“If money’s what you want,” Dresden said with a shrug. “Weapons. Ordinance. Medical supplies. Whatever it is you need to prosecute your little war and get this over with quickly.”
“I know what you did on Eros,” Fred said quietly.
Dresden chuckled. The sound made Miller’s flesh crawl.
“Mr. Johnson,” Dresden said. “Nobody knows what we did on Eros. And every minute I have to spend playing games with you is one I can’t use more productively elsewhere. I will swear this: You are in the best bargaining position right now that you will ever have. There is no incentive for you to draw this out.”
“And you’re offering?”
Dresden spread his hands. “Anything you like and amnesty besides. As long as it gets you out of here and lets us return to our work. We both win.”
Fred laughed. It was mirthless.
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’ll give me all the kingdoms of the Earth if I just bow down and do one act of worship for you?”
Dresden cocked his head. “I don’t know the reference.”
Chapter Forty-One: Holden
The Rocinante docked with Thoth Station on the last gasps from her maneuvering thrusters. Holden felt the station’s docking clamps grab the hull with a thud, and then gravity returned at a low one-third g. The close detonation of a plasma warhead had torn off the outer door of the crew airlock and flooded the chamber with superheated gas, effectively welding it shut. That meant they’d be using the cargo airlock at the stern of the ship and spacewalking over to the station.
That was fine; they were still in their suits. The Roci had more holes now than the air cycling system could keep up with, and their shipboard O2 supply had been vented into space by the same explosion that killed the airlock.
Alex dropped from the cockpit, face hidden by his helmet, his belly unmistakable even in his atmosphere suit. Naomi finished locking her station and powering down the ship, then joined Alex, and the three of them climbed down the crew ladder to the ship’s aft. Amos was waiting there, buckling an EVA pack onto his suit and charging it with compressed nitrogen from a storage tank. The mechanic had assured Holden that the EVA maneuvering pack had enough thrust to overcome the station’s spin and get them back up to an airlock.
No one spoke. Holden had expected banter. He’d expected to want to banter. But the damaged Roci seemed to call for silence. Maybe awe.
Holden leaned against the cargo bay bulkhead and closed his eyes. The only sounds he could hear were the steady hiss of his air supply and the faint static of the comm. He could smell nothing through his broken and blood-clogged nose, and his mouth was filled with a coppery taste. But even so, he couldn’t keep a smile off his face.
They’d won. They’d flown right up to Protogen, taken everything the evil bastards could throw at them, and bloodied their noses. Even now OPA soldiers were storming their station, shooting the people who’d helped kill Eros.
Holden decided that he was okay with not feeling any remorse for them. The moral complexity of the situation had grown past his ability to process it, so he just relaxed in the warm glow of victory instead.
The comm chirped and Amos said, “Ready to move.”
Holden nodded, remembered he was still in his atmosphere suit, and said, “Okay. Hook on, everyone.”
He, Alex, and Naomi pulled tethers from their suits and clamped them to Amos’ broad waist. Amos cycled the cargo airlock and flew out the door on puffs of gas. They were immediately hurled away from the ship by station spin, but Amos quickly got them under control and flew back up toward Thoth’s emergency airlock.
As Amos flew them past the Roci, Holden studied the outside of the ship and tried to catalog repair requirements. There were a dozen holes in both her bow and aft that corresponded to holes all along the inside of the ship. The gauss cannon rounds the interceptor had fired probably hadn’t even slowed appreciably on their path through the Roci. The crew was just lucky none of them had found the reactor and punched a hole in it.
There was also a huge dent in the false superstructure that made the ship look like a compressed gas freighter. Holden knew it would match an equally ugly wound in the armored outer hull. The damage hadn’t extended to the inner hull, or the ship would have cracked in two.
With the damage to the airlock, and the total loss of their oxygen storage tanks and recycling systems, there would be millions of dollars in damage and weeks in dry dock, assuming they could make it to a dry dock somewhere.
Maybe the Molinari could give them a tow.
Amos flashed the EVA pack’s yellow warning lights three times, and the station’s emergency airlock door cycled open. He flew them inside, where four Belters in combat armor waited.
As soon as the airlock finished cycling, Holden pulled his helmet off and touched his nose. It felt twice its normal size and throbbed with every heartbeat.
Naomi reached out and held his face still, her thumbs on either side of his nose, her touch surprisingly gentle. She turned his head from side to side, examining the injury, then let go.
“It’ll be crooked without some cosmetic surgery,” she said. “But you were too pretty before anyway. It’ll give your face character.”
Holden felt a slow grin coming on, but before he could reply, one of the OPA troops started talking.
“Watched the fight, hermano. You guys really kicked some ass.”
“Thanks,” said Alex. “How’s it goin’ in here?”
The soldier with the most stars on his OPA insignia said, “Less resistance than expected, but the Protogen security’s been fighting for every foot of real estate. Even some of the eggheads have been coming at us. We’ve had to shoot a few.”
He pointed at the inner airlock door.
“Fred’s heading up to ops. Wants you people up there, pronto.”
“Lead the way,” Holden replied, his nose turning it into lee da way.
“How’s that leg, Cap?” Amos asked as they walked along the station corridor. Holden realized he’d forgotten about the limp his gunshot to the calf had left him.
“Doesn’t hurt, but the muscle doesn’t flex as much,” he replied. “Yours?”
Amos grinned and glanced down at the leg that still limped from the fracture he’d suffered on the Donnager months earlier.
“No biggie,” he said. “The ones that don’t kill you don’t count.”
Holden started to reply, then stopped when the group rounded a corner into a slaughterhouse. They were clearly coming up behind the assault team, because now the corridor floor was littered with bodies, the walls with bullet holes and scorch marks. To his relief, Holden saw a lot more bodies in Protogen security armor than in OPA gear. But there were enough dead Belters on the floor to make his stomach twist. When he passed a dead man in a lab coat, he had to stop himself from spitting on the floor. The security guys had maybe made a bad decision in going to work for the wrong team, but the scientists on this station had killed a million and a half people just to see what would happen. They couldn’t be dead enough for Holden’s comfort.
Something tugged at him, and he paused. Lying next to the dead scientist was what looked like a kitchen knife.
“Huh,” Holden said. “He didn’t come at you guys with that, did he?”
“Yeah, crazy, no?” said one of their escorts. “I heard of bringing a knife to a gunfight, but…”
“Ops is up ahead,” said the ranking trooper. “General’s waiting.”