Eros lay before him, darker than the empty sky.
He ran the hand terminal connection through the suit, calling Holden for what he expected was the last time.
“Miller,” Holden said almost immediately.
“I’m heading in now,” he said.
“Wait. Look, there’s a way we might be able to get an automated cart. If the Roci—”
“Yeah, but you know how it is. I’m already here. And we don’t know how fast this sonofabitch can go. We’ve got a problem we need to fix. This is how we do it.”
Holden’s hope had been weak, anyway. Pro forma. A gesture and, Miller thought, maybe even heartfelt. Trying to save everyone, right to the last.
“I understand,” Holden finally said.
“Okay. So once I’ve broken whatever the hell I find in there…?”
“We’re working on ways to annihilate the station.”
“Good. I’d hate to go through the trouble for nothing.”
“Is there… Is there anything you want me to do? After?”
“Nah,” Miller said, and then Julie was at his side, her hair floating around her like they were underwater. She glowed in more starlight than was actually there. “Wait. Yes. A couple things. Julie’s parents. They run Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile. They knew the war was going start before it did. They’ve got to have links to Protogen. Make sure they don’t get away with it. And if you see them, tell them I’m sorry I didn’t find her in time.”
“Right,” Holden said.
Miller squatted in the darkness. Was there anything else? Shouldn’t there be more? A message to Havelock, maybe? Or Muss. Or Diogo and his OPA friends? But then there would have to be something to say.
“Okay,” Miller said. “That’s it, then. It was good working with you.”
“I’m sorry it came down this way,” Holden said. It wasn’t an apology for what he’d done or said, for what he’d chosen and refused.
“Yeah,” Miller said. “But what can you do, right?”
It was as close to goodbye as either of them could get. Miller shut the connection, brought up the script Naomi had sent him, and enabled it. While he was at it, he turned the Eros feed back on.
A soft hushing sound, like fingernails scratching down an endless sheet of paper. He turned on the cart’s lights, the dark entrance of Eros brightening to industrial gray, shadows scattering to the corners. His imagined Julie stood in the glare like it was a spotlight, the glow illuminating her and all the structures behind her at the same time, the remnant of a long dream, almost over.
He took off the brakes, pushed, and went inside Eros for the last time.
Chapter Fifty-One: Holden
Holden knew that humans could tolerate extremely high g-forces over short durations. With proper safety systems, professional daredevils had sustained impacts in excess of twenty-five g’s and survived. The human body deformed naturally, absorbed energy in soft tissues, and diffused impacts across larger areas.
He also knew that the problem with extended exposure to high g was that the constant pressure on the circulatory system would begin exposing weaknesses. Have a weak spot in an artery that could turn into an aneurysm in forty years? A few hours at seven g might just pop it open now. Capillaries in the eyes started to leak. The eye itself deformed, sometimes causing permanent damage. And then there were the hollow spaces, like the lungs and digestive tract. You piled on enough gravity, and they collapsed.
And while combat ships might maneuver at very high g for short durations, every moment spent under thrust multiplied the danger.
Eros didn’t need to shoot anything at them. It could just keep speeding up until their bodies exploded under the pressure. His console was showing five g, but even as he watched, it shifted to six. They couldn’t keep this up. Eros was going to get away. There was nothing he could do about it.
But he still didn’t order Alex to stop accelerating.
As if Naomi were reading his mind, WE CAN’T KEEP THIS UP POPPED UP on his console, her user ID in front of the text.
FRED’S WORKING ON IT. THEY MIGHT NEED US TO BE WITHIN RANGE OF EROS WHEN THEY COME UP WITH A PLAN, he replied. Even moving his fingers the millimeters necessary to use the controls built into his chair for exactly this reason was painfully difficult.
WITHIN RANGE FOR WHAT? NAOMI TYPED.
Holden didn’t answer. He had no idea. His blood was burning with drugs to keep him awake and alert even while his body was being crushed. The drugs had the contradictory effect of making his brain run at double speed while not allowing him to actually think. But Fred would come up with something. Lots of smart people were thinking about it.
And Miller.
Miller was lugging a fusion bomb through Eros right now. When your enemy had the tech advantage, you came at him as low-tech as you could get. Maybe one sad detective pulling a nuclear weapon on a wagon would slip through their defenses. Naomi had said they weren’t magic. Maybe Miller could make it and give them the opening they needed.
Either way, Holden had to be there, even if it was just to see.
FRED, Naomi typed to him.
Holden opened the connection. Fred looked to him like a man suppressing a grin.
“Holden,” he said. “How are you guys holding up?”
SIX G’S. SPIT IT OUT.
“Right. So it turns out that the UN cops have been ripping Protogen’s network apart, looking for clues as to what the hell’s been going on. Guess who showed up as public enemy number one for the Protogen bigwigs? Yours truly. Suddenly all is forgiven, and Earth welcomes me back into her warm embrace. The enemy of my enemy thinks I am a righteous bastard.”
GOODY. MY SPLEEN IS COLLAPSING. HURRY UP.
“The idea of Eros crashing into Earth is bad enough. Extinction-level event, even if it’s just a rock. But the UN people have been watching the Eros feeds, and it’s scaring the shit out of them.”
AND.
“Earth is preparing to launch her entire ground-based nuclear arsenal. Thousands of nukes. They’re going to vaporize that rock. The navy will intercept what’s left after the initial attack and sterilize that entire area of space with constant nuclear bombardment. I know it’s a risk, but it’s what we have.”
Holden resisted the urge to shake his head. He didn’t want to wind up with one cheek stuck to the chair permanently.
EROS DODGED THE NAUVOO. IT’S GOING SIX G’S RIGHT NOW, AND ACCORDING TO NAOMI, MILLER FEELS NO ACCELERATION. WHATEVER IT’S DOING, IT DOESN’T HAVE THE SAME INERTIAL LIMITATIONS WE HAVE. WHAT’S TO STOP IT FROM JUST DODGING AGAIN? AT THESE SPEEDS, THE MISSILES WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TURN AROUND AND CATCH IT. AND WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TARGETING ON? EROS DOESN’T REFLECT RADAR ANYMORE.