Cibola Burn (Expanse 4)

In fact, when he got back to his office, the place was empty except for Nagata in her cell. She looked over, greeting him with a little chin-lift. She wore a red paper jumpsuit and her hair floated around her head in a dark starburst. Enemy capture protocol didn’t allow her hairband, a hand terminal, or her own clothes. She’d been in the cell for the better part of two days. Havelock knew from training exercises that he’d have been half crazed with claustrophobia by now. She’d gone from looking embarrassed to retreating into her own thoughts. It was a Belter thing, he assumed. A few generations living and dying without a sky, and enclosed spaces lost the atavistic terror of premature burial.

He sloped across the room to her.

“Nagata,” he said. “I had some questions for you.”

“Don’t I have the right to an attorney or union representative?” she asked, her voice making it clear that she was at least half joking.

“You do,” Havelock said. “But I was hoping you’d help me out of your kind and generous spirit.”

Her laugh was sharp, short, and insincere. He pulled up the video file on his hand terminal and set it floating just outside the steel mesh of the cell door.

“My name is Alex Kamal, and I am acting captain of the Rocinante. In light of recent events —”

Havelock shifted back to his desk, strapping himself in at the couch from force of habit more than anything. He watched Naomi’s face without actually staring at her. The woman had a great poker face. It was hard to tell whether she felt anything at all as she watched her shipmate of years threaten them all on her behalf. When the file ended, he reached out and pulled the hand terminal back to himself.

“Don’t see what you need me for,” she said. “He used small words.”

“You’re hilarious. The question I have is this: Are you really going to let your shipmates turn themselves into criminals and murderers so that you can postpone answering for your crimes?”

Her smile could have meant anything, but he had the sense he’d touched on something. Or close to it. “I feel like you’re asking me for something, friend. But I don’t know quite what it is.”

“Will you tell the Rocinante to back off?” Havelock said. “It won’t do you any damage. It’s not like we’re letting you go regardless. And if you cooperate, that’ll speak well for you when we get back to Earth.”

“I can, but it won’t matter. You haven’t shipped with those men. When you listen to that, you hear a list of threats, right?”

“What do you hear?”

“Alex saying how it is,” Naomi said. “All that stuff he told you? Those are just axioms now.”

“I’m sorry to hear you say that,” Havelock said. “Still, if you’ll record something for him assuring him that you’re in good condition and aren’t being mistreated, it’ll only help.”

She shifted, the microcurrents of air and the constant drift of microgravity bringing her back against the cell’s far wall. She touched it gently, steadying herself.

“Alex isn’t the problem,” she said. “Let me tell you a little about Jim Holden.”

“All right,” Havelock said.

“He’s a good man, but he doesn’t turn on a dime. Right now, there’s a debate going on in his head. On the one hand, he was sent out here to make peace, and he wants to do that. On the other hand, he protects his own.”

“His woman?”

“His crew,” Naomi said, biting the words a little. “It’s going to take him a while to decide to stop doing what he agreed to do and just tip over the table.”

Havelock’s hand terminal chimed. It was a reminder to review the next week’s schedules. Even in the depths of crises, minor office tasks demanded their tribute. He pulled up the scheduling grid.

“You think he will, though,” Havelock said.

“He’s got Amos with him,” Naomi said, as if that explained everything. “And then they’ll assault the ship and get me out.”

Havelock laughed. “We’re stretched a little thin, but I don’t see how they can expect to get through to you.”

“You’re talking about the man who got a load of people off Ganymede when it was still a war zone,” Naomi said. “And went onto the alien station at Medina by himself. And scuttled the Agatha King by himself when it had two thousand protomolecule zombies on it. He fought his way off Eros in the first outbreak.”

“Rushing in where angels fear to tread,” Havelock said.

“And making it through. I can’t tell you how many last goodbyes I’ve had with him, and he always comes back.”

“Sounds like a rough guy to have for a boyfriend,” Havelock said.

“He is, actually,” she said with a laugh. “But he’s worth it.”

“Why?”

“Because he does what he says he’s going to do,” she said. “And if he says he’s going to pop me out of this cell, then either that will happen, or he’ll die.”

Her expression was calm, her tone matter-of-fact. She wasn’t boasting. If anything, he thought there was a hint of apprehension in her voice. It disturbed him more than the acting captain’s list of threats.

He closed the scheduling grid, considered his hand terminal for a few seconds. It would be afternoon on the surface, a little over halfway through one of the long, fifteen-hour days.

“Excuse me,” he said to the prisoner. “I’ve got to make a call.”

He thumbed the privacy controls down, and the steel mesh of the cage deformed into a pearly opacity. He requested a connection to Murtry, and a few seconds later his boss appeared on the screen. The sun had darkened his skin, and a tiny scab on his forehead looked almost like a caste mark. He nodded to Havelock.

“What can I do for you?” Murtry said.

“I wanted to touch base with you about the prisoner,” Havelock said. “Check our strategy.”

“Saw the pilot’s little tantrum, did you?”

“You know, boss, all that you said before about how they have the biggest guns and if they want to take us down, they can? Because that’s still true.”

In the background of the feed a door slammed, and Murtry looked up, nodded, and refocused on Havelock. “Less an issue now than ever. As long as one of theirs is on the ship, they won’t shoot.”

“Won’t?”