Cibola Burn

“He was trying to save us!” Fayez shouted. His face was red and he stepped forward. His hands were in fists at his sides. Murtry looked up, something a little less than polite interest in his eyes. “He and Holden are trying to save us! You and me and Elvi and everyone. What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m protecting the assets, rights, and claims of Royal Charter Energy,” Murtry said. “What I’m not doing, and I hope you understand this, is running around in a circle with my dick in my hand whining about how nothing matters because we’re all going to die. We all knew when we got on the Edward Israel that we might not make it back. That was a risk you were willing to take because it meant you could do your job. I’m no different.”

“You got Wei killed!” Fayez shouted. Elvi put her hand on his shoulder and he shrugged if off. “She’s dead because of you!”

“Her turn now, my turn later,” Murtry said. “But there are some things I need to get done before that.”

The security chief checked his gun and looked down at Amos Burton staring raw hatred up at him. Murtry leveled the barrel at the bleeding man’s face. Look away, Elvi thought. Don’t watch this happen. Look away.

Fayez hit Murtry in the nose. The movement was so fast and awkward and artless that at first Elvi wasn’t sure it had really happened. She watched the expression in Fayez’s widening eyes as he understood what he’d done, and then when he committed to doing it again. Murtry turned his pistol away from Amos, swinging it toward Fayez, and the geologist ran into him with a shout. Murtry stumbled back but didn’t fall.

“Elvi!” Fayez shouted. “Run!”

She took a step forward. Amos was writhing on the ground, blood pouring from somewhere in his suit. His teeth were bared and crimson. He was grinning.

“Run!” Fayez screamed.

The great gray walls rose around them. False stars glittering. She couldn’t breathe. She took one tentative step forward. Then another. She felt like she was moving through a gel, forcing every motion. Shock, she thought. I’m in shock. People die from shock, don’t they? In her memory, Fayez shook his head and said, Oh look, another excuse to go talk to Holden.

Holden. She had to find Holden. She took another step, then another. And then she was sprinting, her legs and arms pumping, small animal grunts forcing their way out of her throat. Somewhere behind her, a pistol fired twice, and then a third time. She didn’t look back. Everything in her, everything she was, focused only forward, along the wide, dark veins of the structure, forward to where they converged.

Elvi ran.

Chapter Fifty-One: Basia

Basia reached out to touch the tether, and it vibrated under his gloved fingers like a living thing.

Alex,” Naomi didn’t quite yell over the general comm channel, “I’m sending you a burn program. We have to keep that cable taut until Basia cuts it or the Barb is going to rip us both apart.”

“I’m not cutting it,” Basia repeated, but no one replied. He checked to see if his microphone was on.

“One,” Havelock said, ending his countdown. “Out of time guys.”

If the security man’s threats had any effect, Basia couldn’t tell. His HUD was still displaying the red lines of incoming gunfire. He ignored them.

Above him, the Rocinante began shifting and firing its remaining maneuvering thrusters in response to the slow rotation of the Barbapiccola, desperately trying to keep slack out of the cable. Two massive ships, each rotating in different axes, the cable could go from slack to thousands of tons of tension fast enough to tear the mounts out of the ships, and a chunk of the ship’s structure along with it.

“Basia,” Naomi said, her voice gentle. “I can’t give you much time. And you know this ends the same way no matter what.”

“I’m checking the connection to the Barb,” he said instead of answering her.

The mount was a mess of twisted metal and frayed cable. Pieces of the hull had been torn free by dislodged footings, and the ones that were still connected stretched and flexed with each gyration of the ship. Basia tried to calculate how much tension must be on the rigging and cable and failed. If it snapped free, it would probably cut him in half. If he did cut it, he’d need Alex to put slack on it first.

“I’m not cutting it,” he said again, more to himself than anyone else. Cutting it meant letting the Barb drift away, down into the upper atmosphere to rip apart and burn. To let Felcia burn. Alex had promised not to let that happen.