Abaddon's Gate

“Want more coffee?”

“Good God, yes,” Holden said, holding out his bulb like a street beggar.

Before Monica could take it, Bull came clumping over to them in his mechanical walker. He started to speak and then began a wet, phlegmy cough that lasted several seconds. Holden thought he looked like a man who was dying by centimeters.

“Sorry,” Bull said, spitting into a wadded-up rag. “That’s disgusting.”

“If you die,” Monica said, “I won’t get my exclusive.”

Bull nodded and began another coughing fit.

“If you die,” Holden said, “can I have all your stuff?”

Bull gave a grand, sweeping gesture at the office around them. “Someday, my boy, this will all be yours.”

“What’s the word?” Holden asked, raising the bulb to his lips and being disappointed at its emptiness all over again.

“Corin found the preacher, huddled up with half her congregation in their church tent.”

“Great,” Holden said. “Things are starting to come together.”

“Better than you think. Half the people in that room were UN and Martian military. They’re coming with her. She says they’ll back her story when she asks the other ships to shut down. It also won’t hurt to have a few dozen more able bodies to man the defenses when Ashford comes after us.”

As Bull spoke, Holden saw Amos enter the offices pushing the bed Alex and Naomi were on. A knot he hadn’t even realized he had relaxed in his shoulders. Bull was still talking about utilizing the new troops for their defensive plans, but Holden wasn’t listening. He watched Amos move the gurney to a safe corner at the back of the room and then wander over to stand next to them.

“Nothing new outside,” Amos said when Bull stopped talking. “Same small patrols of Ashford goons walking the drum, but they don’t act like they know anything’s up.”

“They’ll know as soon as we do our first broadcast,” Monica said.

“How’s that shoulder?” Holden asked.

“Sore.”

“I’ve been thinking I want you to take command of the defense here once the shit hits the intake.”

“Yeah, okay,” Amos said. He knew Holden was asking him to protect Naomi and Alex. “I guess that means you’re going down to—”

He was interrupted by a loud buzzing coming from Bull’s pocket. Bull pulled a beat-up hand terminal out and stared at it like it might explode.

“Is that an alarm?” Holden asked.

“Emergency alert on my private security channel,” Bull said, still not answering it. “Only the senior staff can use that channel.”

“Ashford, trying to track you down?” Holden asked, but Bull ignored him and answered the call.

“Bull here. Ruiz, I—” Bull started, then stopped and just listened. He grunted a few times, though Holden couldn’t tell if they were assents or negations. When he finished the call, he dropped the hand terminal on the desk behind him without looking at it. His brown skin, recently gray with sickness, had turned almost white. He reached up with both hands to wipe away what Holden realized with shock were tears. Holden would not have guessed the man was capable of weeping.

“Ashford,” Bull started, then began a long coughing fit that looked suspiciously like sobbing. When he’d finally stopped, his eyes and mouth were covered with mucus. He pulled a rag out of his pocket and wiped most of it off, then said, “Ashford killed Sam.”

“What?” Holden asked. His brain refused to believe this could be true. He’d heard the words clearly, but those words could not be, so he must have heard them wrong. “What?”

Bull took a long breath, gave his face one last wipe with the rag, then said, “He brought her up to the bridge to ask about the laser mods, and then he shot her. He made Anamarie Ruiz the chief engineer.”

“How do you know?” Monica asked.

“Because that was Ruiz on the line just now. She wants us to get her the hell out of there,” Bull said. Almost all traces of his grief were gone from his face. He took another long, shuddering breath. “She knows Ashford has completely gone around the bend, but what can she do?”

Holden shook his head, still refusing to believe it. Brilliant little Sam, who fixed his ship, who was Naomi’s best friend, whom Alex and Amos shared a good-natured crush on. That Sam couldn’t be dead.

Amos was staring at him. The big man’s hands were curled into fists, his knuckles a bloodless white.

“We have to hold this ground,” Holden said, hoping to head off Amos’ next words. “I need you to hold it or this whole thing falls apart.”

“Then you kill him,” Amos said, his words terrifyingly flat and emotionless. “None of this trial bullshit. No righteous man among the savages bullshit. You f**king kill him, or so help me God…”

Holden felt a sudden nausea almost drive him to his knees. He took a few deep breaths to push it back. This was what they had to offer to Sam’s memory. After all she’d done for them. All she’d meant to them. They had violence, arguments about the best way to get revenge. Sam, who as far as he knew had never hurt another person in her life. Would she want this? He could picture her there, telling Amos and Bull to put their testosterone away and act like adults. The thought almost made him vomit.

Monica put a hand on his back. “Are you okay?”

“I have to tell Naomi,” was all he could say, then he pushed her hand away and walked across a floor that moved under his feet like the rolling deck of an oceangoing ship.

Naomi reacted only with sorrow, not with anger. She cried, but didn’t demand revenge. She repeated Sam’s name through her tears, but didn’t say Ashford’s once. It seemed like the right reaction. It seemed like love.

He was holding Naomi while she gently wept when Bull clumped up behind him. He felt a flash of anger, but swallowed it.

“What?”

“Look,” Bull said, rubbing his buzz cut with both hands. “I know this is a shitty time, but we have to talk about where we go from here.”

Holden shrugged.

“Sam’s gone, and she was pretty central to our plans…”

“I understand,” Naomi said. “I’ll go.”

“What?” Holden said, feeling like they were having a conversation in some kind of code he didn’t understand. “Go where?”

“With Sam gone, Naomi is the best engineer we’ve got,” Bull said.