Tiamat's Wrath (Expanse 8)

“And her team is crunching the numbers,” Sagale said, biting each word off individually. He was scared. He was right to be. She was too.

“Where’s Jen?” she asked. There was a sharp pain in her chest. More fluid coming loose.

“The others are sedated,” Sagale said. “There was no reason to keep them awake.”

“She could have monitored the data coming in from Tecoma,” Fayez said. “I mean, I can look at it, but Jen’s the one that understands.”

“I’d rather focus on keeping her alive so she can make sense of it later,” Sagale said.

“It’s going to hit the station, isn’t it?” Elvi said. “The star, the gate, and that alien station that runs the ring space. They’re all in a line.”

“Yes,” Sagale said.

Fayez raised a hand over his head like a kid in a classroom. “Um. Point of clarification? Do we really want to make a transit right before that happens? Because if I recall correctly, the whole reason that we have a Magnetar-class ship here at all is because hitting that little ball there with a massive energy burst makes an exponentially larger plume of gamma radiation pop out of all the gates.”

“We have been able to use that effect to guard all the gates simultaneously, yes,” Sagale said. “The cannons-on-the-cliffs strategy.”

“And don’t we want to be on this side of those cannons when they go off?” Fayez was talking too fast. Elvi took his hand, squeezing his fingers, hoping it would calm him. “I’m just asking, because the thing where we rush through to safety just in time to get cooked by the aftermath seems unpleasant.”

“It’s a calculated risk,” Sagale said. “We aren’t certain that the station will survive the blast. Or what will happen if it doesn’t.”

She watched new vistas of catastrophe unfold in her husband’s eyes. The station might break. The slow zone might collapse. It had been unthinkable right up to the moment he thought it.

“Okay, yeah,” Fayez said. “That’s a fair point.”

Governor Song’s voice came over the comm channel. “Admiral Sagale?”

“Yes?” Sagale said, then remembered he’d turned off the mic. He enabled it again. “Yes, Governor. I’m here.”

“We have slotted the Falcon for priority transit through Laconia gate. I am sending you the traffic control data now. Do not rush your transit. We’re cutting it as close to the limit as we can here. I don’t want anyone going dutchman.”

Sagale’s head came back a degree, as if the thought had surprised him. His voice when he spoke was clear. “Understood. Thank you for this, Jae-Eun.”

“If we live through this, you owe me a drink,” the governor of Medina Station said. “The ship ahead of you is the Plain of Jordan through Castila gate. Please monitor that and match to your plan. Godspeed, Mehmet.”

Sagale turned his attention to the controls, and a moment later the gravity warning sounded. Not that anyone else on the ship would hear it. Elvi had to fight the urge to shout the emergency evacuation command and let all the other ships figure out how to be safe about it.

“How long do we have?” Elvi asked, and then laughed. It sounded like she was asking how long they had to live, and since she kind of was, it seemed funny. Sagale didn’t join in.

“We’re going to be at a quarter g for a while if you want to stretch your legs,” he said. “Then you have to be back in the couch. Once we make the transit, I’m making a hard turn and burning perpendicular to the ring to get us away from it.”

“In case of overspill,” Fayez said.

“From an abundance of caution,” Sagale said. He passed the back of his hand over his eyes, and Elvi realized that for all his stoic reserve, he was weeping. The drive kicked on, and she drifted to the deck. Fayez put a hand on her shoulder and drew her away.

“This is bad,” he said softly.

“I know.”

He nodded. “I just felt like I needed to say it out loud.”

She took his hand and kissed it. It still smelled like breathable fluid. “If this is all we get… Well, then shit.”

“With you on that one, sweetheart,” he said, and folded his arms around her. “This whole thing really was a terrible idea, wasn’t it?”

“Couldn’t have seen it coming,” she said. “I mean, unless…”

Something moved in the back of her head. Something about the Magnetar-class ships and the way the Heart of the Tempest had annihilated the rail guns on the alien station during Laconia’s first incursion. The way it had killed Pallas Station. The way the enemy had reacted differently.