Caliban's War

by James S. A. Corey

  Even now, just hours after nearly being cut in two by a highspeed projectile, Prax was belowdecks with Naomi and Avasarala, patching holes inside the ship. He hadn’t even been asked. He’d just climbed out of his bunk and pitched in.

  Holden stood above one of the bullet entry points on the ship’s outer hull. The small projectile had left a perfectly round hole and almost no dimpling. It had passed through five centimeters of high-tensile alloy armor so quickly it hadn’t even dented it.

  “Found it,” Holden said. “No light coming out, so it looks like they’ve already patched it on the inside.”

  “Coming,” Amos said, then clumped across the hull on magnetic boots, a portable welding torch in his hand. Bobbie followed in her fancy powered armor, carrying big sheets of patch material.

  While Bobbie and Amos worked on sealing up the outer hull breach, Holden wandered off to find the next hole. Around him, the three remaining Martian warships drifted along with the Rocinante like an honor guard. With their drives off, they were visible only as small black spots that moved across the star field. Even with the Roci telling his armor where to look, and with the HUD pointing the ships out, they were almost impossible to see.

  Holden tracked the Martian cruiser on his HUD until it passed across the bright splash of the Milky Way’s ecliptic. For a moment, the entire ship was a black silhouette framed in the ancient white of a few billion stars. A faint cone of translucent white sprayed out from one side of the ship, and it drifted back into the star-speckled black. Holden felt a desire to have Naomi standing next to him, looking up at the same sights, that bordered on a physical ache.

  “I forget how beautiful it is out here,” he said to her over their private channel instead.

  “You daydreaming and letting someone else do all the work?” she replied.

  “Yeah. More of these stars have planets around them than don’t. Billions of worlds. Five hundred million planets in the habitable zone was the last estimate. Think our great-grandkids will get to see any of them?”

  “Our grandkids?”

  “When this is over.”

  “Also,” Naomi said, “at least one of those planets has the protomolecule masters on it. Maybe we should avoid that one.”

  “Honestly? That’s one I’d like to see. Who made this thing? What’s it all for? I’d love to be able to ask. And at the very least, they share the human drive to find every habitable corner and move in. We might have more in common than we think.”

  “They also kill whoever lived there first.”

  Holden snorted. “We’ve been doing that since the invention of the spear. They’re just scary good at it.”

  “You found that next hole yet?” Amos said over the main channel, his voice an unwelcome intrusion. Holden pulled his gaze away from the sky and back to the metal beneath his feet. Using the damage map the Roci was feeding to his HUD, it took only a moment to find the next entry wound.

  “Yeah, yeah, right here,” he said, and Amos and Bobbie began moving his direction.

  “Cap,” Alex said, chiming in from the cockpit. “The captain of that MCRN cruiser is lookin’ to talk to you.”

  “Patch him through to my suit.”

  “Roger,” Alex said, and then the static on the radio shifted in tone.

  “Captain Holden?”

  “I read you. Go ahead.”

  “This is Captain Richard Tseng of the MCRN Cydonia. Sorry we weren’t able to speak sooner. I’ve been dealing with damage control and arranging for rescue and repair ships.”

  “I understand, Captain,” Holden said, trying to spot the Cydonia again but failing. “I’m out on my hull patching a few holes myself. I saw you guys drive by a minute ago.”

  “My XO says you’d asked to speak to me.”

  “Yes, and thank her on my behalf for all the help so far,” Holden said. “Listen, we burned through an awful lot of our stores in that skirmish. We fired fourteen torpedoes and nearly half of our point defense ammunition. Since this used to be a Martian ship, I thought maybe you’d have reloads that would fit our racks.”

  “Sure,” Captain Tseng said without a moment’s hesitation. “I’ll have the destroyer Sally Ride pull alongside for munitions transfer.”

  “Uh,” Holden said, shocked by the instant agreement. He’d been prepared to negotiate. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll pass along my intel officer’s breakdown of the fight. You’ll find it interesting viewing. But the short version is that first kill, the one that broke open the UN defense screen and ended the fight? That was yours. Guess they shouldn’t have turned their backs on you.”

  “You guys can take credit for it,” Holden said with a laugh. “I had a Martian Marine gunnery sergeant doing the shooting.”

  There was a pause; then Tseng said, “When this is over, I’d like to buy you a drink and talk about how a dishonorably discharged UN naval officer winds up flying a stolen MCRN torpedo bomber crewed by Martian military personnel and a senior UN politician.”

  “It’s a damn good story,” Holden replied. “Say, speaking of Martians, I’d like to get one of mine a present. Do you carry a Marine detachment on the Cydonia?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Got any Force Recon Marines in that group?”

  “Yes. Again, why?”

  “There’s some equipment we’ll need that you’ve probably got in storage.”

  He told Captain Tseng what he was looking for, and Tseng said, “I’ll have the Ride give you one when we do the transfer.”

  The MCRN Sally Ride looked like she’d come through the fight without a scratch. When she pulled up next to the Rocinante, her dark flank looked as smooth and unmarred as a pool of black water. After Alex and the Ride’s pilot had perfectly matched course, a large hatch in her side opened up, dim red emergency lighting spilling out. Two magnetic grapples were fired across, connecting the ships with ten meters of cable.

  “This is Lieutenant Graves,” a girlish voice said. “Prepared to begin cargo transfer on your order.”

  Lieutenant Graves sounded like she should still be in high school, but Holden said, “Go ahead. We’re ready on this end.”

  Switching channels to Naomi, he said, “Pop the hatches, new fish coming aboard.”

  A few meters from where he was standing, a large hatch that was normally flush with the hull opened up into a meter-wide and eight-meter-long gap in the skin of the ship. A complicated-looking system of rails and gears ran down the sides of the opening. At the bottom sat three of the Rocinante’s remaining ship-to-ship torpedoes.

  “Seven in here,” Holden said, pointing at the open torpedo rack. “And seven on the other side.”

  “Roger,” said Graves. The long, narrow white shape of a plasma torpedo appeared in the Ride’s open hatch, with sailors wearing EVA packs flanking it. With gentle puffs of compressed nitrogen, they flew the torpedo down along the two guidelines to the Roci; then, with the help of Bobbie’s suit-augmented strength, they maneuvered it into position at the top of the rack.

  “First one in position,” Bobbie said.

  “Got it,” Naomi replied, and a second later the motorized rails came to life and grabbed the torpedo, pulling it down into the magazine.

  Holden glanced at the elapsed time on his HUD. Getting all fourteen torpedoes transferred and loaded would take hours.

  “Amos,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “Just finishing that last patch down by the machine shop,” the mechanic replied. “You need something?”

  “When you’re done with that, grab a couple EVA packs. You and I will go get the other supplies. Should be three crates of PDC rounds and some sundries.”

  “I’m done now. Naomi, pop the cargo door for me, wouldja?”

  Holden watched Bobbie and the Ride’s sailors work, and they had two more torpedoes loaded by the time Amos arrived with two EVA packs.

  “Lieutenant Graves, two crew from the Rocinante requesting permission to board and pick up the rest of the
supplies.”

  “Granted, Rocinante.”

  The PDC rounds came in crates of twenty thousand and at full gravity would have weighed more than five hundred kilos. In the microgravity of the coasting ships, two people with EVA packs could move one if they were willing to take their time and recharge their compressed nitrogen after every trip. Without a salvage mech or a small work shuttle available, there wasn’t any other choice.

  Each crate had to be pushed slowly toward the aft of the Rocinante through a twenty-second-long “burn” from Amos’ EVA pack. When it got to the aft of the ship next to the cargo bay door, Holden would do an equally long thrust from his pack to bring the crate to a stop. Then the two of them would maneuver it inside and lock it to a bulkhead. The process was long, and at least for Holden, each trip had one heart-racing moment when he was firing the brakes to stop the crate. Every time, he had a brief, panicky vision of his EVA pack failing and him and the crate of ammo drifting off into space while Amos watched. It was ridiculous, of course. Amos could easily grab a fresh EVA pack and come get him, or the ship could drop back, or the Ride could send a rescue shuttle, or any other of a huge number of ways he’d be quickly saved.

  But humans hadn’t been living and working in space nearly long enough for the primitive part of the brain not to say, I’ll fall. I’ll fall forever.

  The people from the Ride finished bringing over torpedoes about the time Holden and Amos had locked the last crate of PDC ammo into the cargo bay.

  “Naomi,” Holden called on the open channel. “We all green?”

  “Everything looks good from here. All of the new torpedoes are talking to the Roci and reporting operational.”

  “Outstanding. Amos and I are coming in through the cargo bay airlock. Go ahead and seal the bay up. Alex, as soon as Naomi gives the all clear, let the Cydonia know we can do a fast burn to Io at the captain’s earliest pleasure.”

  While the crew prepped the ship for the trip to Io, Holden and Amos stripped off their gear and stowed it in the machine shop. Six gray disks, three on each bulkhead across the compartment from each other, showed where the rounds had ripped through this part of the ship.

  “What’s in that other box the Martians gave you?” Amos asked, pulling off one oversized magnetic boot.

  “A present for Bobbie,” Holden said. “I’d like to keep it quiet until I give it to her, okay?”

  “Sure, no problem, Cap’n. If it turns out to be a dozen long-stemmed roses, I don’t want to be there when Naomi finds out. Plus, you know, Alex …”

  “No, it’s a lot more practical than roses—” Holden started, then rewound the conversation in his head. “Alex? What about Alex?”

  Amos shrugged with his hands, like a Belter. “I think he might have a wee bit of a thing for our ample marine.”

  “You’re kidding.” Holden couldn’t picture it. It wasn’t as though Bobbie were unattractive. Far from it. But she was also very big, and quite intimidating. And Alex was such a quiet and mild guy. Sure, they were both Martians, and no matter how cosmopolitan a person got, there was something comforting in reminders of home. Maybe just being the only two Martians on the ship was enough. But Alex was pushing fifty, balding without complaint, and wore his love handles with the quiet resignation of a middle-aged man. Sergeant Draper couldn’t be more than thirty and looked like a comic book illustration, complete with muscles on her muscles. Unable to stop himself, his mind began trying to figure out how the two of them would fit together. It didn’t work.

  “Wow,” was all he could say. “Is it mutual?”

  “No idea,” Amos replied with another shrug. “The sergeant ain’t easy to read. But I don’t think she’d do him any deliberate harm, if that’s what you’re asking. Not that, you know, we could stop her.”

  “Scares you too, does she?”

  “Look,” Amos said with a grin. “When it comes to scrapes, I’m what you might call a talented amateur. But I’ve gotten a good look at that woman in and out of that fancy mechanical shell she wears. She’s a pro. We’re not playing the same sport.”

  Gravity began to return in the Rocinante. Alex was bringing up the drive, which meant they were beginning their run to Io. Holden stood up and took a moment to let his joints adjust to the sensation of weight again. He clapped Amos on the back and said, “Well, you’ve got a full load of torpedoes and bullets, three Martian warships trailing you, one angry old lady in tea withdrawal, and a Martian Marine who could probably kill you with your own teeth. What do you do?”

  “You tell me, Captain.”

  “You find someone else for them to fight.”

  Chapter Forty-Five: Avasarala

  As I see it, sir,” Avasarala said, “the die is already cast. We effectively have two courses of policy already in play. The question now is how we move forward. So far I’ve been able to keep the information from getting out, but once it does, it will be devastating. And since it is all but certain that the artifact is able to communicate, the chances of an effective military usage of these protomolecule-human hybrids is essentially nil. If we use this weapon, we will be creating a second Venus, committing genocide, and removing any moral argument against using weapons like accelerated asteroids against the Earth itself.

  “I hope you will excuse the language, sir, but this was a cock-up from the start. The damage done to human security is literally unimaginable. It seems clear at this point that the protomolecule project under way on Venus is aware of events in the Jovian system. It’s plausible that the samples out here have the information gained from the destruction of the Arboghast. To say that makes our position problematic is to radically understate the case.

  “If it had gone through the appropriate channels, we would not be in this position. As it stands, I have done all that is presently within my capabilities, given my situation. The coalition I have built between Mars, elements of the Belt, and the legitimate government of Earth are ready to take action. But the United Nations must distance itself from this plan and move immediately to isolate and defang the faction within the government that has been doing this weasel shit. Again, excuse the language.

  “I have sent copies of the data included here to Admirals Souther and Leniki as well as to my team on the Venus problem. They are, of course, at your disposal to answer any questions if I am not available.

  “I’m very sorry to put you in the position, sir, but you are going to have to choose sides in this. And quickly. Events out here have developed a momentum of their own. If you’re going to be on the right side of history on this, you must move now.”

  If there’s any history to be on the right side of, she thought. She tried to come up with something else that she could say, some other argument that would penetrate the layers of old-growth wood that surrounded the secretary-general’s brain. There weren’t any, and repeating herself in simple storybook rhyme would probably come off as condescending. She stopped the recording, cut off the last few seconds of her looking into the camera in despair, and sent it off with every high-priority flag there was and diplomatic encryption.

  So this was what it came to. All of human civilization, everything it had managed, from the first cave painting to crawling up the gravity well and pressing out into the antechamber of the stars, came down to whether a man whose greatest claim to fame was that he’d been thrown in prison for writing bad poetry had the balls to back down Errinwright. The ship corrected under her, shifting like an elevator suddenly slipping its tracks. She tried to sit up, but the gimbaled couch moved. God, but she hated space travel.

  “Is it going to work?”

  The botanist stood in her doorway. He was stick-thin, with a slightly larger head than looked right. He wasn’t built as awkwardly as a Belter, but he couldn’t be mistaken for someone who’d grown to maturity living at a full gravity. Standing in her doorway, trying to find something to do with his hands, he looked awkward and lost and slightly otherworldly.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “If I w
ere there, it would happen the way I want it to happen. I could go squeeze a few testicles until they saw it my way. From here? Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “You can talk to anyone from here, though, can’t you?”

  “It isn’t the same.”

  He nodded, his attention shifting inward. Despite the differences in skin color and build, the man suddenly reminded her of Michael-Jon. He had the same sense of being a half step back from everything. Only, Michael-Jon’s detachment verged on autism, and Praxidike Meng was a little more visibly interested in the people around him.

  “They got to Nicola,” he said. “They made her say those things about me. About Mei.”

  “Of course they did. That’s what they do. And if they wanted to, they’d have papers and police reports to back it all up, backdated and put in the databases of everywhere you ever lived.”

  “I hate it that people think I did that.”

  Avasarala nodded, then shrugged.

  “Reputation never has very much to do with reality,” she said. “I could name half a dozen paragons of virtue that are horrible, small-souled, evil people. And some of the best men I know, you’d walk out of the room if you heard their names. No one on the screen is who they are when you breathe their air.”

  “Holden,” Prax said.

  “Well. He’s the exception,” she said.

  The botanist looked down and then up again. His expression was almost apologetic.

  “Mei’s probably dead,” he said.

  “You don’t believe that.”