Persepolis Rising полностью

“Good, because I don’t want to be the one who tells Amos to get his shit together. So that one’s on you.”

To Bobbie’s surprise, she smiled. For a moment, she could pretend the cramped little galley was the Rocinante. That she and Alex were burning between the gates and the stars. She put a hand on his arm, grateful that her friend was there. And that however shitty things got, the plan was still to fix them.

Alex’s smile was enough to show he understood everything she hadn’t spoken. “Right?” he said.

“You’re Naomi. I’m Amos. Then if Holden’s still alive, we find him, crack him loose, and get the hell out of Dodge before the next big-ass ship comes through that gate.”

“See? Now you’re talking sense,” Alex said. He sighed. “Which is good, because I thought I was going to have to tell you to stop sulking, and I really wasn’t looking forward to the part where you punched me in the mouth.”

Saba stood at the wider part of the hallway where an access panel had been taken out and never replaced. He held his arms above his head, bracing against the ceiling with the unconscious ease of someone ready for a ship that might move unexpectedly. He lifted his chin as Bobbie came close.

“Hey, I’m looking for Amos,” she said.

“Problem?”

“Tell you when I find out,” she said. “He’s not answering his comms.”

Saba’s brow furrowed. “Que shansy que he’s after Holden?”

“I wouldn’t put the odds high that he’d go on an extraction by himself,” Bobbie said. Then, a moment later, “I mean not zero, but not high.”

“See it stays, if you can,” Saba said. “We’re carrying plenty enough already, and more rolling down, yeah?”

Something in his voice caught her. “More news?”

Saba hesitated, then shifted his head. Come this way. “You looking for yours, me looking for you. You want the good word first, or the worrying?”

“Good,” Bobbie said. “I’m looking for good.”

“Word from a coyo on the cleaning crew is Holden’s alive. Locked down tight, but not dead.”

A tightness released in Bobbie’s gut. Whatever else happened, she hadn’t killed him. And more than that, when she found Amos, she’d have it on her side. She felt a deep gratitude that she’d run into Saba before he’d found him. She had to let Alex know. And Naomi. And everyone. The relief was profound.

“That’s … Okay. What’s the worrying?”

“Message from the union. From the spy repeater.”

“Wait,” Bobbie said, following him as he walked toward his cabin. “We’ve got communications lines open? I thought we shut that down.”

“Turned it back on for this,” Saba said. “It ate a missile right after. Drummer thought it was worth burning the channel for.”

“Something big, then?”

“Come see.”

Saba had Drummer’s message up on his cabin’s monitor. The change in her face was shocking. It wasn’t only that the president looked tired and thinner. She looked older, like the last few weeks had been measured in years instead of days. Saba didn’t speak, but started the message from the beginning. Bobbie listened until the end, then played it again, making sure she understood. The loss of Pallas, and the loss of time.

“Well,” she said. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Saba said. “Got my people going through all the information we intercepted. All that’s finished decrypting, anyway. Nothing about lost time or boiling up the vacuum.”

“Even if we found something, it’s not like we can sneak a message back if the repeater’s dead.”

“Not sneak one, no,” Saba agreed. “Can shout, though. If it was the right time. Medina’s not home anymore. Not for us. When we scatter, maybe send something back down to People’s Home. Tell them what we’ve got to tell them. If we get anything.”

“Fair point,” Bobbie agreed. “And that is the plan now, right? Clear a path and evacuate as many as we can before the new ship gets here?”

“Already putting out the word to the underground,” he said. He sounded as tired as she was. “Just the ones we trust. Saying to get ready. Window opens, and get to the ships and go. Everyone someplace different. Harder to kill us if we’re not in one place.”

“Even better if they don’t know who went where,” Bobbie said. “I’d love to find a way to take out Medina’s sensor arrays when we go.”

“Would be sweet,” Saba said, his voice dull.

“You holding up okay?” Bobbie asked.

Saba shrugged toward the image of Drummer still on the screen. “That woman is my heart, and I lost her. Lost my ship. Lost my place for my people. Got an enemy ship killing my cities and stations, and now it can turn off minds in a whole system at once. Got another one like it braking toward me. Got all those Marines in power armor ready to shoot me and mine through the brainpan, and the loosest mouth on a thousand worlds is in the enemy’s jail. So given so, I’m all right.”

“Holden won’t rat us out. He’s given a lot of unvetted press releases over the years, but that’s not the same as this.”