“Those are unpleasant,” Fayez said, trying to move the subject away.
Teresa would not be turned aside. “But still. If the fighting got close? You’d be able to use it to get away?”
Elvi glanced at Fayez. His expression went blank. So he was wondering it too. They’d been in their private rooms, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be monitored. Was Trejo watching them? Was this a test?
“Unfortunately,” Elvi said, choosing her words carefully, “the Falcon was deeply, deeply compromised.”
Fayez followed suit. “I got a new foot, toenails and all, but that ship’s still in pieces.”
Teresa’s expression shifted, but Elvi wasn’t sure what it had shifted into. Elvi kept going, saying the things someone who had never thought of fleeing would say. “I really don’t think it’ll come to evacuation. None of those ships are even going to get close to the planet. And everything Admiral Trejo has at his disposal will be used to keep us all safe.”
“Maybe you should put a push on the repairs, then,” Teresa said, harshly. As if there is anything I would rather do, Elvi thought, and chuckled.
“Maybe I should,” she said as they entered the dining hall. Teresa finally had to go her own way. It felt like escaping something. Fayez put his arm around her waist and let himself be guided to their table.
“That was uncomfortable,” he said.
“Don’t read too much into it,” Elvi said as they found their chairs. “Also? Don’t forget it.”
The dinner proceeded, the conversations stayed on safe ground. Elvi put Holden and his role in Cortázar’s murder plot out of her mind. She didn’t think of it again for weeks, and by then things were already out of control.
“Holden escaped,” Ilich shouted. The speaker on her hand terminal overloaded a little, flattening his voice. She tried to bring herself back to consciousness. It was hard to believe she’d actually drifted off, but the dreams still had their claws in her.
“The attack,” she said.
“They’re here. They’re fighting right now, and Holden’s free.”
She sat up on her bed. She was still wearing her uniform, though it was creased from sleep. She rubbed the back of her neck with an open palm. Holden was out of his cell at the same moment that the underground’s strike force was engaging with the defense grid. There was no way that could be coincidence. Somehow, he’d known it was coming. And he was getting out before the bombs hit the State Building.
Her gut clenched. The fear that had been growing since the enemy’s gambit became clear tightened her gut. I’m going to die. Fayez is going to die. We’re not going to see dawn.
“Tell Trejo,” she said. “You need to tell Trejo.”
“He’s busy commanding the defenses. Holden stunned the guards. They’re still unconscious.”
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “What do you want me to do about it?”
Ilich stammered for a few seconds. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Secure the pocket nuke that’s in the same facility, then get a security team and start looking for him,” Elvi said.
“Yes,” Ilich said. “Right.”
He dropped the connection. Fayez was sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes wide and alarmed.
“That man,” Elvi said, “is not great in a crisis. I’m starting to think he’s got the wrong job.”
“Elvi,” Fayez said. “Holden. Teresa.”
It only took a moment. “Shit.”
She went for the door, Fayez close behind her. The air was cold and wet and stinging. It numbed her face instantly. Flakes of snow swirled down from the sky like ashes from a huge fire. The distant ground-based rail guns made a constant rolling thunder, and the clouds flickered red and orange in the north as they fired. Far above the clouds, a battle was going on. Elvi put her head down and ran. Fayez came along just behind her, his footsteps falling in and out of sync with her own.
An alarm sounded, screaming out across the State Building and its compound. She didn’t know if it was about the war or the escaped prisoner.
At Teresa’s rooms, she pounded the door with her fist and shouted the girl’s name, but the only answer was frantic barking. The thunder of the planetary defenses grew louder, almost deafening. Something terribly bright happened somewhere above the clouds and turned the white snow-struck landscape to noon for three long seconds.
“We need to take shelter,” Fayez said, and Elvi kicked Teresa’s door. Fayez did too. It seemed like it wouldn’t be enough. They’d beat themselves against it forever and never get through. And then the frame gave way, the door slammed inward, and Teresa’s dog ran out into the night, barking madly.
“Get inside,” Fayez shouted, but Elvi was already following the dog. It bounded through the fallen snow, throwing up ice like dust. Its bark was urgent, and it led Elvi on. She couldn’t feel her feet well, and her wounded leg burned and ached, but one foot went in front of the other.
Snowfall and the battle light had changed the gardens into a vision of hell. She didn’t know where she was, didn’t know where the State Building was, couldn’t tell where she was going, except that she was following the trail of paw prints and broken snow.
She should have gotten a gun. She was a major. Someone would have given her one if she’d asked. Better, she should have called Ilich and the security team. It was too late, though. She couldn’t turn back, and she had to believe that the James Holden she knew would listen to her. Would hear her. Would stop whatever his plan was before the girl got hurt.
The dog vanished into the gloom ahead, barking and howling. She’d been stupid. She’d been overworked. Duarte and Cortázar and the war and the things from beyond time and space. They’d overwhelmed her and she’d lost sight of the girl who was right in front of her and the man who’d planned to kill her.
All the panic and the fear and the driving need to flee distilled into this moment, this doomed rush, the snow, and the howls of the dog.
And voices.
“Stop!” Elvi shouted, and her voice was hoarse. “Holden, stop!”
The trail led almost to the fence. High in the darkness, the mountain beyond the State Building reared up, transformed by snow and darkness into a vast gray wave. And there, in a snow-filled gully, James Holden stood in a black guard’s uniform. His hair was wild and his skin was pale except for two bright-red patches at the cheeks where the cold had bitten him.
The dog capered and yapped at his side, and Holden raised a hand like he was seeing an unexpected friend at a cocktail party. But there was another voice. Teresa’s voice, scolding the dog and telling it to be quiet.
“Holden,” Elvi gasped. Now that she was slowing down, her side hurt like someone was stabbing her. “Holden, stop. Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” he said. And then, “Are you okay?”
“Let her go. It won’t fix anything to hurt her.”
Holden’s forehead furrowed, and for a moment, she could see the young man he’d been the first time she’d met him, decades ago on a different planet. She held tight to the chance he might still be the same man, somewhere deep inside.
“Hurt who?” he said, and pointed at Teresa. “Her?”
“I know what you did,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “I know you put Cortázar up to it.”
“We have to go,” Teresa said. Elvi noticed for the first time that the girl was doing something in the gully. Digging away a drift of fallen snow. Holden’s sleeves were crusted with ice where he’d been doing the same.