Babylon's Ashes (Expanse 6)

“Things are busy,” Bates said.

“Not a problem,” Holden said as he signed and pressed his thumb to the reader pad. The terminal chimed. It was a small, happy sound. Like the terminal was very happy Holden had authorized the delivery.

“Got you in bay H-15?” Bates said. “We’ll have that unloaded for you right away. Who’s your re

pair coordinator?”

“We’ve got our own,” Holden said. “Naomi Nagata.”

“Right. Of course,” the man said, nodded once, and was gone. On the screen Zedina Rael had been replaced by a thick-featured Ifrah McCoy. At least Holden knew who she was. The invisible interviewer said something, and a lull in the background noise let him hear the answer: There must be a response. We have to stand up. The frustration and pain in McCoy’s voice bothered him, and he didn’t know if it was because he agreed with her or because he was afraid what that response would lead to. He turned back toward the docks proper and the work at hand.

In a spin station like Tycho or the Lagrange stations, the ship would have been parked in vacuum. Luna was another thing entirely. The shipyard had vast locks dug deep into the lunar body with tugs to guide ships in and out, retractable seals, air. The Rocinante stood upright, drive cone toward the center of the moon and chisel-tip upper decks toward the stars, held in a webwork of scaffolding. The space was large enough to house a ship three times her size, and all of it was filled with breathable air.

Racks of construction mechs stood against the wall except for the four that were on the Rocinante, crawling gently over its surface like spiders on a crow. Naomi was in one, Amos in another. The third was Sandra Ip, one of two engineers who Fred Johnson had brought on as the Roci’s crew for the flight to Luna when the real crew—less Holden—had scattered to the void.

Alex and Bobbie stood on a raised platform, looking up at the body of the ship. The damage the Free Navy had done was knotted as a scar, and bright. Wide panels—the newly delivered sections of hull—rose up the ship and scaffold, guided by massive waldoes. Alex held out a headset, and Holden connected it to his hand terminal, shifting to the full-crew channel.

“How’s it looking?” he asked.

“They did a number on us,” Naomi said. “I’m impressed.”

“Always easier to break things than put them together,” Holden said.

“More evidence for that,” Naomi agreed with a Belter nod of the fist. “And these replacement sections …”

“Problem?”

Sandra Ip’s voice answered. It was a little jarring to hear an unfamiliar voice. “They’re carbon-silicate lace. State-of-the-art. Lighter, stronger. These things can deflect a glancing PDC round.” Defensiveness just below the surface told Holden this wasn’t the first time through the conversation.

“They can for now,” Naomi said. Holden switched his mic to the Rocinante-only channel, but kept listening on the full crew.

“So, just between the family here? What’s the issue with the new plates?”

“Nothing,” Naomi said. “They’re great. Everything it says on the tin. But five years from now? Ten?”

“They don’t age well?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Alex drawled. “Ain’t none of this stuff ten years old yet. The materials-science folks got a kick in the pants after the protomolecule. Bunches of new toys. Lace plating’s just one. In theory, it should hold up just like the real thing. In practice, we’re the practice. I had a hell of a time convincing the Roci I wasn’t putting in the wrong mass for them too. It’s going to change how she handles.”

Holden crossed his arms. Above him, the waldoes shifted the new hull section in, laying it along the Roci’s side. “Are we sure we want to do this? We can hold out for the regular kind.”

“Not if we want to get out to Tycho anytime soon, we can’t,” Naomi said. “There’s a war on.”

“We can turn down the contract,” Holden said. “Fred can find another ride.”

“I don’t know, Cap,” Amos said. “Things being what they are, I kind of like that we’re getting work. I mean, as long as money still works.” He paused. “Hey, does money still work?”

“It does if we win,” Naomi said. “Free Navy ports weren’t going to refit and refuel us anyway.”

“Right,” Amos said. “So I kind of like that we’re getting work.”

Two of the mechs scuttled forward to the edge of the new hull plate. Welding torches like little suns burst into life, cleaving old technology and new together. There was something about it that Holden disliked and distrusted. But there was also something amazing. The very fabric the lace hull was made from hadn’t existed when he was born, and now it did.

Vast intelligences had designed the protomolecule, the rings, the weird and implacable ruins that covered all the new worlds. They might be extinct, but they were also being incorporated into what humanity knew, what it could do, how it defined itself. A kid born today would grow up in a world where carbon-silicate lace was as common as titanium or glass. That it was a collaboration between humanity and the ghosts of a massive and alien intelligence would go right by them. Holden was one of the lucky generation who would straddle that break point, that seam between before and after that Naomi and Amos and Ip were making literal right now, and so he could be amazed by how cool it was. Creepy, but cool.

“It’s the future,” he said. “We might as well get some practice with it.”

The rest of Fred Johnson’s temporary crew were either already on the Rocinante along with Clarissa or on the way from their quarters on Luna. There was an excitement about the coming action. It was the first time that they—Earth, Mars, and even the less radical splinters of the OPA—would work together to take any direct action against the Free Navy. The heavy lifting would be done by Earth and Mars, but the Rocinante would be there. An observation ship carrying Fred Johnson. A representative, however imperfect, of the Belt. They were ready.