Maybe it broke people.
Pa floated in behind him, her eyes cast down. Her face had the odd waxy look that came from exhaustion. The doctor followed her, and then Serge and Macondo looking anyplace but at him. The crowd filled the little room past its capacity.
“Mister Baca,” Ashford said, biting at each syllable. “I understand you gave the order to disarm the ship. Is that true?”
“Disarm the ship?” Bull said, and looked at Doctor Sterling. Her gaze was straight on and unreadable. “I had Sam take the rail guns off so we could spin up the drum.”
“And you did this without my permission.”
“Permission for what?”
Blood darkened Ashford’s face, and rage roughened his voice.
“The rail guns are a central component of this ship’s defensive capabilities.”
“Not if they don’t work,” Bull said. “I had her take apart the thrust-gravity water reclamation system too. Rebuild it at ninety degrees so it’ll use the spin. You want me to run through all the stuff I’m having her repurpose because it doesn’t work anymore, or are we just caring about the guns?”
“I also understand that you have authorized non-OPA personnel to have access to the communications channels of the ship? Earthers. Martians. All the people we came out here to keep in line.”
“Is that why we came out here?” Bull said. It wasn’t a denial, and that seemed to be close enough to a confession for Ashford. Besides which, it wasn’t like Bull had been hiding it.
“And enemy military personnel? You’re bringing them aboard my ship as well?”
Pa had agreed to everything Ashford was listing off. But she stood behind the captain, not speaking up, expression unreadable. Bull wasn’t sure what was going on between the captain and his XO, but if they were working out some internal power struggle, Bull knew which side he’d want to end up on. So he bit the bullet and didn’t mention Pa’s involvement. “Yes, I’m bringing in everyone I can get. Humanitarian outreach and consolidation of control. It’s textbook. A second-year would know to do it.” Pa winced at that.
“Mister Baca, you have exceeded your authority. You have ignored the chain of command. All orders given by you, all permissions granted by you, are hereby revoked. I am relieving you of duty and instructing that you be placed in a medical coma until such time as you can be evacuated.”
“Like fuck you are,” Bull said. He hadn’t intended to, but the words came out like a reflex. They seemed to float in the air between them, and Bull discovered that he’d meant them.
“This isn’t open for debate,” Ashford said coldly.
“Damn right it’s not,” Bull said. “The reason you’re in charge of this mission and not me is that Fred Johnson didn’t think the crew would be comfortable with an Earther running a Belter ship. You got the job because you kissed all the right political asses. You know what? Good for you. Hope your career takes off like a fucking rocket. Pa’s here for the same reason. She’s got the right-sized head, though at least hers doesn’t seem to be empty.”
“That’s a racist insult,” Ashford said, trying to interrupt, “and I won’t have—”
“I’m here because they needed someone who could get the job done and they knew we were screwed. And you know what? We’re still screwed. But I’m going to get us out of here, and I’m going to keep Fred from being embarrassed by what we did here, and you are going to stay out of my way while I do it, you pinche motherfucker.”
“That’s enough, Mister Baca. I will—”
“You know it’s true,” Bull said, shifting to face Pa. Her expression was closed, empty. “If he’s in charge of this, he’s going to get it wrong. You’ve seen it. You know—”
“You will stop addressing the XO, Mister Baca.”
“—what kind of decisions he makes. He’ll send them back to their ships, even if it means people die because—”
“You are relieved. You will be—”
“—he wasn’t the one that invited them. It’s going to—”
“—quiet. I do not give you permission—”
“—make all of this more dangerous, and if someone—”
“—to speak to my staff. You will be—”
“—else pisses that thing off, we could all—”
“— quiet!” Ashford shouted, and he pushed forward, his mouth in a square gape of rage. He hit the medical bed too hard, pressing into Bull, grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking him hard enough to snap his teeth shut. “I told you to shut up!”
The restraints opened under Ashford’s attack, the Velcro ripping. Pain lanced through Bull’s neck like someone was pushing a screwdriver into his back. He tried to push the captain away, but there was nothing to grab hold of. His knuckles cracked against something hard: the table, the wall, something else. He couldn’t say what. People around him were shouting. His balance felt profoundly wrong, the dead weight of his body flowing limp and useless in the empty air, but tugged at by the tubes and the catheters.
When the world made sense again, he was at a forty-degree angle above the table, his head pointing down. Pa and Macondo were gripping Ashford’s arms, the captain’s hands bent into claws. Serge was bunched against the wall, ready to launch but not sure what direction he should go.
Doctor Sterling appeared at his side, gathering his legs and drawing him quickly and professionally back toward the bed.
“Could we please not assault the patient with the crushed spinal cord,” she said as she did, “because this makes me very uncomfortable.”
Another vicious flare of pain, hot and sharp and evil, ran through Bull’s neck and upper back as she strapped him down. One of the tubes was floating free, blood and a bit of flesh adhering to its end. He didn’t know what part of his body it had come out of. Pa was looking at him, and he kept his voice calm.
“We’ve already screwed up twice. We came through the Ring, and we let soldiers go on the station. We won’t get a third. We can get everyone together, and we can get them out of here.”
“That’s dangerous talk, mister,” Ashford spat.
“I can’t be captain,” Bull said. “Even if I wasn’t stuck in this bed, I’m an Earther. There has to be a Belter in charge. Fred was right about that.”
Ashford pulled his arms free of Pa and Macondo, plucked his sleeves back into trim, and steadied himself against the wall.
“Doctor, place Mister Baca in a medical coma. That is a direct order.”
“Serge,” Bull said. “I need you to take Captain Ashford into custody, and I need you to do it now.”
No one moved. Serge scratched his neck, the sounds of fingernails against stubble louder than anything in the room. Pa’s gaze locked in the middle distance, her face sour and angry. Ashford’s eyes narrowed, cutting over toward her. When she spoke, her voice was dead and joyless.
“Serge. You heard what the chief said.”
Ashford gathered himself to launch for Pa, but Serge already had a restraining hand on the captain’s shoulder.
“This is mutiny,” Ashford said. “There’ll be a reckoning for this.”
“You need to come with us now,” Serge said. Macondo took Ashford’s other arm and put it in an escort hold, and the three of them left together. Pa stayed against the wall, held steady by a strap, while the doctor, tutting and muttering under her breath, replaced the catheters and checked the monitors and tubes attached to his skin. For the most part, he didn’t feel it.
When she was done, the doctor left the room. The door slid closed behind her. For almost a minute, neither of them spoke.
“Guess your opinion on mutiny changed,” Bull said.
“Apparently,” Pa said, and sighed. “He’s not thinking straight. And he’s drinking too much.”
“He made the decision that brought us all here. He can sign his name to all the corpses on all those ships.”
“I don’t think he sees it that way,” Pa said. And then, “But I think he’s putting a lotof effort into not seeing it that way. And he’s slipping. I don’t thinkc I don’t think he’s well.”