“And it happened anyway.” She bit the words as she spoke them.
“I was pretty sure I killed Tanaka back on New Egypt. This has the feel of a vendetta now.”
“So maybe he’s having as much trouble controlling his people as I am?” Naomi said, and went on before he could answer. “Jillian’s big heroic death screwed us. We’re fucked now.”
Jim flinched a little, imagining how the words would carry up to Alex. “She made a bad call. I mean, I understand the mistake. I’ve been known to act on my own judgment from time to time.”
He waited a few seconds before he went on.
“And when she saw what the situation really was, she saved us. She died saving us.”
“She lost us Draper Station,” Naomi said. “The minute she talked to Laconia, she lost us the base. Even if they’d made the deal, they were never going to politely decide to forget we had resources on that moon. They weren’t going to pretend not to know the Storm was in Freehold system.”
“They were going to bomb the cities. People she knows and loves. Her family.”
“They’re the enemy army,” Naomi said. “Do we just do what we’re instructed every time they tell us that they’re going to do what enemy armies do? If that’s the plan, we’ve been running down the wrong road for a long, long time.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“That we should have handed Teresa over? That we were wrong?”
“It’s not Jillian’s fault there was no good answer.” Naomi’s almost subliminal flinch at his words told him the rest. When he went on, he was gentler. “And it’s not your fault either.”
The flicker of her eyes was a conversation in itself: grief and exhaustion and despair, and also determination. The knowledge that they’d been playing the game of no-right-answer for decades, and that it would outlast them, the way history outlasted everyone.
That that was the best case.
Alex’s slow footsteps came from above them, then down the ladder. Jim had known the pilot for more years than he hadn’t, and he’d seen Alex in every mood from exultation to rage. He’d never seen him look so quietly, profoundly defeated. He’d grown a white wash of stubble on his cheeks since they’d started the run from Freehold. It reminded Jim of snow.
Alex lowered himself into one of the remaining crash couches and turned it so he could look at the two of them. They didn’t ask how he was, but he answered anyway. Just a shrug and a sigh and a turning to the next issue.
“Technically, we’re not at the ideal escape radius. If the destroyer did the hardest possible burn starting right now, it could be a squeeze getting out the Freehold gate and through another one in time to keep them from seeing where we went.”
“They’ll have wounded crew,” Naomi said. “They likely have some structural damage. And they’re still picking up Tanaka from Draper Station.”
“I don’t think they’ll do it, either. And if they tried, we could make them work for it anyway. Jillian topped up all our tanks. But I’d rather push a little less hard and conserve reaction mass for later.”
He didn’t say I don’t know when we’ll be able to fuel up again. He didn’t need to. He also didn’t ask where they were going or what the next plan was. The three of them sat together, the Roci ringing like a feather-rubbed gong, the musical whisper of a good ship. Jim didn’t know exactly what they were waiting for, except that the silence seemed right. When Alex spoke again, his voice was thicker.
“Bobbie always said Jillian needed watching. She liked getting her own way a little too much. Wasn’t just independence. She was independent, but she was a little mean too. You know?”
“Like her father,” Naomi said.
“She was smarter than her dad,” Alex said. “She’d have been a good captain if she’d had a few more years doing it. And the Storm was a good ship. Second best I’ve been on.”
“Really?” Jim said.
Alex shook his head. “No, it was creepy. Laconian ships all feel creepy. But I just watched a bunch of my friends die, so I’m feeling nostalgic.”
The comm channel opened before Jim could reply, and Teresa’s voice—punctuated by sharp, alarmed barking from her dog— interrupted them. “I’m in the med bay. I need help. He’s having another seizure.”
The medical systems did the best they could with Amos, which was mostly the expert system version of shrugging and saying Looks weird all the same ways he usually looks weird. Amos lay in the autodoc, his head resting on the little pale cushion. The utter blackness made his gaze hard to track, but Jim was pretty sure the mechanic was looking at him.