Cibola Burn (Expanse 4)

“Yessir.”

“All right,” Murtry said. “Two hours. You can do this, Cass.”

“Yessir.”

“Havelock, we’re doing a briefing in the security office right now. If you could pop by?”

“On my way,” Havelock said. He undid his straps, pulled himself out of his couch, and launched for the hallway. The Edward Israel had corridors that were built as elongated octagons, like something his grandfather would have traveled in. The straps and toeholds along the walls had no directionality. He moved quickly down the hall, his brain flipping from telling him that he was climbing up a massive steel-and-ceramic well to falling headlong down it to – oddly – crawling upside down, as if he were on the ceiling of a drainage pipe. Belters, he’d been told, had a natural sense of themselves divorced from set ideas of up and down, but he’d only heard that from Belters, and always in the context of how they were better than him. Maybe it was true, maybe it was exaggeration. Either way, by the time he pulled himself into the security office, he felt a little woozy, and missed the false gravity of thrust.

Ten people clung to the walls, all oriented the same way. Men and women with radically different facial structures and skin tones, and all with the same expression. It was almost eerie. Murtry had broken out the riot gear, and the blue-gray body armor with the high neck-protecting collars made them all seem like huge, human-shaped insects. Even Murtry was wearing it, so apparently he was going on the drop too.

“— I have left,” Murtry was saying from his place at the front of the room. “And you’re all I have left. The cavalry’s not going to come in and save our butts. We are the cavalry, and that means I have already lost everyone I’m going to lose. We are the security team for this whole planet, right here in this room. And we can do it, but not if we’re making sacrifices. While we’re down there, if you feel threatened, you do whatever it takes to protect yourself and your team.”

“Sir?”

“Okmi?”

“Does that mean we have authorization for lethal response?”

“That means you have authorization for preemptive lethal response,” Murtry said, then waited a moment for the words to sink in. Havelock sighed. It was ugly, but there wasn’t a choice. If the heavy shuttle had been just a crime, they could have dealt with it like police. But the locals hadn’t stopped there, and now more RCE people were missing or dead. So now it was more like a war.

Well. At least they’d tried the peaceful way first. Not that the Belters would give them any credit for it.

“We’re dropping in twenty minutes,” Murtry said. “It’s a long, fast drop, and some of it’ll be choppy. I’m bringing us down just east of the Belter camp. Smith and Wei are squad leads. Our first priority is reaching and reinforcing the office down there.”

“What about the Barbapiccola?” someone asked.

“Screw the Barbapiccola! What about the Rocinante?”

Murtry lifted his hand, palm out.

“Don’t any of you spend your time worrying about what’s happening up in orbit or back at home. That’s on me, and I’ll take care of it. Me and Havelock.” Murtry flashed a quick smile at him, and Havelock nodded, almost a little bow. “You have your orders, and you have my trust. Let’s get downstairs and get this clusterfuck under control.”

The security force broke, bodies moving through the air in a fast, efficient stream toward the hangar and the light shuttles. Havelock felt a thin stab of regret, watching the others head down without him. He remembered something from his childhood, a flash of memory here and gone, about a lame child and the Pied Piper.

Murtry floated through the air toward him, moving against the flow.

“Havelock, good to see you. I’m going to need a minute.”

“Yes, sir.”

Murtry nodded toward his private office. It was a tiny room, smaller even than a sleeping cabin, with a crash couch on old-style gimbals that arced up and over it. Murtry closed the door behind them.

“So I’m putting you in charge of the ship.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I’m leaving you in a crap position,” Murtry said. “We’ve got a full crew on the Israel that are mostly eggheads with their petticoats in a bunch because we’re not letting them do science, and the captain’s been fighting hard to keep them up here. Now there’s trouble, they won’t be pushing so hard to go down, but the pressure’s got to go someplace. I’m leaving you a skeleton crew to deal with it.”

“We’ll get it done, sir.”

“Good man. The biggest threat we’ve got on the board is the Rocinante. Used to be Martian military before it went OPA. Israel is huge, but we’re a science ship. If the Rocinante knocks us down, we’re going down.”

“Why would they shoot us down?”

Murtry shrugged. “I think less about why and more about if. So… there’s something I need, and it’s going to play hell with your shuttle schedules, but I want you to do it anyway.”

“Of course.”

“We’re taking one of the light shuttles for the drop,” Murtry said slowly, as if he were thinking it through while he spoke, even though that clearly wasn’t the case. “The one that’s left? I want you to weaponize it. Take off anything that’d keep its reactor from overloading, and set it with a hardened remote ignition. Lock out all the standard nav controls and put in something that just you and me have access to.”

“Captain Marwick too?”

Murtry’s smile was an enigma. “Sure, if you want.”

“Give me half a day, I’ll get it done,” Havelock said.

“Good.”

“Sir? Who are you thinking we’d be using this against? The Belter camp?”

“We’re just buying options, Havelock. I hope not to use it at all,” Murtry said. “But if I decide I’m going to, I’ll want it fast.”

“You’ll have it.”

“I feel better knowing that,” Murtry said, and put his hand on the desk to push off.

“Sir?”

Murtry lifted his eyebrows. Havelock felt a sudden flush of embarrassment, and almost didn’t go on. And then he did.

“I know it’s a small thing, sir, but when I was on the call, Cassie said she was hungry. I told her we’d bring her a sandwich.”