Nemesis Games (Expanse 5)

“We’ve got our escort,” Alex said. “Let’s get out of here. How many gs can you take back there, Draper?”

“If I break a rib, I’ll let you know.”

Alex grinned, spun the pinnace toward the sun, and accelerated – two g, three, four, four and a half – until the system started complaining that it couldn’t inject him with anything through the EVA suit. He hit the suit’s crude helmet controls with his chin and injected himself with all the amphetamine it had in its tiny emergency pack. The enemy ships seemed unsure what had just happened, but then they began to turn, thin red triangles on the display. Exhaust plumes competed with the stars behind him as he fell toward the sun, toward Earth and Luna and the rattled remnants of the UN fleet. Alex felt a bloom of joy welling up in his chest, like shrugging off a weight.

“You can’t take the Razorback,” he said to the tiny red triangles. “We are gone and gone and gone.” He switched the radio to general. “How’s everyone doing back there?”

“Fine,” the prime minister gasped. “But will we be accelerating like this for much longer?”

“Bit longer, yes, sir,” Alex said. “Once we get some breathing room, I’ll cut us back to just a g.”

“Breathing room,” the prime minister said, the words labored. “That’s funny.”

“Five by five here, Alex,” Bobbie said. “Is it safe to pop my helmet? I’d rather not run through all my bottled air when there’s fresh in the ship.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Same back there, Mister Prime Minister.”

“Please. Call me Nathan.”

“You got it, Nate,” Alex said. The sun was a sphere of white. He pulled up the nav computer and started plotting in paths to Luna. The fastest would take them inside the orbit of Mercury, but the pinnace wasn’t rated for more than half an AU from the coronal surface. So that was going to

be a little tricky. And Venus wasn’t anyplace that he could gracefully use to slingshot. But if Avasarala was sending out an escort to meet them, she might be able to get a boost off the planet. So heading that direction might make sense.

“Alex?” Bobbie said.

“I’m here.”

“That thing about not leaving me behind? You really meant that, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.”

“Thank you.”

He felt a blush rising even against the pressure of the burn. “Welcome,” he said. “I figure you’re crew now, right? We look out for each other.”

“No soldier left behind,” she said. It might have been the gs, but something about her tone made it sound like she meant something deeper by the words. Like she’d made a promise. She grunted. “Alex, we’ve got fast-movers coming in. I think the bad guys are throwing missiles at us.”

“You ready to disappoint them, Gunny?”

“Oh hell yes,” Bobbie said. “How many bullets have we got in this magazine?”

Alex switched the display. The cloud of escort missiles resolved into a numbered list, all in white with identifying serial numbers beside each of them. Even the list filled the screen. He switched to a field summary. “A little shy of ninety.”

“That should get us where we’re going. Looks like pretty near all their ships are burning hard for us too. How would you feel about taking a few potshots at them by way of discouragement?”

“It’ll keep them at a distance, anyway. I figure their PDCs’ll probably take them down before they can do any real damage, but apart from that I’m not opposed,” Alex said. “Except… hold on.” On his list, he switched to the enemy flotilla. It took him a few seconds to find what he was looking for. He marked the Pella. “Not that one. We don’t shoot that one.”

“Understood,” Bobbie said.

No soldier left behind, Alex thought. That goes for you too, Naomi. I don’t know what the hell’s going on out there, and I don’t see how this plays out yet. But I’ll be damned if I’m just leaving you behind.

Chapter Thirty-five: Naomi

Back before, when she had been a girl and not known any better, it had been hard for her to cast Marco as the bad guy in their pairing. Even after the Gamarra, it had been difficult. Even after he’d taken Filip away. She’d grown up around poverty. She knew what bad men looked like. They raped their wives. Or beat them. Or their children. That was how you knew them for what they were. Marco was never that. He never hit her, never forced himself on her, never threatened to shoot her or throw her out an airlock or pour acid in her eyes. He’d pretended kindness so well she would doubt herself, make herself wonder if she was the one being unreasonable, irrational, all the things he implied she was.

He never did anything that would have made it easy for her.

After she’d reached her quarters, the door had locked. She hadn’t bothered trying to raise help or leave her little room since. She knew a cell when she was in it, and she’d known with a certainty like her own mortality that sooner or later, Marco would come.