Cibola Burn (Expanse 4)

“Go faster, get ahead of them.”

“Hey Kemp?” Havelock said. “Thought I sent you to medical with Salvatore? You didn’t leave him bleeding out in a corridor somewhere, did you?”

“No, sir,” Kemp replied. “Someone’s taking him there now —”

“Stop talking to him!” the angry older man said. “He is not on our team!”

Naomi was struggling to get the emergency suit over her shoulders, and Basia pushed over to help her. Havelock stayed at the locker room hatch, occasionally firing down the corridor.

“Find an air bottle,” Naomi said, then started opening locker doors and rummaging through the contents. Basia helped.

“Hey, Mfume?” Havelock said.

“What?” a new voice snapped.

“Turning on your boot mags to stick to the floor behind cover is a good instinct. But in the position you’re crouched in, your knee is sticking out past the corner.” Havelock fired a shot from his shotgun, and someone on the radio screeched in pain. “See?”

Basia found a locker full of emergency air bottles and helped Naomi connect one to her suit, twisting it to break the seal. A few seconds later she gave him the thumbs-up.

“We’re ready to go,” she told Havelock.

The Earther fired off a few more shots, then backed into the locker room with them. He handed his shotgun to Naomi, who pointed it at the doorway to cover them while the two men sealed their helmets.

“Changed your mind about giving me a gun?” Naomi asked.

“I’ll want it back.”

“We’re ready out here,” Kemp said on the radio.

“Hey, guys?” Havelock said. “Don’t do that. We’d barely started on the spacewalk combat tactics. You head out there with live ammo and it will get really dangerous.”

“Well, the chief said —”

“Stop talking to him!” the older man yelled, loud enough to distort Basia’s helmet speakers. “Goddammit you guys!”

“Koenen,” Havelock said. His voice sounded subtly different now that his helmet was on and sealed. “I’m serious. Don’t send your guys out there. Someone’s going to get hurt or dead.”

“Yeah,” the chief replied. “You Belter-loving traitorous sonofabitch.”

“How’re those ribs, chief?” Havelock said, a smile in his voice. “You see, right now, you’re acting out of anger. Not thinking it through. This is why I didn’t want to break out the live rounds.”

Basia strapped on the EVA pack he’d left by the airlock hatch. Naomi handed him the shotgun and pulled two more packs out of storage. A moment later, she and Havelock were wearing them and the inner airlock door was cycling closed. Havelock took the shotgun away from Basia and hung it from a strap on his harness. Naomi started the airlock cycle.

“You know,” she said, “they can just kill this airlock from the bridge.”

As if in response to her words, the airlock status light on the control panel shifted to red, and the cycle stopped. Havelock punched something into the panel and it started again.

“They won’t have had time to reset all the security overrides,” he said.

“RCE security can countermand ship operations?” Naomi asked.

“Welcome to corporate security. The ship’s crew are glorified taxi drivers. Security division works directly for the company, protecting its interests. We can override anything they do.”

“This is why everyone hates you,” Basia said.

The airlock cycle completed, and the outer door opened. Havelock gestured them out. “You sure you don’t like me right now? Just a little bit?”

Ilus’ star was just peeking around the limb of the planet, and Basia’s visor dimmed dramatically to keep it from blinding him. The planet itself was the same angry ball of storm-wracked gray clouds. In the distance, the Rocinante flashed green and red landing lights at them, marking its position.

“Okay,” Havelock said, his voice crackling with low-level static. “Should probably get moving. They’ve got guys outside on the other side of the ship. They can’t catch us, but watch each other for grapnel lines.”

Naomi was already firing her EVA pack, moving out of the airlock on four small white cones of compressed gas. “Alex? We’re out.”

“Oh, thank God,” the pilot said, his drawl mostly disappearing in the tension of his voice. “I’ve been worried sick over here. Basia with you?”

“Yeah,” Basia said. “I’m here.”

“You’ll be picking up three,” Naomi said. “Come get us.”

“Three?”

“Taking a stray home with me.”

“A stray?” Havelock said, amusement in his voice. “I’m the one doing the rescuing here.”

“It’s complicated,” Naomi continued. They were all out of the airlock now. The remote connection light went on in Basia’s HUD, and a complex program began spooling across it. Alex having the Rocinante take control of their EVA navigation to bring them to the ship. The pack did several sharp burns, and the Rocinante began slowly growing.

“Glad Basia made it okay,” Alex said. “Worried sendin’ him in there like that.”

“I didn’t wind up helping much,” Basia admitted, feeling that same rush of embarrassment.

“You got everyone looking in the wrong direction,” Havelock said. “That was actually pretty helpful.”

“Yay,” Alex said, “we’re all heroes. There’re four guys tailing you right now. Do we know about them?”

A small box appeared on Basia’s HUD. Inside it was video of four people in vacuum suits and wearing EVA packs, the bulk of the Edward Israel behind them. Without his doing anything, the view zoomed in until he could see the weapons they were carrying. Alex was sending them all images pulled from the Rocinante’s telescopes.

“Yeah, those are the militia I formed and trained,” Havelock said, then sighed. “In retrospect, that’s seeming like a bad idea.”

“Do you want me to take care of that?” Alex asked.

“Does your version of ‘taking care of it’ involve your ship’s point defense cannons?” Havelock replied.

“Uh. Yeah?”

“Then no. These guys are dumb and untrained enough to still be gung-ho. But they’re just engineers. They’re not bad guys,” Havelock said.