“You are an ungrateful piece of shit,” the Marine—CJ, apparently—said. “If we were someplace civilized, your sad ass would be in the pens.”
“What are the pens?” Holden asked, and the guard hit him again, hard against his right ear. He had the impression that CJ enjoyed this kind of thing. Holden wasn’t frightened so much as resigned. He’d known that he’d be trading his freedom for the chance that Bobbie’s plan would work. And for the electrical tech’s life. He was past the good part of his plan now, and the bad part might last a very long time or a very short one. Either way, probably the rest of his life.
CJ hauled him out into the free air where there was nothing for Holden to grab onto. A drop of his blood smeared the Laconian’s faceplate.
“What the fuck do you have to say for yourself now, asshole?” CJ said, shaking him just enough to make his teeth rattle. Holden took a deep, painful breath.
“We should probably get to an emergency shelter,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Three: Bobbie
“Tenth what?” Alex said. His voice was reedy and distant. Not all of that was because of the tiny speaker it was coming out of. Alex understood what Holden was doing just as much as she did. One alarm was significant. One alarm out of a dozen meant less. Holden was giving them cover, and Alex was asking Bobbie to say that Holden hadn’t just decided to sacrifice himself to keep the mission on track.
Her mouth was dry.
“You heard him,” she replied, keeping her tone all business. “As soon as that tenth alarm goes off, blow the vent, take out the guards, and get us into the room.”
“Am I getting that back?” Amos asked, but not to them.
Naomi was staring at her, wide-eyed. She was on the radio, too. She knew what was happening. But she tightened her grip on her tools and pressed her lips together, then gave Bobbie a nod. Good to go. The Roci’s former XO would finish her mission. Then she’d worry about Holden afterward. They both would.
The sound of the alarms had started close to them, and grew more distant as new sirens joined the cacophony. Holden was moving away from them. Which was good, considering what was about to happen.
“Chief,” Alex said. “That was ten.”
Bobbie took one last look at her surroundings. She and Naomi floated alone in the narrow corridor. The door to the computer room was five meters away, and she had her improvised battering ram in one hand. As it always did in the calm seconds before a mission began, her mind ran through the checklist of things that were about to happen. Nothing popped up as a red flag, so she said, “Go, go, go.”
For three long breaths, nothing happened.
There was a distant thump, like a firecracker going off inside a locker. The first drone just blew itself up to take out the venting cover. This was followed by a shout of surprise. Bobbie could picture the two men in the room looking up in shock as the vent turned into shrapnel behind them, and five tiny drones flew into the room. Then two more bangs, close together like firing a double tap with a pistol. This time louder, and closer. Two more drones going off to take out the guards.
The alarm in the room started screeching as the man with his hand on the dead man’s switch went down. But now, instead of drawing every guard in the area, it was just one of over a dozen alarms going off, and new ones coming up every few seconds. Holden had been busy.
“I’m getting smoke in the vents,” Clarissa said. “I’m turning up the recyclers.”
The last explosion was the loudest yet, right on the other side of the door. The last three drones clustering around the latch and detonating. Alex said, “My guys are done. Me and my team are cleaning up the logs and shutting down.”
Bobbie planted her feet on the corridor wall and launched toward the door. The heavy length of ceramic-filled pipe she was using as a ram was gripped in both hands, and she slammed it into the door just above the latch. The door exploded open so violently that it bounced off the bulkhead and swung back hard enough to clip her knee as she flew by. It hurt, but not enough to think about.
She had a split second to clock the room: workstation and two dead men with blood soaking their suits floating next to it, server rack bolted to the deck in the center of the compartment, plain metal walls. She slammed into the server rack and bounced off into an empty corner of the room.
“Ouch. Fuck.”
“What’s that, Chief?” Alex asked.
“Nothing. Just went a hundred kph when twenty would have done,” Bobbie replied. “We’re good, Naomi. Do your thing.”
Naomi’s lean form slid through the opening with Belter grace, tapped one foot against the bulkhead, and came to a perfect stop next to the server rack. Watching her slide through the air like a fish in water made Bobbie feel overlarge and clumsy.
“I’ll be in the hall, watching for gawkers,” she said.
“Mmhmm,” Naomi replied, already ignoring her. She was pulling panels off the server rack, and a variety of gear floated in the space around her like a high-tech cloud.
Before she left, Bobbie pushed over to the two Laconian guards and checked their pulse. Up close, it was hardly necessary. Both men had massive head injuries, and bits of bone, blood, and drone parts floated around them. It was a shitty way for a soldier to die, ambushed like that, and Bobbie pushed down the feeling of guilt and regret. It was war. Right now, her brothers and sisters in the Martian fleet were fighting and dying in the Sol system in that same war. And a lot more blood was being spilled on their side than on the Laconian one so far.
Still, as a person who’d stood a watch in enemy territory, the sightless eyes of the two dead men made her scalp crawl the way she’d always imagined it would when a sniper had you in their sights for the kill shot.
“Your turn now,” she told the dead man. “My turn later.”
She pushed out into the corridor to keep watch. The shrill electronic screech of alarms echoed down the hall and all around her. So far, no one had come to check on the computer-room alarm. Why would they? Holden had made sure that the only important alarm was drowned out. She had to hand it to him, as an improvised element of the plan it was a pretty good idea. Probably something they should have included, just in case.
Next time, she thought, knowing there would never be a next time.
“Got it,” Naomi said from behind her. Bobbie nearly elbowed her in the face before her brain could override the startle response.
“Great,” she said instead. “Let’s get to the shelter before Katria gets itchy and blows us all to hell for the fun of it.”
“Jim won’t be there,” Naomi said.
Amos and Katria were floating in the cramped space of their chosen radiation shelter. It was nothing more than a four-meter length of hallway with heavy pressure doors at both ends. Netting hung on both walls with rebreathers, first-aid kits, emergency vac suits. Bobbie had stowed a gear bag with the less-standard equipment.
As soon as she and Naomi climbed in through the one open door, Katria slapped her hand to the panel and it slammed shut.
“What the fuck?” Amos said, rounding on her.
“We need that closed when the bomb goes off,” Katria replied, pulling the detonator out of her pack. “You know, to live.”
“Nothing happens without my direct order,” Bobbie said to her and put a restraining hand on Amos’ chest. He reacted by mag-booting himself to the deck, so she kicked on her own boots and clamped them to the bulkhead to keep her leverage.