Persepolis Rising

Chapter Forty: Naomi

“Wake up. We have to go,” someone said. “Now. Go, go, go.”

Naomi forced her eyelids open. Her feet hit the decking before the dream she’d been in loosed its grip on her mind. There had been a fire. She’d been talking to it … she felt herself forgetting, the dream dissolving like sugar floss in water.

Amos rolled off his bunk with a grunt of pain and went to help Clarissa up. Alex was tugging his jumpsuit up over thin, brown legs. The new voice belonged to a girl too young for the split-circle tattoo on the back of her hands.

“What’s going on?” Bobbie said. “We got a problem?”

“Saba got word we need to go, so we go. Now go.”

“Where is he?” Bobbie asked.

“Gone,” the girl said, and then she was gone too. Light spilled into the bunk from the door she hadn’t closed. The voices and sounds of metal against metal were loud and panicky, but they weren’t battle. There wasn’t gunfire. The fear and the urge to motion that grabbed Naomi’s heart were still as violent.

“You good, Peaches?” Amos asked. Clarissa nodded, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail like she was getting ready to go to work. There was more color in her cheeks since she’d gotten the new medicine. If Amos hadn’t found a supply, they’d have been carrying her right now. Heaven. Small favors. Like that.

They piled out into the corridor, and Naomi paused, looked back. There were no tools, no terminals, nothing left behind but traces of hair and DNA. Which would be plenty enough to identify them.

“Naomi?” Alex said from the hall. “Everyone else is getting out mighty quick here. We should maybe—”

She moved quickly, decisively, pulling blankets and pillows and sheets up in her arms. They were cheap, so they pressed down to almost nothing. Another small favor. She shoved them into the makeshift recycler feed at the end of the hall. Maybe it wouldn’t make a difference. Maybe she’d been foolish to take the time. It didn’t matter. She’d done what she’d done.

A lot of her life was like that now.

Saba was at the service doorway that led out to the rest of the station. The vast body of Medina that the underground didn’t control. His jaw was tight, and there was a darkness around his eyes that the brown of his skin couldn’t hide.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Had word from one of ours in system logistics. Laconia’s slated this section for survey. If they’re going to find our holes here, best we not be in them.”

“Well. We knew it would come.”

He pressed a hand terminal into her palm. “This is yours. Cooked profile. Got one for alles la along with. Rooms, jobs. Don’t scratch the chrome, it’ll come off, but it’s what I could do fast.”

“Thank you,” Bobbie said as he passed one to her.

“Messages too. Just text. And just to me. Your circle is your circle.”

Naomi nodded. It felt like being young again, in all the worst ways. Amos, Alex, and Clarissa were already moving toward the common corridor, Bobbie trotting to catch up to them. Naomi put her hand on Saba’s arm. “The false identities don’t have to hold up long. We’re close to doing this. No despair.”

Saba’s eyes softened. “My lady wife is back in Sol leading the fight against these bastards. And I will move worlds to wake up beside her again. Just once more.”

Naomi thought of Jim, and the ache of fear in her stomach. Saba touched her shoulder, and pushed her gently away toward her friends. Her crew. Her family, less one.

The inner layer of Medina’s drum could have been any of the old spin stations. Wider, common corridors with room for carts and foot traffic both, ramps that led up toward the soil and false sun of the inner face or down toward the vacuum beneath her feet. She hadn’t stepped outside Saba’s hidden dens since they’d lost Jim. Now, walking with the normal inhabitants of Medina, trying to fit in with the midshift patterns, she kept noticing how open everything felt. In another context, it might have been a relief. Now it left her feeling exposed as a mouse in cat territory.

She plucked up the terminal that Saba had given her, trying to look bored as she checked who she was, where she lived, all the answers she’d need to give the Laconians if she was stopped. She’d seen plenty of faked identities before, and this one was decent. The real question was how deeply Saba’s moles had been able to get into the Laconian datasets. With the link between Medina and the Storm severed, they’d be working from local copies. Corruptible ones. Odd to think that without Jim’s sacrifice, the underground might have ended right then. Her gratitude was complicated by anger.

Wide screens showed the station newsfeed. Laconian propaganda, but maybe true, some of it. They were playing images of Sol system and the war there. She didn’t watch that, but when it shifted, she paused. A young woman with olive skin and a wide jaw in Laconian blues. The text below her said, ADMIRAL JAE-EUN SONG OF THE EYE OF THE TYPHOON. And on the other side of the screen, a young man. Santiago Singh, governor of Medina.

“What are your hopes for your arrival at Medina Station?” he asked, the subtitles in Spanish, Chinese, and—unnervingly—Belter Creole.

The woman nodded seriously, and answered. “The important thing is that we ensure the safety of the people on the station. High Consul Duarte has made it very, very clear that—”

Naomi didn’t realize she’d stopped until Amos prodded her.

“Should probably keep moving, boss. Less attention.”

“Yes,” Naomi said.

“It’s editing,” Clarissa said. “They do it all the time. That’s not what the light delay really is. There’s still time.”

Naomi nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

Her name, according to Saba’s faked ID, was Ami Henders, and her address was listed as refugee housing on level four. She was supposed to be the pilot of the Blue Genius, a water hauler presently burning somewhere on the far side of the Athens gate without her. She wondered whether Saba had been able to scrub Naomi Nagata from the station records. He wouldn’t have been able to get her out of decades of newsfeed footage, standing behind Jim and wishing the cameras were elsewhere.

She was walking on the surface of a soap bubble and hoping it wouldn’t pop.

The refugee quarters, when they reached them, were a little better than living in the underground had been. A little suite of five rooms with a narrow common hall and a shared head at the end. She could have touched one wall with her elbow and the other with her shoulder. It was tighter than their quarters on the Roci, but with doors, so they could sleep without breathing each other’s dreams. A little monitor in the wall was set to the official newsfeed, but the captain of the Typhoon was gone, replaced by a sober-faced man in a security uniform.

“The base was exactly what we thought we would find. These rat holes are what allowed the terrorists to function and plan in secret. Without them, they’ll be forced out into the light. That’s where they can be stopped.

“We don’t know how many people were using the secret base, but we’ve cordoned it off and we’re making a full investigation. We feel certain that the threat to the station is reduced, but we can’t be complacent. These people are willing to risk the integrity of the environment for their ideological purity. Risk the lives of the whole station. It’s important that we isolate and disarm these terrorists before another attack like the one on the oxygen tank.

“With that in mind, the governor has authorized a limited amnesty for anyone who—”

Clarissa turned the monitor off with her thumb. She met Naomi’s eyes, and the determination and exhaustion in them was clearer than words could have been. Let it go. We have work to do.

Alex cleared his throat. “Well, since there’s no galley anymore, I guess I’ll head down the hallway and see if I can’t find a coffee shop or something. Anybody else need breakfast?”

There would be guards. There would be drones. There would be the risk that trying to pay for something would collapse Alex’s false identity or flag his real one. She wanted to grab him and lock him in his room. She wanted to make sure no one left the uncertain safety of their cabin.

“Tea,” she said. “Maybe some protein cakes.”

“All right,” Alex said. “I’ll be back.” The way he said it made it a promise. As if he could keep it.

“I’m gonna …” Amos said, gesturing to Clarissa.

Naomi nodded. “I’ll get some work done.”

“That leaves me for watch,” Bobbie said with a lopsided smile. “Not much of a plan, but it isn’t nothing.”

“I’ll get you a plan,” Naomi said.

Sitting alone on her new, thin bunk, she built a list on Saba’s terminal. If she thought too much about the dangers, the time pressure, she knew the dark thoughts would start coming. There wasn’t time for that. If she could focus, though, problem-solve, she’d be okay. She’d known herself long enough to learn that. The care and feeding of a well-used mind.

The final goal was to get out of the slow zone and find someplace safe to hide and regroup. So the last step was at the top of the list:

REGROUP

She didn’t have the details of what that would look like. Probably keep her head down and see what happened. Wait for the enemy to stumble or new allies to appear. The old, old strategies. But whatever shape it took, that was the final goal. In order for that to happen, they would have to manage some other things …

REACH SAFETY

Before that …

IDENTIFY SAFETY

After all, they’d need to know where they were fleeing to before they fled. It had to be someplace that they could land the Roci. Someplace that wasn’t likely to fall in line with Duarte and turn them in. So none of Fisk’s association worlds, and not Sol either. That was tricky, but she felt the beginnings of some ideas for it. So all right. But there was more than one dependency for that, so she split the column and added the other track.

BLIND MEDINA AND GATHERING STORM

If the Laconians knew where they’d gone, they wouldn’t stay hidden long. So that would be important. And it would be the last thing they did before they left, so the enemy wouldn’t have time to fix whatever they chose to break. She’d have to have everyone ready to go before the sensor arrays went down, so …

GATHER EVACUATION GROUPS

And in order to do that, they’d have to get the word to everyone in Saba’s networks. All the underground. All of them. And there it was. The sorrow and the fear. And the tightness at the back of her throat. It was all right. She just had to put it on her list. It was just part of the plan.

SAVE JIM

Saba sent a message an hour before “Ami Henders” was supposed to get off her shift. Bobbie got the same message, though none of the others did. It was a restaurant just one level under the drum’s inner surface and a route to reach it that would, if everything went well, avoid any checkpoints. Naomi washed her face in the little sink no wider than her two palms together and tugged her hair into something like order. When she got home to the Roci, she was going to spend a day in the showers. A whole damned day.

Alex and Clarissa were waiting for her in the public hall. Bobbie and Amos were a few meters down, pretending to talk, but actually keeping watch. They were both bruised, and there was a cut over Amos’ eye. They looked like they’d been caught in the explosion, which was technically true, but the tension that had been showing in the way Amos held his gut and shoulders was gone.

No, not gone. But lessened. That was good.

“We ready to paint the town red?” Clarissa asked, taking Naomi’s arm. It had the form of a playful gesture, but the need for support was there too.

“I hope this place serves margaritas,” Alex said. “It’s been a long time since I had a good margarita.”

“Trust me when I say you’ve never had a good margarita, Martian,” Amos replied. “Still some things only Earth does well.”

Bobbie caught Naomi’s eye, gave a little nod, and started off along the route. Amos walked at her side, his steps rolling a little in the fractional gravity, like something hurt with each step. Naomi gave them a few seconds, and then started after them. There was a story behind those bruises, and she had the impression she’d never know what it was.

James Holden had shipped with five others on his crew, but they weren’t five. They were a couple up ahead, and a different group of three behind. As ways to avoid pattern recognition, it was thin. But it was something.

The restaurant was a wide, white ceramic bar open to the corridor. Billows of steam came from the back, rich with the smells of fish and curry. The design didn’t fit into the aesthetic of the original ship. This space was a modification, the Nauvoo, which became the Behemoth, which became Medina Station in the process of learning what it was and would be. Looked at that way, Naomi liked the restaurant, even if it was a little ugly.

The man behind the counter nodded, greeted them all in a dialect Naomi didn’t recognize, and waved them back into the steam. The kitchen was small, with two women—one very old, the other hardly more than a girl—who looked at them curiously as they passed through.

The old man opened a thick metal door and nodded, smiling, at the walk-in freezer beyond it. Saba was already there, a blanket over his shoulders and a thin, black cigarette in his mouth. His cheeks were ruddy with the cold. The old man closed the door behind them, and a golden emergency light came on, throwing shadows across them from crates of vat-raised fish. Amos’ gaze cut over to Clarissa, but if anything she seemed to be enjoying the cold.

“Not perfect,” Saba said, “but hard for them to hear us.”

“You think they’re listening?”

“No,” Saba said. “But here, seems less likely I’m wrong. Perdón for the fast change. I didn’t have much warning.”

“Shikata ga nai,” Naomi said, and Saba nodded ruefully.

“We have a plan,” Bobbie said. “Well, Naomi does.”

“The outline of one anyway,” Naomi said. “I don’t love it, because a lot of things have to happen in a very small time frame. But the Typhoon arrives in less than a week, and slowing that down isn’t something I can do.”

“I have people,” Saba said. “You tell me, I’ll tell who needs telling.”

“There’s just a lot of moving parts,” Naomi said. “Lots of ways for things to break down.”

“Tell me a story,” Saba said through a cloud of smoke and visible breath.

Naomi did. She went through step by step, detail by detail. As she talked, the whole operation solidified in her mind, letting her speak with a clarity and authority she only halfway felt. It was a terrible plan, open to a thousand different failures, and some of them wouldn’t be things they could recover from. If the assault team couldn’t get onto the Storm. If the kill code was changed or unhackable. If the Laconian repair crews could get the sensors fixed more quickly than she expected.

But with every word she spoke, with every detail she provided, she felt the Typhoon looming behind her. Coming close. Ending any chance they had.

“Gonya need two bombs,” Saba said, pulling up his hand terminal. The one that didn’t connect to the station’s legitimate network. He talked as he composed a message. “One for sensors, one for the jail. Katria’s good for one. Have to see who she likes for two. Which one matters more?”

They both matter, Naomi said at the same moment Clarissa said, The jail.

“I worked on this station, back in the day,” Clarissa said. “Get me access to the secondary power junction that feeds them and a way to reset the primary. I can keep the sensors down.”

“Claire,” Bobbie said, concern in her voice.

“I’m good for it,” Clarissa said. “It will work.”

And then that was decided. Saba was already putting a message into his hand terminal.

“Bist bien alles,” he said.

“Amos and I are dealing with the Storm,” Bobbie said. “You give us a team, but we’re point or no deal.”

“Deal,” Saba said. “I’ll put me and mine on the Malaclypse as soon as the signal goes. If the muscle here has trouble, at least there can be two against the one. Plan B, sa sa?”

Alex raised his hand. “No one’s flying the Roci on this but me. We all knew that, right?”

“I’ll take the jail,” Naomi said. I’ll get Jim.

Saba’s terminal chirped, and he looked at it with pleasure. “Katria has someone. Coyo with experience in demolitions. He’ll need to know what we’re doing. Just his part, though. Inner circle, us.”

“Inner circle,” Naomi said. “Claire and I can meet with him.”

“Good,” Saba said as he trundled to the freezer door and pounded on it with a blanket-wrapped fist. Then he pointed to Bobbie and Amos. “You come with me. We’ll see Katria. Talk about how to hunt Marines.”

Something flickered over Bobbie’s face. Hardly even an expression, but Naomi saw it.

“You lead, we’ll follow,” Amos said, smiling his empty smile.

“Any thoughts on how to get me onto my ship?” Alex asked as the door opened.

“Several,” Saba said. “You should come with.” Then he shook his head. “Too many things. Not enough time.”

They stepped out into the suddenly burning air. Naomi hadn’t even noticed she was getting cold until suddenly she wasn’t anymore. Saba led them out to the kitchen, and then they slipped through the steam and into the civilian world two by two until she and Clarissa were all that remained.

They sat at the counter and watched people go by. The fish was unremarkable, but the curry and mushroom rice actually were good. Across the corridor, a monitor spooled out the newsfeed until it repeated. Clarissa ate, drank tea, talked about everything and nothing. Naomi almost didn’t notice the tremble in the other woman’s hand or the way her eyes jittered sometimes. If she thinks she can do it, she can do it, Naomi told herself.

The man arrived, sliding into the chair beside them. Dark, handsome eyes and a bright, excited smile with a crooked nose between them. “Namnae na Jordao,” he said. “Seen you both back at home, yeah?”

“I remember,” Clarissa said.

“Katria, she sent me,” he said, then leaned forward. “So what is it we’re going to do?”