“You keeping the ship in trim?”
“You won’t find any dust on her,” Jillian said, then shifted her attention back to Naomi. “I didn’t know what you needed for the resupply, but your time here’s short. I got everything ready that I could. We have some quarters set aside for you to rest. It might be a little loud on your ship.”
“I can walk your techs through what we’re short on,” Amos said. “It’s going to be better if we load up and get out quick. Especially since we’re such a crack surveying team now.”
If his appearance unnerved Jillian, she didn’t show it. “Come with me. I’ll get you started.”
The gravity on the moon was hardly more than a suggestion. The rock of the corridors was coated with sealants and braced. None of the stone here had been compressed by a gravity well strong enough to make it hard. Naomi had the sense that she could have dug her way through it with her bare hands like it was packing foam. It was only the human structures that made it feel solid.
The dockworkers and supply techs were a mixed bunch. Naomi recognized old-school OPA by their tattoos and the quick, wellpracticed actions that came from a life spent close to vacuum, but there were also younger men and women. People Jillian’s age who had come to the underground from the bottom of gravity wells and made their way here. There were more since the siege of Laconia. The empire’s loss had given a lot of people hope. She wasn’t certain she was one of them.
The Rocinante could plausibly stay on their false survey mission for three or four days. That was long enough to top up all their tanks and swap out their air scrubbers and recycling matrix, and do some of the smaller hull repairs. It was long enough that they would be on hand to watch the civilian population of Freehold die.
When the resupply and repairs were all agreed on and the process was underway, fifty-nine hours were left. Naomi went to the quarters Jillian had mentioned: narrow rooms with cots and blankets around a small private galley and head. The Roci was more spacious. Jim was curled up, napping. Naomi wanted nothing more than to curl up beside him. Instead, she sent a comm request to Jillian. The reply was directions to her on-base office.
She thought about waking Jim and bringing him along with her. He had a way of smoothing some conversations just by being in the room. But this was her burden to carry. He’d be there later if she needed him.
The office was small, with screens on two walls and the surface of the desk. The parts of the walls not taken up with images of the Derecho and Freehold, the security map of the station, the status of the Storm and the Rocinante, and the environmental status were painted a grayish orange. It would have looked good with some blue beside it. Jillian, seated, waved her in, and Naomi pulled the door closed behind her.
“I didn’t know Freehold was under attack,” she said.
Jillian didn’t look her in the eye. “The fucker blew out our repeater at the ring and dropped one of their own as soon as they came through. There wasn’t a way to raise the red flag. I apologize.”
“It wasn’t criticism. I’m afraid we’ve made the situation worse.”
“I don’t know that’s possible. But we do need to talk about our options now that you’re here.”
Jillian’s right hand closed into a fist, then opened, and closed again. It wasn’t the only sign of distress, but it was the most obvious one. Naomi breathed into the version of herself that was cold, analytic, and ruthless. She’d never wanted to be a war leader. The universe had insisted.
“You have plans?”
“A plan,” Jillian said. “The Storm is ready to evacuate. It’s already loaded with all the supplies she’ll carry and the parts of the station we could take down and stow. We break cover and get the enemy to follow us. Get out through the ring, transit to a different system, and start building a fresh base.”
“So abandon Draper entirely?”
“It’s not useful for anything but the Storm,” Jillian said. “And it’s less useful for that than it could be.”
Naomi frowned, motioning Jillian on.
“Freehold’s strategic importance was that no one knew we were here. That’s spent now. I don’t know if their traffic analysis is better than ours or someone leaked something. Shit, it could just have been a good guess. But they’re here. Keeping the base at this point is just holding on out of spite.”
“And the Derecho might chase you,” Naomi said. “Leave the civilians alone and come for you. That’s the idea, isn’t it?”