LEVIATHAN WAKES

snort.

“Hey, Alex,” Amos said.

“Yo,” Alex replied.

“XO boning the captain going to make you a really shitty pilot?”

“Don’t believe it will,” Alex said with a grin, exaggerating his drawl.

“And, oddly enough, I don’t feel the need to be a lousy mechanic.”

Holden tried again. “I think it’s important that-”

“Cap’n?” Amos continued, ignoring him. “Consider that no one gives a fuck, it won’t stop us from doing our jobs, and just enjoy it, since we’ll probably all be dead in a few days anyway.”

Naomi started laughing again.

“Fine,” she said. “I mean, everyone knows I’m only doing it to get a promotion. Oh, wait, right. Already the second-in-command. Hey, can I be captain now?”

“No,” Holden said, laughing. “It’s a shit job. I’d never ask you to do it.”

Naomi grinned and shrugged. See? I’m not always right. Holden glanced at Alex, who was looking at him with genuine affection, clearly happy about the idea of him and Naomi together. Everything seemed right.

* * *

Eros spun like a potato-shaped top, its thick skin of rock hiding the horrors inside. Alex brought them in close to do a thorough scan of the station. The asteroid swelled on Holden’s screen until it looked close enough to touch. At the other ops station, Naomi swept the surface with ladar, looking for anything that might pose a danger to the Tycho freighter crews, still a few days behind. On Holden’s tactical display, the UNN science ship continued to flare in a braking maneuver toward Eros, its escort right beside it.

“Still not talking, huh?” Holden asked.

Naomi shook her head, then tapped on her screen and sent the comm’s monitoring information to his workstation.

“Nope,” she said. “But they see us. They’ve been bouncing radar off of us for a couple hours now.”

Holden tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair and thought about the choices. It was possible that the hull modifications Tycho had made to the Roci were fooling the Earth corvette’s recognition software. They might just ignore the Roci, thinking she was a Belter gas runner that happened to be hanging around. But the Roci was running without a transponder, which made her illegal no matter what hull configuration she was showing. That the corvette wasn’t trying to warn off a ship that was running dark made him nervous. The Belt and the inner planets were in a shooting war. A Belter ship with no identification was hanging around Eros while two Earth ships flew toward it. No way any captain with half a brain would just ignore them.

The corvette’s silence meant something else.

“Naomi, I have a feeling that corvette is going to try and blow us up,” Holden said with a sigh.

“It’s what I’d do,” she replied.

Holden tapped one last complicated rhythm on his chair, then put his headset on.

“All right, I guess I make the first overture, then,” he said.

Not wishing to make their conversation public, Holden targeted the Earther corvette with the Rocinante’s laser array and signaled a generic linkup request. After a few seconds, the link established light went green, and his earplugs began to hiss with faint background static. Holden waited, but the UN ship offered no greeting. They wanted him to speak first.

He flicked off his mic, switching to the shipwide comm.

“Alex, get us moving. One g for now. If I can’t bluff this guy, it’ll be a shooting match. Be ready to open her up.”

“Roger,” drawled Alex. “Goin’ on the juice, just in case.”

Holden glanced over at Naomi’s station, but she’d already switched to her tactical screen and had the Roci plotting firing solutions and jamming tactics on the two approaching ships. Naomi had been in only one battle, but she was reacting now like a seasoned veteran. He smiled at her back, then turned around before she had time to realize he was staring.

“Amos?” he said.

“Locked down and shipshape down here, Cap. The Roci’s pawing at the turf. Let’s go kick some ass.”

Let’s hope we don’t have to, Holden thought.

He turned his mic back on.

“This is Captain James Holden of the Rocinante, calling the captain of the approaching United Nations Navy corvette, call sign unknown. Please respond.”

There was a static-filled pause, followed by “Rocinante. Leave our flight path immediately. If you do not begin moving away from Eros at best possible speed, you will be fired upon.”

The voice was young. An aging corvette with the tedious task of following an asteroid-mapping ship around wouldn’t be a much sought after command. The captain was probably a lieutenant without patrons or prospects. He’d be inexperienced, but he might see a confrontation as an opportunity to prove himself to his superiors. And that made the next few moments treacherous to navigate.

“Sorry,” said Holden. “Still don’t know your call sign, or your name. But I can’t do what you want. In fact, I can’t let anyone land on Eros. I’m going to need you to stop approaching the station.”

“Rocinante, I don’t think you-”

Holden took control of the Roci’s targeting system and began painting the approaching corvette with its targeting laser.

“Let me explain what’s happening here,” he said. “Right now, you’re looking at your sensors, and you’re seeing what looks like a thrown-together gas freighter that’s giving your ship-recognition software fits. And all of a sudden, meaning right now, it’s painting you with a state-of-the-art target-acquisition system.”

“We don’t-”

“Don’t lie. I know that’s what’s happening. So here’s the deal. Despite how it looks, my ship is newer, faster, tougher, and better armed than yours. The only way for me to really prove that is to open fire, and I’m hoping not to do that.”

“Are you threatening me, Rocinante?” the young voice on Holden’s headset said, its tone hitting just the right notes of arrogance and disbelief.

“You? No,” said Holden. “I’m threatening the big, fat, slow-moving, and unarmed ship you’re supposed to be protecting. You keep flying toward Eros, and I will unload everything I’ve got at it. I guarantee we will blow that flying science lab out of the sky. Now, it’s possible you might get us while we do it, but by then your mission is screwed anyway, right?”

The line went silent again, only the hiss of background radiation letting him know his headset hadn’t died.

When his answer came, it came on the shipwide comms.

Alex said, “They’re stoppin’, Captain. They just started hard brakin’. Tracking says they’ll be relative stopped about two million klicks out. Want me to keep flyin’ toward ’em?”

“No, bring us back to our stationary position over Eros,” Holden replied.

“Roger that.”

“Naomi,” Holden said, spinning his chair around to face her. “Are they doing anything else?”

“Not that I can see through the clutter of their exhaust. But they could be tightbeaming messages the other direction and we’d never know,” she said.

Holden flipped the shipwide comm off. He scratched his head for a minute, then unbuckled his restraints.

“Well, we stopped them for now. I’m going to hit the head and then grab a drink. Want anything?”