Persepolis Rising полностью

In her peripheral vision, the others nodded. Bobbie tried to crack her knuckles, but she’d already done it twice since she sat down and her joints were silent. Langstiver went on.

“We’ve got the rail-gun emplacements on the hub station, same like always, sa sa? So that anyone tries anything, we spark those up and—” The director of station security for the Transport Union cocked his fingers into little gun shapes and made pew-pew noises. “Probáb they come through like any ambassador. Dock, talk, and los politicos do their dance. But if they come through with ideas, we’re ready. Not starting, but not a clean shot too, yeah?”

A general murmur of assent.

“You have to protect the guns,” Bobbie said. “The rail-gun emplacements on the hub station? If they get a force onto the surface—”

“Savvy, savvy,” Langstiver said, patting the air. “This is the Tori Byron, yeah?”

“What we need is intelligence about what’s coming through that gate before it comes through,” Bobbie said, knowing as the words passed her lips that she wasn’t going to be thanked for them. Still, now that she’d started …“A dozen probes going through the gate now could relay back whether we’re looking at a Donnager-class battleship or a few gunships or just a shuttle. How we get ready for any of those should be different—”

“Yeah, thought of that,” Langstiver said. “Don’t want to be provocative, though, yeah? And anyway, we’re not going to act much different no matter what. Working with what we’re working with.”

“So send a ship through with a fruit basket,” Bobbie said. “Greet them on their territory and get a report back.”

Langstiver stopped and stared at her. She stared back. The room was quiet for a long breath. Then another. He looked away first. “Can’t send a manned ship through. Union rules. Is in the work agreement, yeah? So we put Tori Byron up like an honor guard. The Rocinanate in Medina’s shadow, make sure no one lands that isn’t welcome. Everyone else in dock or cleared out enough to put a clear path between Laconia gate and Medina. Everyone that gets delayed, the union picks up the fees. Tori Byron gets full security contract schedule. Rocinante gets three-quarters for support role. Standard.”

Bobbie wondered what Holden would have done in this moment. Made an impassioned speech about how the union rules were restricting them past the point of tactical competence? Smiled his I-don’t-actually-like-you-very-much smile, then gone back to the ship and done whatever the hell he wanted to do anyway? Or sucked it up as a battle that wasn’t worth fighting?

Only it was her battle now, and while she was very clear that she was in the right, it was also evident that her position wasn’t going to help her change Langstiver’s plan. She couldn’t beat sense into a stone. Not even when it seemed fun to try.

“Understood,” Bobbie said.

All the way back to the dock, her jaw was clenched. It was just people. They were the same everywhere. She’d dealt with bureaucracy when she was in the service and when she’d done her veteran’s outreach work. She’d run up against it when Fred Johnson had the idiotic plan to make her kind of an ersatz Martian ambassador during the constitutional crisis. And when she’d taken her place on the Rocinante, she’d been happy to let Holden or sometimes Naomi take point on the bullshit diplomatic dance-and-kiss charade.

It wasn’t even that she was worried about the outcome of this particular encounter. It was that there was a better approach, she’d told them what it was, and they weren’t going to do it. And her ship—her people—were going to shoulder some part of the unnecessary risk. There was no scenario ever that was going to make that okay with her.

As a generation ship, the Nauvoo hadn’t expected to berth a lot of ships. As a battleship, the Behemoth’s needs had been minimal. What hadn’t been there, time and necessity had added. The major docks on Medina Station were outside the drum, down near the engineering decks and the long-quiescent drive that had been designed to launch the ship on a centuries-long voyage to the stars. A smaller dock had been built on the far end of the drum, near the command decks, but it was used more for private shuttles and diplomatic meetings. The Rocinante was berthed in the main docks, not far from the Tori Byron, and Bobbie cycled into the airlock with her sense of rage starting to fade. A little. She could hate it and still do the job. That was all she could do, really.

“Welcome back,” Alex said over the ship comms as the inner doors of the airlock cycled closed. “There a plan?”

“Plan is to hang back and see if the new Laconian ambassador needs to show everyone how big his dick is,” Bobbie said. “The Tori Byron and the rail-gun emplacements are taking point. We’ll hang back and splash any boarding teams that get close.”