

  “Okay, so, now we need to think about surviving after the hit. If they’re looking to cripple us before boarding, they’ll take out our drive and our comm array. Becca’s been broadcasting an SOS ever since the torpedoes were fired, but I’d like you to keep yelling if we stop. If they know you’re out there, they are less likely to toss everyone out an airlock. Witnesses, you know,” McDowell said.

  Jim clicked twice again.

  “Turn around, Jim. Hide behind that asteroid. Call for help. Order.”

  Jim clicked twice, then signaled all-stop to Alex. In an instant, the giant sitting on his chest disappeared, replaced by weightlessness. The sudden transition would have made him throw up if his veins hadn’t been coursing with antinausea drugs.

  “What’s up?” Alex said.

  “New job,” Holden said, teeth chattering from the juice. “We’re calling for help and negotiating a release of prisoners once the bad guys have the Cant. Burn back to that asteroid, since it’s the closest we can get to cover.”

  “Roger that, Boss,” Alex said. He added in a lower voice, “I’d kill for a couple of tubes or a nice keel-mounted rail gun right now.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Wake up the kids downstairs?”

  “Let them sleep.”

  “Roger that,” Alex said, then clicked off.

  Before the heavy g started up again, Holden turned on the Knight’s SOS. The channel to Ade was still open, and now that McDowell was off the line, he could hear her breathing again. He turned the volume all the way up and lay back in the straps, waiting to be crushed. Alex didn’t disappoint him.

  “One minute,” Ade said, her voice loud enough to distort through his helmet’s speakers. Holden didn’t turn the volume down. Her voice was admirably calm as she called out the impact countdown.

  “Thirty seconds.”

  Holden wanted desperately to talk, to say something comforting, to make ludicrous and untrue assertions of love. The giant standing on his chest just laughed with the deep rumble of their fusion torch.

  “Ten seconds.”

  “Get ready to kill the reactor and play dead after the torpedoes hit. If we’re not a threat, they won’t hit us again,” McDowell said.

  “Five,” Ade said.

  “Four.

  “Three.

  “Two.

  “One.”

  The Canterbury shuddered and the monitor went white. Ade took one sharp intake of breath, which cut off as the radio broke up. The static squeal almost ruptured Holden’s eardrums. He chinned the volume down and clicked his radio at Alex.

  The thrust suddenly dropped to a tolerable two g and all the ship’s sensors flared into overload. A brilliant light poured through the small airlock porthole.

  “Report, Alex, report! What happened?” Holden yelled.

  “My God. They nuked her. They nuked the Cant,” Alex said, his voice low and dazed.

  “What’s her status? Give me a report on the Canterbury! I have zero sensors down here. Everything’s just gone white!”

  There was a long pause; then Alex said, “I have zero sensors up here too, Boss. But I can give you a status on the Cant. I can see her.”

  “See her? From here?”

  “Yeah. She’s a cloud of vapor the size of Olympus Mons. She’s gone, Boss. She’s gone.”

  That can’t be right, Holden’s mind protested. That doesn’t happen. Pirates don’t nuke water haulers. No one wins. No one gets paid. And if you just want to murder fifty people, walking into a restaurant with a machine gun is a lot easier.

  He wanted to shout it, scream at Alex that he was wrong. But he had to keep it together. I’m the old man now.

  “All right. New mission, Alex. Now we’re witnesses to murder. Get us back to that asteroid. I’ll start compiling a broadcast. Wake everyone up. They need to know,” Holden said. “I’m rebooting the sensor package.”

  He methodically shut down the sen
sors and their software, waited two minutes, then slowly brought them back online. His hands were shaking. He was nauseated. His body felt like he was operating his flesh from a distance, and he didn’t know how much was the juice and how much was shock.

  The sensors came back up. Like any other ship that flew the space lanes, the Knight was hardened against radiation. You couldn’t get anywhere near Jupiter’s massive radiation belt unless you were. But Holden doubted the ship’s designers had half a dozen nuclear weapons going off nearby in mind when they’d created the specs. They’d gotten lucky. Vacuum might protect them from an electromagnetic pulse, but the blast radiation could still have fried every sensor the ship had.

  Once the array came back up, he scanned the space where the Canterbury had been. There was nothing larger than a softball. He switched over to the ship that killed it, which was flying off sunward at a leisurely one g. Heat bloomed in Holden’s chest.

  He wasn’t scared. Aneurysm-inducing rage made his temples pound and his fists squeeze until his tendons hurt. He flipped on the comms and aimed a tightbeam at the retreating ship.

  “This message is to whoever ordered the destruction of the Canterbury, the civilian ice freighter that you just blew into gas. You don’t get to just fly away, you murderous son of a bitch. I don’t care what your reasons are, but you just killed fifty friends of mine. You need to know who they were. I am sending to you the name and photograph of everyone who just died in that ship. Take a good look at what you did. Think about that while I work on finding out who you are.”

  He closed the voice channel, pulled up the Canterbury’s personnel files, and began transmitting the crew dossiers to the other ship.

  “What are you doing?” asked Naomi from behind him, not from his helmet speakers.

  She was standing there with her helmet off. Sweat plastered her thick black hair to her head and neck. Her face was unreadable. Holden took off his helmet.

  “I’m showing them the Canterbury was a real place where real people lived. People with names and families,” he said, the juice making his voice less steady than he would have liked. “If there’s something resembling a human being giving the orders on that ship, I hope it haunts him right up to the day they put him in the recycler for murder.”

  “I don’t think they appreciate it,” Naomi said, pointing at the panel behind him.

  The enemy ship was now painting them with its targeting laser. Holden held his breath. No torpedoes launched, and after a few seconds, the stealth ship turned off its laser and the engine flared as it scooted off at high g. He heard Naomi let out a shuddering breath.

  “So the Canterbury’s gone?” Naomi asked.

  Holden nodded.

  “Fuck me sideways,” said Amos.

  Amos and Shed stood together at the crew ladder. Amos’ face was mottled red and white, and his big hands clenched and unclenched. Shed collapsed to his knees, slamming against the deck in the heavy two-g thrust. He didn’t cry. He just looked at Holden and said, “Cameron’s never going to get that arm, I guess,” then buried his head in his hands and shook.

  “Slow down, Alex. No need to run now,” Holden said into the comm. The ship slowly dropped to one g.

  “What now, Captain?” Naomi said, looking at him hard. You’re in charge now. Act like it.

  “Blowing them out of the sky would be my first choice, but since we don’t have the weapons… follow them. Keep our eyes on them until we know where they’re going. Expose them to everyone,” Holden replied.

  “Fuckin’ A,” said Amos loudly.

  “Amos,” Naomi said over her shoulder, “take Shed below and get him into a couch. If you need to, give him something to put him to sleep.”

  “You got it, Boss.” Amos put a thick arm around Shed’s waist and took him below.

  When he was gone, Naomi turned back to Holden.

  “No, sir. We are not chasing that ship. We are going to call for help, and then go wherever the help tells us to go.”

  “I—” Holden started.

  “Yes, you’re in charge. That makes me XO, and it’s the XO’s job to tell the captain when he’s being an idiot. You’re being an idiot, sir. You already tried to goad them into killing us with that broadcast. Now you want to chase them? And what will you do if they let you catch them? Broadcast another emotional plea?” Naomi said, moving closer to him. “You are going to get the remaining four members of your crew to safety. And that’s all. When we’re safe, you can go on your crusade. Sir.”

  Holden unbuckled the straps on his couch and stood up. The juice was starting to burn out, leaving his body spent and sickened. Naomi lifted her chin and didn’t back up.

  “Glad you’re with me, Naomi,” he said. “Go see to the crew. McDowell gave me one last order.”

  Naomi looked him over critically; he could see her distrust. He didn’t defend himself; he just waited until she was done. She nodded at him once and climbed down the ladder to the deck below.

  Once she was gone, he worked methodically, putting together a broadcast package that included all the sensor data from the Canterbury and the Knight. Alex climbed down from the cockpit and sat down heavily in the next chair.

  “You know, Captain, I’ve been thinkin’,” he said. His voice had the same post-juice shakes as Holden’s own.

  Holden bit back his irritation at the interruption and said, “What about?”

  “That stealth ship.”

  Holden turned away from his work.

  “Tell me.”

  “So, I don’t know any pirates that have shit like that.”

  “Go on.”

  “In fact, the only time I’ve seen tech like that was back when I was in the navy,” Alex said. “We were working on ships with energy-absorbing skins and internal heat sinks. More of a strategic weapon than a tactical one. You can’t hide an active drive, but if you can get into position and shut the drive down, store all your waste heat internally, you can hide yourself pretty good. Add in the energy-absorbing skin, and radar, ladar, and passive sensors don’t pick you up. Plus, pretty tough to get nuclear torpedoes outside of the military.”

  “You’re saying the Martian navy did this?”

  Alex took a long shuddering breath.

  “If we had it, you know the Earthers were workin’ on it too,” he said.

  They looked at each other across the narrow space, the implications heavier than a ten-g burn. Holden pulled the transmitter and battery they’d recovered from the Scopuli out of the thigh pocket of his suit. He started pulling it apart, looking for a stamp or an insignia. Alex watched, quiet for once. The transmitter was generic; it could have come from the radio room of any ship in the solar system. The battery was a nondescript gray block. Alex reached out and Holden handed it to him. Alex pried off the gray plastic cover and flipped the metal battery around in his hands. Without saying a word, he held the bottom up to Holden’s face. Stamped in the black metal on the bottom of the battery was a serial number that began with the letters MCRN.

  Martian Congressional Republic Navy.

  The radio was set to broadcast on full power. The data package was ready to transmit. Holden stood in front of the camera, leaning a little forward.

  “My name is James Holden,” he said, “and my ship, the Canterbury, was just destroyed by a warship with stealth technology and what appear to be parts stamped with Martian navy serial numbers. Data stream to follow.”

  Chapter Six: Miller

  The cart sped through the tunnel, siren masking the whine of motors. Behind them, they left curious civilians and the scent of overheated bearings. Miller leaned forward in his seat, willing the cart to go faster. They were three levels and maybe four kilometers from the station house.

  “Okay,” Havelock said. “I’m sorry, but I’m missing something here.”

  “What?” Miller said. He meant What are you yammering about? Havelock took it as What are you missing?

  “A water hauler millions of klicks from here got vapo
rized. Why are we going to full alert? Our cisterns will last months without even going on rationing. There are a lot of other haulers out there. Why is this a crisis?”

  Miller turned and looked at his partner straight on. The small, stocky build. The thick bones from a childhood in full g. Just like the asshole in the transmission. They didn’t understand. If Havelock had been in this James Holden’s place, he might have done the same stupid, irresponsible, idiotic bullshit. For the space of a breath, they weren’t security anymore. They weren’t partners. They were a Belter and an Earther. Miller looked away before Havelock could see the change in his eyes.

  “That prick Holden? The one in the broadcast?” Miller said. “He just declared war on Mars for us.”

  The cart swerved and bobbed, its internal computer adjusting for some virtual hiccup in the traffic flow half a kilometer ahead. Havelock shifted, grabbing for the support strut. They hit a ramp up to the next level, civilians on foot making a path for them.

  “You grew up where the water’s maybe dirty, but it falls out of the sky for you,” Miller said. “The air’s filthy, but it’s not going away if your door seals fail. It’s not like that out here.”

  “But we’re not on the hauler. We don’t need the ice. We aren’t under threat,” Havelock said.

  Miller sighed, rubbing his eyes with thumb and knuckle until ghosts of false color bloomed.

  “When I was homicide,” Miller said, “there was this guy. Property management specialist working a contract out of Luna. Someone burned half his skin off and dropped him out an airlock. Turned out he was responsible for maintenance on sixty holes up on level thirty. Lousy neighborhood. He’d been cutting corners. Hadn’t replaced the air filters in three months. There was mold growing in three of the units. And you know what we found after that?”

  “What?” Havelock asked.

  “Not a goddamn thing, because we stopped looking. Some people need to die, and he was one. And the next guy that took the job cleaned the ducting and swapped the filters on schedule. That’s what it’s like in the Belt. Anyone who came out here and didn’t put environmental systems above everything else died young. All us still out here are the ones that cared.”