“I don’t know why she wouldn’t be on the Rocinante. And no offense, but I’m wondering why I ever got off my ship too. Longer I’m away, the worse an idea leaving it turns out to have been.”
“I was thinking the same about my house,” Smith said.
One of the Marines – taller, and with a slushy accent that Alex couldn’t place – nodded. “You should take cover, sir. We’re going to have to pass through some territory we might not control.”
He meant that the enemy had already cut off the path between them and the hangar. Alex pressed himself against the wall that the prime minister hadn’t claimed and braced. The lift slowed, what had been down became up, then even that gentle gravity went away again. The marines stepped back, raised their weapons, and the doors opened. An eternal half second later, they moved out into the corridor, Alex and the prime minister following.
The corridors of the ship were empty, the crew strapped in their couches for the battle or else on the move elsewhere, keeping these halls safe while the four of them moved down them. The marines took turns moving forward from doorway to intersection to doorway. The distance behind them grew greater with every little jump, and Alex was deeply aware of the doors they’d passed that could open without any guards between him and whoever came out. The marines didn’t seem worried, so he tried to take comfort in that.
The halls had the same anti-spalling covering that the bridge and the mess had had, but marked with location codes and colored strips that would help navigate the ship. One line was deep red with HANGAR BAY written in yellow Hindi, English, Bengali, Farsi, and Chinese. Where the red line went, they followed.
They went quickly and quietly and Alex was almost thinking they’d make it to the bay without trouble when the enemy found them.
The ambush was professional. The slushy-voiced marine had just launched forward when the firing started. Alex couldn’t see where it was coming from at first, but he braced automatically and risked looking forward. At the intersection ahead of them, he caught the flare of muzzle flashes and the small circle of helmets. The attackers were standing on a bulkhead looking up the corridor, like they were shooting into a well. Even if he’d had a gun, there was a very small area to target.
“We’re taking fire,” the other marine said, and it took Alex a quarter second to understand he wasn’t talking to them. “Tollivsen’s shot.”
“Still in the fight,” the slushy accent shouted.
Across the corridor from Alex, Prime Minister Smith was huddled behind the lip of a doorway. Most civilians tried to press against the wall and ended up launching themselves into the middle of the firing lines. Smith hadn’t done that. So score one for training.
Another burst of fire sang past, tearing long black strips from the walls and deck and filling the air with the smell of cordite.
“Oyé,” one of the attackers called. “Hand up Smith y we let you go, sa sa?”
The first marine fired three rounds in fast succession, and the attackers’ laughter follo
wed it. Alex couldn’t be sure, but he thought the people firing at him were wearing Martian military uniforms and light armor.
“Hey!” Alex called. “We’re not going to be any good to you dead, right?”
There was a lull, like a moment of surprise. “Hoy, bist tu Kamal?”
“Um,” Alex said. “My name’s Kamal.”
“Knuckles’ pilot, yeah?”
“Who’s Knuckles?”
“Pinché traitor’s who,” the voice said. “You get to hell, tell her Salo sent you.”
“Grenade incoming,” the slushy-voiced marine said, his voice weirdly calm. “Employing countermeasures.”
Alex turned his face to the wall and pressed his hands to his ears. The shock of the explosion was like being slapped all across his side. He fought to breathe. Flecks of something like snow swirled through the air, and the stink of plastic and spent explosive was thick enough to choke. The stutter of gunfire seemed to come from far away.
“Grenade mitigated,” the marine shouted. “But we could use some backup here.”
The prime minister had a bright line of red across the backs of his hands, blood soaking into the white of his cuffs and floating in tiny dots through the air of the hallway. Alex felt the wall shudder under his hand as something on the ship detonated too far away to hear. Someone at the head of the corridor was laughing and whooping something in Belter chatter too fast to follow. Alex ducked his head out and back again, trying to get a glimpse of the corridor ahead. A crackle of gunfire drove him back into his shallow cover.
The laughter ahead of them turned to screams, the sharp, flat reports of gunfire into something deeper and more threatening. The marines opened fire, and the corridor rose to pandemonium. A body cartwheeled by, limp and dead, its uniform sopping up blood from a dozen wounds. Alex couldn’t tell which side the fighter had belonged to.
The gunfire stopped. Alex waited a long moment, ducked his head out and back again. Then leaned out for a longer look. The intersection where the enemy had been was misty with smoke and blood and the anti-grenade countermeasure. Two bodies floated in the middle space, one dead in light combat armor, the other in full marine recon gear. The power-armored figure lifted its hand in the sign for all clear.
“We cleaned that up for you,” Bobbie called, her voice seeming to come from miles away and with all the treble stripped out. “You can come on up. Might want to hold your breath through here, though. There’s some particulates.”
Alex pulled himself forward, the prime minister following close behind. They passed Bobbie and four new marines that swelled their escort to six. He hadn’t seen Bobbie in armor since the fight on Io. With the other marines around her, the massive armor adding to her normal bulk, she seemed at home. And more than that, she seemed wistful, knowing that it was an illusion.
“Looks good on you, Draper,” Alex called as he passed. Half-deafened by the firefight, he only felt the words in his throat. Bobbie’s smile told him that she’d heard them.