Read Online Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey - Free Book Online Page A

McDowell said.
    “They’re going to hit us, sir,” Ade said.
    “Jim,” McDowell said, his voice suddenly loud over the direct channel he’d opened. “We’re going down, and there’s no way around it. Click twice to acknowledge.”
    Jim clicked his radio twice.
    “Okay, so, now we need to think about surviving after the hit. If they’re looking to cripple us before boarding, they’ll take out our drive and our comm array. Becca’s been broadcasting an SOS ever since the torpedoes were fired, but I’d like you to keep yelling if we stop. If they know you’re out there, they are less likely to toss everyone out an airlock. Witnesses, you know,” McDowell said.
    Jim clicked twice again.
    “Turn around, Jim. Hide behind that asteroid. Call for help. Order.”
    Jim clicked twice, then signaled all-stop to Alex. In an instant, the giant sitting on his chest disappeared, replaced by weightlessness. The sudden transition would have made him throw up if his veins hadn’t been coursing with antinausea drugs.
    “What’s up?” Alex said.
    “New job,” Holden said, teeth chattering from the juice. “We’re calling for help and negotiating a release of prisoners once the bad guys have the
Cant.
Burn back to that asteroid, since it’s the closest we can get to cover.”
    “Roger that, Boss,” Alex said. He added in a lower voice, “I’d kill for a couple of tubes or a nice keel-mounted rail gun right now.”
    “I hear you.”
    “Wake up the kids downstairs?”
    “Let them sleep.”
    “Roger that,” Alex said, then clicked off.
    Before the heavy g started up again, Holden turned on the
Knight
’s SOS. The channel to Ade was still open, and now that McDowell was off the line, he could hear her breathing again. He turned the volume all the way up and lay back in the straps, waiting to be crushed. Alex didn’t disappoint him.
    “One minute,” Ade said, her voice loud enough to distort through his helmet’s speakers. Holden didn’t turn the volume down. Her voice was admirably calm as she called out the impact countdown.
    “Thirty seconds.”
    Holden wanted desperately to talk, to say something comforting, to make ludicrous and untrue assertions of love. The giant standing on his chest just laughed with the deep rumble of their fusion torch.
    “Ten seconds.”
    “Get ready to kill the reactor and play dead after the torpedoes hit. If we’re not a threat, they won’t hit us again,” McDowell said.
    “Five,” Ade said.
    “Four.
    “Three.
    “Two.
    “One.”
    The
Canterbury
shuddered and the monitor went white. Ade took one sharp intake of breath, which cut off as the radio broke up. The static squeal almost ruptured Holden’s eardrums. He chinned the volume down and clicked his radio at Alex.
    The thrust suddenly dropped to a tolerable two g and all the ship’s sensors flared into overload. A brilliant light poured through the small airlock porthole.
    “Report, Alex, report! What happened?” Holden yelled.
    “My God. They nuked her. They nuked the
Cant,
” Alex said, his voice low and dazed.
    “What’s her status? Give me a report on the
Canterbury
! I have zero sensors down here. Everything’s just gone white!”
    There was a long pause; then Alex said, “I have zero sensors up here too, Boss. But I can give you a status on the
Cant.
I can see her.”
    “See her? From here?”
    “Yeah. She’s a cloud of vapor the size of Olympus Mons. She’s gone, Boss. She’s gone.”
    That can’t be right,
Holden’s mind protested. That doesn’t happen. Pirates don’t nuke water haulers. No one wins. No one gets paid. And if you just want to murder fifty people, walking into a restaurant with a machine gun is a
lot
easier.
    He wanted to shout it, scream at Alex that he was wrong. But he had to keep it together.
I’m the old man now.
    “All right. New mission, Alex. Now we’re witnesses to murder. Get us back to that asteroid. I’ll start compiling a broadcast. Wake everyone up. They need