He resisted the urge to hit the general quarters alarm just to add tension to the moment.
The new sun was a faint dot of yellow-white light, not all that different from Sol when viewed from the Ring sitting just outside Uranus’ orbit. It had five rocky inner planets, one massive gas giant, and a number of dwarf planets in orbits even farther out than the Ring. The fourth inner planet, sitting smack dab in the middle of the Goldilocks Zone, was Ilus. New Terra. Bering Survey Four. RCE charter 24771912-F23. Whatever you wanted to call it.
All those names were too simple for what it really was. Mankind’s first home around an alien star. Humans kept finding ways to turn the astonishing events of the last few years mundane. A few decades from now, when all the planets had been explored and colonized, the hub and its rings would just be a freeway system. No one would think twice about them.
“Wow,” Naomi said, staring at Ilus’ star on the display with wide-eyed awe. Holden felt a rush of affection for her.
“I was just thinking that,” he said. “Glad I’m not the only one.” He opened a channel up to the cockpit.
“Yo,” Alex said.
“How fast can you get us there?”
“Pretty damn fast, if you’re willin’ to be uncomfortable.”
“Put us on a fast burn schedule and get some dirt under my feet,” Holden said with a grin.
“High burn’ll get us on the ground in ’bout seventy-three days.”
“Seventy-three days,” Holden said.
“Well, seventy-two point eight.”
“Space,” Holden said, trading his grin for a sigh, “is too damn big.”
~
Five hours into their burn, the messages started to come in. Holden had Alex bring them down to one-third g for dinner, and played the first recording on the galley screen while he helped Amos make pasta.
An older man, brown-skinned and gray-haired, stared out of the screen at him. He had the thin features and large cranium of a Belter, and just a hint of a Ceres accent.
“Captain Holden,” he said once the recording started. “Fred Johnson notified us you were coming, and I wanted to thank you for your help. My name is Kasim Andrada, and I’m captain of the independent freighter Barbapiccola. Let me fill you in on the situation as it stands.”
“This should be good,” Amos grunted, dumping steaming spaghetti noodles into a colander to drain them. Holden handed him the pot of red sauce he’d been stirring, then leaned against the counter to watch the rest of the broadcast.
“The colony finally got a working mining operation running about four months ago. In that time, we’ve brought up several hundred tons of raw ore from our mine. At the purity levels we’re seeing, that should translate to almost a dozen tons of lithium after refining. It’s enough to buy equipment, medicine, soil and seeds, everything this colony needs to get a real toehold.”
Naomi came into the galley, tapping away furiously at her hand terminal. “Smells good, I —” She stopped when she saw the video playing and sat down to watch.
“The Edward Israel,” Captain Andrada continued, “has stated that they will not allow us to leave orbit until the arbitration is complete. Royal Charter’s position being that they own this lithium until someone says they don’t. One of your first priorities will be to get the Israel to lift the blockade and let us take this ore to the Pallas refineries, where we already have buyers lined up and waiting.”
“Oh,” Amos said, dumping the pasta and sauce into a large bowl and putting it on the table. “Is that our priority?”
Holden passed the playback. “Did come across as an order, didn’t it?”
“He’s OPA,” Naomi said. “He thinks you’re here as Fred’s mouthpiece.”
“This guy is going to give me indigestion,” Holden said, killing the recording. “I’ll watch the rest of this crap after we eat.”
~
Five more broadcasts were queued up for viewing by the next day. The captain of the Edward Israel, an older Earthman named Marwick with flaming red hair and a British accent, demanded that Holden enforce the RCE charter by disabling the engines of the Barbapiccola if it tried to leave the system. Fred sent along encouragement and a reminder that Avasarala was shotgunning threats about the consequences for screwing the mission up. Three different news organizations asked for interviews, including a personal request from Monica Stuart for a live interview when he returned.
Miller watched them over his shoulder until Naomi came into their room and the detective disappeared in a blue shower of sparks.
“I think Monica likes you,” Naomi said with a grin, then flopped down onto the double-sized crash couch they used as a bed. “Alex is taking us back up to high burn in twelve minutes, and I want to die.”
“Monica would flirt with a lizard if she thought it would get her a good interview, tell Alex to give us another half hour so I can send a few responses, and hold on I’ll get my gun.”
Naomi pushed herself up with a groan. “I’ll get some coffee while you find your bullets.”
“Don’t leave,” Holden said, reaching for her arm. “I don’t want to record these broadcasts with Miller standing behind me.”
“He’s only in your head,” she said, but she sat back down anyway. “He won’t show up on the recording.”
“Do you think that makes it less uncomfortable? Really?”
Naomi crawled across the bed and curled up next to him, putting her head on his chest. He tugged on a lock of her hair and she let out a long contented sigh.
“I like long flights when we aren’t doing these bone-crushing mad dashes,” she said. “Nothing to do but read, listen to music, stay in bed all day. You being famous sucks.”
“It’s also the reason we’re sort of rich now.”
“We could sell the ship, go get jobs at Pur’N’Kleen again. Do the Saturn ice run…”
Holden stayed silent and played with her hair. It wasn’t a serious suggestion. They both knew there was no going back to the people they used to be. Him the XO and her the chief engineer on an ice hauler that no one in the universe cared about unless it was late for a delivery. Anonymous people living anonymous lives. Would anyone even need Pur’N’Kleen anymore, with a thousand new worlds full of water and air?
“You going to be okay without me down there?” Naomi said.
The Belter colonists from Ganymede had spent months on the Barbapiccola prepping for landing on Ilus. Loading up on bone and muscle growth hormones, working out under a full g until their bodies would be able to handle the slightly heavier-than-Earth gravity of the planet. Naomi didn’t have the time or inclination to radically alter her physiology for this one job. Holden had argued that she would have then been able to come to Earth with him after. She replied that she was never going to Earth, no matter what. They’d left it at that, but it was still a sore spot for him.