“Try it now,” Naomi said. Holden jabbed the button a few times without looking at it.
“Nope.”
“Maybe…” she said and moved around, kicking her legs again.
“Two incoming,” Corin said, her voice harsh and buzzing over the radio. He’d never heard her voice when it wasn’t on a suit radio. He wondered whether it would have that same quality naturally. He walked over to the edge of the platform and looked down, magnetic boots having tricked his brain into thinking there was an up and down again.
Looking through his gunsight’s magnification, he saw two of the Martian marines hurtling up the shaft as fast as their cheap environment suits would let them. He didn’t recognize them yet. Bull wasn’t with them.
“Try it now,” Naomi said.
“Busy,” Holden replied, scanning the space behind the marines for pursuers. He didn’t see any.
Naomi climbed out of her access panel and floated over next to him to see what was going on. The marines shot up the shaft toward them at high speed, flipped at the last minute, and hit the ceiling feet first to come to a rapid stop. They pushed off and landed next to Holden, sticking to the floor with magnetic boots.
Holden could see through their faceplates now, and recognized the sniper, Juarez, and a dark-skinned woman whose name he’d never gotten.
“We’ve lost the hold point,” Juarez said. He clutched his long rifle in one hand and a fresh magazine in the other. He loaded the gun and said, “Last mag,” to his partner.
She checked her harness and said, “Three.”
“Report,” Holden said, slipping into military command mode without even meaning to. He’d been a lieutenant in the navy. Juarez was enlisted. The training they’d received about who gave orders and who followed them in combat died hard.
“I took out one hostile with a headshot, I believe a second was neutralized with our remaining explosives. No intel on the other two. They may have been injured or killed by the explosion, but we can’t count on that.”
“Bull?” Corin asked.
“He was holding the explosives. That second kill was his.”
“Bull,” Corin said again, choking up. Holden was surprised to see her eyes filling with tears. “We have to go get him.”
“Negative,” Juarez said. “The elevator has become a barrier. He’s inside it. Anything we do to remove his body actively degrades our defensive position.”
“Fuck you,” Corin said, taking an aggressive step toward Juarez, her hands closing into fists. “We don’t leave him—”
Before she could take another step, Holden grabbed her by her weapon harness and yanked her off the floor, then spun around to slam her against the closest bulkhead. He heard the air go out of her in a whoosh over the radio.
“Mourn later,” he said, not letting her go. “When we’re done. Then we mourn for all of them.”
She grabbed his wrists in her hands, and for one heartstopping moment Holden thought she might fight him. He seriously questioned his ability to win a zero-g grappling match with the stocky security officer. But she just pulled his hands off her harness, then pushed herself back down to the floor.
“Understood, sir,” she said.
“Back on watch,” Holden said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible.
She walked back to the edge of the platform. Juarez watched without comment. After a respectful moment he said, “Plan, sir?”
“Naomi is trying to get the door open, but without any success. Blowing the elevator may have bought you two a couple more minutes, but maybe that’s all it bought you.”
“We’ll try to make the most of them,” the other marine said with a half smile. Juarez chuckled and slapped her on the back.
“So this is our final defensive position, then. Good cover and field of fire. If I get lucky maybe I can crack another mask. Cass, why don’t you take that right corner, Corin can keep the left, and I’ll set up here in the center. Holden can rove and back up whichever side is taking the most heat.”
He paused, nodding at Holden. “If you agree, sir.”
“I agree,” Holden said. “In fact, I’m giving you full tactical command of this position. I’m going to be trying to help Naomi with the door. Yell if you get in trouble.”
Juarez kicked off his mags, then jumped up to plant his feet on the ceiling. He straightened out, his long rifle pointed over his head, straight down the shaft. From Holden’s perspective he looked like a particularly well-armed bat hanging from the roof.
“Movement,” he said almost immediately.
“Shit,” the marine named Cass said. “They got through the barrier fast.”
“Looks like they’re not quite through, but the wall is bulging like they’re beating their way through it.”
“I have an idea,” Naomi said and walked over to the edge of the platform, then out onto the wall and over to the opposite side of the elevator shaft.
“Where are you going?” Holden asked.
“Panel,” was her only answer before she popped an access hatch off the elevator shaft bulkhead and climbed inside. It was large enough that she completely disappeared. Holden didn’t think there would be anything in there that could help them get the airlock door open, but he didn’t care. Naomi was hidden while she stayed in there. Ashford’s people might not bother to look for her. They probably didn’t have good intel on who had engaged in the assault on engineering.
“Here they come,” Juarez said, looking down the shaft through his telescopic sight. “Two left.” His muzzle flashed once. “Shit, no hit.” It flashed twice more. Cass started firing with her assault rifle on single fire, carefully aiming each shot. The bad guys were just under a kilometer away. Holden didn’t think he’d be able to hit a stationary transport shuttle at that range, much less a rapidly moving man-sized target. But after having spent some time with Bobbie Draper, Holden knew that if Cass was taking the shots, it was because she thought she had a chance to score hits. He wasn’t about to argue with her.
“Eight hundred meters,” Juarez said, his voice no different than if he’d been giving a stranger the time. “Seven-fifty.” He fired again.
Cass fired off the last of her magazine, then replaced it in one smooth motion. She had one extra left. Holden took three magazines off his own bandolier and left them floating next to her left elbow. She nodded her thanks without pausing in her firing. Juarez fired twice more, then said, “Out.” He continued sighting down the scope, calling out ranges for Cass. When he hit five hundred meters, Corin started firing as well.
It was all very brave, Holden thought. None of them were the kind of people who gave up, no matter the odds. But it was also sort of pointless. Juarez had the only gun that was even remotely a threat to troops in state-of-the-art recon armor, and he’d fired it dry and only scored one kill. So they’d throw a lot of bullets at the approaching enemy because that’s what people like them did, even when there was no chance. But in the end, Ashford would win. If he wasn’t so emotionally drained, Holden would have been pissed.
The LEDs in the elevator shaft came back on, bathing them all with white light. The two soldiers wearing their stolen power armor were flying up the corridor toward them. Before he’d had time to wonder why the power was back on, there was a thud that Holden could feel through his feet. A large section of the elevator bulkhead slid open. The backup elevator slowly moved out into the shaft on hydraulic arms, then locked into place on the wall-mounted tracks. Lights flashed on the elevator’s control panel as its systems cycled through warm-up. Then a light on the panel flashed red three times and the elevator launched down the tracks at high speed.
“Huh,” Juarez said.
The impact when the hurtling backup elevator slammed into the stationary main elevator shook the bulkheads hard enough to make Holden’s helmet ring like a bell.
“Well,” Cass said.
Corin leaned out over the edge of the platform, looking down, and yelled, “Fuck you!” through the vacuum.<
br />
A few seconds later, Naomi’s head popped back out of the open access panel. She looked up at them and waved. “Did that work?”
Holden found that he wasn’t too drained to feel relief. “I think so.”
“The armor is pretty tough,” Juarez said. “It might be okay. But at that speed, whatever’s inside it is probably a liquid now.”
Naomi walked across the elevator bulkhead and then stepped over and down onto their platform. “I’m not good with guns,” she said in an almost apologetic voice.
“No,” Juarez said, waving his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You just keep doing your thing. Warn me if I’m in the way.”
“Doesn’t solve our door problem,” Naomi added, still with a tone of apology.
Because he couldn’t kiss her in an environment suit, Holden put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her to his side. “I’m happy with you solving the ‘about to be ripped to pieces’ problem.”
Corin, who’d turned to look at the airlock when Naomi mentioned it, said, “Open sesame,” and the outer airlock door slid open.
“Holy shit,” Holden said. “Did you just magic that door open?”
“The green cycle light was blinking,” Corin replied.
“Did you do that?” Holden said, turning to Naomi.
“Nope.”
“Then we should be careful.” Holden handed his rifle and his remaining magazines to Juarez, then drew his sidearm. “Juarez, when the inner door opens, you have the point.”
Cass nodded, and Naomi punched the cycle button. The outer door closed, and for two tense minutes the air pressure equalized. Everyone other than Naomi was pointing a gun at the inner door when it finally opened.
There was nothing on the other side but a short corridor that ended at another elevator, and a second hallway going left at the midway point.
“That’s the one that leads to the bridge,” Corin said. “Five meters long, a meter and a half or so wide. There’s a hatch, but it only closes and locks in the event of emergency decomp. Or if someone in the security station hits the override.”
“Then that’s our first target,” Holden said. “Cass, when we go in you break right and control the security station. Juarez, you go left and try to draw any return fire away from Cass. Corin and I will go right up the gut and try to get our hands on Ashford. If we put a gun to him, I think this ends immediately. Naomi, you stay here but be ready to come running when we call. Taking control of the ship will be your bit.”
“Pretty shitty plan, El Tee,” Juarez said with a grin.
“You have a better one?”
“Nope, so let’s get it done.” Juarez pulled the rifle to his shoulder and moved off down the corridor at a quick magnetic boot shuffle. Cass followed close behind, her hand on his back. Holden took third, with Corin bringing up the rear. Naomi waited by the elevator doors, clutching her tool case nervously.
When they reached the junction, Juarez signaled the stop, then leaned around the corner. He pulled back and said, “Looks clear to the bridge entry point. When we go, go fast. Stop for nothing. Maximum aggression wins the day here.”
After a round of assents from everyone, he counted down from three, yelled, “Go go go,” darted around the corner, and was immediately shot.
It was so unexpected, Cass actually took a step back into Holden. Juarez screamed in pain and launched himself back into their hallway. Bullets slammed into the bulkheads and deck around him. After the long silence of vacuum in the elevator shaft, the sound of gunfire and bullet impacts was disorienting. Deafening.
Cass and Holden grabbed Juarez by his arms and pulled him around the corner out of the gunfire. With Cass covering the intersection, Holden checked Juarez over for injuries. He had gunshot wounds in his hip, upper arm, and foot. None looked instantly lethal, but together they’d bleed him out in short order. Holden pulled him back down the corridor to the airlock. He pointed at the emergency locker until Naomi followed his gesture and nodded.
“Do what you can,” he said, and moved back down the hallway to Cass.
When he put his hand on her back to let her know he was there, she said, “Based on volume of fire, I’d guess ten to twelve shooters. Mostly light assault rifles and sidearms. One shotgun. That corridor is a kill box. No way through that.”
“Fuck!” Holden yelled in frustration. The universe kept waiting until he was thoroughly beaten, then tossing him a nibble of hope only to yank it away again.
“New plan?” Corin asked.
“Shoot back, I guess,” he said, then leaned partway around the corner and fired off three quick shots. He ducked back in time to avoid a fusillade that tore up the bulkhead behind him. When the shooting slowed, Cass launched herself across the opening to the other side. A risky move, but she made it without taking a hit, and started leaning out to lay down fire with her assault rifle. When they drove her back with return fire, Corin leaned around Holden and fired off a few shots.
Before she could pull back out of the line of fire, a round went through the arm of her environment suit, blowing white padding and black sealing gel into the air.
“Not hit, not hit,” she yelled, and Cass leaned out to fire again to keep the defenders off balance.
Holden looked back down the corridor, and Naomi was stripping Juarez out of his suit, spraying bandages on his open wounds as she went.
Another wave of fire drove Cass and Corin into cover. When it let up for a second, Holden leaned out and fired a few more shots.
It was what people like them did, even when there was no chance.
Chapter Fifty-One: Clarissa
“What the hell did you do?” Ashford shouted. His face was thick and purple. The rage pulled his lips back like a dog baring his teeth. Clarissa knew she should feel fear. Should feel something. Instead, she shrugged the way she had when she was fourteen, and said it again.
“I opened the doors.”
A man appeared in the hallway for a fraction of a second, and Ashford’s men opened fire, driving him back.
“I’ve got five in the corridor,” one of Ashford’s people said. He was looking at the security camera feed. “Three women, two men. One of them’s Corin. I think Jim Holden’s one of them.”
Ashford shook his head in disgust.
“Why the fuck did you let them in here?” he said. His tone dripped acid.
“I didn’t kill them,” Clarissa said. “So you don’t get to.”
“She was in distress,” Cortez said, moving himself between her and Ashford. Shielding her with his body. “She misunderstood something I said. It wasn’t an act of malice, Captain. The girl only—”
“Someone shoot her,” Ashford said.
“No!” Cortez cried out. He sounded like someone was about to shoot him.
The guard nearest them turned. The barrel of his gun seemed suddenly enormous, but when the sound of gunfire came, it wasn’t from him. A shape—maybe a woman, maybe a man—flickered at the edge of the corridor to the bridge, and the staccato sound of gunfire filled the room. Clarissa, forgotten, pushed herself back through the doorway into the security office. Cortez followed her, his hands up around his ears to block the noise or a bullet or both. He put his hand on her shoulder as if to comfort her, but it only pushed her a little lower to the floor, him a little nearer the ceiling.
“Oh,” Cortez murmured, “I wish you hadn’t done that. I wish you hadn’t done that.”
Anna was still speaking on the security station monitor. Radio Free Slow Zone, soldiering on. There was a fresh crackle of gunfire from the bridge. Ashford shouted, “Take them out! Take them all out!” But as far as she could tell, the guards hadn’t rushed the corridor. They didn’t need to. Sooner or later, Holden and Naomi and whoever they had with them would run out of bullets, and then they’d die. Or Ashford and all his men would, and then Holden would kill them. Either way, she didn’t see how it looked good for her. And that was fine. That was what she’d come here for.
Except.<
br />
“You heard what she said? What Anna said?”
“Anna Volovodov is seriously mistaken about what is happening here,” Cortez said. “It was a mistake letting her into the project in the first place. I knew I should have asked for Muhammed al Mubi instead.”
“Did you hear what she said?”
“What are you talking about, child?”
“She said if we attack the Ring, it’ll take action against the people on the other side. Against everyone.”
“She can’t know that,” Cortez said. “It’s just the sort of thing the enemy would say to trick us.”
“It wasn’t her,” Clarissa said. “Holden told her.”
“The same James Holden who started a war by ‘telling’ people things?”
Clarissa nodded. He’d started at least one war. He’d destroyed Protogen, and by doing so set up the dominoes that would eventually topple Mao-Kwik and her father. He’d done all of that.
But.
“He didn’t lie. All those other things he did. He never lied once.”
Cortez opened his mouth to reply, his face already in a sneer. Before he could, the gunfire boomed again. She could feel Cortez flinch from it. The air was filling with the smell of spent gunpowder, and the air recyclers were moving into high-particulate mode. She could hear the difference in the fans. Probably no one else on the bridge would have any idea what that meant. It would just be a slightly higher whirring to them. If it was anything.
Cortez ran his fingers through his hair.
“Stay out the way,” he said. “When it’s over, when he’s done this, I can speak with Ashford. Explain that you didn’t mean to undermine him. It was a mistake. He’ll forgive you.”
Clarissa bowed her head. Her mind was a mass of confusion, and the hunger and gunfire weren’t doing anything to help. Jim Holden was out there in the corridor. The man she’d come so far to disgrace and destroy, and now she didn’t want him dead. Her father was back on Earth and she was about to save him and everyone else or possibly destroy them all. She’d killed Ren, and there was nothing she could ever do that would make that right. Not even die for him.
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