Babylon's Ashes

“Pinché asshole better run,” Berman shouted at Filip’s back, and then Marta shouting some more and Berman shouting at her, and Filip was in the fake airlock and pushing through to the common corridor beyond. It was bright there. The smell of liquor and old smoke stayed around him for a few seconds before the gentle breeze from the recyclers pulled it away. He was shaking. Trembling. His hands ached with the need to hit something or someone. He started walking without any idea where he was walking to, just needing something to let him move. Let whatever beast was running through his bloodstream work itself out a little.

Callisto passed him as he went. Pale corridors wider than most of the stations and ships he’d been on, with a honeycomb pattern on the curved walls that made him think of a football. Banks of heaters made irregular tapping sounds as they glowed down from the ceilings, radiating at the top of his head the way that the cold of the moon’s body crept up from the floors. People walked or rode bicycles or carts. He wondered how many of them had lost family in the attack on Callisto. In the story he’d told himself about the attack, it had all been Dusters that died. Soldiers whose work was to keep the Belt’s head underwater until it drowned. And in his story, his father was the leader to unite the Belt, to lead it against everything that was bent on destroying their futures and erasing their pasts.

And he still thought that. Even while he doubted, he believed. It was like everything in his private world had doubled. One Callisto that had been the target of his raid. His critical victory that led to the bombardment of Earth and the freedom of the Belt. Another Callisto that he walked through now, where normal people had lost their mothers and children, husbands and friends in a disaster. The two places were so different, they didn’t relate. Like two ships with the same name but different layouts and jobs.

And he had two fathers now. The one who led the fight against the inners and who Filip loved like plants love light, and the one who twisted out of everything that went wrong and blamed anyone but himself. The Free Navy that was the first real hope the Belt had ever had, and the Free Navy that was falling apart. Swapping out generals and leaders faster than air filters. They couldn’t both exist, and he couldn’t let either version go.

His hand terminal chimed again. He plucked it out of his pocket. The connection request came from Karal and the Pella. It was the twelfth he’d made. Filip accepted.

“Filipito!” Karal said. “Hell have you been, coyo?” He was on the command deck and wearing his uniform. Even had the collar done, which he usually didn’t. It didn’t make him look like he was military, though. He looked like himself, but in costume.

“Around.”

“Around,” Karal said, shaking his head. “You got to get back to the ship. You got to come now.”

“For for?”

Karal leaned in close to the screen like he was going to whisper a secret. “Battle analysis leaked out à Medina, yeah? The rail guns are down. Medina has one ship guarding it. One, and it’s—”

“Rocinante,” Filip said.

“Sí no? Every ship with more than half a hull, Marco’s putting them together. Retaking Medina like we’re putting out a fire, us.”

“Yeah,” Filip said.

“Getting fresh juice. Topping up the reaction mass. And then we’re gone. Meeting up with the rest of the navy on the way, but your father? I’ve never seen him like—”

A voice came from the hand terminal, snapping Karal’s attention away from him. “You found him?”

“Que no?” Karal said, but not to him.

The image jumped, cutting from one camera to another. An empty crash couch with a vague shadow along one edge. The shadow fell back, gained resolution, became his father. Filip braced for abuse, for contempt. For all the condescension he’d been suffering. Say it like a man. Say I fucked up. His stomach was tight.

Marco beamed at him, eyes bright.

“Did you hear? Did Karal tell you?”

“About Medina, and the ship there.” For some reason he couldn’t explain he didn’t want to say the name Rocinante out loud. He felt it would be like bad luck.

“This is our moment, Filipito. It has all come together perfectly. We bit them and bit them and bit them and faded into the dark until they went mad with it. They’ve pushed out past their defenses, and now we can come down on them like a hammer.”

Them. He didn’t mean Earth and Mars. He didn’t mean the governments of the inner planets. Whether he knew it or not, Filip was certain—as certain as he’d been of anything—that James Holden and Naomi Nagata were them.

“That’s good, then,” he said.