A soft hushing sound, like fingernails scratching down an endless sheet of paper. He turned on the cart’s lights, the dark entrance of Eros brightening to industrial gray, shadows scattering to the corners. His imagined Julie stood in the glare like it was a spotlight, the glow illuminating her and all the structures behind her at the same time, the remnant of a long dream, almost over.
He took off the brakes, pushed, and went inside Eros for the last time.
Chapter Fifty-One: Holden
Holden knew that humans could tolerate extremely high g-forces over short durations. With proper safety systems, professional daredevils had sustained impacts in excess of twenty-five g’s and survived. The human body deformed naturally, absorbed energy in soft tissues, and diffused impacts across larger areas.
He also knew that the problem with extended exposure to high g was that the constant pressure on the circulatory system would begin exposing weaknesses. Have a weak spot in an artery that could turn into an aneurysm in forty years? A few hours at seven g might just pop it open now. Capillaries in the eyes started to leak. The eye itself deformed, sometimes causing permanent damage. And then there were the hollow spaces, like the lungs and digestive tract. You piled on enough gravity, and they collapsed.
And while combat ships might maneuver at very high g for short durations, every moment spent under thrust multiplied the danger.
Eros didn’t need to shoot anything at them. It could just keep speeding up until their bodies exploded under the pressure. His console was showing five g, but even as he watched, it shifted to six. They couldn’t keep this up. Eros was going to get away. There was nothing he could do about it.
But he still didn’t order Alex to stop accelerating.
As if Naomi were reading his mind, WE CAN’T KEEP THIS UP POPPED UP on his console, her user ID in front of the text.
FRED’S WORKING ON IT. THEY MIGHT NEED US TO BE WITHIN RANGE OF EROS WHEN THEY COME UP WITH A PLAN, he replied. Even moving his fingers the millimeters necessary to use the controls built into his chair for exactly this reason was painfully difficult.
WITHIN RANGE FOR WHAT? NAOMI TYPED.
Holden didn’t answer. He had no idea. His blood was burning with drugs to keep him awake and alert even while his body was being crushed. The drugs had the contradictory effect of making his brain run at double speed while not allowing him to actually think. But Fred would come up with something. Lots of smart people were thinking about it.
And Miller.
Miller was lugging a fusion bomb through Eros right now. When your enemy had the tech advantage, you came at him as low-tech as you could get. Maybe one sad detective pulling a nuclear weapon on a wagon would slip through their defenses. Naomi had said they weren’t magic. Maybe Miller could make it and give them the opening they needed.
Either way, Holden had to be there, even if it was just to see.
FRED, Naomi typed to him.
Holden opened the connection. Fred looked to him like a man suppressing a grin.
“Holden,” he said. “How are you guys holding up?”
SIX G’S. SPIT IT OUT.
“Right. So it turns out that the UN cops have been ripping Protogen’s network apart, looking for clues as to what the hell’s been going on. Guess who showed up as public enemy number one for the Protogen bigwigs? Yours truly. Suddenly all is forgiven, and Earth welcomes me back into her warm embrace. The enemy of my enemy thinks I am a righteous bastard.”
GOODY. MY SPLEEN IS COLLAPSING. HURRY UP.
“The idea of Eros crashing into Earth is bad enough. Extinction-level event, even if it’s just a rock. But the UN people have been watching the Eros feeds, and it’s scaring the shit out of them.”
AND.
“Earth is preparing to launch her entire ground-based nuclear arsenal. Thousandsof nukes. They’re going to vaporize that rock. The navy will intercept what’s left after the initial attack and sterilize that entire area of space with constant nuclear bombardment. I know it’s a risk, but it’s what we have.”
Holden resisted the urge to shake his head. He didn’t want to wind up with one cheek stuck to the chair permanently.
EROS DODGED THE NAUVOO. IT’S GOING SIX G’S RIGHT NOW, AND ACCORDING TO NAOMI, MILLER FEELS NO ACCELERATION. WHATEVER IT’S DOING, IT DOESN’T HAVE THE SAME INERTIAL LIMITATIONS WE HAVE. WHAT’S TO STOP IT FROM JUST DODGING AGAIN? AT THESE SPEEDS, THE MISSILES WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TURN AROUND AND CATCH IT. AND WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TARGETING ON? EROS DOESN’T REFLECT RADAR ANYMORE.
“That’s where you come in. We need you to try bouncing a laser off of it. We can use the Rocinante’s targeting system to guide the missiles in.”
I HATE TO BREAK IT TO YOU, BUT WE’LL BE OUT OF THIS GAME LONG BEFORE THOSE MISSILES SHOW. WE CAN’T KEEP UP. WE CAN’T GUIDE THE MISSILES IN FOR YOU. AND ONCE WE LOSE VISUAL, NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO TRACK WHERE EROS IS.
“You might have to put it on autopilot,” Fred said.
Meaning You might all have to die in the seats you’re in right now.
I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DIE A MARTYR AND ALL, BUT WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THE ROCI CAN BEAT THIS THING ON ITS OWN? I’M NOT KILLING MY CREW BECAUSE YOU CAN’T COME UP WITH A GOOD PLAN.
Fred leaned toward the screen, his eyes narrowing. For the first time, Fred’s mask slipped and Holden saw the fear and helplessness behind it.
“Look, I know what I’m asking, but you know the stakes. This is what we have. I didn’t call you to hear how it won’t work. Either help or give up. Right now devil’s advocate is just another name for asshole.”
I’m crushing myself to death, probably doing permanent damage, just because Iwouldn’t give up, you bastard. So sorry I didn’t sign my crew up to die the minute you said to do it.
Having to type everything out had the advantage of restraining emotional outbursts. Instead of ripping into Fred for questioning his commitment, Holden just typed LET ME THINK ABOUT IT and cut the connection.
The optical tracking system watching Eros flashed a warning to him that the asteroid was increasing speed again. The giant sitting on his chest added a few pounds as Alex pushed the Rocinanteto keep up. A flashing red indicator informed Holden that because of the duration they’d spent at the current acceleration, he could expect as much as 12 percent of the crew to stroke out. It would go up. Enough time, and it would reach 100 percent. He tried to remember the Roci’s maximum theoretical acceleration. Alex had already flown it at twelve g briefly when they’d left the Donnager.The actual limit was one of those trivial numbers, a way to brag about something your ship would never really do. Fifteen g, was it? Twenty?
Miller hadn’t felt any acceleration at all. How fast could you go if you didn’t even feelit?
Almost without realizing he was going to do it, Holden activated the master engine cutoff switch. Within seconds he was in free fall, wracked with coughs as his organs tried to find their original resting places inside his body. When Holden had recovered enough to take one really deep breath, his first in hours, Alex came on the comm.
“Cap, did you kill the engines?” the pilot said.
“Yeah, that was me. We’re done. Eros is getting away no matter what we do. We were just prolonging the inevitable, and risking some crew deaths in the process.”
Naomi turned her chair and gave him a sad little smile. She was sporting a black eye from the acceleration.
“We did our best,” she said.
Holden shoved out of his chair hard enough that he bruised his forearms on the ceiling, then shoved off hard again and pinned his back to a bulkhead by grabbing on to a fire extinguisher mount. Naomi was watching him from across the deck, her mouth a comical O of surprise. He knew he probably looked ridiculous, like a petulant child throwing a tantrum, but he couldn’t stop himself. He broke free of his grip on the fire extinguisher and floated into the middle of the deck. He hadn’t known he’d been pounding on the bulkhead with his other fist. Now that he did, his hand hurt.