Abaddon's Gate

She wondered how the Behemoth felt about being the Behemoth and not the Nauvoo. She wondered how she felt about being Clarissa Mao and not Melba Koh. Would the ship feel the nobility of its sacrifice? Lost forever in the abyss, but with everyone else redeemed by her sacrifice. The symmetry seemed meaningful, but it might only have been the grinding combination of fear and uncertainty that made it seem that way.

Seven hours after they’d taken the bridge, Ashford stabbed at the control console again, waited a few seconds, and punched the console hard enough that the blow pushed him back into his couch. The sound of the violence startled Cortez awake and stopped the muttered conversation between the guards. Ashford ignored them all and tapped at the screen again. His fingertips sounded like hailstones striking rock.

The light from the screen flickered.

“Sir?”

“Where’s Sam Rosenberg?” Ashford snapped.

“Last I saw her, she was checking the backup power supply for the reactor bottle, sir. Should I find her?”

“Who’s acting as her second?”

“Anamarie Ruiz.”

“Get Sam and Anamarie up to command, please. If you have to take them under guard, that’s fine.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ashford closed the connection and pushed away from the console, his crash couch shushing on its bearings.

“Is there a problem, Captain?” Cortez asked. His voice was thick and a little bleary.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Ashford replied.

It was almost another hour before Clarissa heard the doors from the external elevator shaft open. New voices came down the hall. The gabble of conversation tried to hide some deeper strain. Ashford tugged at his uniform.

Two women floated in the room. The first was a pretty woman with a heart-shaped face and grease-streaked red hair pulled back in a bun. It made her think of Anna. The second was thin, even for a Belter, with skin the color of dry soil and brown eyes so dark they were black. Three men with pistols followed them in.

“Chief Rosenberg,” Ashford said.

“Sir,” the red-haired woman said. She didn’t sound like Anna.

“We are on our fourth last-minute delay now. The more time we waste, the more likely it is that the rogue elements in the drum will cause trouble.”

“I’m doing my best, Captain. This isn’t the kind of thing we get to take a second shot at, though. We need to be thorough.”

“Two hours ago, you said we’d be ready to fire in two hours. Are we ready to fire now?”

“No, sir,” she said. “I looked up the specs, and the reactor’s safeties won’t allow an output the size we need. I’m fabricating some new breakers that won’t screw us up. And then we have to replace some cabling as well.”

“How long will that take?” Ashford asked. His voice was dry. Clarissa thought she heard danger in it, but the engineer didn’t react to it.

“Six hours, six and a half hours,” she said. “The fab printers only go so fast.”

Ashford nodded and turned to the second woman. Ruiz.

“Do you agree with that assessment?”

“All respect to Chief Rosenberg, I don’t,” Ruiz said. “I don’t see why we can’t use conductive foam instead.”

“How long would that take?”

“Two hours,” Ruiz said.

Ashford drew a pistol. Almost before the chief engineer’s eyes could widen, the gun fired. In the tight quarters, the sound itself was an assault. Sam’s head snapped back and her feet kicked forward. A bright red globe shivered in the air, smaller droplets flying out from it. Violent moons around a dead planet.

“Mister Ruiz,” Ashford said. “Please be ready to fire in two hours.”

For a moment, the woman was silent. She shook her head like she was trying to come back from a dream.

“Sir,” she said.

Ashford smiled. He was enjoying the effect he’d just had.

“You can go,” he said. “Tick-tock. Tick-tock.”

Ruiz and the three guards pulled themselves back out. Ashford put his pistol away.

“Would someone please clean this mess away,” he said.

“My God,” Cortez said, his voice somewhere between a prayer and blasphemy. “Oh my God. What have you done?”

Ashford craned his neck. Two of the guards moved forward. One of them had a utility vacuum. When he thumbed it on, the little motor whined. When he put it in the blood, the tone of it dropped half a tone from E to D-sharp.

“I shot a saboteur,” Ashford said, “and cleared the way to saving humanity from the alien threat.”

“You killed her,” Cortez said. “She had no trial. No defense.”

“Father Cortez,” Ashford said, “these are extreme circumstances.”

“But—”

Ashford turned, bending his just-too-large Belter head forward.

“With all respect, this is my command. These are my people. And if you think I am prepared to accept another mutiny, you are very much mistaken.” There was a buzz in the captain’s voice like a drunk man on the edge of a fight. Clarissa put a hand on Cortez’s shoulder and shook her head.

The older man frowned, ran a hand across his white hair, and put on a professionally compassionate expression.

“I understand the need for discipline, Captain,” Cortez said. “And even some violence, if it is called for, but—”

“Don’t make me put you back in the drum,” Ashford said. Cortez closed his mouth, his head bowed as if being humbled was old territory for him. Even though she knew that wasn’t true, Clarissa felt a warm sympathy for him. He’d seen dead people. He’d seen people die. Seeing someone killed was different. And killing someone was different than that, so in some ways, she was ahead of him.

“Come on,” she said. Cortez blinked at her. There were tears in his eyes, floating more or less evenly across his sclera, unable to fall. “The head’s this way. I’ll get you there.”

“Thank you,” he said.

Two of the guards were wrapping the dead engineer with tape. The bullet had struck just above her right eye, and a hemisphere of blood adhered to it, shuddering but not growing larger. The woman wasn’t bleeding anymore. She was the enemy, Clarissa thought, but the idea had a tentative quality about it. Like she was trying on a vest to see how it fit. She was the enemy and so she deserved to die even though she had red hair like Anna. It wasn’t as comforting as she’d hoped.