“Don’t hurry,” she said. “I may just take a little nap.”
Holden paused at the hatch, looking back. Naomi was watching him go. Her eyes were tired, her body stilled by exhaustion, but she was smiling a little. It helped to see that she was glad to be back.
In the galley, a half-dozen voices were in competition, gabbling one above the other toward a kind of symphonic shared excitement. It sounded like he felt. Holden ducked in. Alex was sitting on one of the tables with his feet on the bench, talking to Chava Lombaugh and Sun-yi Steinberg, describing something about fast-cycling targeting stutter and acceleration. Chava was talking at the same time, her hands in motion, presenting some physical description of whatever they were on about. Sun-yi was just looking from one to the other, amused. At the next table over, Bobbie Draper was sitting down, but still looming over Sandra Ip and Maura Patel. Bobbie had swapped her powered armor for a slightly-too-small jumpsuit with TACHI stenciled on the back. She caught his eye, smiled, and waved. He waved back, but Sandra Ip had already recaptured her attention, and Bobbie was shaking her head and answering a question he hadn’t heard.
Holden had the sudden, visceral memory of being at home with his family, eight parents sitting down to dinner together with their one son, having half a dozen conversations with and past each other. Even though he recognized he was already primed for it, the sense of peace and well-being that washed over him was profound. This was what family looked like, sounded like, how they acted. Even the new crew who he’d been trying not to resent felt more like distant cousins who’d come for a long visit than interlopers.
Alex hopped down and came over to him, grinning. They stood for a long, awkward moment before they gave in and embraced, clapping each other on the back and laughing.
“No more leave,” Holden said.
“Holy shit. Right?” Alex said. “I take off for a few weeks, and everything turns into chaos.”
“It really, really does.” Holden went to the coffee maker and Alex followed at his elbow. “I think this has to qualify for the worst vacation ever.”
“How’s Naomi doing?”
Holden picked out the tea that Naomi liked best. The machine chimed calmly. “Getting hydrated mostly. She sent me off to get her a drink, but I think she actually wanted me to stop hovering over her, trying to start a conversation.”
“She may take a little time getting back to full power.”
“Intellectually, I know that,” Holden said, picking up the bulb of tea. It smelled of lemongrass and mint even though there was nothing anywhere on the ship that was remotely like either one. Holden grinned. “Chemistry is amazing, you know? It’s really, really amazing.”
“Any word from Amos?” Alex said, and his smile dimmed at the answer in Holden’s eyes. He tried to force the carefree tone back into his voice when he spoke, but Holden wasn’t fooled. “Well, that doesn’t mean much. It won’t be the first time a planet’s blown up on him.”
“They’re starting to get confirmed death lists,” Holden said. “It’s still early. A lot of things still falling apart down there, and there’s going to be a lot more bad before it sees better. But he’s not on the list yet.”
“So that’s good. And c’mon. It’s Amos. Everyone on Earth dies, and he’ll probably stack the bodies and climb up to Luna.”
“Last man standing,” Holden said, but he headed back to the medical bay with his heart a little less buoyant. Naomi was gone, the needle that had been in her arm resting on the gel of the bed and the expert system gently prompting someone to intervene. Holden, the bulb of tea in his hand, checked the head and the galley before he thought to go back to the crew quarters.
She was on their bed, her knees curled up toward her chest, her eyes closed, her hair spilling over the gel. She snored a little, soft animal sounds of peace and contentment. Holden put the tea on the desk beside her so that it would be there waiting when she woke.
The ops deck was quiet, relatively speaking. Gor Droga, one of the weapons techs, was at a workstation, monitoring the ship and listening to something that had a beat on headphones. All Holden could hear of it was a slightly shifting bass line and an occasional phrase or two when Gor was moved to sing along. The lyrics were in something close to French without actually being French.
The lights were low, most of the illumination coming from the monitors. Holden didn’t have a pair of headphones close to hand, so he just kept the volume low and watched Monica Stuart being interviewed. The man she was talking to was based on an L5 station, but the transmission gaps had all been edited out to make it seem like they were in the same room.
“No, it doesn’t surprise me at all that the OPA would assist in escorting Prime Minister Smith. Fred Johnson has been vocal and active for years in bringing the OPA into the diplomatic discussion, often against resistance from the inner planets. If anything, I think there’s a real irony in the fact that this series of attacks by the Free Navy have been the catalyst to cementing the OPA’s legitimacy with Earth and Mars.”
The camera c
ut to the interviewer. “So you don’t see the Free Navy as a part of the OPA?”
And back to Monica. Holden chuckled. She’d changed her blouse between questions. He wondered what the lag had been like before it got edited down for the feed. “Not at all. The Free Navy is interesting in part because it gives the radical fringe of the OPA a different banner to raise. It represents a sort of self-selected culling of the elements that have kept the Belt from being better respected by the inner planets. And keep in mind, Mars and Earth weren’t the only targets of the Free Navy’s coup. Tycho Station is as big a success story as Ceres for Belters, and it was attacked too.”
“Other pundits are calling that a changing of the guard within the OPA, though. Why do you see it as something external?”
Monica nodded sagely. It was a well-practiced motion, and it worked to make her seem intelligent and thoughtful but still approachable. There was an artistry in what she did.
“Well, Michael, sometimes when we make these distinctions, we’re really creating them more than describing anything that’s already there. We’re seeing a very broad realignment on more than one side. It seems clear that elements in the Martian military have been involved with supplying the Free Navy, and also that Prime Minister Smith was their target. So would we call that a rogue element on Mars, or an internal power struggle? In fact, I think the best description we can probably make at this point isn’t in terms of UN and Martian Republic and OPA, but the traditional system being brought together in the face of this new threat. This situation grows out of a deep history of conflict, but there are new lines being drawn here.”
Fred chuckled. Holden hadn’t heard him come up, but there he was, looking over Holden’s shoulder. Holden paused the feed as Fred took a couch across from him.
“You can always tell your media relations team is doing their job when the journalists are down to interviewing each other,” Fred said.
“I think she’s doing good work,” Holden said. “She’s at least trying to put this all in a context where it makes sense.”
“She’s also rebranding herself as an expert on me personally. And you, for that matter.”