Leviathan Wakes

“Alex, come around to—” Holden’s order was cut short when the Rocinante shuddered and jumped sideways, hurling him into the side of his restraints with rib-bruising force.

“We’re hit!” Amos and Alex yelled at the same time.

“Station shot us with some sort of heavy gauss cannon,” Naomi said.

“Damage,” Holden said.

“Went clean through us, Cap,” Amos said. “Galley and the machine shop. Got yellows on the board, but nothing that’ll kill us.”

Nothing that’ll kill us sounded good, but Holden felt a pang for his coffeemaker.

“Alex,” Holden said. “Forget the little ships, kill that comm array.”

“Roger,” Alex replied, and the Roci lurched sideways as Alex changed course to begin his torpedo run on the station.

“Naomi, as soon as the first one of those fighters comes around on his attack run, give him the comm laser in the face, full strength, and start dropping chaff.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied. Maybe the laser would be enough to screw up his targeting system for a few seconds.

“Station’s openin’ up with the PDCs,” Alex said. “This’ll get a mite bumpy.”

Holden switched from mirroring Naomi’s screen to watching Alex’s. His panel filled with thousands of rapidly moving balls of light and Thoth Station rotating in the background. The Roci’s threat computer was outlining the incoming point defense cannon fire with bright light on Alex’s HUD. It was moving impossibly fast, but at least with the system doing a bright overlay on each round, the pilot could see where the fire was coming from and which direction it was traveling. Alex reacted to this threat information with consummate skill, maneuvering away from the PDCs’ direction of fire in quick, almost random movements that forced the automated targeting of the point defense cannons to adjust constantly.

To Holden, it looked like a game. Incredibly fast blobs of light flew up from the space station in chains, like long and thin pearl necklaces. The ship moved restlessly, finding the gaps between the threads and dodging away to a new gap before the strands could react and touch her. But Holden knew that each blob of light represented a chunk of Teflon-coated tungsten steel with a depleted uranium heart, going thousands of meters per second. If Alex lost the game, they’d know it when the Rocinante was cut to pieces.

Holden almost jumped out of his skin when Amos spoke. “Shit, Cap, got a leak somewhere. Three port maneuvering thrusters are losing water pressure. Going to patch it.”

“Copy, Amos. Go fast,” Holden said.

“You hang on down there, Amos,” Naomi said.

Amos just snorted.

On his console, Holden watched as Thoth Station grew larger on the scope. Somewhere behind them, the two fighters were probably coming about. The thought made the back of Holden’s head itch, but he tried to keep focus. The Roci didn’t have enough torpedoes for Alex to fire shot after shot at the station from far off and hope one made it through the point defense fire. Alex had to bring them in so close that the cannons couldn’t shoot the torpedo down.

A blue highlight appeared on the HUD surrounding a portion of the station’s central hub. The highlighted portion expanded into a smaller subscreen. Holden could make out the dishes and antennas that made up the comm and targeting array.

“One away,” Alex said, and the Roci vibrated as her second torpedo was fired.

Holden shook violently in his restraints and then slapped back into his chair as Alex took the Roci through a series of sudden maneuvers and then slammed down the throttle to evade the last of the PDC fire. Holden watched his screen as the red dot of their missile streaked toward the station and struck the comm array. A flash blanked out his screen for a second and then faded. Almost immediately the PDC fire stopped.

“Good sh—” Holden was cut off by Naomi yelling, “Bogey one has fired! Two fast movers!”

Holden flipped back to her screen and saw the threat system tracking both fighters and two smaller and much faster objects moving toward the Roci on an intercept course.

“Alex!” Holden said.

“Got it, Chief. Going defensive.”

Holden slammed back into his chair again as Alex poured on the speed. The steady rumble of the engine seemed to stutter, and Holden realized he was feeling the constant fire of their own PDCs as they tried to shoot down the pursuing missiles.

“Well, fuck,” Amos said almost conversationally.

“Where are you?” Holden asked, then flipped his screen to Amos’ suit camera. The mechanic was in a dimly illuminated crawl space filled with conduit and piping. That meant he was between the inner and outer hulls. In front of him, a section of damaged pipe looked like snapped bones. A cutting torch floated nearby. The ship bounced violently, banging the mechanic around in the tight space. Alex whooped over the comm.

“Missiles did not impact!” he said.

“Tell Alex to stop jerking her around,” Amos said. “Makes it hard to hang on to my tools.”

“Amos, get back to your crash couch!” Naomi said.