She worked on the ops deck, floating just over her crash couch with her legs folded in the lotus position. The straps shifted around her like kelp in a vast water recycling tank, and the web of the underground spread out on the screen before her. It had been easier when she’d been focused on attacking Laconia. Breaking things was always easier than building them up.
In the aftermath of Laconia’s defeat in its home system—on its home planet—the empire had moved to consolidate the power it still had. Trejo was locking down shipyards and supply lines as best he could with the forces that remained to him. Naomi was trying to leverage the influence and organization she’d gathered for the battle into some kind of sustainable self-governing network. The newsfeeds from Sol, Bara Gaon, Auberon, and Svarga Minor chattered about increased Laconian presence. Though why anyone was worried about a backwater like Svarga wasn’t entirely clear. The message queue was as long as her arm, it felt like.
“Their objection is the same one we’re seeing over and over again,” Jillian Houston, the captain of the underground’s stolen flagship, said from Naomi’s screen. She looked like a child. She was older than Naomi had been when she’d signed on to the Canterbury a lifetime ago. “Báifàn system is on the edge of being self-sustaining, but which side of the edge is debatable. They don’t like anyone saying when they can and can’t trade, and they’re absolutely not going to accept constraints that other systems aren’t abiding by. And I have to say, I’m sympathetic. We’re here to protect people’s freedom. I’m not sure what liberty is if you’re not permitted to decide what chances you’re willing to take.”
Naomi turned her head, trying to ease the knot at the base of her skull. She’d watched the report three times now, each time hoping she’d find a graceful and diplomatic response that had eluded her before. It hadn’t happened.
Instead, she felt herself growing taut and angry. The tension in her neck, the tightness across her chest pulling her shoulders forward into a hunch, the ache at the corners of her scowl. They were the physical manifestations of an impatience that reached far beyond Jillian’s message or her own still-uncomposed response.
She kept coming back to the uncharitable thought that if the underground were just made up of Belters, the problem would have been tractable. Or if not that, at least she’d have been sure a solution existed. Belters were viciously independent, but they also understood what it meant to rely on the community around them. Skipping a seal replacement didn’t only risk the life of the slack bastards who’d cheaped out on their work. Failure meant the death of everyone on the crew.
The colony worlds were acting like their safety could exist separate from the well-being of all the other systems and ships. It couldn’t be so hard to see how accepting a little restriction and regulation benefited everyone. But inner-worlds culture didn’t measure it that way. For them, being better meant being better than the person next to you, not both of you sharing the same increase.
She knew it wasn’t fair or even really accurate. Her frustration was leaking out as tribalism and spite. Which was why she hadn’t responded yet, even though as the de facto leader of the underground, she had to. What she really wanted to do was put a camera on Jim and have him give one of his heartfelt little sermons about how they were all one people, and that by pulling together, they’d get to the other side of their struggles. It was his genius that he could still believe that, even after everything they’d seen and been through.
But she’d just gotten him back. If she let herself get into the habit of seeing him as a useful tool for her work, it would betray the chance they’d been given. She needed to have the connection between them as something separate, something sacred, that the rest of the universe didn’t have claim on.
So maybe there was a thread of selfishness in Belters too.
She started the recording.
“Jillian. Thank you for the report. Please let our friends in Báifàn system know that I hear and understand their concerns, and I absolutely understand their need for safety and equity in how trade is carried out through the rings. The goal has to be minimizing the need for ring transit by building up to sustainability for all the colonies as quickly as possible, and their goal for that is absolutely the same as ours. I’ll include the presentation for why the protocols are the best, safest way forward for all of us, and you can pass that along too. Hopefully, they’ve already seen it.”