Singh leaned forward, his dark eyes imploring all who watched him. “I urge everyone with family or friends in the Sol system to contact them, to urge their political representatives to meet with Admiral Trejo and discuss the terms of their entry into the Laconian Empire without further military action and loss of life. Those who died were heroes all, but Laconia wants live citizens, not dead heroes. It is our duty—yours and mine—to do everything we can to achieve peace and safety for all of us. To this end, I am temporarily lifting the communication blackout back to the Sol system for those with family there. Please use this freedom to help your loved ones make the right decision. Thank you for your attention, and good day to all.”
Bobbie rolled her shoulders like a boxer stepping into the ring. To her right, Naomi was staring at the screen through half-lidded eyes, like she was solving a complex math problem. Holden was about to speak when Saba stood up and walked to the front of the room. The thirty or so people of the Medina Station insurgency became respectfully quiet. Holden held his breath.
“No reprisals,” Saba said, and Holden released his held breath in a rush. That was
“God damn right,” a skinny man everyone called Nutter said, standing up and toying with the knife on his belt. “Maybe a lot of throats.”
“You do,” Saba said to him, “and yours is next, and I’m doing the cutting. Mushroom food, you. Every Laconian throat you cut is ten of ours you’re bleeding out. We stay angry, but we stay
A ripple of grudging assent moved through the room. People started getting up to leave. The mutters of conversation had an edge to them, but Holden didn’t hear anyone actively planning a murder, so he’d call it a win.
Holden caught Bobbie’s eye and then stood up to grab Saba’s arm before he could leave. “Let’s talk.”
Fifteen minutes later Saba, Bobbie, and Naomi were sipping tea out of waxy cups in the Diner. Holden tried casually leaning against the wall for a minute, then gave up and paced around the room to give his restless energy someplace to go.
“The problem we’ve got right now is we’re all rats in a cage,” he said. “And we’re spending a lot of time and energy figuring out how big the cage is and where the doors are and how we might open one. But we haven’t got a single clue what we’d do if we actually got out.”
“We don’t start with just getting out?” Naomi asked.
“There was a time when I’d have said that was enough,” Holden agreed. “But that was when I was still thinking of this as a war. When escaping to join up with our side of the fight might matter.”
“This isn’t a war now,” Bobbie said, her voice low and dangerous.
“No?” Saba asked.
“No,” Holden said. “The war’s over. Sol might not know it yet, and a lot of people will die so that they can feel like they gave it a shot, but it’s over.”
“So what, then,” Saba asked. “Good Laconians, us?”
“No,” Holden replied. “At least not yet. But it does change the nature of what we’re doing here. We’re not looking to get the
Naomi made a clicking noise with her tongue, her eyes distant, then said, “All the same problems. The Marines, the Laconian destroyer, Medina’s scopes. But you’re saying if we can solve those, we just get as many people and ships free as we can and make a run for it. Scatter.”
Saba nodded one fist, then gave her the two-fingered OPA salute. Holden felt a little twinge of unease about that, but this wasn’t the time to talk it through.
“It gives us a goal,” Holden said. “Maybe we can keep everyone pulling the same direction if they understand what the end game is.”
Saba tilted his head. There was no surprise in his expression. He’d been thinking along the same lines, so maybe he’d come to the same conclusions. “The decryption safe room.”
“I don’t like losing it,” Holden said, looking more at Bobbie now than Saba. “We’re still getting in a lot of data from the sniffer, and I know once we move forward with the plan, we lose that. We won’t get it back. But until we can decrypt what we do have, we can’t use it. And the
“Thirty-two,” Naomi said.
“I don’t want to die with one still in the chamber,” Bobbie said. “I’m good with the timing.”
“Bien,” Saba said. “I’m in.”
“Great,” Holden replied. “Get word to every cell leader and ship captain you trust. We need to have everyone ready when the time comes.”
“This is gonna be some strange bedfellows,” Saba said as he left.
“Find some lunch?” Holden said to Naomi.
“Give me half an hour,” she replied. “I want to get a computer crunching the tactical data that video gave us. But after that, meet out front?”
“OK,” Holden said, wondering how to waste half an hour in the cramped space of their little hideout.
