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.”