Amos knocked on Davenport’s faceplate to get his attention. “Can you breathe in there? Getting good air? ’Cause if you’re not, this is the time to say something.”
He nodded once, a perfect physical representation of resentment.
Outside the Storm, ships were fleeing through the gates following the schedule Naomi had built. By and large, they were going to the smaller colonies where there was less traffic parked waiting for the gates to reopen. But some were going to the well-established places like Bara Gaon Complex and trusting to their ability to evade any traffic monitoring on the other side to get them to safety. There was still a little more than an hour before the last of them was slated to go, and then the Storm, following up at last. If things went right, Medina’s sensors would be deep in their routing seizures for at least four hours. And the prisoners had enough air for ten. A six-hour window for pickup seemed like more than enough.
Amos gave her the thumbs-up, and Bobbie nodded him on. He undid the tether from the airlock deck, pushed off, and floated through to pull himself to a stop beside her. Bobbie cycled the lock, and when the outer door opened to the darker-than-space of the slow zone, she touched her radio.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s see if the controls work the way they said.”
“Copy that, bossmang,” her new Belter pilot said.
The Storm shifted, pushing gently to the side. The prisoners seemed to float away, though really Bobbie was the one moving. Out beyond them in the darkness, a distant drive plume glowed like a star, and then, passing through a gate, went out.
“Okay,” she said. “We’re good. Make sure we get far enough away before we light up the drive. I don’t want to save them just so you can burn them down in the drive plume.”
“Sa sa,” the pilot said.
“Alex?” she said, then remembered her suit was still on the low-power stealth settings. She changed it and tried again. “Alex? Where do we stand?”
A different voice answered. A man that it took Bobbie a few seconds to recognize. “We’re hugged close to Medina for the extraction.”
“Houston?” she said. “Is that you?”
“Now that you fuckers have come to your senses about the immorality of centralized power? Yeah, it’s me. And I’m ready to accept your apology as soon as you untwist your diapers.”
“He’s gonna be a joy,” Amos said placidly. “I kind of missed him.”
Bobbie killed her mic. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic. I need to know these things.” She turned the mic back on. “We have a change of plan. We won’t need pickup.”
“Negative,” Alex said. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
“We’re flying escort,” Bobbie said. “The Storm is ours.”
“No shit?” Alex said, then whooped. “Holy crap, you took a prize? Looks like you got yourself a ship after all, Captain Draper.”
Naomi’s voice cut in, clipping into Alex’s last syllables. “I’m coming out.”
“All right,” Alex said. “Two to pick up, and then we can get in the flight queue out of this dump.”
“One,” Naomi said. “One to pick up. We ran into a problem. Clarissa went down fighting. I wouldn’t have made it out without her. None of us would.”
Bobbie’s throat went tight. She looked over at Amos, and he smiled his usual amiable smile, shrugged. Just for a moment, she saw something underneath the expression. Pain and loss and sorrow and rage, and then he was just himself again.
“Damn,” Alex said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Okay,” Houston said. “I have you on the scope. We’ll slide over and get you.”
“Naomi,” Bobbie said. “When you get on the Roci, I’ll need you to find a safe place for the Storm in the escape queue.”
“I’m on it,” Naomi said. Now that Bobbie knew to listen, she heard the exhaustion in her voice. The weariness of grief. She turned off her mic, turned toward Amos, but he was pulling himself back toward the lift. She followed him, a little trickle of adrenaline coming in. Waiting to see what was coming next.
At the lift, Amos stopped and scratched his nose. “I was thinking I should probably get a few of the new kids. Go through the ship. Just make sure we don’t have anyone on board we didn’t mean to have on the ride.”
For a moment, she thought about letting it go. Letting Amos fall back into his usual self. It would be easier. It would feel more respectful.
It was what Holden would have done.
“I need to know if you’re okay,” she said.
“I don’t really—”
She pulled herself in close, almost nose to nose. She wasn’t smiling and he wasn’t either. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to talk. I said, I need to know. Whatever ship I’m the captain of, if you’re on it, that means you and I have clear, open, and honest conversations about your mental health. This isn’t friendship. This isn’t nurturing. This is me telling you how it goes. We both know what happens when you’re off the rails, and I’m not going to pretend that you’re anything more or less than what you are. So when I say I need to know if you’re okay, it’s an order. Are we clear?”
Amos’ jaw clenched and his eyes went flat. She didn’t back away. When he smiled, it wasn’t the empty, amiable expression he usually reached for. It wasn’t a version of him she’d seen before.
“I’m sad, Babs. I’m angry. But I’m okay. Going down fighting was a good way for her to go too. I can live with it.”
Bobbie let herself drift back. Her heart was going a little faster than she liked, but she kept it off her face. “All right, then. Take your team and go through the ship. I’ll warn you when we’re going on the burn.”
“I’m on it,” Amos said. And a moment later, “You know, you’re gonna be good at this captain thing.”
Chapter Fifty: Singh
“This is exactly the kind of recklessness that has been underlying the Transport Union since its inception,” Carrie Fisk said. Her face was flushed, her gestures sharp, and her voice had the buzz of rage behind every word. Her blouse was tan with black, and she wore the green armband that had come to symbolize antiterrorist solidarity among those loyal to Laconia and High Consul Duarte. “The union claimed that stability and safety were their primary mandate. That was the whole point of letting it administrate ring space! But the minute—the minute—someone arrives with the power to question that? Bombings. Theft. Murder. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. It’s unreal.”
The interviewer was a young man apparently well known in Sol system and on Medina. Singh watched the man nod and stroke his chin like an ancient sage considering a deep mystical truth. His seriousness made Fisk look even more formidable.
“And would you say the situation is stabilized now?” he asked.
“We can hope it is,” Fisk said as she shook her head no. “When I look at the patience that the present administration has shown to us and the violence with which it was answered, it leaves me … not angry, even. Embarrassed. We called ourselves a civilization, and this thuggery is all we have to offer. I can only hope that the people who were fooled into thinking any of this could be justified are embarrassed too.”