Persepolis Rising

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Holden

The artificially pretty man who acted as the news anchor for what everyone was calling the Laconian-state newsfeed sat in somber reflection, not quite looking directly into the camera. On a screen behind him, the first battle between the Tempest and the combined forces of the Sol system played out. It was all from the Tempest’s perspective, of course. Lots of telescopic zooms and torpedo-guidance camera footage. In one, a Martian frigate, one of the Rocinante’s next-generation cousins, died in a fireball as a rail gun shot cut through it from nose to tail. In another, a torpedo camera POV hurtled through space and into the flank of a UNN destroyer and ended in a flash of static.

One by one, the ships of the Sol fleet died. From the footage, it wasn’t possible to tell if the Tempest was even damaged. And each time a ship died, a quiet gasp went through the air around Holden as he sat and watched the first act of the end of the world in a cramped metal room surrounded by the members of his little resistance group.

The screen behind the pretty man went blank. He turned his sober face directly into the camera and said, “To address Medina Station regarding what you’ve just seen, we are honored to bring you a statement from station governor, Captain Santiago Singh.”

The camera pulled back to reveal Governor Singh sitting at the news desk next to pretty boy. Singh lacked his counterpart’s carefully sculpted androgynous beauty, but he shared his look of quiet reflection.

“Greetings, Laconian citizens and residents of Medina Station. I come here in a moment of tragedy for us all. I will not gloat, or brag about Laconian military superiority. I have no wish to glory in the destruction you’ve just witnessed. Instead, I honor the brave warriors of the Sol system, who died believing they were defending their homes. There is no greater sacrifice a warrior can make, and I have nothing but respect for these courageous people. I ask that you honor them as well, as we have a moment of silence.”

Singh lowered his head and closed his eyes. Pretty boy did the same.

“Motherfucker,” someone behind Holden said. Next to him, Bobbie loudly cracked her knuckles and frowned so hard Holden worried she might pull out the fresh stitches holding her cheek together.

On the screen, Singh lifted his head, then a moment later opened his eyes. “Laconians, and I speak to everyone on Medina when I say that, as I consider all of you my fellow citizens and peers. Laconians, the stated goal of your military is always the defense and protection of life. When the Sol system fleet ceased their attack and began a retreat, the Heart of the Tempest immediately ceased firing on them. And no element of the Laconian military—ship, soldier, or station—will ever fire except in response to threat to life or property.”

“Or in retribution against a whole fucking system you don’t like,” someone said from behind Holden. “Hypocritical dawusa.”

Singh leaned forward, his dark eyes imploring all who watched him. “I urge everyone with family or friends in the Sol system to contact them, to urge their political representatives to meet with Admiral Trejo and discuss the terms of their entry into the Laconian Empire without further military action and loss of life. Those who died were heroes all, but Laconia wants live citizens, not dead heroes. It is our duty—yours and mine—to do everything we can to achieve peace and safety for all of us. To this end, I am temporarily lifting the communication blackout back to the Sol system for those with family there. Please use this freedom to help your loved ones make the right decision. Thank you for your attention, and good day to all.”

Bobbie rolled her shoulders like a boxer stepping into the ring. To her right, Naomi was staring at the screen through half-lidded eyes, like she was solving a complex math problem. Holden was about to speak when Saba stood up and walked to the front of the room. The thirty or so people of the Medina Station insurgency became respectfully quiet. Holden held his breath.

“No reprisals,” Saba said, and Holden released his held breath in a rush. That was not what he’d expected to hear. “You savvy, coyos? Not one fucking thing. Yeah, pissed off, you. Got reason. Got all the reason. Want to cut a throat, make somebody pay.”

“God damn right,” a skinny man everyone called Nutter said, standing up and toying with the knife on his belt. “Maybe a lot of throats.”

“You do,” Saba said to him, “and yours is next, and I’m doing the cutting. Mushroom food, you. Every Laconian throat you cut is ten of ours you’re bleeding out. We stay angry, but we stay smart, sabe? Stay with your missions, stay with your plans.”

A ripple of grudging assent moved through the room. People started getting up to leave. The mutters of conversation had an edge to them, but Holden didn’t hear anyone actively planning a murder, so he’d call it a win.

Holden caught Bobbie’s eye and then stood up to grab Saba’s arm before he could leave. “Let’s talk.”

Fifteen minutes later Saba, Bobbie, and Naomi were sipping tea out of waxy cups in the Diner. Holden tried casually leaning against the wall for a minute, then gave up and paced around the room to give his restless energy someplace to go.

“The problem we’ve got right now is we’re all rats in a cage,” he said. “And we’re spending a lot of time and energy figuring out how big the cage is and where the doors are and how we might open one. But we haven’t got a single clue what we’d do if we actually got out.”

“We don’t start with just getting out?” Naomi asked.

“There was a time when I’d have said that was enough,” Holden agreed. “But that was when I was still thinking of this as a war. When escaping to join up with our side of the fight might matter.”

“This isn’t a war now,” Bobbie said, her voice low and dangerous.

“No?” Saba asked.

“No,” Holden said. “The war’s over. Sol might not know it yet, and a lot of people will die so that they can feel like they gave it a shot, but it’s over.”

“So what, then,” Saba asked. “Good Laconians, us?”

“No,” Holden replied. “At least not yet. But it does change the nature of what we’re doing here. We’re not looking to get the Roci free and join the fight. This is a jailbreak.”

Naomi made a clicking noise with her tongue, her eyes distant, then said, “All the same problems. The Marines, the Laconian destroyer, Medina’s scopes. But you’re saying if we can solve those, we just get as many people and ships free as we can and make a run for it. Scatter.”

Saba nodded one fist, then gave her the two-fingered OPA salute. Holden felt a little twinge of unease about that, but this wasn’t the time to talk it through.

“It gives us a goal,” Holden said. “Maybe we can keep everyone pulling the same direction if they understand what the end game is.”

Saba tilted his head. There was no surprise in his expression. He’d been thinking along the same lines, so maybe he’d come to the same conclusions. “The decryption safe room.”

“I don’t like losing it,” Holden said, looking more at Bobbie now than Saba. “We’re still getting in a lot of data from the sniffer, and I know once we move forward with the plan, we lose that. We won’t get it back. But until we can decrypt what we do have, we can’t use it. And the Typhoon? It’s due in thirty-three days.”

“Thirty-two,” Naomi said.

“I don’t want to die with one still in the chamber,” Bobbie said. “I’m good with the timing.”

“Bien,” Saba said. “I’m in.”

“Great,” Holden replied. “Get word to every cell leader and ship captain you trust. We need to have everyone ready when the time comes.”

“This is gonna be some strange bedfellows,” Saba said as he left.

“Find some lunch?” Holden said to Naomi.

“Give me half an hour,” she replied. “I want to get a computer crunching the tactical data that video gave us. But after that, meet out front?”

“OK,” Holden said, wondering how to waste half an hour in the cramped space of their little hideout.

“Hey, Holden,” Bobbie said as Naomi left the room. “Can I hang on to you for a second?”

Holden shrugged and sat on a crate. Bobbie sat flexing her hands and staring at the floor so long that Holden started to wonder if he’d misheard her. He braced himself. He didn’t know where this conversation was going to go, but he had a suspicion it was about her and him and the captaincy of the Rocinante, and he didn’t know what to say about any of that. So it came as kind of a relief that he was wrong.

“Amos is going to be a problem,” she finally said. “I had the Voltaire people talked off the ledge when he started that fight. He wanted to crack some heads, and he made it happen. That’s fine for shore leave when he wants to blow off some steam, but it won’t fly when we’re under the radar like this.”

“Huh. Okay. I’d wondered about that.”

“It’s a problem I don’t know how to fix,” Bobbie said.

“Me neither,” Holden said. “But give it a couple days.”

“Not sure we have them,” Bobbie said.

“Why not?”

Bobbie pointed behind her back, meaning not what was physically behind her but backward in time. “You just gave us all a goal,” she said. “Something to bring us all together.”

“I did,” Holden said. “And I’m thinking from the way you’re looking at me right now that there’s some aspect of that I’ve maybe overlooked?”

“Some of us are Katria Mendez and her mad bombers.”

Holden felt a coolness down his spine. “Yeah. That could be interesting,” he said.

“Right?”

He found Amos in a narrow side hall, a welding torch in his hand. The big man’s arms showed little pocks of red where sparks had landed, but Amos hadn’t done so much as find a long-sleeved work shirt.

“Hey,” Holden said. “How’s it going?”

“Doing all right,” Amos said, gesturing at the conduits that textured the wall. “Saba’s folks said we should reroute the power. Makes it a little harder for the cops to track down where they’re losing it from if it keeps moving.”

“Yeah?”

“Decent plan in theory,” Amos said. “In practice, kind of an ass-pain, but whatever.”

“I can see that,” Holden said, then paused.

The truth was, in spite of decades flying the same ship, Holden still had very little idea what made Amos tick. He liked food, booze, meaningless sex, jokes. He seemed to like palling around with Alex, but when their pilot had decided to try being married again, Bobbie had been his best man. Amos treated every word out of Naomi’s mouth as if it were gospel, but the truth was all of them did these days.

Amos found the conduit he was looking for, lit up the torch, and opened a six-centimeter length of it, exposing the plastic-sheathed wire inside it without so much as melting the insulation. It was a good trick. Amos killed the torch.

“So,” Holden said again. “How’s it going?”

Amos paused. Turned to look at Holden.

“Ah,” the big mechanic said. “Sorry there, Cap. Were we having a conversation and I didn’t notice?”

“Kind of, yes,” Holden said.

“Babs ratted me out.” Amos’ voice was as calm as the surface of still water. Holden was pretty certain something big was swimming underneath it.

“Look,” he said, “we didn’t get where we are by me prying into things you didn’t want pried into. I don’t want to change that now. But yes, Bobbie’s worried about you. I am too. We’re going into some pretty dangerous times here, and if there’s anything that you need to get off your chest, now is a better time than later.”

Amos shrugged. “Nah, I get it. I got a little happy when we went on that last run. Opened up sooner than Babs would have liked. I’ll rein in some if it makes her feel better.”

“I don’t want to make an issue of it,” Holden said.

“It ain’t an issue, then,” Amos said, turning back to the conduit. He took a thick pair of pliers from his pocket, clamped them over the power cable, and started wrestling it out like he was getting crab meat out of a shell. It looked really dangerous. “I’ll play nice. Cross my heart.”

“Okay, then,” Holden said. “Great. Glad we had this talk.”

“Anytime,” Amos said.

Holden hesitated, turned, and walked away. Bobbie was right. He didn’t know what was going on in Amos’ mind, but something definitely was. He was hard-pressed to think what the good version of that looked like. And if Amos was finally coming off the rails, he had no idea what would cause it or how to fix it.