Babylon's Ashes (Expanse 6)

Each of Michio’s little fleet—alone or in pairs—had taken turns building and guarding the port while the others hunted colonists or gathered the supplies scattered into space, dodging Marco’s ships while they did it. The Solano had taken another of the colony ships—the Brilliant Iris out of Luna—and was escorting it toward Ceres to pay their dues to Caesar. Eugenia port was too small to accommodate a ship that large anyway. The Serrio Mal, on the other hand, was picking up the dark containers flung off Pallas and Ceres. Those were destined for Eugenia, and from there to wherever they were needed most. Delivering the supplies to Kelso and Iapetus was the most dangerous duty, and Michio reserved it for herself.

Worse than that would be not going.

“Looks thin, que,” she said.

“Looks because is,” Rodriguez said. “Gathering up’s been ralo these last times. Not getting what we were before. Some though.”

“Enough?”

Rodriguez laughed like she’d made a joke. “Got something interesting, though. Something for you.”

Michio felt the hair at the back of her neck stand up. This felt wrong. She smiled. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Couldn’t pass it by,” Rodriguez said, firing his suit’s thruster toward an access way. “Over this way. I’ll show.”

He didn’t tell her to leave Bertold and Nadia, which was good. She wouldn’t have. But she didn’t know whether to be reassured that he hadn’t tried to peel away her guards or frightened that maybe they didn’t matter.

“Bertold,” she said as they followed the other captain.

“Savvy,” he said, his hand on the butt of his gun as if it had only happened to come to rest there. Nadia was the same. They fell into a guarding formation as naturally as blinking. When Rodriguez reached the walls of the port, he landed with a clank, turning on his mag boot and killing his momentum with his knees. The music they’d heard before was gone now, and Rodriguez looked behind them, as if making sure they weren’t followed. Or else that they were.

“Making me nervous, coyo,” Michio said, walking after him. “Something you want to say?”

“Bon sí, aber not here,” Rodriguez said, the lightness gone from his voice and a grim tension in its place. “Smuggled past the smugglers, this one.”

“Not feeling better.”

“You will or you won’t. Come alles la.”

The container he took them to had a little office built out from the side. Scrapwelded together with its own airlock. Rodriguez keyed in a passcode by hand. Bertold stretched his arms, blew out his breath, like a weight lifter about to try more than his usual load.

“Love you,” Nadia said, her voice calm and conversational as if she wasn’t saying it in case they were her last words.

The airlock opened, and a man popped out. Thin frame, dark hair in curls. “Is she here?” he said, and then, “Oh. There you are.”

A shock of surprise, the uncertainty of whether this was a threat or something more interesting. “Sanjrani.”

“Nico, Nico, Nico,” Rodriguez said, pushing Sanjrani back through the airlock. “Not here. Didn’t sneak through te ass end of nothing to wave you like a flag. Get back safe in.” When Sanjrani had retreated, Rodriguez turned to Michio, motioning that she should follow. When she hesitated, he lifted his arm to his sides, cruciform. “Got no guns, me. Esá goes bad, la dué la can shoot me.”

“Can,” Bertold agreed. His sidearm was drawn, but not pointed. Not yet.

“All right, then,” Michio said, clomping forward in her boots, the magnets dragging her down against the floors, holding her, and letting her go again with every step.

In the little office, Sanjrani sat strapped onto a stool before a thin desk. Another waited across from him. She didn’t see a trap. Didn’t know what she was looking at. “Are you looking to change sides?” she asked.

Sanjrani made a deep, impatient cough. “I’m here to tell you why you’re killing everyone in the fucking Belt. You and Marco both. You two should be on my side.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“Am I dead already? No, he doesn’t. That’s how desperate I’ve gotten. I try to talk to Rosenfeld, but he’s only talking to Marco. No one knows where Dawes got to. They won’t listen.” There was a desperation in his voice, high and thin as a bow against a string.

“All right,” she said, moving to the stool, pulling the belt across her lap. “I’ll listen.”

Sanjrani

relaxed and pulled up a diagram from the desk’s display. A complex series of curves laid over x and y axes. “We made assumptions when we started this,” he said. “We made plans. Good ones, I think. But we didn’t follow them.”

“Dui,” Michio said.