Leviathan Wakes Read Online Free PDF Page B

readout—“forty, so work fast. I want to get out, get it done, and get the
Cant
back on course to Ceres before she starts rusting.”
    “Roger that,” Alex said, climbing up to the
Knight
’s cockpit.
    Holden’s headset clicked; then Naomi’s voice said, “Amos and Shed are aboard. We’re all ready down here.”
    “Thanks. Just waiting on flight numbers from Alex and we’ll be ready to go.”
    The crew was the minimum necessary: Holden as command,Alex to get them there and back, Shed in case there were survivors to treat, Naomi and Amos for salvage if there weren’t.
    It wasn’t long before Alex called down, “Okay, Boss. It’ll be about a four-hour trip flyin’ teakettle. Total mass use at about thirty percent, but we’ve got a full tank. Total mission time: eleven hours.”
    “Copy that. Thanks, Alex,” Holden said.
    Flying teakettle
was naval slang for flying on the maneuvering thrusters that used superheated steam for reaction mass. The
Knight
’s fusion torch would be dangerous to use this close to the
Canterbury
and wasteful on such a short trip. Torches were pre-Epstein fusion drives and far less efficient.
    “Calling for permission to leave the barn,” Holden said, and clicked from internal comm to the link with the
Canterbury
’s bridge. “Holden here.
Knight
is ready to fly.”
    “Okay, Jim, go ahead,” McDowell said. “Ade’s bringing her to a stop now. You kids be careful out there. That shuttle is expensive and I’ve always sort of had a thing for Naomi.”
    “Roger that, Captain,” Holden said. Back on the internal comm, he buzzed Alex. “Go ahead and take us out.”
    Holden leaned back in his chair and listened to the creaks of the
Canterbury
’s final maneuvers, the steel and ceramics as loud and ominous as the wood planks of a sailing ship. Or an Earther’s joints after high g. For a moment, Holden felt sympathy for the ship.
    They weren’t really stopping, of course. Nothing in space ever actually stopped; it only came into a matching orbit with some other object. They were now following CA-2216862 on its merry millennium-long trip around the sun.
    Ade sent them the green light, and Holden emptied out the hangar bay air and popped the doors. Alex took them out of the dock on white cones of superheated steam.
    They went to find the
Scopuli.

     
    CA-2216862 was a rock a half kilometer across that had wandered away from the Belt and been yanked around by Jupiter’s enormousgravity. It had eventually found its own slow orbit around the sun in the vast expanse between Jupiter and the Belt, territory empty even for space.
    The sight of the
Scopuli
resting gently against the asteroid’s side, held in place by the rock’s tiny gravity, gave Holden a chill. Even if it was flying blind, every instrument dead, its odds of hitting such an object by chance were infinitesimally low. It was a half-kilometer-wide roadblock on a highway millions of kilometers in diameter. It hadn’t arrived there by accident. He scratched the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.
    “Alex, hold us at two klicks out,” Holden said. “Naomi, what can you tell me about that ship?”
    “Hull configuration matches the registry information. It’s definitely the
Scopuli.
She’s not radiating in the electromagnetic or infrared. Just that little distress beacon. Looks like the reactor’s shut down. Must have been manual and not damage, because we aren’t getting any radiation leakage either,” Naomi said.
    Holden looked at the pictures they were getting from the
Knight
’s scopes, as well as the image the
Knight
created by bouncing a laser off the
Scopuli
’s hull. “What about that thing that looks like a hole in the side?”
    “Uh,” Naomi said. “Ladar says it’s a hole in the side.”
    Holden frowned. “Okay, let’s stay here for a minute and recheck the neighborhood. Anything on the scope, Naomi?”
    “Nope. And the big array on the
Cant
can spot a kid throwing rocks on Luna. Becca