Persepolis Rising полностью

While the surface of the ship looked like crystal, it was soft in a way that she wanted to think of as foam. What it really reminded her of was skin. The magnetic locks bound her to it in a rough, uncomfortable cradle, or would once the ship was under way. Provided that the magnetic locks held on. The red glow that said they were clamped was solid, except that every now and then she thought she caught a flicker of amber. The other ten members of the insertion team besides her and Amos were all using the same equipment. Their suits were all low-level environment suits. None of them had better than welder’s padding as armor. They looked more like a cleaning crew than a crack military force. It worried her how true that might be, but that was for after the locks held. If the Storm pushed off from the dock and left them all floating behind it like a snake’s shed skin, it would be up to Alex to solve the problem of the enemy destroyer. And they’d probably all die. There was no upside.

“Really hope these hold,” Bobbie said.

The encrypted alert came. Bobbie tapped her forearm controls. When Alex’s voice came through, it had the thick Mariner Valley drawl that meant he was scared shitless but also a little euphoric on the fear. “This is Alex Kamal of the Rocinante calling out to my friends and family and all ships at sea. We are about to start this rodeo. Breaking loose from the docking clamps in ten. Nine …”

“Brace,” Bobbie said. “We don’t know how fast this is going to happen.”

She took the nylon cords, tracked them in tight, and waited for the Gathering Storm to leave port.

In order to get there, they’d crawled out from the elevator shaft that ran the length of the station from the command and control at the bow down to engineering at the stern. They’d moved quickly, skimming along centimeters above the station. The others had been laughing until Bobbie reminded them that low-power radio wasn’t radio silence and politely suggested they all shut the fuck up instead of getting the team killed. After that, she’d been alone with the sound of her own breath, the smells of old rubber and someone else’s sweat. Alex had been on her right, Amos on her left, and the dock spiked with ships a quarter of a klick before them. Past that, just the blackness of the slow zone, and the killing nothingness beyond the gates.

The drum had spun beneath them. The scars and damage from the brief battle with the Storm still showed in blackened streaks and bright patch foam. Medina had taken more than her fair share of licks in her life, and today wasn’t going to be any better.

They’d pulled out every trick that any of Saba’s underground had up their sleeves. Stealing the welding rigs, uncrating the hidden caches of weapons, compromising the access shaft that let them through. Ever since the Laconians had come through the gate, smart people familiar with the station had been planning for this moment. Maybe since before that, if some of them were smugglers.

As they passed over the last of the drum, Alex split off. He had to make his way almost a third of the way anti-spinward from the Storm to reach the Rocinante. She told herself it wasn’t the last time she’d see him as if she knew it were true. Then with a flick of her fist, she’d directed the insertion team toward the dark, looming form of the destroyer.

The plan was to lure the Gathering Storm off the station. As soon as its docking clamps were off and no new soldiers could get on, Bobbie and Amos would breach the hull and lead an insertion and take the Storm off the playing field. Whether they did that by blowing its reactor, sabotaging its controls, or steering it out toward the nothingness between the gates was going to be a game-day call once she was inside. Without better knowledge of the ship’s internal workings, improvising was a better option than pretending she could make a solid plan.

The secondary objective was to get her people off the Storm and safely picked up by one of the fleeing ships. The tertiary objective was to get away herself.

Alex reached zero, and Bobbie thought she felt a little tremor through the Storm as the Roci blew her clamps and spun out away from the docks using the body of Medina as cover. Two of her magnetic locks flickered amber, and then safely back to red.

It was a day with a lot of ways to die packed in it. Like Alex, she couldn’t keep from grinning. Maybe it was a Martian thing. She stayed braced, her feet against the hull, knees bent. The minutes stretched. The blower in her helmet felt cold against her forehead. That meant she was starting to sweat.

“How you holding together there, Babs?” Amos asked. The radio made it sound like he was half a klick away and whispering.

“I’ll be fine once they get this ship out of dock.”

“Yeah. Not really leaping into action, are they?”

“We were hoping to catch them flat-footed.”

“That’s true,” Amos said. “Still.”