Persepolis Rising (Expanse 7)

“Doesn’t feel like it, does it? I keep asking myself what the hell happened.”

“We lost Holden.”

Alex shook his head, tapped four fingertips on the table. “Yeah, and that’s hard, but something happened before that. We’ve faced all kinds of bad before now, and it never split up the family. It was always everyone else, never us. Now Naomi’s off in her room, and Amos is wherever the hell Amos is. You’re going for long walks. We used to be a crew. Now it’s me and Claire playing cards and worrying about everyone.” She heard the accusation in his voice, and she wanted to push back at him. Only he was right. Something deeper was wrong. Had been wrong.

In the hallway, Saba’s voice. A woman replied. It was all too quiet to make out the words. The people at the other table laughed about something. Bobbie hunched forward, her scowl deep enough to ache.

“Holden’s not just Holden,” she said, knowing it was an evasion but saying it anyway. “He’s the face of the Rocinante. He’s been on newsfeeds since before I joined up. He’s the special man. We pulled this thing off, and we lost one person in the operation. That’s a win. If it had been you or me or Claire that got caught, we’d still be celebrating, but it was Holden. Now it feels like we lost our good-luck charm.”

“Feels like that to them, sure,” Alex said, pointing to the others with his thumb. “But we lost him before, and it didn’t break us. Him and Naomi retiring was sad. And then he didn’t go away, and that was weird.”

“Yeah. The whole Captain Draper thing might have worked if he’d actually been out of the picture—”

Alex leaned forward, talking over her.

“But we know better. Whatever’s going on with Amos and you, it didn’t start when Holden left. Or when he came back. It was when that big-ass ship steamed through the gate from Laconia and fucked everything sideways. And now Naomi’s curling up in her bunk while everything’s still on fire.”

“She’s not helping with the decrypt?”

Alex shook his head once, sharply.

“She can’t pull back,” Bobbie said. “She’s the best tech on the station. Saba’s people are fine, but she’s better. She can’t just stop working because …”

Because her lover’s dead. Or worse. Bobbie felt the hurt and the guilt again.

“We need her,” Alex agreed. “I’ll have a talk with her if you want. Unless you want to be the one who kicks her butt?”

“I really don’t.”

“Good, because I don’t want to be the one who tells Amos to get his shit together. So that one’s on you.”

To Bobbie’s surprise, she smiled. For a moment, she could pretend the cramped little galley was the Rocinante. That she and Alex were burning between the gates and the stars. She put a hand on his arm, grateful that her friend was there. And that however shitty things got, the plan was still to fix them.

Alex’s smile was enough to show he understood everything she hadn’t spoken. “Right?” he said.

“You’re Naomi. I’m Amos. Then if Holden’s still alive, we find him, crack him loose, and get the hell out of Dodge before the next big-ass ship comes through that gate.”

“See? Now you’re talking sense,” Alex said. He sighed. “Which is good, because I thought I was going to have to tell you to stop sulking, and I really wasn’t looking forward to the part where you punched me in the mouth.”

Saba stood at the wider part of the hallway where an access panel had been taken out and never replaced. He held his arms above his head, bracing against the ceiling with the unconscious ease of someone ready for a ship that might move unexpectedly. He lifted his chin as Bobbie came close.

“Hey, I’m looking for Amos,” she said.

“Problem?”

“Tell you when I find out,” she said. “He’s not answering his comms.”

Saba’s brow furrowed. “Que shansy que he’s after Holden?”

“I wouldn’t put the odds high that he’d go on an extraction by himself,” Bobbie said. Then, a moment later, “I mean not zero, but not high.”

“See it stays, if you can,” Saba said. “We’re carrying plenty enough already, and more rolling down, yeah?”

Something in his voice caught her. “More news?”

Saba hesitated, then shifted his head. Come this way. “You looking for yours, me looking for you. You want the good word first, or the worrying?”

“Good,” Bobbie said. “I’m looking for good.”