Cibola Burn (Expanse 4)

The security chief checked his gun and looked down at Amos Burton staring raw hatred up at him. Murtry leveled the barrel at the bleeding man’s face. Look away, Elvi thought. Don’t watch this happen. Look away.

Fayez hit Murtry in the nose. The movement was so fast and awkward and artless that at first Elvi wasn’t sure it had really happened. She watched the expression in Fayez’s widening eyes as he understood what he’d done, and then when he committed to doing it again. Murtry turned his pistol away from Amos, swinging it toward Fayez, and the geologist ran into him with a shout. Murtry stumbled back but didn’t fall.

“Elvi!” Fayez shouted. “Run!”

She took a step forward. Amos was writhing on the ground, blood pouring from somewhere in his suit. His teeth were bared and crimson. He was grinning.

“Run!” Fayez screamed.

The great gray walls rose around them. False stars glittering. She couldn’t breathe. She took one tentative step forward. Then another. She felt like she was moving through a gel, forcing every motion. Shock, she thought. I’m in shock. People die from shock, don’t they? In her memory, Fayez shook his head and said, Oh look, another excuse to go talk to Holden.

Holden. She had to find Holden. She took another step, then another. And then she was sprinting, her legs and arms pumping, small animal grunts forcing their way out of her throat. Somewhere behind her, a pistol fired twice, and then a third time. She didn’t look back. Everything in her, everything she was, focused only forward, along the wide, dark veins of the structure, forward to where they converged.

Elvi ran.

Chapter Fifty-One: Basia

Basia reached out to touch the tether, and it vibrated under his gloved fingers like a living thing.

Alex,” Naomi didn’t quite yell over the general comm channel, “I’m sending you a burn program. We have to keep that cable taut until Basia cuts it or the Barb is going to rip us both apart.”

“I’m not cutting it,” Basia repeated, but no one replied. He checked to see if his microphone was on.

“One,” Havelock said, ending his countdown. “Out of time guys.”

If the security man’s threats had any effect, Basia couldn’t tell. His HUD was still displaying the red lines of incoming gunfire. He ignored them.

Above him, the Rocinante began shifting and firing its remaining maneuvering thrusters in response to the slow rotation of the Barbapiccola, desperately trying to keep slack out of the cable. Two massive ships, each rotating in different axes, the cable could go from slack to thousands of tons of tension fast enough to tear the mounts out of the ships, and a chunk of the ship’s structure along with it.

“Basia,” Naomi said, her voice gentle. “I can’t give you much time. And you know this ends the same way no matter what.”

“I’m checking the connection to the Barb,” he said instead of answering her.

The mount was a mess of twisted metal and frayed cable. Pieces of the hull had been torn free by dislodged footings, and the ones that were still connected stretched and flexed with each gyration of the ship. Basia tried to calculate how much tension must be on the rigging and cable and failed. If it snapped free, it would probably cut him in half. If he did cut it, he’d need Alex to put slack on it first.

“I’m not cutting it,” he said again, more to himself than anyone else. Cutting it meant letting the Barb drift away, down into the upper atmosphere to rip apart and burn. To let Felcia burn. Alex had promised not to let that happen.

A pair of red lines drew themselves across his HUD and the words DANGER CLOSE flashed there briefly. He wasn’t up on all his military jargon, but he could guess what that phrase meant. He pulled himself around the cable footing and took cover. Out in the blackness between the Israel and the Barb, twelve men in suits floated toward him on puffs of gas. They still had a few of their improvised missiles.

“Guys,” Havelock said, real sadness in his voice.

“Havelock,” Naomi yelled, “if you let those assholes shoot Basia you don’t get to come back on my ship.”

“Roger that,” Havelock said sorrowfully. One of the twelve attackers spun sideways as a puff of white mist shot out of his EVA pack. The man continued to rotate wildly as he flew at high speed away from the others.

“One of you should go get him,” Havelock said. “His EVA pack is toast.”

Almost before he finished saying it, two of the remaining attackers jetted toward the disabled man, bringing their grapnel guns to bear.

“Havelock, you asshole,” Koenen said on the open frequency where everyone could hear him. “I’m going to enjoy stomping a mudhole in you.” He and his team opened fire on Havelock’s position in the airlock, driving him back into cover.

Now that everyone wasn’t looking at him, Basia took a moment to look over the mangled footing. “Naomi, I’m having the suit send you pictures of the damage.”

“Basia, I —” she started.

“Help me fix this,” he said, cutting her off. “If the Barb has more cable, I can reattach it here while Alex keeps us from totally losing our remaining connection.”

“Basia,” Naomi said, her voice gentle and sad. “This can’t be fixed. The Barbapiccola is going down. Nothing is gained by her taking us with her.”

“I do not accept that!” Basia shouted back at her, loud enough that his own suit’s speakers distorted. “There has to be a way!”

His suit flashed a warning at him, and he pulled back into cover just in time to avoid a fusillade of shots that bounced off the hull, leaving shiny streaks in the dull metal. One of the remaining nine attackers threw his arms up like he was surrendering, then went motionless, spinning slowly toward the Barbapiccola.

“Williams is flatlined,” the chief engineer said. “You just killed an RCE employee. You’ll burn for that, Havelock.”

“You know what, chief? Fuck you,” Havelock replied, his tone low, but real anger in his voice for the first time. “You are the one who escalated this. I didn’t ask for any of it. Pull out. Marwick, get your men out of here! Don’t let him force this anymore!”

Another voice, older, sadder, replied on the radio. “Those aren’t my men, Mister Havelock. You know as well as I do that I have no authority over the expeditionary team.”

“That’s right, motherfucker,” the chief said. “We’re acting on orders from Chief of Security Murtry.”