When Holden ran out of steam, repeating himself that they had to stop Ashford, that Sam was buying them time, that the skeleton crews on the other ships had to shut down their reactors and power down their backup systems, Bull scratched his chin.
“What if Ashford’s right?” he said.
“I don’t understand,” Holden said.
“All this stuff you got from the alien? What if it’s bullshitting you?”
Holden’s jaw went hard, but a moment later he nodded.
“He might be,” he said. “I don’t have any way of making sure. But Sam says Ashford’s going to sacrifice the Behemoth when he shoots at the Ring, and if Miller wasn’t lying, he’s sacrificing everything else along with it. Is that a chance you’re willing to take?”
“Taking it either way,” Bull said. “Maybe we stop him, and we save the system. Maybe we leave the Ring open for an invasion by things that are going eat our brains on toast. Flip a coin, ese. And we got no time to test it out. No way to make sure. Either way, it’s a risk.”
“It is,” Holden said. “So. What are you going to do?”
Bull’s sigh started him coughing again. The mucus that came up into his mouth tasted like steroid spray. He spat. That was what it came down to. It wasn’t really a question.
“Figure we got to retake engineering,” Bull said. “Probably going to be a bitch of a fight, but we got to do it. With the drum spinning, the only path between engineering and command is the external lift or in through the command transition point, and then all the way through the drum to the engineering transition point with a shitload of people and spin gravity to slow them down. Any reinforcements he’s got up top won’t make it before the fight’s done one way or the other.”
“Sammy’s already in engineering,” Amos said. “Might be she could soften up the terrain for us before we go in.”
“That’d be good,” Bull said.
“And once we take it?” Holden said.
“Pump an assload of nitrogen into command, and pull ’em all out after they’ve gone to sleep, I figure,” Bull said. “If Captain Pa’s still alive, they’re her problem.”
“What if she ain’t?” Amos said.
“Then they’re mine,” Bull said. Amos’ smile meant the man had unpacked Bull’s words just the way he’d meant them.
“And the reactor?” Holden said. “Are you going to shut it down?”
“That’s the backup plan,” Bull said with a grin. “We shut it down. We get everyone else to shut down.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Might be that we can get this thing off of lockdown and it won’t kill off the sun, even if Ashford does get a shot off,” Bull said.
“Fair enough,” Holden said. “I’ve got my crew. We’re a little banged up.”
“Pure of heart, though,” Amos said.
“I don’t know how many people I still got,” Bull said. “If I can get through to a couple of them, I can find out.”
“So where do we set up shop?”
Bull paused. If they were going to try an assault on engineering, a distraction would help. Something that would pull Ashford’s attention away from what actually mattered to something else. If there was a way to slap him down. Hurt his pride. Ashford hadn’t been the kind of man who thought things through well before the catastrophe, but he had been cautious. If there was a way to make him angry, to overcome that caution. But doing that and getting the word to the other ships that they needed to shut down would be more time than he had, unless…
“Yeah,” he said sourly. “I know where we’re going. May be a little dangerous getting there. Ashford’s people are all through the drum.”
“Not as many as there were when we started,” Amos said. Bull didn’t ask what he meant.
“Lead on,” Holden said. “We’ll follow you.”
Bull tapped his fingers on the joysticks. Embarrassment and shame clawed their way up his guts. A shadow of confusion crossed Holden’s face. Bull felt a stab of disgust with himself. He was about to put a bunch of civilians in danger in order to draw Ashford’s attention, he was going to do it of his own free will, and he was ashamed of the things that he didn’t actually have any control over. He didn’t know what that said about him, but he figured it couldn’t be good.
Radio Free Slow Zone was in what had once been the colonial administrative offices. The narrow office spaces had been designed into the walls and bulkheads of the original ship, back when it had been the Nauvoo, and the amount of work it would have taken to strip the cubicles back until the space could be used for something else had never been worth the effort. Bull had given it to Monica Stuart and her crew because it was a cheap favor. Something he didn’t need—the old offices—for something he did: a familiar face and reassuring voice to help make the Behemoth into the gathering place for the full and fractured fleet.
The broadcast studio was a sheet of formed green plastic that someone had pried off the floor and set on edge. The lights were jerry-rigged and stuck to whatever surfaces came to hand. Bull recognized most of the faces, though he didn’t know many of them. Monica Stuart, of course. Her production team was down to an Earther woman named Okju and a dark-skinned Martian called Clip. Holden had called his crew there, but they hadn’t arrived yet.
Bull considered the space from a tactical point of view. It wouldn’t be hard to block off accessways. The little half walls provided a lot of cover, and they were solid enough to stop most slug throwers. An hour or two with some structural steel and a couple welders and the place could be almost defensible. He hoped it wouldn’t need to be. Except that he hoped it would.
“We went black as soon as the fighting started,” Monica said. “Thought it would be better not to go off half-cocked.”
“Good plan,” Bull said, and his hand terminal chimed. He held up a finger and fumbled to accept the connection. Corin’s face flickered to life. She looked pale. Shell-shocked. He knew the expression.
“How bad?”
“I’ve got about thirty people, sir,” Corin said. “Armed and armored. We control the commissary and most of the civilians. Once Ashford got control of the transition points, he mostly fell back.”
“Pa?”
“Alive,” Corin said. “Pretty beat up, but alive.”
“We’ll call that a win.”
“We lost Serge,” Corin said, her voice flat and calm. That was it, then. Bull felt I’m sorry coming by reflex and pushed it back. Later. He could offer sympathy later. Right now, he only had room for strong.
“All right,” he said. “Bring whoever you can spare to the colonial administrative offices. And weapons. All the weapons we’ve got, bring them here.”
“New headquarters?”
“Security station in exile,” Bull said, and Corin almost smiled. There was no joy in it, but maybe a little amusement. Good enough for now. She saluted, and he returned the gesture as best he could before dropping the connection.
“So this is a coup,” Monica said.
“Counter-countercoup, technically,” Bull said. “Here’s what I need you to do. I want you reporting on what’s going on here. Broadcast. The Behemoth, the other ships in the fleet. Hell, tell the station if you think it’ll listen. Captain Ashford was relieved for mental health reasons. The trauma was too much for him. He and a few people who are still personally loyal to him have holed up in command, and the security team of the Behemoth is going to extract him.”