Cibola Burn (Expanse 4)

In the next room, Murtry was down on his haunches looking at something on the floor. Wei stood behind him, nose wrinkled in disgust and her rifle in her hands.

“Wei,” Amos said with a nod.

“Amos,” the security officer replied with a grin.

Holden wondered what was going on there. They couldn’t have a thing, could they? When would they have found time to have a thing? But they definitely acted like they were sharing a private joke.

“Captain Holden,” Murtry said, standing up, not giving him more time to think about possible Amos-and-Wei dalliances. On the floor behind the RCE security chief was a clear plastic bowl inverted over one of the slugs. The creature was nuzzling its prison with its pointed eyeless face.

“Made a friend,” Holden said, pointing at the slug.

“They say it’s a good idea to know your enemy,” Murtry replied.

“They say a lot of stuff.”

“Yes. Yes, they do. How did the recon go?”

“About how you’d expect,” Holden said. “Initial reports are correct. There isn’t a single standing structure. Not even the remains of one. All the colony supplies are lost. We can make potables out of ground water until the chem lab runs out of supplies. But what’s raining out of the sky is radioactive, and probably has things living in it.”

“All right,” Murtry said, scratching his ear with one thick fingernail. “Can we agree that at present, the insurgent colony might not be viable?”

“You don’t have to sound happy about it.”

“I’m going to have some relief flown down as soon as comms clears up. RCE is happy to share these needed supplies with the refugees.”

“Very magnanimous,” Holden said. “But RCE is going to do me a bigger favor.”

“Oh,” Murtry said, his face shifting into a smile. “We are?”

“Yeah. Go ahead and bring the supply shuttle down. Evacuation is going to take some time, and we’ll want plenty of medicine, food, and shelter to keep these people healthy until everyone is off-world.”

“Off-world? Sounds like you’re doing us a favor there, Captain.”

“I’m not done,” Holden said, and took a step forward, deliberately moving into Murtry’s space. The security man stiffened, but didn’t step back. “When the shuttle leaves, it’s going to take some of the colonists with it. The sick and vulnerable first. And as soon as your people can de-weaponize the second shuttle, it’ll start making runs too. I’m giving the same orders to the Barbapiccola and the Rocinante. We’re leaving this planet, and if I can’t stick everyone on the Roci and the Barb, the Edward Israel will be taking the rest.”

Murtry’s smile cooled. “Is that right?”

“It is.”

“I fail to see why the ship that brought the squatters here can’t also take them away,” Murtry said.

“One, it no longer has the room,” Holden started.

“Then they should dump the ore they illegally stole from this world,” Murtry said.

“And two,” Holden continued as if he hadn’t interrupted, “she’s down to the last of her supplies. I won’t stick hundreds of people on that ship that may not make it back to Medina. I doubt it’s RCE policy to ignore a humanitarian crisis. And even if it is, it’s sure as hell going to make for terrible press.”

Murtry took an answering step toward Holden, crossing his arms and shifting his smile into an equally meaningless frown.

Plan B is that I have Amos kill you right now and just take what I want when the shuttle lands, Holden thought, but worked to keep it off his face.

Almost as if he could sense the thought, Amos shuffled forward and put one hand on the butt of his pistol. Wei shifted to his right, still gripping her rifle.

We are so close, Holden thought, to all of this going completely off the rails. But he couldn’t back down. Not with a couple hundred people living or dying on the outcome of the confrontation. Wei cleared her throat. Amos grinned back at her. Murtry cocked his head to one side, his frown deepening.

Here we go, Holden thought, and suppressed the urge to swallow a mouth suddenly full of saliva.

“Of course,” Murtry said. “We’d be happy to assist.”

“Uh,” Holden replied

“You’re right. We can’t leave them here,” Murtry continued. “And there isn’t room for them anywhere else. I’ll let the Israel know they’re taking on passengers as soon as we get comms up.”

“That would be great,” Holden said. “Thank you.”

“Doctor Okoye,” Murtry said. Holden turned to find the diminutive scientist had come in, her usual tentative smile on her face.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “But we’ve gotten the radio back up. We’re on with the Israel right now. You said to tell you as soon as we got through.”

“Thank you,” Murtry said and started to follow her out of the room. He paused, as though something had suddenly occurred to him, and turned to Holden. “You know, we’re only in this situation because these people came down and built a shantytown. We’d brought much better structures with us on the heavy shuttle. Much of this could have been avoided.”

Holden started to reply, but Elvi said, “Oh, no. I’m unhappy about the loss of the dome and the permanent structures too. But we clocked gusts of three hundred and seventy kilometers an hour out there. Nothing we set up would have withstood that.”

“Thank you, Doctor Okoye,” Murtry said with a tight smile, “for correcting me. Let’s go call the ship, shall we?”

Elvi blinked in puzzlement as Murtry left. “Is he mad at me?”

“Sweetie,” Amos said, clapping her on the back, “that just means you’re not an asshole.”

Chapter Thirty-Two: Havelock

After they’d lost radio contact with Murtry, Havelock had tried to sleep. He should have slept. There was nothing he could do. Not yet, anyway. Not until it was over. He floated in his couch, the straps keeping him centered over the gel, and willed his consciousness to fade. His mind wouldn’t rest. Were they still alive down there? What if the explosion was just the first of several? What if the planet detonated and took out the Israel? Should he have Marwick pull the ship into a higher orbit? Or even away from the planet entirely? And if the Barbapiccola tried to do the same… then what? He wasn’t supposed to let them break orbit with a full load of RCE’s lithium ore.