Cibola Burn (Expanse 4)

“Got a game,” Jacek said. “Pretty soon. They’ll get mad.”

“Your mom,” Basia said, then had to stop and blow his nose into the sleeve of his shirt.

“Mom what?”

“Your mom will work too much, if you don’t watch her. She gets to looking things up at night. Medical things. And she won’t get enough sleep. I need you to make sure she gets some sleep.”

“Okay.”

“It’s serious, boy. I need you to look after her. Your sister’s gone, and that’s good, but it just leaves you to help out. You gonna help out with this?”

“Okay,” Jacek said. Basia couldn’t tell if the boy was sad or angry. Or distracted.

“See you, son,” Basia said.

“See you, Pop,” Jacek replied.

“Love you,” Basia said, but the signal had already died.

Basia wiped his eyes with the sleeves of his shirt. He floated against his restraints, breathing deep, ragged breaths for a full minute, then pulled himself over to the crew ladder. He moved aft, deck hatches opening at his approach and slamming shut behind him as he went, the sound echoing through the empty ship.

He changed shirts in his room, then spent a few minutes in the head cleaning his face with wet towels. They had a large shower unit – he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a real shower – but it only worked when the ship was under thrust.

When he no longer looked like a man who’d been bawling, Basia floated back along the ladder to the cockpit. He was considering whether or not it was polite to knock before entering when he drifted too close to the hatch’s electronic eye and it snapped open with a hiss.

Alex was belted into the pilot’s chair, the large display directly in front of him spooling out ship status reports and a rendering of Ilus, its single massive continent dotted with red and yellow marks. And one green dot that was First Landing. The pilot scowling at the screen tensely as though he could will the universe to do something. Like he could make it give his crew back.

Basia was turning to leave when the deck hatch banged shut and Alex looked up.

“Hey,” he said and tapped out something on the panel.

“Hello,” Basia said.

“How’d your call go? Everything okay?”

“Fine. Thank you for letting me use the radio.”

“No problem, partner,” Alex said with a laugh. “They don’t charge us by the hour.”

An uncomfortable silence stretched out that Alex pretended not to notice by pressing buttons on his controls. “Am I allowed to be up here?” Basia finally asked.

“I don’t mind,” Alex said. “Just, you know, don’t mess with anything.”

Basia pulled himself into the chair behind Alex and belted in. The armrests of the chair ended with complex-looking joysticks, so Basia was careful not to bump them.

“That’s the gunner’s seat,” Alex said, turning his entire chair around to face Basia.

“Should I not —”

“Naw, it’s fine. It ain’t on. Push buttons there all you want. Hey, wanna see somethin’ cool?”

Basia nodded and put his hands on the two control sticks. They were covered with buttons. The gunner’s seat. Those sticks might control the Rocinante’s lethal weaponry. He wished Jacek could see him sitting there, holding the controls.

Alex turned around and did something on his own panel, and the screen in front of Basia came to life with a view matching Alex’s own. Basia looked at the bright limb of his planet, trying to find the location of First Landing. Without the green dot overlay it was impossible in daylight. If they were on the night side he could have spotted them as a spark of light.

Alex did something else, and the view shifted to a dull red blob of molten rock. “That’s the moon goin’ meltdown. It wasn’t a very big one, but still, kinda makes you wonder what could melt a hunk of rock that size.”

“Do we know?”

“Hell no. Some kind of alien protomolecule shit’d be my guess.”

Before Basia could ask for more details, the radio squawked at them. “Alex here,” the pilot said.

“Kid’s gone, wanted to check in,” Amos’ voice said.

“How’s the captain doing?” Alex asked.

“Not great. And once again he stopped me from doing the obvious thing.”

“Shooting the RCE chief in the face?”

“Awww,” Amos said. “Warms my heart how well you know me.”

“They got her, buddy,” Alex said, his voice firm but gentle. “Don’t do anything that makes it worse.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You just watch the captain’s back down there,” Alex continued. “I’ll take care of our XO.”

“If they hurt her?”

“Then it’ll be rainin’ RCE parts down on Ilus for a year.”

“Won’t actually help,” Amos said with a sigh.

“No,” Alex agreed. “No, it won’t. It’ll happen, though.”

“All right. Gonna go find the captain. Amos out.”

Alex tapped on his controls, and the view swung around away from the planet. For a moment, there was nothing, and then a tiny flicker of light, no more than a single pixel. The view zoomed in until it became a massive ship painted with the RCE colors. After a moment, it zoomed again, the rear of the ship swelling until it filled the screen, a small red crosshair glowing in the center of the view.

“Got my eyes on you,” Alex said under his breath.

“What’s that?” Basia asked, pointing at the crosshair.

“That’s where the reactor sits. The Roci’s got a lock on that location. I can send a gauss round right through her heart faster than her first alarm bell can ring.”

“Won’t that… you know…” He made an explosive motion with his hands.

“No, it’ll just vent. Probably kill a lot of their engineering staff.”

“Do they know you’re aiming at them?”

“Not yet, but I’m about to fill ’em in. That’s what’ll keep my XO breathin’.”

“Nice that you can do something to protect her,” Basia said, and meant to stop, but the words pressed out past his teeth. “My daughter is on the Barbapiccola. My wife and son are down on Ilus. I can’t do anything to help them or protect them.”

Basia waited for the empty words of reassurance.