Babylon's Ashes

by James S. A. Corey

  Both of their hand terminals chirped a connection request from Laura on a family-restricted channel. Nadia nodded to Michio to accept and then sat at her side so they could both see the screen. Laura was on the command deck, the backsplash of her control screen lightening her cheeks and dancing in her eyes. Icons of all the others except Nadia appeared along the side.

  “What is it?” Nadia asked.

  “Newsfeeds just arrived,” Laura said. “The inners have Ceres. Making an announcement.”

  They were all silent for a moment. Knowing that it was coming pulled the punch, but Michio still felt it in her gut. “Play the feed,” she said.

  Laura nodded, shifted forward to her controls, and blinked out. A feed appeared in her place. Earth and Mars naval ships docked in the berths at Ceres. Seeing them there was disorienting, a juxtaposition of two things that don’t belong together. Even though she’d known it was coming, the feeling was strong.

  “—estimated at four and a half million, with sufficient reserves to sustain the station for a maximum of two weeks. The combined fleet is presently developing relief strategies including emergency rationing and a call for food and water from other stations in the Belt and the Jovian system.”

  The image jittered and cut away, a sloppy edit done by an amateur. And then his face filled the screen. Fred fucking Johnson. Michio felt her gut clench. So that was their play. Trot out the Earther to speak for the Belt. Again. His eyes were soft and deep and sorrowful. His hair was close cut and white. A pale stubble stood out against the darkness of his cheeks. The text along the screen’s edge said Fred Johnson—OPA Spokesman / Tycho Manufacturing.

  Not Colonel Fred Johnson. Not Butcher of Anderson Station. Opportunist. Face of the Belt When Earth’s Holding the Camera.

  “Michi?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “The culture in the outer planets,” Johnson said, “has always been one of mutual support. Conditions aboard ship and on stations have always tested humanity’s ingenuity and competence. In the many, many years I’ve worked with the Outer Planets Alliance, I have never seen that ethos betrayed more profoundly than this.”

  “You’re right,” Michio said. “I’m not fine. Shut it off.”

  Nadia gestured to the screen, and the feed vanished. Michio stood for a long moment. She didn’t remember crushing the grease crayon, but it was a sticky pulp in her hand now. She took a towel from her cabinet and tried to wipe her fingers clean. The crash couch shifted behind her as Nadia sat on it. When Michio had her control back, she turned around. The intimacy of years let her read half a dozen things in Nadia’s expression.

  “He’s not our natural ally,” Michio said. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend? That’s bullshit. There are always more than two sides. Pretending it’s only one or else the other is what let that sonofabitch carry so much weight in the OPA for as long as he did.”

  “He still does,” Nadia said. “Some people will listen to him. He has ships.”

  “I’ll get us ships. We don’t need his protection.”

  “If you say,” Nadia said. And then, gently, “Maybe he needs ours.”

  “He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

  “Four and a half million, though. That’s a lot of people.”

  “Earth wanted the station. They have it. Good for them,” Michio said, but her voice sounded less certain in her own ears. “They can take care of it.”

  “They’re going to need food. Water.”

  Michio pointed to the list she’d scrawled on her wall. Her fingers were dark from the crayon. “Every base on that list is going to need food and water too. Medical supplies. Reaction mass. Construction material. Everything. Everyone is going to need everything. I’m not going to put Ceres at the top of our list. They’ve got help.”

  “They got robbed,” Nadia said. “By us.”

  “By Marco.”

  Nadia smiled and looked off to her left, the way she did when she was ready to end an argument but didn’t agree that she’d lost it. Michio couldn’t let it go. The words pressed up out of her like Nadia had said them. Had invited her response.

  “It’s not only that it’s Fred Johnson,” Michio said.

  “If Ceres starts to starve,” Nadia said, ending the question as if it had been a statement.

  “Fine,” Michio said. “If Ceres Station starts going hungry. If they’re running out of water. I’ll help the people on Ceres. Not for Johnson, not for the OPA. But I’ll help the people there.”

  Nadia nodded, but still looked off to her left, staring at the empty screen like there was a picture still glowing on it. Michio even looked, but there was only black.

  “And Earth?” Nadia asked.

  “What about it?”

  “People are starving there.”

  “No,” Michio said. “I won’t send our supplies to Earth. They had centuries to help us, and they didn’t.”

  Nadia’s smile widened a millimeter as she rose to her feet. She kissed Michio’s cheek and left. A moment later, her voice came from down the corridor with Evans answering. The life of the ship continued, even with everything changing around it. Michio turned back to her lists, but she wasn’t sure what she was looking at anymore. Her mind kept sliding back to Fred Johnson’s soft, tired eyes. I have never seen that ethos betrayed more profoundly than this. She leaned forward and used her thumbnail to scrape a clean line through the center of the word Ceres. The gray of the wall showed through the center of the letters. But she didn’t rub it out.

  When, eight hours later, the Connaught finally came within a light-second of the Hornblower, the newsfeeds had settled on their narrative about the retaking of Ceres. The phrase combined fleet became a kind of catch-all for the patchwork of Earther and Martian naval ships that were clustered there beside a ragged handful of Belter vessels. It was like going back to the days before Eros, when the alliance between the inner planets had seemed unshakable. Certainly there was some nostalgia among the inner planets’ commentariat, but the reports from Earth and Mars kept the wailing for the golden age of squeezing the Belt in perspective. Riots had broken out in Londres Nova and scuttled a meeting of the Martian parliament, and the best news from Earth was that the climbing death rate was linear instead of exponential, with hopes that it would level off as the most vulnerable and compromised parts of the globe finished dying.

  Marco had gone quiet, though she assumed that meant he was busy planning his next steps with some part of his cabal that didn’t include her. That suited her fine. She had enough to think about already.

  She had already recorded her message to the other captains under her command. It was ready for tightbeam transmission at her word, and once they went out, there’d be no going back. Nothing else, not even talking to Carmondy, was as irrevocable as that.

  So why did putting in the connection request to the Hornblower feel like stepping out an airlock?

  Carmondy accepted the connection request, and his face appeared on her screen with an icon that showed the communication was secure. His face was broad and placid. On another man, it might have given the impression of harmlessness, but Carmondy had already killed people on her order. She wasn’t fooled.

  “Captain,” he said. “Wondered when I’d hear from you. Alles gut, yeah?”

  “Alles interesting anyway,” Michio said with a smile that, to her surprise, was mostly genuine. “Looking at some changes to the plan.” The message went out to the Hornblower, and it came back. One second each way. It made Carmondy’s response seem considered and thoughtful. An illusion made from distance and light.

  “I heard. Ceres. Hell of a thing.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Ceres. More than Ceres too. Technically, I know you’re in Rosenfeld’s chain of command, but I’m about to issue some orders to you and your people. I’d appreciate it if you’d follow them.”

  One second. Two. Carmondy’s eyebrows went up. Another second. “Interesting, sa sa? Tell me.”

  You
can turn back. You haven’t said it. No one knows but your family, and they’ll still support you if you back away. Put your faith back in Inaros. Or find another Himself out there to fall in line behind, since that always works out so well.

  “I’m rerouting the Hornblower to Rhea. Cutting the prisoners loose. Redistributing the cargo.”

  One second. Two. Or was it a little faster this time? How close were the ships now? “Rhea not one of ours.”

  “It’s not aligned with the Free Navy, no,” Michio said. “That’s why I picked it.”

  One second. No, the messages were definitely coming faster now. Carmondy nodded and sucked his teeth. A high, hissing sound as his eyes narrowed. She watched him understand and waited to see his reaction.

  “Mutiny, then?”

  “Won’t be my first,” she said with a lightness that she didn’t feel. “Taking as many ships from my command as will come. Mission’s the same. Get the colony ships and support the Belt. No drift.”

  The pause seemed to last forever. “No drift,” Carmondy said and shrugged. “Bien. You want us to ride it there, or are we coming back on board?”

  Alarms went off in Michio’s hindbrain. This wasn’t right. She shook her head. “Ah, Carmondy. We could have been beautiful. You’re coming on board. All your people. But you’re sending your arms and armor here first, and you’re coming in pairs.”

  Pause. “Oh now, Captain, I don’t see how that happens.”

  “I’ve got two options,” Michio said. “Bringing you and yours, armed and armored, onto the ship because I’m just so sure you’re loyal to me and not Marco? Not one of them.”

  Pause. A smile she couldn’t quite read. Carmondy leaned in toward his camera. His hands weren’t in the square of the screen, but she imagined them folded together on his table. When he spoke, his voice was just as friendly but somehow flatter. “Que then?”

  “Either you and yours come to me and I send the supplies to the Belt the way we always said we would, or I kill the Hornblower as a warning to al-Dujaili and Foyle and the rest that I’m serious.”

  It took longer than two seconds this time. Longer than three. Michio kept her expression calm even while her heart was thudding against her ribs like it wanted out.

  “Here’s what I say,” Carmondy said. “I turn this pinché ship to Pallas. You go your way, I go mine. A que comes between you and Inaros comes between you and Inaros. But you and me walk away, honor on all sides.”

  Yes floated in the back of her mouth, ready to be said. She wanted this over. She hated conflict. How the hell had she wound up living in the middle of it?

  “No,” she said. “Your arms and armor in a pack out the airlock within the hour or we break the Hornblower again. And we mean it this time.” She shrugged. She waited. About a second this time. Closer.

  “Kill us to make a point?” he said.

  “Kill you so I don’t have to kill as many other people later. Rather be loved than feared, but hey. Fallen world.” Pause.

  “You can’t stop me getting the word out,” Carmondy said.

  Michio sighed, shifted the feed, and sent out her message. The one that began, You have put yourself under my command out of loyalty to the Belt, and out of loyalty to the Belt I expect you to remain.

  So that was it. Her time with Marco Inaros was over. Michio Pa, once OPA, once Free Navy, now just herself and her ship in a universe all too ready to see her destroyed. For all the consequences that were coming now, for all the pain and loss she’d just invited into her life, she still felt relieved. Like she was where she was supposed to be.

  “They know,” she said. “Now can we get to the part where you surrender, or are you going to insist that I kill you?”

  Chapter Sixteen: Alex

  Seriously,” Arnold Mfume, one of Fred Johnson’s spare pilots, said. “You used a rail gun as a drive? To pull a ship up from a decaying orbit?”

  Alex shrugged, but the little bloom of pride in his chest was warm all the same. “Naomi did all the math on it,” he said. “I was mostly babysitting the Roci while it followed her orders. But … well, yeah.”

  “That is fucking insane,” Arnold said through his laughter.

  “Didn’t really have any other choices,” Alex said. “We wind up doin’ a certain amount of improvisation, one way and another.”

  Across the table from him, Sandra Ip smiled. He didn’t know if the way her eyes were locked on his was a sign of how drunk she’d gotten, the beginning of an erotic invitation, or a little bit of both. Either way, he found himself smiling back.

  “Wish I’d been there,” Mfume said.

  “I kind of wish I hadn’t,” Alex said. “It’s a lot more fun now that it’s not going on anymore. At the time, it was more in the oh-shit-we’re-all-going-to-die category.”

  “That’s what adventures are,” Bobbie said, and Ip’s lazy smile tracked over toward her without changing much. So more about drunk maybe. “Shitty things that make for good stories later.”

  “I heard you went hand-to-hand with a protomolecule soldier,” Mfume said.

  “That’s not even a good story,” Bobbie said. Her smile kept it from being awkward, but that path of conversation was definitely closed. Mfume shifted, and Alex could see the temptation to push. To maybe get Bobbie to elaborate, even if it was only a little bit more.

  “Now, you want to talk about flying,” Alex said, “you should hear about when Bobbie and me were trying to outrun the Free Navy.”

  “Pretty sure we told that story,” Bobbie said.

  Alex blinked and looked into his glass. She was right. He had told that story, and since they’d all sat down, Ip might not be the only one well on her way to tipsy. “Right,” he said. “In that case, you want to talk about flyin’, you should get another drink.”

  He lifted his arm and leaned back, trying to catch the server’s eye.

  The Blue Frog was a port bar, and if Alex had to guess, he’d say it had seen better days. The round tables hunched together within larger, swooping, glowing structures that defined the booths that he and the others leaned against. Only the lights seemed dirty and the table was chipped. Different menus detailed the services of the bar: food, drink, pharmaceutical, sex. An empty stage promised live music or burlesque or karaoke, only later. Not right now. And more than that, there was a smell to the place. Not unpleasant, not rotten, but tired. Like spent oil or old sealant.

  The expanded crew of the Rocinante were scattered among three tables. To Alex’s right, Amos sat grinning like a vaguely ominous Buddha with Clarissa Mao, Sun-yi Steinberg, and a shirtless young man who Alex suspected had been ordered from a menu. To his left, Naomi and Chava Lombaugh were locked in a vigorous conversation, while Gor Droga and Zach Kazantzakis leaned back, keeping out of it. The other tables were dominated by a mixture of Earth and Mars navy crews. The crispness of their military uniforms and haircuts seemed out of place, like they were rebuking the architecture for being only what it was. Here and there locals hunched together like they were defending a position against a siege. Covert glances of the natives of Ceres didn’t carry a sense of threat as much as bewilderment. The music that leaked from hidden speakers stayed lower than the conversation, shimmering major scale notes making an ambiguous wash of sound, neither celebratory nor sad.

  The manager—a dark-skinned man with cold blue eyes and a permanent near-smirk—caught Alex’s glance, nodded to him, and sent a server trotting over. The smile on the woman’s face seemed almost genuine. Alex ordered another round for the table, and by the time his attention came back to the conversation, the topic had moved on.

  “There were rules about that in the service,” Bobbie said.

  “But there were ways to get around them, right?” Ip said. “I mean, you aren’t telling me everyone in the Martian Navy’s celibate.”

  Bobbie shrugged. “If you’re in a relationship with someone above you or below you in the chain of command, it’s not a joke. Dishonorable discharge, loss of benefits,
maybe jail time. That takes a lot of the shine off. But I wasn’t Navy. I’m—I was a marine. If there was a little cross-training between services, it wasn’t a problem until it started messing up operational efficiency.”

  “I heard they put chemicals in the food to lower people’s libido,” Arnold said.

  Bobbie shrugged. “If they did, they didn’t put in enough.”

  “What about on the Rocinante?” Ip said, turning her full attention to Alex. There was definitely more than just alcohol in the question. “Do you have rules against cheap, sleazy fraternization?”

  Alex chuckled, not certain whether he was getting excited or uncomfortable. “Captain and the XO have been together damn near since we got on the ship. It’d be a difficult rule to enforce on the rest of us.”

  Ip’s smile shifted. “You used to be a Navy boy, didn’t you? You and the gunny here ever …”

  Alex regretted ordering the next round. He was going to need his wits about him pretty soon here. “Me and Bobbie? Nah. That ain’t a thing that happened.”

  “We haven’t actually shipped out together that much,” Bobbie said. “And anyway … No offense, Alex.”

  “None taken.”

  “Really?” Ip said, leaning forward. Her knee pressed against Alex’s in a way that was absolutely innocent. Unless it wasn’t, in which case it absolutely wasn’t. “Never even wanted to?”

  “Well,” Bobbie said. “There was one night on Mars. I think we were both feeling a little lonely. I’d probably have made out with him if he’d asked.”

  “I can’t know that,” Alex said, suddenly flushed with heat and unable to look Bobbie in the eye. “You can’t tell me that.”

  Ip kept her leg pressed to his and cocked her head at him. The question was clear. Is this a thing you’re still working out? Alex smiled back at her. No, it was never really a thing.

  Naomi’s voice lifted, carrying over the murmur of conversation and the music both. She was leaning over her table, finger raised to make some boozy point to Chava. He couldn’t make out the words, but he knew her tones of voice well enough to know it wasn’t anger. Not real anger anyway. For that, Naomi got quiet.