Abaddon's Gate (Page 60)
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 144
“It can’t be done,” Bull said. “Each one of those skiffs is carrying half a dozen marines in full battle dress. Powered armor. Maybe Goliath class for the Martians, Reaver class for the Earthers. Either way, I don’t have anything in that league. And the soldiers inside those suits have trained for exactly this kind of combat every day for years. I’ve got a bunch of plumbers with rifles I could put on a shuttle.”
The bridge went quiet. Ashford crossed his arms.
“Plumbers. With rifles. Is that how you see us, Mister Baca?”
“I don’t question the bravery or commitment of anyone on this crew,” Bull said. “I believe that any team we sent over there would be willing to lay down their lives for the cause. Of course, that would only take about fifteen seconds, and I won’t send our people into that.”
The implication floated in the air as gently as they did. You’re the captain. You can make the order, but you’ll own the consequences. And they’ll know the Earther told you what would happen. Pa’s eyes were narrow and looked away.
“Thank you, Mister Baca,” Ashford said. “You’re dismissed.”
Bull saluted, turned, and launched himself for the lift. Behind him, the bridge crew started talking again, but not as loud. Probably they’d all get reamed once Bull was gone just because they’d been in the room when Ashford got embarrassed. The chances were slim that they’d be sending anyone to the thing. Nucleus, base, whatever it was. Bull couldn’t think of a way to do any better than that, so that would count for a win.
On the way back to his station, he looked over the datafile the Rocinante had sent out. The saboteur seemed legitimate enough. Bull had seen enough faked confessions to recognize the signs, and this didn’t have them. After that, though, the whole damn thing turned into a fairy tale. A mysterious woman who manipulated governments and civilians, who was willing to kill dozens of people and risk thousands in order to… do what? Put James Holden through the Ring, where he was going now?
The image the prisoner had built looked like it had been carved from ice. No one had added color. Bull put on an even olive flesh tone and brown hair, and the face didn’t look familiar. Juliette Mao, they said. She hadn’t been the first person infected with the protomolecule, but everyone before her had gotten thrown in an autoclave one way or the other. She’d been the seed crystal that Eros had used to make itself, to make the Ring. So who was to say she couldn’t be wandering around hiring traitors and placing bombs?
The problem with living with miracles was that they made everything seem plausible. An alien weapon had been lurking in orbit around Saturn for billions of years. It had eaten thousands of people, hijacking the mechanisms of their bodies for its own ends. It had built a wormhole gate into a kind of haunted sphere. So why not the rest? If all that was possible, everything was.
Bull didn’t buy it.
Back at the security desk, he checked the status. The skiff of Earth marines had gone too fast, trying to race ahead of the Martian force. The slow zone had caught them, and the skiff was drifting off toward the ring of debris. Chances were that all the men in it were dead. The Martian skiff was still on track, but Holden would reach the structure before they got to him. It was too bad, in a way. The Martians had been the trigger-happy ones all along. Chances of someone getting to question Holden were looking pretty long.
Bull sucked his teeth, half-formed ideas shifting in the back of his mind. Holden wasn’t getting interrogated, but that didn’t mean no one would. He checked his security codes. Ashford hadn’t blocked him from using the comm laser. Protocol would have been to discuss this with Ashford or at least Pa, but they had their hands full right now anyway. And if it worked, it would be hard for them to object. They’d have a bargaining chip.
The Rocinante’s XO appeared on the screen.
“What can I do for you, Behemoth?”
“Carlos Baca here. I’m security chief. Wanted to talk about maybe taking a problem off your hands.”
She hoisted her eyebrows, her head shaking like she was trying to stay awake. She had a smart face.
“I’ve got a lot of problems right now,” she said. “Which one were you thinking about?”
“You got a bunch of civvies on your ship. One of ’em under arrest. Mars is still saying you’re flying their ship. Earth is wondering whether you blew the shit out of one of theirs. I can take custody of your prisoner and give the rest of them a safer place than you can.”
“Last I checked, the OPA was the only one that’s actually shot at us so far,” she said. She had a good smile. Too young for him, but ten years ago he’d have been asking her if he could make her dinner around now. “Doesn’t put you at the top of my list.”
“That was me,” Bull said. “I won’t do it this time.” It got him a chuckle, but it was the bleak kind. The one that came from someone wading through hell. “Look, you got a lot going on, and you’ve got a bunch of people on there who aren’t your crew. You got to keep them safe, and it’s a distraction. You send ’em over here, and everyone’ll see you aren’t trying to control access to them. Makes this whole thing about how it wasn’t you that blew the shit out of the Seung Un that much easier for people to believe.”
“I think we’re past goodwill gestures,” she said.
“I think goodwill gestures are the only chance you have to avoid a field promotion,” Bull said. “They’re sending killers after your captain. Good ones. No one’s thinking straight here. You and me, we can start cooling things down. Acting like grown-ups. And if we do, maybe they do too. No one else needs to get killed.”
“Thin hope,” she said.
“It’s all the hope I got. You got nothing to hide, then show them that. Show everyone.”
It took her twenty seconds.
“All right,” she said. “You can have them.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Holden
“W
ow,” Holden said to himself, “I really don’t want to do this.”
The sound echoed in his helmet, competing only with the faint hiss of his radio.
“I tried to talk you out of it,” Naomi replied, her voice somehow managing to be intimate even flattened and distorted by his suit’s small speakers.
“Sorry, I didn’t think you were listening.”
“Ah,” she said. “Irony.”
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 144