Persepolis Rising полностью

“Everyone dies for nothing,” Drummer said.

They were quiet for a moment. Drummer coughed, blew her nose into the cloth, and then leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Since the moment she’d taken the oath of office, there had been moments—not many, but enough to recognize—that she’d been certain that her place at the head of the union was all a terrible mistake. Saba promised her that everyone felt like that, like an impostor, sometimes. It was part of being human. His words had seemed comforting before. In her mind, Independence died again. She had the sick feeling that it would die a thousand more times before she got to sleep. More when she dreamed it.

“Did you do this to me?” she asked.

Avasarala frowned, papery forehead folding itself like a slept-on sheet.

“Did you manipulate me into sacrificing my people so that you’d get the data you wanted?” Drummer said. “Was this you?”

“This was history fucking us both,” Avasarala said. “Live as long as I have? See the changes that I’ve seen? You’ll learn something terrible about this.”

“Tell me.”

“No point. Until you see it yourself, you won’t understand.”

“Hey, you know what? Fuck you.”

Avasarala laughed hard enough that her wheelchair thought something was wrong and bucked forward a few centimeters before she could stop it. “Fair enough, Camina. Fair enough. Here then. See if you can follow me. Last long enough, and you’ll see that they’re all our people.”

“Independence and the Ontario,” Drummer spat. “Union and EMC, all one big happy family standing against the blowtorch together. Wonderful.”

“I told you that you wouldn’t understand,” Avasarala said, her voice cold and cutting. “The fuckers on the Tempest? I’m telling you they’re us too.”

The artificially pretty man who acted as the news anchor for what everyone was calling the Laconian-state newsfeed sat in somber reflection, not quite looking directly into the camera. On a screen behind him, the first battle between the Tempest and the combined forces of the Sol system played out. It was all from the Tempest’s perspective, of course. Lots of telescopic zooms and torpedo-guidance camera footage. In one, a Martian frigate, one of the Rocinante’s next-generation cousins, died in a fireball as a rail gun shot cut through it from nose to tail. In another, a torpedo camera POV hurtled through space and into the flank of a UNN destroyer and ended in a flash of static.

One by one, the ships of the Sol fleet died. From the footage, it wasn’t possible to tell if the Tempest was even damaged. And each time a ship died, a quiet gasp went through the air around Holden as he sat and watched the first act of the end of the world in a cramped metal room surrounded by the members of his little resistance group.

The screen behind the pretty man went blank. He turned his sober face directly into the camera and said, “To address Medina Station regarding what you’ve just seen, we are honored to bring you a statement from station governor, Captain Santiago Singh.”

The camera pulled back to reveal Governor Singh sitting at the news desk next to pretty boy. Singh lacked his counterpart’s carefully sculpted androgynous beauty, but he shared his look of quiet reflection.

“Greetings, Laconian citizens and residents of Medina Station. I come here in a moment of tragedy for us all. I will not gloat, or brag about Laconian military superiority. I have no wish to glory in the destruction you’ve just witnessed. Instead, I honor the brave warriors of the Sol system, who died believing they were defending their homes. There is no greater sacrifice a warrior can make, and I have nothing but respect for these courageous people. I ask that you honor them as well, as we have a moment of silence.”

Singh lowered his head and closed his eyes. Pretty boy did the same.

“Motherfucker,” someone behind Holden said. Next to him, Bobbie loudly cracked her knuckles and frowned so hard Holden worried she might pull out the fresh stitches holding her cheek together.

On the screen, Singh lifted his head, then a moment later opened his eyes. “Laconians, and I speak to everyone on Medina when I say that, as I consider all of you my fellow citizens and peers. Laconians, the stated goal of your military is always the defense and protection of life. When the Sol system fleet ceased their attack and began a retreat, the Heart of the Tempest immediately ceased firing on them. And no element of the Laconian military—ship, soldier, or station—will ever fire except in response to threat to life or property.”

“Or in retribution against a whole fucking system you don’t like,” someone said from behind Holden. “Hypocritical dawusa.”