Leviathan Wakes (Expanse 1)

Mother Elise, who’d been the one to stay home with him when he was very young, had always brought him something to eat while he watched, and then sat by him with her hand on his head, playing with his hair. She’d laughed at the dinosaur antics even harder than he had. One Halloween she’d made him a big pink hat to wear so that he could be the evil Count Mungo. Why had that guy been trying to capture the dinosaurs, anyway? It had never really been clear. Maybe he just liked dinosaurs. One time he’d used a shrink ray and—

Holden slammed into Miller’s back. The detective had stopped suddenly and now moved quickly to one side of the corridor, crouching low to keep himself in the shadows. Holden followed suit. About thirty meters ahead, the mercenary group had gotten much bigger and had split into two factions.

“Yep,” Miller said. “Whole lot of people having really bad days today.”

Holden nodded and wiped something wet off his face. It was blood. He didn’t think he’d hit Miller’s back hard enough to bloody his nose, and he had a suspicion it wasn’t going to stop on its own. Mucous membranes getting fragile. Wasn’t that part of radiation burning? He tore strips off his shirt and stuffed them up his nostrils while he watched the scene at the end of the corridor.

There were two clear groups, and they did seem to be engaged in some sort of heated argument. Normally, that would have been fine. Holden didn’t care about the social lives of mercenaries. But these mercenaries numbered by this time close to a hundred, were heavily armed, and blocked the corridor that led to his ship. That made their argument worth watching.

“Not everyone from Protogen left, I think,” Miller said quietly, pointing at one of the two groups. “Those guys on the right don’t look like the home team.”

Holden looked at the group and nodded. They were definitely the more professional-looking soldiers. Their armor fit well. The other group looked like it was largely made up of guys dressed in police riot gear, with only a few men in combat armor.

“Want to guess what the argument is about?” Miller asked.

“Hey, can we have a ride too?” Holden said mockingly with a Ceres accent. “Uh, no, we need you guys to stay here and, uh, keep an eye on things, which we promise will be totally safe and absolutely not involve you turning into vomit zombies.”

He actually got a chuckle from Miller and then the corridor erupted in a barrage of gunfire. Both sides of the discussion were firing automatic weapons at each other from point-blank range. The noise was deafening. Men screamed and flew apart, spraying the corridor and each other with blood and body parts. Holden dropped flat to the floor but continued watching the firefight.

After the initial barrage, the survivors from both groups began falling back in opposite directions, still firing as they moved. The floor at the corridor junction was littered with bodies. Holden estimated that twenty or more men had died in that first second of the fight. The sounds of gunfire grew more distant as the two groups fired at each other down the corridor.

In the middle of the junction, one of the bodies on the floor suddenly stirred and raised its head. Even before the wounded man could get to his feet, a bullet hole appeared in the middle of his face shield and he dropped back to the floor with limp finality.

“Where’s your ship?” Miller asked.

“The lift is at the end of this corridor,” Holden replied.

Miller spat what looked like bloody phlegm on the floor.

“And the corridor that crosses it is now a war zone, with armed camps sniping at each other from both sides,” he said. “I guess we could try just running through it.”

“Is there another option?” Holden asked.

Miller looked at his terminal.

“We’re fifty-three minutes past the deadline Naomi set,” he said. “How much more time do you want to waste?”

“Look, I was never particularly good at math,” Holden said. “But I’d guess there are as many as forty guys in either direction down that other corridor. A corridor which is a good three, maybe three and a half meters wide. Which means that we give eighty guys three meters worth of shots at us. Even dumb luck means we get hit a lot and then die. Let’s think of a plan B.”

As if to underline his argument, another fusillade broke out in the cross corridor, gouging chunks out of the rubbery wall insulation and chewing up the bodies lying on the floor.

“They’re still withdrawing,” Miller said. “Those shots came from farther away. I guess we can just wait them out. I mean, if we can.”

The rags Holden had stuffed up his nose hadn’t stopped the bleeding; they had just dammed it up. He could feel a steady trickle down the back of his throat that made his stomach heave with nausea. Miller was right. They were getting down to the last of their ability to wait anyone out at this point.

“Goddamn, I wish we could call and see if Naomi is even there,” Holden said, looking at the flashing Network Not Available on his terminal.

“Shhh,” Miller whispered, putting one finger on his lips. He pointed back down the corridor in the direction they’d come, and now Holden could hear heavy footsteps approaching.

“Late guests to the party,” Miller said, and Holden nodded. The two men swiveled around, pointing their guns down the corridor and waiting.

A group of four men in police riot armor rounded the corner. They didn’t have their guns out, and two of them had their helmets off. Apparently they hadn’t heard about the new hostilities. Holden waited for Miller to fire and, when he didn’t, turned to look at him. Miller was staring back.

“I didn’t dress real warm,” Miller said, almost apologetically. It took Holden half a second to understand what he meant.

Holden gave him permission by shooting first. He targeted one of the mafia thugs without a helmet and shot him in the face, then continued firing at the group until his gun’s slide locked open when the magazine was empty. Miller had begun firing a split second after Holden’s first shot and also fired until his gun was empty. When it was over, all four thugs were lying facedown in the corridor. Holden let out a long breath that turned into a sigh, and sat down on the floor.

Miller walked to the fallen men and nudged each one in turn with his foot as he replaced the magazine in his gun. Holden didn’t bother reloading his. He was done with gunfights. He put the empty pistol in his pocket and got up to join the cop. He bent down and began unbuckling the least damaged armor he could find. Miller raised an eyebrow but didn’t move to help.