Persepolis Rising

by James S. A. Corey

  Clarissa spun through the air, her ruined arm trailing behind her. She led with her knee, and it felt like dancing. Like flying. Her aim was still good. She brought her bent knee into pistol man’s nose, felt the cartilage give in her joint and his face, the two of them crumbling together.

  She’d been sick for so long, she’d let it make her fragile. So much of her life had become nurturing what fading health she had. Rationing it like one canteen that had to get her across a desert. Now she gulped it, and it felt wonderful.

  The two who hadn’t fired did now at almost the same instant. One missed, but one bullet dug into the thin meat over her ribs. It hurt, but the pain was distant. She barreled into the closest of them. As they fell, she wrapped her good arm around his head, cradling it carefully so that when they landed, she could snap his neck. She hit the deck hard, pulled, and felt his spine give way.

  I have killed. But I am not a killer.

  She caught up the gun from his hand as the others turned. Clarissa felt the battle cry in her throat, felt the force of air and sound rattling her trachea. Felt the gun she’d stolen kick. The woman nearest her fired wild, and Clarissa placed a bullet in the woman’s cheek, snapping her head back. That was two. The one who’d been on Clarissa’s back jumped toward her. She put a bullet through his teeth. Three.

  Naomi was scrambling for pistol man’s fallen weapon. He was still down, holding his shattered nose like that was his biggest problem. Clarissa shot him twice in the center of mass.

  There was only one guard left, and he was close to Clarissa. She could see down the barrel of his gun. She saw the fear in his eyes. He fired. He couldn’t miss. Her leg gave way under her, but she fired a shot on the way down. It took the last guard in the throat. She landed hard, but her blood was still made from light and rapture. She rolled, knelt. Her abdomen ached and it was hard to pull in a full breath. Jordao looked at her like he was seeing the devil.

  No! I’m sorry! he shouted in some universe close to hers.

  Fuck your sorry. Sorry doesn’t fix shit. She didn’t know if she’d yelled or if it was just in her head. Either way, she shot him—once in the belly and when he doubled over, the crown of his head right where a little bald spot was just starting. Then the rush was over.

  It wasn’t as bad as she’d remembered. There was the retching and the feeling of illness. The helplessness. The pain. But at some point all of that had become familiar, so the experience of it wasn’t as bad. Or else she was slipping into shock.

  Shock, or something like it.

  Naomi cradled her head and she noticed she was lying down. Her mouth tasted like bile. The guards and the traitor were spread throughout the hallway. The air stank of blood and gunpowder. It looked like a scene from hell. All of the years she’d spent living with her regret, doing quiet penance for the lives she’d ended, and now the only thing she could think was That was fun.

  Words were happening somewhere nearby. Stay with me, Claire. She remembered Naomi was there and opened her eyes again. She didn’t remember closing them. Naomi was spattered with blood, her face pale. Ren stood behind her. He was wearing some kind of black robe that made her think of Jesuits.

  “I’m a monster,” Clarissa said.

  No you aren’t, baby. You’re not a monster. You’re not. Which meant Naomi had misunderstood. Clarissa had meant, I’m not afraid. She tried to think what to say that would clarify that, but it was a lot of effort. And what did it matter really if anyone else understood? She knew.

  Fuck it, she thought. Some things you take to your grave.

  Clarissa Melpomene Mao closed her eyes.

  Chapter Forty-Nine: Bobbie

  When she was young, Bobbie had a recurring dream of finding a door in her room that led to some new, exotic part of her quarters that her family had forgotten or else never known about. Those dreams had been eerie but also beautiful. Full of promise and wonder and threat.

  The Gathering Storm was exactly like being in one of those dreams.

  The architecture of the ship had all the same aesthetics and design as the Rocinante. The central lift, the size and spacing of the hallways and doors, even the shapes of the hand- and foot-holds was familiar. Or if not exactly familiar, at least related. Part of the same family. Laconian and Martian had the same cultural DNA, and as much as anything else, the ship proved it.

  But it was also strange. The decks didn’t have seams or bolts. The foam and fabric on the bulkheads had the same uncanny fleshy texture as the hull. The lights were different somehow too. She didn’t know if it was the spectrum or the brightness or the way that there seemed to be some kind of subtle motion in them, but everything felt a little bit like being underwater. Like the ship was a huge fish with the bioluminescent glow of the deepest seas.

  It was home, but wider, larger, and changed.

  They moved from hall to hall in strict formation, covering each other as they went. The rattle of PDCs was joined by something else she didn’t recognize. Some Laconian version of torpedo fire was her best guess. The deck lurched and canted as the ship maneuvered around them, but the main drive never cut out, so down was always down.

  She’d expected the ship’s defenses to meet them at the central lift that led to ops. It was the obvious choke point, and holding that space meant controlling movement between all the decks it passed through. If she’d been in charge, all the hatches would have been open and a dozen rifles pointing down, ready to put holes through any head that popped out. Instead, there had been three Laconians with pistols retreating up it, and firing behind them, more to discourage Bobbie and her people from following them than to actually injure anyone. They were holing up on the command deck. She wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad one.

  “Amos?” she said, and when he didn’t answer, turned up her broadcast power. “Amos, check in.”

  “Little hairy down here, Babs,” Amos replied. “Made it to what I’m pretty sure is supposed to be a machine shop. Fucked if I know what half this stuff is, though.”

  “Any contact with the enemy?”

  “Yeah, we lost a couple.”

  The sound that interrupted them was like something metal being torn by brute strength. It took a fraction of a second to recognize it as high-rate weapons fire. Amos was shouting over it—not to her. She waited, tension knotting her gut. She wanted to know what was happening, but not badly enough to divide Amos’ attention. He grunted once, and she was sure he’d been hit. Something loud happened—a grenade, maybe—and the firing stopped.

  “Still with me, big man?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “We just had a little thing there. Architecture’s a little weird. And it looks like there’s a bunch of stuff down here built out of … I don’t know. Crystals? Or bug shells? You remember those buildings on Ilus? Like them.”

  The deck shifted hard to the right, and Bobbie’s head went a little swimmy from the Coriolis. She grabbed onto a handhold.

  “I wasn’t on Ilus.”

  “Oh right,” Amos said. “Well, like them anyway. But yeah, we’re kinda stuck where we are unless we can make another hole. We’re looking for something to cut through the bulkhead with. Would like to get that done before they decide to rush us.”

  Alex’s voice cut in. He wouldn’t be able to hear them unless she turned up her broadcast power a lot more, but the Roci’s transmitters had more than power enough. “Hey, y’all. The Storm’s breaking off our little dance out here. It looks like she’s trying to get back to port. Might be a good time to launch anyone that wants to get launched. You’re getting short on time.”

  Saba responded. “Still waiting for the prison stragglers. Any ship’s ready, I’ll get them gone, but keep that bastard off us as long as you can, yeah?”

  “I’m on it,” Alex said.

  Bobbie ground her teeth. She wanted to break off, head down to back up Amos and his squad. Bad tactics. She needed to stick to the plan. Amos was going to be all right. She had to believe that. The lift tube
went up the length of the ship, all the way to the ops deck. No one was waiting up there that she could see. That didn’t mean no one was waiting.

  “All right,” she said to her team. “This is going to be just the same. Two move forward while three cover, and then the forward pair cover while the three catch up. Only instead of going from door to door, we’re going up from deck to deck. If we start drawing fire, we’ll try to get the lift going up before us, but it’s probably locked down, and I don’t want to announce where we are.”

  The Belters all gave their assent and took position. Bobbie and a tall man went first, climbing the handholds like they were free-climbing. She glanced over the top of the deck before she climbed up, but she would have been surprised to find an ambush there.

  She leaned against the wall, gun pointed up. It looked like the hatch to ops was closed. Leaving the rest open gave the defenders a great line of fire, but they weren’t using it. Not yet. She gestured to the others, and didn’t take her eye off the enemy as they scrambled up beside her. The Storm was bigger than the Roci. There were eight more decks between her and ops. That last step was going to be tricky, but—

  Gravity cut out, and she grabbed for a handhold by reflex as the ship spun around her, sweeping her legs perpendicular to the deck. As suddenly as it had cut out, it came back. A hard burn—four or five gs slamming her down. The impact knocked the breath out of her, and then gravity cut out again, a moment of spin on the float and another high-g microburn. She and her team were braced now. The float and burn happened three more times. It seemed ready to keep going forever.

  “Amos?”

  “Hey there, Babs.”

  “Is this you? Did you break something?”

  “Nope. Whatever they’re doing, this here is the product of conscious choice.”

  “I think—” A hard burn made her grit her teeth. Then the float. “I think they’re trying to shake us around like bugs in a can.”

  Hard burn, and the float. “That’s going make this inconvenient. They trying to slow us down?”

  “Until they can get back to port.” Hard burn, and float. Her mind shifted. Delaying and heading back to the docks made the most sense if the Storm was undercrewed. It also explained why she wasn’t catching heavier fire from the command deck. If the Laconians could get back to reinforcements, she wouldn’t have a chance. And if she didn’t, no one else would either.

  Two more cycles of float, turn, and slam her into the deck failed to dislodge her from her place. When Amos spoke again, she could hear the effort in his voice. “That could be a problem.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  Another round of gunfire pressed its way through the radio. “Not sure I’m going to be able to stop that from happening.”

  “All right,” Bobbie said. “New orders. Don’t die until I say so.”

  “If I find a way to kill this bird?”

  “Then act like I said so, but don’t stick your head out just to look for it.”

  “You got a plan?” Amos asked.

  “That’d be generous,” she said, “but I’ve got something I’m going to do.”

  The ship kept doing its stuttering bounce like one of the first-generation exploration ships that exploded nuclear bombs as a propulsion system. Even for the crew that made it to crash couches, it was a miserable way to travel. She took a deep breath, felt the rhythm of it, and on the next float, pulled herself out to the lift shaft. Two good handholds, two good footholds, and suddenly she weighed five times her usual.

  Her fingers and toes screamed in protest. Her back and shoulder flirted with cramping. The float came back, and the ship turned, but she was climbing up. Just one set of handholds before the weight came back. But she was closer.

  If she fell, it was a long way to the bottom. But no one was going to be shooting down at her during this, and they didn’t think she could climb while this was going on. That was it as much as anything. With every round of release and spin and high-g burn, she made her way higher, not looking back to see whether her team was with her. She needed all of her focus for this.

  Sweat beaded on her forehead, and the suit’s helmet fan kicked up to high so that her faceplate wouldn’t fog up. She was burning through oxygen fast enough that a three-hour supply would last her maybe one. She thought about taking a break at one of the decks along the way and stripping off her helmet entirely, but if the Laconians decided to vent the ship after that … well, that would be unfortunate. Better to play it safe. Or as safe as free-climbing with a full destroyer’s depth of decks below her in radically uncertain gravity could be.

  Saba’s voice came again when Bobbie still had three more decks to go before she hit ops. “Sensor arrays are down. We’re launching everything. No more time to wait.”

  “I’ll try to keep you covered, Malaclypse,” Alex said. “The Storm is live and a threat. I can try knocking her torpedoes down, but treat her like she’s got teeth.”

  “Bien,” Saba said. “And I have a package on its way to you, Rocinante. Keep an open eye.”

  Alex swore under his breath. She didn’t have time to guess why.

  Another moment of float. Another collapse into terrible weight. The temptation to go faster, to try for two handholds up instead of just one, was a trap. It meant less time to get braced, and that was an invitation to fall. It hurt. It took forever. It was the right way. She couldn’t get greedy. The pain in her hands was getting worse, but her feet almost seemed to be getting used to it. That or they were going numb.

  She was over halfway up. Three and a half more decks, and she’d be at the ops deck. At the closed plate that kept the lift locked in place. Two and a half. One more. The float came again. She moved up. Her eyes were fixed on the seam where the lift plate would slide open. Where, if this was like the other Martian ships she’d been in, it would make the most sense to take cover and fire down at the boarders. At her. She waited for the next acceleration, but it didn’t come. Only a gentle press as the ship maneuvered.

  That was bad.

  “The Storm is on approach to the dock,” Alex said, and his voice sounded like ashes. “Anybody has a good idea, I’m listening.”

  Her arms and legs were trembling from the effort, and sweat stung her eyes. She risked looking down. Her team was following, but they were only about halfway up. This one was hers.

  Voices came from the ops deck. Sharp, barked orders. A clattering, probably from a weapon’s locker. They knew there wouldn’t be much time, but they were also thinking she had a lot more territory to cover than she did. The lift plate slid aside, and she reached in and took the blue-sleeved arm by the elbow and hauled the man attached to it through and down. He bounced against a couple walls before he caught himself, and by then her team had their guns on him and Bobbie was through the opening and onto the ops deck.

  Three people, in the most oddly designed crash couches she’d ever seen. Bobbie raised her pistol. Definitely undercrewed.

  A fair-haired man saw her first, and yelped, “Commander Davenport!”

  An older man moved forward. Older than the others, anyway. He still looked like a puppy. “Get us into the dock! Whatever happens!”

  “I am Gunnery Sergeant Roberta Draper of the MMC,” Bobbie snapped. “I will kill every one of you if anyone touches the controls.”

  Davenport lifted a defiant chin. “You have your orders.”

  “Doesn’t have to go like that,” Bobbie said. “You know where that ends us. Your people dead. Mine too. Probably a lot of civilians if I have to ram this boat into the station to kill it. I said, Don’t touch those controls.”

  The pilot flinched back, shot a look at Davenport. He stared hard at her, like he was looking at his death. Like he was trying to talk himself into being brave and hadn’t quite managed it yet. There was a chance there in the space between who he was and who he was trying to be. Killing these three wouldn’t fix the situation in engineering. Wouldn’t save Amos. Behind her, her team was floating
up onto the command deck. She wished they wouldn’t. More pressure on the Laconians was only going to cement their position. When she spoke, she tried to make her voice calm and soothing.

  “Here’s the situation. All your people die and all mine too, or all of us live. Now, you can decide whether this bunch of amateurs and assholes is worth a crew of Laconia’s best.”

  “Hey!” one of her team said. She ignored him.

  “You expect me to believe you won’t steal the ship?” Davenport said. Well, I wasn’t planning to until just now, Bobbie thought. But since you mention it …

  “I’m not talking about the ship. I’m talking about you and yours either put out an airlock with suits and bottles or else killed here.”

  “I’ve seen the way you people work,” he spat. “If we put down arms, you’ll kill us anyway. You have no honor.”

  “Bite your fucking tongue,” Bobbie said. “I’m Martian Marine Corps. If you live through this, you go ask your old-timers what that means. They’ll tell you how lucky you are I didn’t crack your ass the other way just for saying it. If I say you and yours are safe, then you’re fucking safe.”

  Davenport said nothing, but there was something behind his defiance. She thought it might be hope. She opened a connection to Amos.

  “Hey, big man.”

  “Hey, Babs,” he said. He sounded winded. “I got us into engineering. Gimme another five minutes, I can light this bastard up. May take a bite out of the station when we blow, but I figure that’s someone else’s problem. How’s it going up there?”

  “Your team needs to stand down,” she said. “No aggressive action toward the enemy. Confirm that.”

  There was silence on the line.

  “That’s not the plan the way I heard it,” Amos said.

  “Amos, listen to me. Stand down. Don’t blow the ship. And if anyone down there kills another Laconian, I will shoot them myself. Including you. Understood?”