Nemesis Games (Expanse 5)

He sat across from her now, still in his Martian military uniform. His eyes were soft, his lips pressed into a smile of amusement and regret. He looked like a poet. A man well bruised by the world, but still capable of passion. She wondered if he practiced the expression in a mirror. Probably, he did.

The wound on her head had stopped bleeding. Her joints all ached, and a vast bruise was blooming on her left hip. Even her fingertips felt like she’d scraped the first layers of skin off them, leaving them weeping and raw, though actually they just looked a little pinker than usual. She drank the same version of chamomile tea that the Rocinante made, and it felt like having a secret ally. She recognized that wasn’t a perfectly sane thought, but comfort was comfort.

The mess was empty, the screens turned off and the crew sent away. Even Cyn and Karal were absent. The implication was that whatever they said there was private, but it probably wasn’t. She could imagine Filip on another deck, watching. It felt like a setup. Everything about Marco felt like a setup. Because everything was.

“I don’t know why you do these things to me, Naomi,” Marco said. There was no anger in his voice. No, that wasn’t true. The anger was there, but hidden behind the mask of disappointment. “You used to be better than this.”

“I’m sorry. Did I upset your plans?”

“Well, yes,” Marco said. “That’s the thing. Used to be, you knew better. Used to be you at least tried to understand what was going on before you jumped in. Professional. This, though? Took a difficult thing and made it worse. Now what could have been gentle is going to be hard. I just want you to understand why I’m going to do what I’m going to do so you see I didn’t have a choice.”

There was a smart thing to do. She knew it. A wiser woman would have cried, begged forgiveness. That it would be insincere was the point. It was a mistake to give Marco anything real. Better to be thought weak. Better to be underestimated and misunderstood. She knew that, but she couldn’t do it. When she tried, something deep within her pushed back. Maybe if she pretended to be weak, it was too possible that it would become true. Maybe she was pretending to be strong.

Naomi spat on the deck. There was a little blood along with her saliva. “Save the air.”

He leaned forward, taking her hand in his. His grip was strong, like he was showing that he could hurt her, even if he wasn’t doing it right now. She thought, Well, that’s one way to make your subtext physical, and then chuckled.

“Naomi, I know we aren’t good, du y mé. I know you’re angry. But I know we were something once. We’re one body, you and me. Much as we try to be apart, our son means we will never be totally separate.”

She tried to pull her hand back, but he kept hold of it. She could pull harder or let him touch her, control her body even if it was only that much. The glimmer in his eyes was pleasure. His smile was a little more genuine, and it had an edge.

“You’ve got to understand what I’m doing here, it’s not for me. It’s for us.”

“Us?”

“Belters. All Belters. It’s for Filip. So when his turn comes, there’s still a place for him. Not just a footnote. Once upon a time there were a people who lived on moons and asteroids and the planets where life didn’t evolve. But then we found the gates, and those people died out because we didn’t need them. It’s why I have to do this. You don’t like my methods. I understand that. But they’re mine, and the cause is righteous.”

Naomi didn’t speak. The food processor let out a high whine that meant its water supply was getting low. She wondered if Marco knew that, or if it was just another meaningless noise for him.

“Pretty speech. But it doesn’t explain why I’m here. You didn’t need me here in order to break the system. Needed me for something else. You want to know what I think?”

“You told me,” Marco said, his grip on her hand tightening just a degree. “So the great James Holden wouldn’t come blow my house down. Seriously, you think too much of him. He’s not that impressive.”

“No, it’s worse than that. I think you wanted the Roci. I think you wanted my ship flying at your side when you did all this. But when I didn’t bring her, you fell back. Had Sakai rig her to blow. Because there is nothing original about you at all.”

His smile was as warm, but his eyes were cold now. Unamused. “Don’t follow,” he said.

“You start the conversation with Why do you make me hurt you when I love you so much? and now we’re at If I can’t have you, no one can. You can pretend we’re talking about the ship if you want. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Marco let her go and stood. He wasn’t as tall as she remembered him. “You got it wrong from the start. I wanted Fred Johnson – Butcher of Anderson Station, who killed people like you and me and Filip just because we were Belters. I wanted him isolated. Keep your ship out of his hands. Tried to get it brought, but no. Had Sakai try to disable her. Disable, sa sa? Had it rigg

ed to blow at three percent power. Blown off her aft, maybe didn’t even hurt anyone.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said, but he was on a roll now, pacing the length of the mess, his arms spread wide like a man giving a speech to an invisible crowd.

“Killing the ship wasn’t my plan. That’s what you pushed me into. What happens to Holden is your fault, not mine. That’s what you need to see. How things get worse when you start acting like you know. You don’t know, Naomi. You don’t know because I haven’t told you.”

She took a sip of her tea and shrugged. “So tell me.”

Marco grinned. “You notice when we cut thrust for a few minutes? Strange thing to do in the middle of a chase, don’t you think?”

The truth was, she hadn’t noticed. In her bunk, nursing her wounds, the shifts in ship gravity hadn’t been on her mind.

“Docking procedure,” he said and pulled his hand terminal from his pocket and chose something. The speakers on the screens clicked, hissed. No image appeared on them, but a voice came.

Her voice.

“This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. If you get this message, please retransmit. Tell James Holden I am in distress. Comm is not responding. I have no nav control. Please retransmit.”