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As a young marine—two wars, a paradigm-shifting encounter with alien technology, and a lifetime ago—Bobbie knew the stations of the Belt mainly by their docks.
There were certain reliable consistencies: the massive tanks of life-giving air and water for replenishing civilian vessels, the caterpillar-wheeled forklifts loading and unloading blocks of cargo, the crush of bodies pushing out into corridors of the station proper, tunneled through the rock, towards the casinos on Eros, the commercial districts of Ceres, the Hygiean black markets. The stations had their idiosyncrasies, too, of course, their individual shapes and sounds, the Coriolis never quite the same—not to mention Pallas’s barely-there microgravity, the pit-deep strangeness of feeling her guts still on the float—the smell and taste of the air different, even though it was all filtered. Even the Belters, how they looked and spoke and moved, the tattoos on their hands and faces, changed.
But no matter where they went, she was always an observer, an intruder, an Inya in a uniform, who at a moment’s notice might be ordered to raise her weapon, put them against the wall, seize their ships and livelihoods, or worse. Her very presence was a reminder and threat, and that kept her at the edges of the stations, the places with signposts and dockmasters and corporate security. When they made port, she rarely ventured farther than the nearest Martian-friendly watering hole.
It’s different now, now that she’s crawled through dark subterranean on Mars and seen the dry rot, now that she’s fought alongside the OPA at Medina Station; now that she’s crew on the Rocinante and an associate of James Holden and Naomi Nagata. Sometimes the back passages of the stations open to her, sometimes she can follow the secret tunnels, greenish with mining lamps and jack-o'-lantern mushrooms, and sometimes, at the end, a tall Belter—looming even over her—gives her a nod at the entryway, letting her pass.
Bobbie doesn’t know exactly what she’s looking for in these places behind the walls of the station proper, at least not until she finds it. The music is louder, angrier, more discordant, and the dancing more like thrashing, kicking and slapping at the air. The whiskey has that faintly solvent taste of moonshine distilled in an engine room. Sex workers of every gender lounge around the bar, against the wall, eyeing her up; if she looks back, one of them will amble over, offer. Or, she can find the biggest, surliest Belter in the place and challenge them to arm wrestle. Or just start a fight. She’s done all of it, throughout the Belt, these past six years, and sometimes, if she’s lucky, it settles the unsettled in her, quiets the voices of her old drill sergeants, Captain Martens, her father.
What are you doing, Draper.
Before she goes looking, a ruckus deeper in the room draws her attention. Her first instincts still belong to the MMC, cool focus snapping into place, the suit and gun that aren’t there, but that awareness still is, and she’s assessing the crowd and the space for hostiles before she remembers that this is the kind of place she’s sought out. Fine simply to see what’s what.
At the back, a crowd has gathered, maybe a hundred or so people surrounding a make-shift boxing ring, bounded by rigged-up storage netting and empty water drums. The lighting is as dim as the rest of the place, colors dappling and cycling, casting the onlookers’ faces in reds and blues and purples. Someone is shouting last call for bets in Lang Belta—imim shāsa futeng fo wang—or Bobbie thinks so anyway.
“What is this?” she asks the person next her, a woman with the geometric facial tattoos and a mohawk that reminds her a little of Camina Drummer.
“Im a fight, pomang,” the woman answers. “Mod fo mod, sasa ke?”
Before Bobbie can ask anything else, there’s a deep, brassy noise: one the barrels, struck. Then the bout begins, two figures in the middle of the ring, one towering and broad—maybe a Martian or a tall Earther—their opponent slight, small. It’s too dim to see their faces, but something happens, and the two of them are twitching, then shuddering.
There’s no initial circling, no feinting as the smaller, quicker fighter circles, trying to wear down their opponent, no swings and misses and dodges, as Bobbie might expect to see in a traditional fight. No, it’s over almost as soon as it begins. The larger fighter lets out a guttural cry, sweeping a thick arm out to strike their opponent, a anvil-blow of a punch that would even send Bobbie flying. The other moves, or presumably they do, almost too rapidly for the eye to contract, a blur in the dark that's familiar in a way Bobbie can’t immediately name.
The smaller fighter dashes around behind, striking the back of their opponent in rapid succession until they fall, striking the floor with a thud audible even above the roaring crowd, who are stomping their feet, beating the water drums, shaking the netting. The victor stands over her fallen opponent, briefly triumphant, before she doubles over, retches, and collapses onto her side.
The victor. Bobbie’s crewmate. Clarissa Mao.
Six years on the Rocinante, and Bobbie has figured out a few things. That the cargo bay doors stick, no matter how many times they replace the hydraulics. That Jim will always be Jim, even (especially) when he’s trying not to be. That if she wants something done, she should talk to Naomi. That it’s best not to press Amos about his past—and not to press Amos at all when he gets that shut-away, empty-in-the-eyes look. That there’s no replacing Alex Kamal, not in the pilot’s seat or the galley or next to her at the bar when she’s having a shitty day; and they all feel it. Which is all to say: she knows them, her ship and her crew.
She still doesn’t know Clarissa Mao.
It’s not unfriendliness or dislike. Clarissa will replace the wiring on her display without being asked, will lend a hand loading and unloading the ship, will take the watch without complaint, will refill everyone’s cup of coffee during crew meetings, will cook on family dinner night. In many respects, she’s an ideal crewmate: unobtrusive, considerate, competent, tidy. On a larger ship, Bobbie probably wouldn’t even notice the distance; it only shows on a crew as small and close-knit as the Roci’s. That lack, in contrast.
And if she knew her a little better, maybe Bobbie wouldn’t be sitting in a pay-by-the-hour hole and waiting for Clarissa to wake up from a prize fight without a clue why. Maybe she’d know what the fuck all that was.
Clarissa stirs and makes a soft noise of complaint. She’s curled on her side on the rented bed, stilling in apparent surprise when she stretches out to find pillows instead of the cold floor. “What?” she mumbles, frowning like a kid during a nightmare, before she opens her eyes. “Bobbie?” Haziness makes way for understanding, then alarm.
“Hey,” Bobbie greets her, matter-of-factly. “How are you feeling?” Not bothering to give the question the warmth or concern that Naomi or Jim would. Letting that underlying what the fuck show through, like the steel and ceramic of the ship without any foam to cushion the impact.
Clarissa shuffles backward slightly, not that there’s anywhere much to go. “Um. All right. The headache’s normal anyway. How—how did you find me?”
“Just your bad luck,” Bobbie shrugs. “An accident. I wasn’t looking or anything.”
Clarissa’s smile is as thin and pale as chalk. “No, I guess you wouldn’t be.” She glances around, takes in the room. “Where are we?”
“The closest shitty hotel I could find. Seeing how you were passed out and all.” If it had occurred to Bobbie to worry about carrying an unconscious woman into a flophouse, it wouldn’t have lasted long. The clerk at the front desk had only shrugged and doubled the rate.
“Yeah, that happens, too. Are you—” Clarissa takes a breath, lets it out again, another; her shoulders sag. “Are you going to tell the others? Jim, and. And Amos?”
The question catches Bobbie up. If Bobbie was still a gunnery sergeant and Clarissa another Marine, a member of her team, there would be no question. Infractions were reported, measures taken, all for the good of her squad and for Mars. The way Jim Holden runs his ship is different to say the least; they work around each other’s rough places, sore spots. Tip-toe. No one mentions the days when Naomi has to sequester herself; no one acknowledges when Amos has beaten another obstacle bloody; no one brings up Clarissa’s modifications, why she has them, or the fact that they’re slowly poisoning her.
“That depends,” Bobbie decides in the moment. It feels like the kind of answer Jim would give, for better or for worse.
“On what.”
Bobbie shifts her weight in the plastic chair, and it gives a frail creak. It’s a drab little room with gray carpet on the walls and cheap floral-scented air coming through the filters. Clarissa looks small and sick on the bed, but it’s not only the grimy overhead light giving her skin that cast. Bobbie looks at her, steady. “On why.”
“I’m not trying to hurt myself,” Clarissa repeats, like maybe it isn’t Bobbie she’s trying to convince. She fiddles with her bulb of lemonade before she takes another sip. “Or not consciously, at least.”
They’re in a bar in a more respectable part of the station, a place where two Inners can sit quietly in a back booth and talk. From a distance, leaned close as they are, they might even look like they’re on a date.
Not that Bobbie’s been on one of those recently enough to know. Crewing a long-haul spaceship doesn’t lend itself to much of a social life.
“But it does hurt you,” Bobbie points out. She’s drinking a top-shelf Islay scotch imported from Earth and billing it to the Rocicorps expense account. Keeping the crew in one piece counts as ship’s business, she's concluded. And they’re hardly wanting for work or cash in these halcyon days of Camina Drummer's Transport Union. “Right? That’s the whole problem with them.”
Admittedly, she only vaguely understands the nature of Clarissa’s modifications; she’s seen her use them exactly once. There were rumors about the same tech on Mars, even the possibility of it being used in the military, but it was never reliable enough to be implemented, and the side effects are obviously shit. And in retrospect, Bobbie believes the Martian Congressional Republic preferred soldiers who could be disarmed, at least until Project Caliban came along, and they preferred protomolecule-enhanced supersoldiers who could be detonated when they became inconvenient.
“Yeah.” Clarissa looks at her hands. “One of them.”
“Listen, I get needing to blow off some steam—” Bobbie says.
“But it’s different for you, isn’t it?” Clarissa interrupts, speaking quick and low and mostly to the table. “If you need to beat the shit out of somebody, if you need to punch and get punched, then you can just do it. Start a regular bar fight.” She grimaces. "Win."
The seat cushion is firm against Bobbie’s back as she leans back. Huh.
“Why do you need to get punched, Clarissa?” she asks, slowly.
“Why do you? Why does Amos—or anybody?” It isn’t defensiveness making Clarissa go rigid, or Bobbie doesn’t think it is, but she’s suddenly sitting very straight.
She rolls the question over, examining it like she would one of the bolts from her suit, Betsy, when she cleans her. (Once a week, twice if she’s bored.) “I can’t speak for Amos, because I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on in his head, even him. Calm down, we both know he’d say the same thing.” She waves away Clarissa’s protest. Takes another drink, savoring the taste of peat, smoke, real grain. “For me, it’s not that I like getting hit. Getting hit usually means I’ve fucked it up. It’s about how it feels. Doing what I was made to do.”
Working on the Roci's good, but it's not the same, of course, not like the Marines. And brawling does feel good, especially when they’ve all been on the ship too long and the work is too quiet, too simple, too small.
Clarissa is studying her, attentive in that way she is, when her focus isn’t lost somewhere inward.
Bobbie chews the meat of her cheek. Talking about feelings was always more of Alex's thing. If he was here—what? Sometimes you have to offer a confidence to get one, soldier. So she does what she always does when confronted with an unpleasant task: sets her shoulders and muscles through.
“I guess even after all this time, fighting still feels like what I’m best at. It doesn’t matter how much other people try to make me into a liaison or a diplomat or a pilot, I was fashioned to be something else. Something specific.” She drains the bulb. “I’m a little like the Roci that way, I guess. My purpose doesn’t exist anymore, not really.”
What a fucking waste of Martian resources, the drill sergeants bark in her head.
What a failure of a patriot, Captain Martens, the hypocrite, spits at her.
What a disappointment, her father, both the old man she hasn't seen in over a year now and the imposing demigod of her childhood, laments.
Something brushes her arm. Clarissa is touching her sleeve, lightly, just with her fingertips.
Ten years ago, Bobbie would have shaken her off, snarled at her, baring her teeth at the least sign of sympathy. Now, she doesn’t move away, just looks back, meeting those dark eyes, the stillness and understanding in them. And the regret—something they share, apparently.
Her part offered, she waits. Feeling more than a little stupid, until Clarissa speaks.
“Most of the time, it works,” she confides, softly. “The breathing exercises and the mantras and working on the ship and everything I learned in therapy. My head’s quiet. She’s sleeping. The version of me who did all those things, killed all those people. But sometimes—sometimes it isn’t enough. Sometimes there’s still that anger.” She shakes her head, hair falling over her face. “Not at Jim, or any of the others. Not even at my father most of the time. What good is it hating a dead man? No, it’s just—anger. Without any place to put it. And sometimes I worry. About what will happen if it doesn’t go somewhere. So I find places, like that, where people with mods fight for money. So at least the other person knows.”
Bobbie moves her arm, so that Clarissa’s no longer touching her sleeve, but the knuckles of her hand. Clarissa’s are bruised, scabbed over from where she broke them open earlier. They can patch her up on the Roci, no one the wiser. Her hand's gentle against Bobbie's, but not soft. Calloused from working long hours with hard tools on their ship. Bobbie puts hers, not any softer, over it.
Clarissa startles at the touch, blinks, then looks away. “I envy you, I think,” she says, smiling slightly. It’s stronger now, not sick, pale. “Not only because you don’t need to cheat to fight. I mean, a little because of that. But you’re also just—strong, you know? You can do hold your own wherever you are."
“I could always help you,” Bobbie says, offering before it’s occurred to her what to offer. “When it gets bad. We could spar, or I don’t know. Go out on the hull, turn off our mics and curse the paint off the ship.”
She bites back the third idea that occurs to her—there are other ways to let off steam, even other ways to get hit—surprised at herself. But it's been a while. Longer than she likes.
And they're still touching.
Clarissa laughs; it’s surprisingly nice. “Spar with the legendary Bobbie Draper? You’d flatten me.”
“Would not,” Bobbie counters. “I’ll be gentle—as long as you are, Peaches.”
She shakes her head, maybe at the nickname.
But it still feels like progress, so Bobbie tries: "C'mon. Shipmates look after each other."
“Yeah, okay. That could work.” She turns her hand over, curls her fingers around the edge of Bobbie’s hand.
The sudden warmth in her stomach might not only be whiskey. Easy, Draper. “Tonight, though, I think we should get drunk and scream and cry about our dads and how unfair life is,” she says. “Or I’ll get drunk, and you can keep drinking lemonade, but we should scream and cry about our dads and how unfair life is.”
Clarissa raises both eyebrows, but whatever she finds in Bobbie’s face quiets her. “And about Mars,” she adds, instead. "And prison."
“Them, too.”
“And then?” Clarissa wonders. The lights from the bar glitter, reflected in her eyes. There might something else there, too, something more than wishful thinking. “When we’re all drunk and hoarse and cried out?”
Bobbie keys in a request for another drink. Looks over, questioning. Grins when Clarissa orders a Jupiter Fizz.
“Then we’ll see where the night takes us.”