Cibola Burn

“Kept me locked in a kennel like a dog,” Naomi replied, jerking her head toward Havelock. The squat Earthman had removed his own helmet, and it floated in the air next to him. He was wearing a sheepish half smile. Without his helmet on, Basia saw his short, light-colored hair, a square jaw, and dark eyes. A sort of generic rugged handsomeness. Like a video star playing a cop in an action movie. It made Basia want to dislike him.

“It was policy,” Havelock said. “I’m – I was chief of ship security on the Edward Israel. I think I may have just resigned that position. I was the one that took your XO captive. I hope you won’t hold that against me.”

“Okay,” Alex said, then turned back to Naomi as if Havelock weren’t even there. “What now?”

“Status report,” Naomi replied. “What’s the latest on the degrading orbit?”

“Barbapiccola’s going down first, then the Israel, then we get to pick between dying in orbit when the batties run out, burning in the atmosphere, or getting shot by aliens,” Alex said with a humorless laugh. “We’re all fucked six ways from Sunday. But it’s nice to have you back on board.”

Chapter Forty-Four: Holden

Holden shuffled his way around the tower again.

He tried to calculate how many hours he’d gone without sleep, but his brain had lost the ability to do math, and Ilus’ thirty-hour day kept screwing up his estimates. A long time was all he could come up with.

He triggered his armor’s medical system to shoot him up with more amphetamines, and was troubled when the HUD told him the supply was empty. How much did that mean he’d taken? Like the question of how long it had been since he slept, it was an insoluble mystery.

A pair of death-slugs were climbing the side of the tower toward a teardrop-shaped window. The plastic that had been stretched across the opening had a few small rips in it, so Holden knocked the slugs off the wall with his shovel and then kicked them away. He rinsed the toxic slime off his boot in a muddy puddle.

The rain had lessened to a drizzle, which was good, but the temperature had continued to drop, which was bad. While the overall light level didn’t change much with the constant cloud cover, Holden had started noticing the day-to-night transition by the appearance of frost on the walls of the tower. It wasn’t dangerously cold yet, but it would get worse. Pretty soon the survivors would be adding hypothermia to their list of unpleasant ways to die.

He bit his tongue until it bled and continued his slow trudge around the tower.

He heard Murtry before he saw him. A quiet, ghostly voice drifting out of the gray rain that gradually resolved into a man-shaped spot slightly darker than the space around it.

“— immediate action. They’ve escalated. We’ll have an argument that we acted with restraint until —” Murtry was saying, but stopped when he heard Holden approaching.

“What are you doing out here?” Holden asked. Murtry was still blind. It was dangerous for him to be wandering around outside. The ground, where it wasn’t puddles, was a slick clay that could take someone off their feet in a heartbeat. And the numbers of slugs driven to the surface by the water had Holden wondering if Ilus was a hollow ball filled with poisonous worms.

“Minding my business, Captain,” Murtry said, not quite looking in Holden’s direction.

“Meaning I should do the same?”

“Glad you followed that.”

The two men stood for a long moment. Far above them, their crews were probably shooting at each other right now. They were enemies, and they weren’t. Some part of Holden’s sleep-deprived, half-broken mind still wanted to make peace with Murtry and the RCE. Or at least didn’t want the man’s death on his conscience.

“It’s dangerous out here,” Holden said, keeping his own voice even and calm.

“That makes it different how?” Again, the clenched jaw cutting off the last word with a snap. His anger gave Holden a thin sliver of hope. Maybe Naomi had gotten out. He needed to talk to Alex.

“I can’t let you get killed on my watch,” Holden said.

“I appreciate your concern.”

It all felt vaguely ridiculous, tap-dancing around the issue. They both knew what was happening. He felt like they were playing poker and only pretending they couldn’t see each other’s hand.

“Can I help you back inside?” Holden asked.

“I have some business to finish up here,” Murtry replied with a meaningless smile.

“When we find your corpse later, I’m going to tell everyone I warned you.”

“If I die,” Murtry said, his smile becoming a shade more genuine, “I’ll try to leave a note saying it wasn’t your fault.”

He signaled the end of the conversation by turning away and mumbling into his hand terminal. Holden left him and immediately called Alex.

“Kind of busy here, Cap,” the pilot said without preamble.

“Tell me we’re busy because you’ve rescued Naomi and everything is going perfectly. Is she on the ship?”

There was a long pause as Alex noisily exhaled into the microphone. “So, that part where I went to rescue Naomi? Yeah. I sent Basia.”