“Why are we doing this?”
Holden wished his brain had been a little clearer. After a certain point, he felt like his verbal centers ran straight to his mouth without passing through the rest of his brain. “Because we can’t just blow up enough things that this becomes a good situation. We’re going to need more than that in our toolbox.”
Bobbie stepped off the lift. There was something odd about her, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. She was wearing simple blacks, but the way she held herself made them look like a uniform. Her hands were in fists at her sides, but she didn’t seem angry so much as nervous. That didn’t bode well.
“Hey,” Holden said.
“Sir.”
“Please don’t call me sir. No one on the ship does. Everything all right? Fred want something?”
“Johnson didn’t send me,” Bobbie said. “You’re going out, and I’m reporting for duty.”
“Okay,” Holden said. “You can route tactical and fire control down here, or take the gunner’s seat up by Alex. Wherever feels most comfortable.”
Bobbie took a deep breath and something Holden didn’t understand played out across her wide face. “I’ll take the gunner’s seat,” she finally said, and climbed up to the cockpit. Holden watched her ankles disappear above him, his brow furrowed hard enough to ache a little.
“That was … um,” he said. “Was that a moment?”
“That was a moment,” Naomi said.
“Good moment
or bad moment?”
“Very good moment.”
“Well. Shit,” he said. “I’m sorry I missed it.”
“All right, everyone strapped in?” Alex called.
One by one, the crew answered. They were ready. Or as ready as they were likely to get. Holden let his head sink into the gel of the couch, shifting his screen to match Naomi’s. There were an awful lot of ships floating in the vicinity of Ceres right now. He listened as Alex requested that the docking clamps be released. For long, painful seconds, Ceres traffic authority didn’t answer. And then, “Affirmative, Rocinante. You are cleared to leave.”
The ship shuddered and the spin gravity of Ceres vanished as Alex let their momentum fling them out into the vacuum. On his screen, they were a white dot flying off at a tangent to the station’s massive curve. He flipped to external cameras and watched the surface of the dwarf planet curve away.
“Well,” Naomi said. “Looks like Fred didn’t object to this enough to keep us from going out.”
“Yeah,” Holden said. “I hope he knows what he’s doing, trusting delicate work like this to agents of chaos like us.”
Amos chuckled, and Holden realized he’d said that on the full-crew channel.
“Fairly sure he’s making this shit up as he goes too,” Amos said. “Anyway, the worst-case scenario is we all get killed and he gets to feel smart for not having his people on board when we did it. Win-win for him.”
When Bobbie spoke, Holden could hear the smile in it, despite the words. “No one dies while standing watch without permission from the commanding officer.”
“You say so, Babs,” Amos replied.
“Keep braced,” Alex said. “I’m gonna have to get us on course here.”
Normally the shifting of the ship under maneuvering thrusters was almost subliminal to Holden. The subtle dance of vectors and thrust had been part of his life ever since he’d left Earth. It was only that he was so tired and worried and full of so very much coffee that it bothered him. With every adjustment, up and down changed a little and then went back to the float. When Alex fired the Epstein for a few seconds, the Roci sang, harmonics ringing through overtones up and down the hull like a church bell.
“Not too much, Alex,” Holden said. “We don’t want our braking burn to slag anybody. At least I don’t think we do.”
“Not a problem,” Alex said. “We’ll just tap back down to a good coasting speed until we’re right up alongside them. Final braking won’t catch anyone in the plume.”
“And keep the torpedoes and PDCs hot,” Holden said. “Just in case.”
“On it,” Bobbie said. “We’re getting painted by ranging lasers.”