“If they’d lost containment it’d be worse. They’d be diverting to avoid bodies and shrapnel. Are there survivors?”
“Yeah. They’re putting out the distress request. Medical and evacuation. Sounds pretty fucked up, que no?”
“What about trace data. Can we tell who shot ’em?”
“No one shot ’em. Either it was a straight accident, or…”
“Or?”
“Or it wasn’t.”
Bull bit his lip. An accident would be bad enough. People on all sides of the system’s power structure were on edge, and a reminder that Earth’s fleet was aging and poorly maintained wouldn’t make anything easier. Sabotage would be worse. The closest thing to good news was that everyone had seen it and there wouldn’t be any accusations of enemy action. If there’d been a gauss round or a lucky missile that had slipped through the Seung Un’s defenses undetected, the scientific mission could turn into a shooting war faster than Bull wanted to think about.
“Are we offering assistance?” Bull asked.
“Give us a breath, boss,” Serge said. “Ashford ain’t hearing any of this faster than us.”
Bull leaned forward, his hands wrapping the steering controls until his knuckles went white. Serge was right. What happened outside the ship was Ashford’s problem. And Pa’s. He was security chief, and he needed to think about what needed doing inside the Behemoth. People would be scared, and it was his job to make sure that fear didn’t turn into hysteria. Watching a ship blow out—even an enemy ship—reminded everyone how tenuous life was with only a thin skin of steel and ceramic to keep the vacuum at bay. It reminded him. The cart hit a larger bump than usual, and his hand terminal slipped onto its side.
“Okay,” Bull said. “Look, we’re going to need to get relief supplies ready in case the captain decides to offer assistance. How many survivors can we take on?”
Serge’s laughter rasped.
“All of them. We’re the pinche Behemoth. We got enough room for a city, us.”
“Okay,” Bull said, smiling a little despite himself. “It was a stupid question.”
“The only thing we got to worry about is—”
The line went dead.
“Serge? Not funny,” Bull said. And then, “Talk to me, mister.”
“We got something. Broadcast coming from a private corvette called the Rocinante.”
“Why do I know that name?” Bull asked.
“Yeah,” Serge said. “I’m putting it to you.”
The handset screen blacked out, jumped, and then a familiar face appeared. Bull let the cart slow as James Holden, the man whose announcement about the death of the ice hauler Canterbury started the first war between Earth and Mars, once again made things worse.
“…ship that approaches the Ring without my personal permission will be destroyed without warning. Do not test my resolve.”
“Oh no,” Bull said. “Oh shit no.”
“It has always been a personal mission of mine to assure that information and resources remain free to all people. The efforts of individuals and corporate entities may have helped us to colonize the planets of our solar system and make life possible where it was inconceivable before, but the danger of someone unscrupulous taking control of the Ring is too great. I have proven myself worthy of the trust of the people of the Belt. It is a moral imperative that this shining artifact be protected, and I will spill as much blood as I have to in order to do so.”
Bull scooped up the hand terminal and tried to connect to Ashford. The red trefoil of command block blinked on the screen and shunted him to a menu that let him record a message for later. He tried Pa and got the same thing. Holden’s message was looping now, the replayed words just as idiotic and toxic the second time through. Bull said something obscene through clenched teeth. He pulled on the cart, turning the wheels as far as they would go, and stamped on the accelerator. The central lifts were only a minute or two away. He could get there. Just please God let Ashford not do anything stupid before he got to the bridge.
“That true, boss?” Serge said. “Did Holden just claim us all the Ring?”
“I want everyone on security mobilized right now,” Bull said. “Enemy action protocols. Corridors clear and bulkheads closed. Anyone on a weapons or damage control team, wake ’em up and get ’em dressed. You’re in charge of that.”
“You got it, boss,” Serge said. “Someone asks, where are you?”
“Trying to keep from needing them.”
“Bien.”
The familiar corridors seemed longer than usual, the awkwardness of floors built to be walls and walls intended as ceilings more surreal. If he’d been on a real battleship, there would have been a simple, direct path. If the Behemoth’s great belly had been spinning, it would have been better than this. He willed the cart faster, pushing the engine past what it could do. The alert Klaxon sounded: Serge calling everyone to brace for battle.
A crowd had formed at the lift: men and women trying to get back to their stations. Bull pushed through them, the shortest person there. An Earther, like Holden. At the lift, he activated the security override, called the first car, and stepped in. A tall, dark-skinned man tried to follow him. Bull put a hand on the man’s chest, stopping him.
“Take the next one,” Bull said. “I’m not going where you want to be.”
As the lift rose toward the bridge like it was ascending to heaven, Bull used his hand terminal to grasp for any information. He didn’t have access to the secure channels—only the captain and the XO had those—but there was more than enough public chatter. He ran through the open feeds, grasping for a sense of the situation, watching for a few seconds here, a few seconds there.
The Martian science team and their escort were raging at Holden on every feed, calling him a terrorist and a criminal. The Earth flotilla’s reaction was quieter. Most of the public conversation was coordinating the rescue efforts on the Seung Un. The high-energy gas from the core dump was confusing some of the relief crew’s comms, and someone fairly smart had started using the public feeds to coordinate them. It had the grim efficiency of a military operation, and it gave Bull hope for the Earth navy crew still alive on the Seung Un as much as it scared him about what was going to come after.
Holden’s message was repeating, spilling out over the public feeds. At first it just came from the Rocinante, but soon it was being relayed on other feeds along with commentary. Once the signal got back to the Belt and the inner planets, it was going to be the only thing anyone talked about. Bull could already imagine the negotiations between Earth and Mars, could practically hear them reaching the conclusion that the OPA had gotten too confident and needed to be taken down a notch.
Someone on the Behemoth put out a copy of Holden’s message with the split circle emblem over it and a commentary track saying that it was about time that the Belt take its place and demand the respect it deserved. Bull told Serge to find the feed and shut it down.
After what felt like hours and probably wasn’t more than four minutes, the lift reached the bridge, the doors opening silently before him, and let Bull out.
The bridge wasn’t designed for battle. Instead of a real war machine’s system of multiple stations and controlled lines of command, the Behemoth’s bridge was built like the largest tugboat ever made, only with angels blowing golden trumpets adorning the walls. The stations—single stations with a rotating backup scheme—were manned by Belters looking at each other and chatting. The security station was through a separate door and stood unmanned. The bridge crew were acting like children or civilians, their expressions were bright and excited. People who didn’t recognize danger when they saw it and assumed that whatever the crisis was, it would all work out in the end.