Cibola Burn

“Fine. Thank you for letting me use the radio.”

“No problem, partner,” Alex said with a laugh. “They don’t charge us by the hour.”

An uncomfortable silence stretched out that Alex pretended not to notice by pressing buttons on his controls. “Am I allowed to be up here?” Basia finally asked.

“I don’t mind,” Alex said. “Just, you know, don’t mess with anything.”

Basia pulled himself into the chair behind Alex and belted in. The armrests of the chair ended with complex-looking joysticks, so Basia was careful not to bump them.

“That’s the gunner’s seat,” Alex said, turning his entire chair around to face Basia.

“Should I not —”

“Naw, it’s fine. It ain’t on. Push buttons there all you want. Hey, wanna see somethin’ cool?”

Basia nodded and put his hands on the two control sticks. They were covered with buttons. The gunner’s seat. Those sticks might control the Rocinante’s lethal weaponry. He wished Jacek could see him sitting there, holding the controls.

Alex turned around and did something on his own panel, and the screen in front of Basia came to life with a view matching Alex’s own. Basia looked at the bright limb of his planet, trying to find the location of First Landing. Without the green dot overlay it was impossible in daylight. If they were on the night side he could have spotted them as a spark of light.

Alex did something else, and the view shifted to a dull red blob of molten rock. “That’s the moon goin’ meltdown. It wasn’t a very big one, but still, kinda makes you wonder what could melt a hunk of rock that size.”

“Do we know?”

“Hell no. Some kind of alien protomolecule shit’d be my guess.”

Before Basia could ask for more details, the radio squawked at them. “Alex here,” the pilot said.

“Kid’s gone, wanted to check in,” Amos’ voice said.

“How’s the captain doing?” Alex asked.

“Not great. And once again he stopped me from doing the obvious thing.”

“Shooting the RCE chief in the face?”

“Awww,” Amos said. “Warms my heart how well you know me.”

“They got her, buddy,” Alex said, his voice firm but gentle. “Don’t do anything that makes it worse.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You just watch the captain’s back down there,” Alex continued. “I’ll take care of our XO.”

“If they hurt her?”

“Then it’ll be rainin’ RCE parts down on Ilus for a year.”

“Won’t actually help,” Amos said with a sigh.

“No,” Alex agreed. “No, it won’t. It’ll happen, though.”

“All right. Gonna go find the captain. Amos out.”

Alex tapped on his controls, and the view swung around away from the planet. For a moment, there was nothing, and then a tiny flicker of light, no more than a single pixel. The view zoomed in until it became a massive ship painted with the RCE colors. After a moment, it zoomed again, the rear of the ship swelling until it filled the screen, a small red crosshair glowing in the center of the view.

“Got my eyes on you,” Alex said under his breath.

“What’s that?” Basia asked, pointing at the crosshair.

“That’s where the reactor sits. The Roci’s got a lock on that location. I can send a gauss round right through her heart faster than her first alarm bell can ring.”

“Won’t that… you know…” He made an explosive motion with his hands.

“No, it’ll just vent. Probably kill a lot of their engineering staff.”

“Do they know you’re aiming at them?”

“Not yet, but I’m about to fill ’em in. That’s what’ll keep my XO breathin’.”

“Nice that you can do something to protect her,” Basia said, and meant to stop, but the words pressed out past his teeth. “My daughter is on the Barbapiccola. My wife and son are down on Ilus. I can’t do anything to help them or protect them.”

Basia waited for the empty words of reassurance.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “You really fucked that one up, didn’t you?”

Alex tapped something on his screen, and the words RAIL GUN ARMED glowed red for a second over the image of the Edward Israel.

“I need to call over to that ship in a sec,” Alex said.

“Warn them.”

“More like threaten them,” Alex said. “Pretty much the shittiest thing we have to offer for someone we all love, but it’s what we got left.” He reached out and fiddled with something on the bulkhead and a stream of cool air shot out of the vent. It ruffled the pilot’s thinning black hair and dried the sweat accumulating on his scalp. He closed his eyes and sighed.

“I don’t even have threats,” Basia said. It sounded like whining even to him. “I don’t even have that.”

“Yeah. So I flew for the Mars navy for twenty years,” Alex said, his eyes still closed.

“Oh?” Basia said. He wasn’t sure what the correct response was.

“I was married,” Alex continued, moving his head around to let the cool air strike every part of his neck and face. Basia didn’t reply. It had the feeling of a story, not a conversation. Alex would tell it or he wouldn’t.

“Life for a naval spouse is, frankly, pretty shitty,” Alex said after a few moments. “Typical tour on an MCRN boat can go from ninety days to four, maybe five hundred days. Depending on your MOS and fleet locations.”

“MOS?” Basia asked before he could stop himself.