Monica laughed again, then turned around and swatted Anna’s hand off of her arm. “What do you think is happening here? Ashford has men outside trying to break in and kill us. Bull and his people have lost the engine room, and Juarez says Bull’s been killed. Who knows how many people he—”
Anna planted her feet against the doorjamb, grabbed Monica by the shoulders, and slammed the reporter up against the wall. “Does the broadcasting equipment still work?” She was amazed at how steady her voice sounded.
“It got banged around some, but—”
“Does. It. Work.”
“Yes,” Monica said. It came out as a frightened squeak.
“Get me on the channel the assault team was using, and give me a headset,” Anna said, then let go of Monica’s shoulders. Monica did as she asked, moving quickly and only occasionally giving her a frightened look. I’ve become frightening, Anna thought. Tasting the idea, and finding it less unpleasant than she’d expect. These were frightening times.
“Fuck!” Amos yelled from the other room. When Anna looked out, she saw one of the young Martian officers floating in the middle of the room spraying small globes of red blood into the air around him. Her friend Chris launched across the room by pushing off with his one good leg and grabbed the injured man with his one arm, then pulled him into cover.
“We’re running out of time,” Anna said to Monica. “Work faster.”
Monica’s reply was to hand her a headset with a microphone.
“Hello? This is Anna Volovodov at Radio Free Slow Zone. Is anyone left on this channel?”
Someone replied, but they were impossible to hear over the nearby gunfire. Anna turned the volume up to the maximum and said, “Repeat that, please.”
“We’re here,” James Holden said at deafening levels.
“How many are left, and what’s the situation?”
“Well,” Holden said, then paused and grunted as though exerting himself for several seconds. He sounded out of breath when he continued. “We’re holed up in the port elevator shaft just outside the command deck airlock. There are three of us at this position. Bull and the remaining marines are fighting the counterassault team at a position further down the shaft. I have no idea how that’s going. We’ve run out of room to retreat, so unless someone decides to open the hatch and let us onto the bridge, we’re sort of out of options.”
The last part of his sentence was almost drowned out by a massive wave of incoming gunfire in her office. Amos and his group were hunkered down, leaning against the reinforced armor they’d attached to the walls. The reports of the shots and the sound of bullets hitting metal was deafening. When the fire lessened, a pair of men in Behemoth security armor rushed the room, spraying automatic weapons fire as they came. Two of Amos’ team were hit, and more globes of red flew into the air. Amos grabbed the second man through the door and yanked him up off his magnetic hold to the floor, then threw him at his partner. They tumbled off across the room together and then Amos fired a long burst from his weapon into both as they spun. The air was filled with so many floating red orbs of various sizes that it became difficult to see. The rest of Amos’ team opened fire, and whatever attack Ashford’s people had launched was apparently driven back, as no more soldiers charged through the door.
“Is there anything we can do?” Anna yelled at Holden.
“Sounds to me like you’re in some shit there yourself, Preacher,” Holden replied. His voice was weary. Sad. “Unless you’ve got the bridge access controls nearby, I’d say you should concentrate on your own problems.”
More fire came through the offices, but it was sporadic. Amos had driven off their big attack, and now they were taking petulant potshots. Monica was staring at her, waiting for her to issue another order. Somehow, she’d become the person in charge.
“Set me to broadcast on the Radio Free Slow Zone feed,” Anna said. In the end, talking was all she had to offer. Monica nodded at her and pointed a small camera at her face.
“This is Anna Volovodov broadcasting from the offices of Radio Free Slow Zone to anyone on the Behemoth that’s still listening. We’ve failed to hold engineering, so our plan to shut down the reactor and get everyone back home is failing as well. We have people trapped in the external elevator shaft, and they can’t get onto the bridge.
“So, please, if anyone listening to this can help, we need you. Everyone on this flotilla needs you. The people dying right outside your door need you. Most of all, the people we left behind on Earth and Mars and the Belt need you. If the captain does what he’s planning, if he fires the laser at the Ring, everyone back home will die too. Please, if you can hear me, help us.”
She stopped, and Monica put down the camera.
“Think that will work?” Monica asked.
Anna was about to say no when the wall comm panel buzzed at her. A voice said, “How do you know that?” A young voice, female, sad. Clarissa. “What you said about destroying Earth if we attack the Ring, how do you know that?”
“Clarissa,” Anna said. “Where are you?”
“I’m here, on the bridge. I’m in the security station. I was watching your broadcast.”
“Can you open the door and let our people in?”
“Yes.”
“Will you do that?”
“How,” Clarissa repeated, her tone not changing at all, “do you know what you said?”
A man generally regarded as the instigator of two solar system-wide wars got all this information from a protomolecule-created ghost that no one else can see. It wasn’t a particularly compelling argument.
“James Holden got it while he was on the station.”
“So he told you that this would happen,” Clarissa said, her tone doubtful.
“Yes.”
“So how do you know?”
“I don’t, Claire,” Anna said, appropriating Tilly’s pet name to try and create a connection. “I don’t know. But Holden believes it’s true, and the consequences if he’s right are too extreme to risk. So I’m taking it on faith.”
There was a long moment of silence. Then a male voice said, “Clarissa, who are you talking to in here?”
It took Anna a moment to recognize it as Hector Cortez. She’d known he was on the bridge with Ashford, but somehow the reminder that he’d sided with the men who killed Bull was too much. She had to restrain herself from cursing at him.
“Anna wants me to open the elevator airlock and let the other side into the bridge. She wants me to help stop Ashford from destroying the Ring. She says it will kill everyone on Earth if we do.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Cortez said. “She’s just afraid.”
“Afraid?” Anna yelled. “Do you hear those sounds, Hector? That’s gunfire. Bullets are flying by even as we speak. You’re locked away safe and snug on the command deck planning to destroy something you don’t understand, while I am risking gunshot wounds to stop you. Who’s afraid here?”
“You’re afraid to make the necessary sacrifices to protect the people we’ve left behind. You’re only thinking of yourself,” he yelled back. Anna heard the sound of a door closing in the background. Someone had shut the door to the security station to keep the argument from being overheard. If it was Clarissa, that was a good sign.
“Clarissa,” Anna said, keeping her voice as calm as she could with the ongoing sounds of a gunfight behind her. “Claire, the people waiting outside the airlock door are going to be killed if you don’t open it. They are trapped there. People are coming to kill them.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Cortez started.
“It’s Holden and Naomi out there,” Anna continued, ignoring him. “And Bull is there too. Ashford will have them all killed.”