Babylon's Ashes

He set up his command post in the central security office in the drum. The spin gravity wasn’t so high it would bother Naomi, and there was something restful about being able to collapse into his chair while they watched the newsfeeds from Earth. Bobbie Draper, now the acting head of security for Medina, sprawled at her desk, legs up, hands behind her head, looking as relaxed as he’d seen her since she and Amos had come on board the Roci again. One sleeve was rolled up, and a bright, blistered burn ringed her elbow in the shape of a vac suit’s seal. She rubbed it gently. Caressed it. There was something unnervingly postcoital about her response to violence. Alex and Amos were in the next room where Naomi was combing through the station logs with an OPA engineer named Costas, arguing about something that involved yogurt and black beans. Only Clarissa hadn’t come on the station, and Holden hadn’t asked why. His memories of the Behemoth were bad enough. He couldn’t imagine hers.

On the newsfeed, The Hague looked like a battered, sepia-soaked version of itself. The sky above the UN building was white with haze, but it wasn’t dark. And Avasarala stood without a podium. Her bright-orange sari looked like a victory banner.

“The liberation of Medina means more than freeing one station from violent tyranny,” she said, reaching the crescendo of the half-hour-long speech. “It means the reopening of the path to all the colonies and all the worlds that the Free Navy tried to lock away. It means the reconnection to the motive force of history, and proof that the spirit of humanity will never bow to fear and cruelty. And yes, since you’ve all behaved so nicely, I’ll take some questions. Takeshi?”

A thin reporter in a gray suit stood up, a reed among the ranks of his professional fraternity.

“Shit,” Alex said from the doorway. “Are there reporters anywhere else, or does she have all of them?”

“Shh,” Bobbie said.

“Madam Secretary-General, you said that the attack on Earth was not an act of war but the lashing out of a criminal conspiracy. Now that you have captured prisoners, how will they be handled?”

“The conspirators will be brought to Luna and introduced to their lawyers,” Avasarala said. “Next quest—”

“Just the ones from Medina? Or Pallas and Europa too? Won’t that create a burden on the court system?” the gray man pressed.

Avasarala’s smile was sweet. “Oh, that guy’s fucked,” Bobbie said.

“Oh yeah,” Holden agreed.

“It will take some time to process everyone,” Avasarala said. “But I have to put some blame for the delay on the Free Navy itself. If they wanted a faster trial, they shouldn’t have leveled so many courthouses. Next question. Lindsey?”

“She shouldn’t be milking this so much,” Bobbie said while a blond woman stood in the gray man’s place and asked something about reconstruction and the role of the OPA. “It’s going to bite her.”

“It’s the biggest unambiguous victory we’ve had against Inaros,” Holden said. “Everything else, he stripped to the studs and walked away from. Or left for us to crawl over, disarming his booby traps. Even the thing at Titan looks like it cost us as much as it got back. Earth needs a win. Hell, Mars needs a win. I’m just glad it’s one that had Belters fighting on our side too.”

“But if she builds it up too much, it’s just going to be worse when we lose Medina again.”

Holden looked over. “Why do you think we’re going to lose it?”

“Because I had to kill the rail guns,” Bobbie said. “Holding on to this place assumed we could take over the defenses. We didn’t. We broke them. If we can get a dozen ships in here with guns like the Roci or maybe a pair of Donnager-class battleships, we can hold it. But that means getting them here, and we have to assume Inaros is throwing every spare grenade and bullet into whatever ships he has to burn here and kick our asses. And that’s if his patron out past the Laconia gate isn’t already sending the MCRN ships he stole to clear us out.”

The knot in Holden’s gut that had loosened a couple notches since he’d stepped onto Medina tightened back up. “Oh,” he said. “So. Do we have a plan to address that?”

“Fight like hell and hope the bad guys spend so much time killing us they can’t finish rebuilding before whoever Avasarala and Richards send next gets here.”

“Ah.”

“We’ve been screwed since the minute I blew up that reactor. Doesn’t take away from the essential dignity of the situation. And this is a fine hill.”

“A what?”

Bobbie looked over, surprised he hadn’t followed the idiom. “Fine hill to die on.”

Chapter Forty-Seven: Filip

“What was it like?” Filip asked, trying to sound casual.