“All right,” Naomi said. “Stay safe.”
“Good hunting. We say, ‘Good hunting.’”
“Good hunting, then.”
The words were powerfully inadequate. She dropped the connection, unstrapped, braced herself against the handholds on the wall, and stretched her arms, her legs, worked the kinks in her spine. When she was done, she realized it was the same routine she did before she worked out. Preparing for great effort.
She went down to the galley where Alex and Jim and Clarissa were eating together. They all looked over at her as she pulled herself into the room. “Bobbie says we’re good to go.”
“Well, shit and yahoo,” Alex said.
Jim pulled his hand terminal out of his pocket, tapped through a set of commands including one with a double password, then pressed a button.
“Okay,” he said. “Signal’s out. As soon as the attack’s under way, we’ll burn for the ring and hope no one notices us.”
They were all quiet for a moment. Naomi felt like there should have been some kind of fanfare. Gongs and trumpets to announce the coming death and destruction. Instead, it was just the galley, the four of them, the sound of the air recyclers, and the smell of chicken.
“Looks like a shit night for sleeping,” Naomi said. “I’m going to be up watching the newsfeeds.” Jim didn’t say anything. His eyes were sunken with exhaustion and something else. Not fear. Worse than fear. Resignation. Naomi pushed off, braced beside him, and put her hand on his. He managed a smile. “I’ll bring drinks and snacks. We can watch the fireworks start.”
“I don’t know,” Jim said.
“It ain’t sulking if we all do it together, Hoss,” Alex said. And then, to Naomi, “Count me in.”
“Me too,” Clarissa said, and then didn’t add if I’m invited. Against the backdrop of the war, it was such a small thing, and Naomi was still glad to see it.
“Yeah,” Jim said, “okay.”
It took hours. All across the system, drive plumes flared. Around Ceres and Mars and Tycho, the consolidated fleet leaped away from their defensive positions and into the Belt. The scattering of Michio Pa’s pirate fleet joined in, and the OPA. By the time the last of them reported that they were on the burn, the ships of the Free Navy were starting to react. The Rocinante traced vectors and travel groups, threads of light tangling the emptiness between stations and planets. Battle lines. The newsfeeds lit up—civilian, government, corporate, and union all becoming aware that something was happening and leaping to make sense of what it could be.
It was just after midnight, ship time, that the Roci raised the alarm.
“What do we have, Alex?” Jim asked.
“Bad news. I’m seeing a couple of fast-attack ships headed our way out from Ganymede.”
“Well, so much for not being noticed. How long before they reach us?” Jim asked, but Naomi had already queried the system.
“Five days if they’re just buzzing us and looping back,” she said. “Twelve if they try to match orbit while we’re on the burn.”
“Can we take them?” Clarissa said.
“If it was just us, might could,” Alex said. “Problem is we’re guarding this cow. But if we burn hard enough, we might make the ring before they get us.”
“Figure it out on the way,” Jim said. “Right now, we need to get the Giambattista up and burning as hard as it can and still let Bobbie do her inspections.”
“No plan survives contact with the enemy,” Alex said, unstrapping and pulling himself up toward the cockpit. “I’m warming her up.”
“I’ll tell our friends across the way to do the same,” Holden said, taking comm control.
On Naomi’s monitor, the thousands of hair-thin lines marked where the battles were, and where they were expected to be. On impulse, she took down the tactical display, leaving just the wide scatter of drive plumes all around the system, and then added in the star field.
It was the widest concerted attack ever. Hundreds of ships on at least four sides. Dozens of stations, millions of lives.
Among the stars, it didn’t stand out.
Chapter Forty: Prax
The more time passed, the clearer it became how little Ganymede’s official neutrality meant. The ships in the docks and orbiting the moon were more and more Free Navy ships, fewer and fewer anything else. The soldiers in Free Navy uniform appeared more often at the tube stations, in the markets, in the public halls and corridors, first with the apparent casualness of citizens, then in larger groups with more aggressive demeanors. Then with armored emplacements that would allow them to shoot in safety whoever happened by.