Abaddon's Gate (Expanse 3)

“No,” Holden said. “No, I haven’t. And I normally would, but I’m trying really hard not to find out.”

Naomi frowned at him, her face shifting between angry and concerned. “Why?”

Holden pulled out his hand terminal and called up an orbital map of the solar system. “See this, all the way on this edge? This is the Ring.” He scrolled the display to the other edge of the solar system. “And this is Uranus. They are literally the two spots furthest from each other in the universe that have humans near them.”

“And?” Naomi said.

Holden took a deep breath. He could feel a surge of the anxiety he always tried to deny leaping up in him, and he pushed it back down.

“And I know I don’t talk about it much, but something really unpleasant and really big with a really high body count knows my name, and it’s connected to the Ring.”

“Miller,” Naomi said.

“The Ring opened, and he knew when it happened. It was the closest thing to making sense he’s done since…”

Since he rose from the dead. The words didn’t fit in his throat, and Naomi didn’t make him say them. Her nod was enough. She understood. In an act of legendary cowardice, he was running away to the other side of the solar system to avoid Miller and the Ring and everything that had to do with them. If they had to transport black market human organs or drugs or sexbots or whatever was in those crates, he’d do it. Because he was scared.

Her eyes were unreadable. After all this time, she could still keep her thoughts out of her expression when she wanted to.

“Okay,” Naomi said, and pushed the entry door open for him.

At the outer edge of Ceres where the spin gravity was greatest, Holden almost felt like he could have been on Luna or Mars. Loading gantries fed into the skin of the station like thick veins, waiting for the mechs to load in the cargo. Poorly patched scars marked the walls where accidents had marred them. The air smelled of coolant and the kind of cheap air filters that reminded Holden of urinal cakes. Amos lounged on a small electric power lift, his eyes closed.

“We get the job?”

“We did,” Naomi said.

Amos cracked an eye open as they came near. A single frown line drew itself on his broad forehead.

“We happy about that?” he asked.

“We’re fine with it,” Naomi said. “Let’s get the lift warmed up. Cargo’s due in ten minutes and we probably want to get it off station as quickly as we can without raising suspicion.”

There was a beauty in the efficiency that came from a crew that had flown together as long as they had. A fluidity and intimacy and grace that grew from long experience. Eight minutes after Holden and Naomi had come in, the Roci was ready to take on cargo. Ten minutes later, nothing happened. Then twenty. Then an hour. Holden paced the gantry nearest the entry hatch with an uncomfortable tingling crawling up the back of his neck.

“You sure we got this job?” Amos asked.

“These guys seemed really sketchy to me,” Naomi said over the comm from her station in ops. “I’d think we’ve been scammed, except we haven’t given anyone our account numbers.”

“We’re on the clock here, boss,” Alex said from the cockpit. “These loading docks charge by the minute.”

Holden bit back his irritation and said, “I’ll call again.”

He pulled out his terminal and connected to the export company’s office. Their messaging system responded, as it had the last three times he’d requested a connection. He waited for the beep that would let him leave another message. Before he could, his display lit up with an incoming connection request from the same office. He switched to it.

“Holden here.”

“This is a courtesy call, Captain Holden,” the voice on the other end said. The video feed was the Outer Fringe Exports logo on a gray background. “We’re withdrawing the contract, and you might want to consider leaving that dock very, very soon.”

“You can’t back out now,” Holden said, trying to keep his voice calm and professional against the rising panic he felt. “We’ve signed the deal. We’ve got your deposit. It’s non-refundable.”

“Keep it,” his caller said. “But we consider your failure to inform us of your current situation as a prior breach.”

Situation? Holden thought. They couldn’t know about Miller. He didn’t think they could. “I don’t—”

“The party that’s tracking you left our offices about five minutes ago, so you should probably get off Ceres in a hurry. Goodbye, Mr. Holden—”

“Wait!” Holden said. “Who was there? What’s going on?”

The call ended.

Amos was rubbing his pale, stubble-covered scalp with both hands. He sighed and said, “We got a problem, right?”

“Yep.”

“Be right back,” Amos replied, and climbed off the forklift.

“Alex? How long till we can clear this dock?” Holden asked. He loped across the bay to the entry hatch. There didn’t seem to be any way to lock it from his side. Why would there be? The bays were temporary rental space for loading and unloading cargo. No need for security.

“She’s warmed up,” Alex replied, not asking the obvious question. Holden was grateful for that. “Gimme ten to run the decouplin’ sequence, that should do it.”

“Start now,” Holden said, hurrying back toward the airlock. “Leave the ’lock open till the last minute. Amos and I will be out here making sure no one interferes.”

“Roger that, Cap,” Alex replied, and dropped the connection.

“Interferes?” Naomi said. “What’s going on… Okay, why is Amos going out there with a shotgun?”

“Those sketchy, scary gangster types we just signed on with?”

“Yes?”

“They just dropped us. And whatever scared them into doing it is coming here right now. I don’t think guns are an overreaction.”

Amos ran down the ramp, holding his auto-shotgun in his right hand and an assault rifle in his left. He tossed the rifle to Holden, then took up a cover position behind the forklift and aimed at the bay’s entry hatch. Like Alex, he didn’t ask why.

“Want me to come out?” Naomi asked.

“No, but prepare to defend the ship if they get past me and Amos,” Holden replied, then moved over to the forklift’s recharging station. It was the only other cover in the otherwise empty bay.