Persepolis Rising (The Expanse)

by James S. A. Corey

  “Sir, yes sir.”

  Singh killed the connection almost before the officer finished speaking. He looked around his office, not to take in anything new so much as to judge his own mind. He wasn’t feeling the shuddering in his hands anymore. His eyes were able to move from the door to his desk to the little ferns in their planters beside the wall without jittering back and forth of their own accord. He’d been in shock. Only a little. And only for a short time. It was normal. Natural. Expected. The physiological effects were only the consequence of being an animal in a stressful situation. There was no reason for him to feel ashamed.

  And yet, when Tanaka entered the room with that little half smirk on her lips, he had to rein his anger in. Is this funny to you? He didn’t say it.

  “Sir,” she said, bracing. “You wanted to see me?”

  “I was almost murdered today,” Singh said. “I found your silence on the matter disturbing.”

  Tanaka’s expression shifted. A little chagrin, maybe? It was hard to tell with her. Her voice didn’t have the crispness he’d expect of someone being dressed down. “I apologize. After your safety was established, my focus was on the response and investigation. I should have reported in sooner.”

  “Yes, well,” Singh said. “Are you ready to make your report now?”

  Tanaka gathered her thoughts visibly, then nodded to the chair across the desk from his, silently asking his permission to sit. He waved a hand. She sat, leaning forward, her elbows resting on her knees.

  “The basic facts appear straightforward. The attempt was instigated and organized by Langstiver. He was the head of security before we came, and his co-conspirators were drawn from the ranks of the local security force.”

  “Why weren’t we monitoring them?” Singh asked.

  “We were. But it appears that Langstiver wasn’t using the station network. My team is still digging into it, but it looks like he did his coordination and planning on an encrypted network set up in the power conduits. Physically separate from the main system the way the Storm is from Medina. Air-gapped. From what we can tell, it was put in by criminal elements in Medina Station. Langstiver also had relationships there.”

  Singh leaned back a centimeter in his chair. “Criminal elements? You mean he was corrupt?”

  “It’s not unusual on this side of the gate,” Tanaka said. “And it makes the investigation more complicated than I’d like. Add to that, he appears to have purged several caches of data he still had access to and inserted false entries into what we have got. And Langstiver and his little friends aren’t going to be questioned by anyone but God at this point.”

  “But you’ve found the network they were using.”

  “One of them,” Tanaka said. “There may be others. Part of the problem is that Medina wasn’t run as a military installation. There were—and probably still will be—competing levels of culture and infrastructure. Controlling the official channels is trivial, but even the officials were using additional undocumented frameworks. It’s not like the locals have to create ways to get around our surveillance. All those ways were built in before we showed up.”

  She lifted her hands in a shrug. Singh had a stark flashbulb memory of Kasik, and with it a powerful, all-pervading dread. In his imagination, Nat and the monster were looking at a picture of him with blood spilling down his chin. It wasn’t the prospect of his own death that brought the flush of rage. It was how cavalier Tanaka was being with them.

  “Well, we’ll have to address that directly, then,” Singh said. “Mandatory curfews and roaming checkpoints will be a start. And restrict the station security forces to quarters until they can be interrogated and evaluated for service. And I’ll want a list of anyone who might pose a threat moving forward for precautionary monitoring. And … hm. Yes, and coordinate that through the Gathering Storm. If we can’t be sure the local system’s clean, we should use our own. The most important thing is that the systems on the Gathering Storm not be compromised.”

  “I’ve already set up an encryption strong room,” Tanaka said, nodding without seeming to agree. Her sigh was like grit on his skin. “But you want to be careful about a crackdown, sir. Especially this early on. It could send the wrong message.”

  “The wrong message,” Singh repeated, stretching out each syllable into a question and a confrontation.

  “Belter culture and identity is built around pushing back against authority. This is what that looks like in practice. We knew something like this was possible, and—”

  “We did?” Singh said, his voice sharp. “We knew that, did we?”

  Tanaka’s eyes flattened and her lips thinned. “Yes, sir. We did. It’s why I had a fire team with you at all times. And, respectfully, it’s why you’re alive.”

  “Pity there wasn’t one for Kasik.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tanaka said. The languor in her tone was gone. She had the tightness in her voice that said that at last she was taking him seriously. “I’m sorry to have lost him. But that doesn’t change my assessment. Bringing Laconian focus and discipline to Medina Station and the other systems isn’t a matter of imposing our customs and rules on them.”

  “I’m surprised to hear you say that.”

  “Our discipline is ours, sir. The same actions can have different meanings in different contexts. What would be routine back home would seem draconian here. Anything harsher than routine will read as a wild overreaction. I believe the high consul would agree that underreacting to this would be a more persuasive show of authority.”

  Singh stood up. He hadn’t meant to, but the need to move, to occupy the space inside his office, was suddenly overpowering. Tanaka stayed still. Her expression was like someone tracking a target on a firing range—focused, but emotionless. He walked to his sideboard and poured himself a drink since his aide wasn’t there to do it for him.

  “It’s an interesting perspective, and I can respect it,” Singh said. “But I don’t share it. You have my instructions.” The alcohol was sharp and strangely acrid in his mouth. His gut rebelled a little at it. He swallowed anyway, trying to enjoy the bloom of warmth in his throat. Kasik had had a better hand at this than he did.

  “Governor,” Tanaka said, not standing. It was the first time he could remember her using the title. “I strongly urge you to reconsider this. At least sleep on it before we implement it.”

  He turned to look at her. He imagined himself as she saw him. A young man, off Laconia for the first time as an adult. Having been the target of enemy action for the first time. Seeing an unplanned death by violence for the first time. He must seem shaken and weak to her. Because as much as he hated the fact, he did feel shaken and weak. And naked before her implacable and judging gaze. She thought he was being irrational. Letting his fear make his decisions.

  And if he changed his course now, it would prove her right.

  “Respectfully,” Tanaka said, “as your head of security and a woman with a lot of years of experience in her bag? This isn’t a set of orders I can support.”

  Singh took in a long breath between bared teeth. His gums went cold with it. Whether he was right or wrong didn’t matter now. He was committed.

  “Your second is Major Overstreet?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please send him in on your way out. You’re relieved of your command.”

  There it was in the flash of her eyes and the lift of her chin. The contempt he’d known would be there. Giving in to her would only have helped cultivate it. Tanaka had never respected him. She thought herself better suited to make the policies of governance than he was. It didn’t matter whether she was right or not.

  She stood wordlessly, braced, and stalked out of the room. He more than half expected her to slam the door as she left, but she closed it gently. He finished his unpleasant drink in a gulp and went back to his desk.

  The alcohol did what it was supposed to do, taking his too-sharp mind back just half a degree. Letting him relax, just a little bit. He wouldn’t
have another one.

  He pressed his palms flat against the surface of his desk, feeling the little bite of cool fading quickly. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Then again. When his calm was more or less reestablished, he opened his personal log and reported his decision and the reasoning behind it. Visible weakness to my chief of security undermines confidence in the chain of command. Tanaka’s expertise is admirable, but her placement on Medina proved unsuitable. Recommend her without prejudice for more appropriate duty.

  Hopefully his superiors would approve of his actions. If not, he’d know soon enough. It was done. Time that he got back to work. He felt better now. More centered. More nearly in control. It had been a bad day. Maybe the worst he’d ever suffered through, but he was alive and his command was intact. And it was just a bad day.

  He opened a fresh message, flagged it for immediate delivery. For a moment, he felt the impulse was to send his first message home to Nat. To be with her even if it was only a little bit. This attenuated, one-way presence would be better than nothing. But it would wait until he’d done his duty. Duty always came first. He routed the message for the Tempest instead of home.

  “Admiral Trejo,” he said into the system’s camera. “I am including preliminary data provided by former Medina Security Chief Langstiver and confirmed by my own staff—”

  His own staff meaning the dead man. Meaning his first sacrifice to the empire.

  “Ah. Yes. Confirmed by my own staff concerning an unexpected side effect of our actions while securing Medina Station. If command agrees with my assessment that this windfall provides a significant defense and is willing to position a ship equipped with a USM field projector permanently to the ring space, it is my belief that the timetable for further occupation can be moved up considerably. If the Tempest adopts a more aggressive schedule, the local forces in Sol system will have a considerably reduced period to prepare defenses. We can have absolute control of Earth and Mars in weeks.”

  Chapter Seventeen: Holden

  Stay still,” the Laconian said. “Look at the red dot.”

  Holden blinked and did as he was told. The sack of rations tapped against his leg like it was trying to get his attention, but he didn’t shift his weight. The dot on the hand terminal seemed to look back at him, and something flashed filling one eye with yellow. The guard’s hand terminal chimed, and he shifted to Naomi. His other hand was on the butt of his gun. “Stay still. Look at the red dot. You can move along, sir.”

  “I’m with her.”

  “You can move over there, sir,” the guard said, gesturing down the corridor with his chin. His voice didn’t make it a request. Holden walked a few steps, then paused while he was still close enough to go back if something happened. Not that he knew what he’d do.

  The hand terminal chimed again and the guard nodded Naomi forward, waiting until she was back with Holden and the two of them were moving down the gently curving hall of the crew decks before he turned back to the line and the next identity to check and record. An older man with a close-cropped beard who was smiling at the guard like a dog hoping it wouldn’t get kicked. “Stay still,” the guard said. “Look at the red dot.” And then Holden and Naomi turned the corner and left the checkpoint behind.

  He felt his gut release a little, the tension backed off a notch just by not being in a direct line of fire.

  “Well, this sucks,” he said.

  The security announcement had changed Medina like dye dropped into water. The rolling curfew meant no one in public spaces off-shift, and three one-hour periods each cycle when no one could be out of their quarters. A congregation ban—no more than three people in a group. Anyone with a weapon would be arrested. Anyone making unauthorized use of the comm system would be arrested. Anyone that the security forces deemed a threat would be arrested. With every new edict, the nature of the station itself shifted, and the fragile thought that maybe everything would work itself out, that maybe it would be all right, receded.

  He knew the station architecture hadn’t really changed. The walls were still at the same angles as before, the hallways curved around the drum the same as they ever had. The air smelled the way air smelled anywhere. It was only the faces of the people that made everything seem smaller, closer, more like a prison. The faces and the checkpoints.

  They reached their rented quarters, and Naomi tapped in the manual override code, since their hand terminals were still locked out. The door slid open. When it slid closed behind them, Naomi sagged against it like she was on the edge of collapse. Holden sat at the little built-in table and unpacked the bag in silence. Pad thai and red curry, both with tofu and both spiced enough to make his eyes water a little bit just at the smell of them. On another day, it would have felt like a luxury.

  Naomi went to the bath, washed her face in the little sink, and came back out with droplets of water still clinging to her hair and eyelashes. She dropped down across from him and scooped up a fork.

  “Any thoughts?” she asked.

  “About?”

  She waved the fork in a small circle, indicating the room, the station, the universe. Then she speared a cube of tofu and popped it in her mouth.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I’ve got to say, I wish that those assholes hadn’t tried to kill this Singh fella.”

  “Or that they’d done a better job,” Naomi said, and Holden felt a twitch of anxiety in his gut. Was station security monitoring their cabin? Was that kind of offhanded joke going to get them sent to the brig? Naomi saw it in his face.

  “Sorry,” she said, half for him and half for the microphone that might or might not have been there. “Bad joke.”

  “I’m thinking this takes the Luna consulting gigs off the table, though.”

  “Seems like it. And Titan.”

  “That’s a shame. I would have liked Titan.”

  “If only we’d gotten out a week earlier,” Naomi said. “Things were different then.”

  “Yeah,” Holden said. The pad thai was rich and hot, and it tasted almost like they’d used real limes and peanuts to make it. Almost, but not quite. He put his fork down. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Eat,” Naomi said. “And when you’re done with that, come take a shower with me.”

  “Seriously?” he said. She hoisted an eyebrow and smiled.

  They ate in silence after that. He thought about putting on some background music, and even reached for his hand terminal before he remembered that it was dead. After, Naomi put the plates and forks into the recycler and led him into the bathroom by the wrist. She pulled off her clothes slowly, and he felt himself responding to her body despite the stress and fear. Or maybe because of it. Lust and anxiety mixed into something that was more than one kind of desperation. She got the water to a decent temperature while he stripped, and then they were there together, arms around each other as the warm cascade filled the curves where their bodies made cups and reservoirs. She leaned her head against his, her lips beside his ear.

  “We can talk now,” she murmured. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes before the rationing kicks in.”

  “Oh,” he said. “And here I thought this was just my masculine charm.”

  She grabbed him gently someplace sensitive. “That too,” she said, and the laughter in her voice was better than anything that had happened in days. “We need to make a real plan. I don’t know what’s going to happen with our money. We only had this room to the end of the week, and I’m not sure whether we’ll keep it past that or if they’ll throw us out early. Or anything else, really. Not at this point.”

  “We’ve got to get back to the Roci,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Naomi said. “Unless that calls more attention to the kids. It might not be a kindness to have James Holden of the Rocinante ride again. Unless that’s a fight you want to be part of.”

  “You think there’s going to be a fight?”

  She shifted against him, their skin slipping distractingly under the flow of water. “Wha
t would Avasarala say?” Naomi asked.

  Holden moved his arms around the small of her back, pulled her gently against him. Kissed her gently. “That Governor Singh fucked up,” he said softly. “That cracking down on the enemy this hard shows that you’re afraid of them.”

  “Yup,” Naomi said. “The people who went after him? They were assholes and amateurs. There’s a real underground going to start now, and it’s going have the professionals. If you and I keep our noses very, very clean, we might be able to stay out of that. If we start reaching out to the crew, security may think we’re putting the band back together.”

  “So leave them out of it. Commit fully to our new lives as war refugees?”

  “Or suck it up, get the band back together, and die as dissidents.”

  “I’m really wishing Titan were still on that list of options.”

  “That’s waiting for yesterday, sweetheart.”

  He rested his head against her shoulder. The water ration warning cleared its throat. Just the first one, though. They still had time.

  “Why do I get the feeling I’m more freaked-out about this than you are?” he asked, and felt her smile against his cheek.

  “You’re new here,” she said. “I’m a Belter. Security coming down on you just because they can? Checkpoints and identity tracking? Knowing that you could wind up in the recycler for any reason or no reason? I grew up like this. Amos did too, in his way. I never wanted to come back here, but I know how this all goes. Childhood memories, sa sa que?”

  “Well, shit.”

  She ran her hand down his spine and pushed him back. The wall was cold against him. Her kiss was rough and strong, and he found himself pushing into it in a way he hadn’t in years. When they came up for air, Naomi’s eyes were hard. Almost angry.

  “If we do this,” she said, “it’s going to be ugly. We’re outgunned and outplanned, and I don’t see how we win.”

  “I don’t either,” he said. “And I don’t see how we stay out of it.”

  “Getting the band back together?”