Episode 6: Rock Bottom

Holden had called the rest of the crew in to the galley after his meeting with Fred Johnson, told them the deal he had made. He was actually considering taking a job from the O.P.A. The ship that got them into this whole mess, the Scopuli, was apparently one of theirs. She understood Holden didn't want to let the mystery go, that he needed to keep tracking down whoever blew up the Cant. But he still had no idea, really, what they were dealing with. "How do you know what's waiting at those coordinates?" Naomi asked him.

"I don't."

Amos looked up from the rifle he had set on the table, backing up Naomi's position with a glare at Holden.

"Neither does Fred Johnson," Naomi continued. "And when the felotas hit the fan, he will wipe his hands clean. That's assuming it's not a set-up in the first place."

"Why would he lie about the Scopuli? Get himself tangled up in this mess?" Holden countered. He was hell-bent on seeing this through, regardless of the risk it might pose to him.

"You're out of your ever-loving mind if you think you can trust that guy," Alex chimed in.

"Look. I only committed myself," Holden said defensively. "Fred Johnson offered to crew me up. You guys will be safe on Tycho until all of this blows over, then you can go back to your lives."

There he went, making his unilateral decisions again, cutting them all out. Even though she did not want to go on this mission, Naomi felt a sharp sting of betrayal stab at her chest. After saving their lives on the Donnager, now he was going to leave them behind, just like that.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're using his crew?" Alex said. "How do you know he's not going to space you the second you get out there?"

Holden turned to Naomi. "Because you're gonna rig the Roci so it only responds to my commands."

Am I? she thought.

"For God's sake." Alex turned away, clearly unconvinced.

Amos just sat there, silently cleaning the now disassembled rifle.

"Look. I don't need to trust Fred Johnson," Holden continued on. "We both have a gun to each others' heads."

Clearly, he had decided what he was doing next. Naomi's voice was soft. "So, what is this?" she paused. "Goodbye?"

Holden gave a wobbly nod, face screwed up with regret, sympathy, and determination.

Alex turned back to the table. "Nah. All that's waitin' out there for you is more trouble. More death. Why are you so hell-bent, Holden?"

"Because this is my fault."

Amos whipped his head up, suddenly interested. Naomi's chest went tight. "What is?" the big man said intently.

Holden looked him right in the eyes. "I logged the distress call on the Cant."

Amos glared at him for a moment, processing. Naomi could see the muscles in his shoulders tightening in anger. "Amos," she said lowly, like she had so many times before. The fact that the gun under his hand was disassembled did very little to ease her growing fear of what was coming next.

He ignored her completely, continued staring Holden down. "Glad we cleared this up," he growled, his tone implying "this" wasn't even close to over.

Shit. Images of the things she had seen Amos do in the past flashed across her vision. Fists flailing, gurgling screams. She did not want to see Holden's face in ruins like that.

Naomi did the only thing she could think of to avert the crisis. She stood up a little straighter, spoke in calm, measured tones. "I knew."

Amos swiveled his head around, looked up at her in shock.

"Holden did the right thing." She just had to stay in charge, let Amos know the right play had been made. He'd fall in line behind her like he always did.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked her instead, betrayal plain in his face.

She hadn't expected the question. "I don't know," she said flippantly, unable to express the truth in a way that wouldn't hurt him more.

"You were afraid of me," he said, seeing it anyway. Seeing the way she really saw him, maybe for the first time. The monster she had to keep under control.

They all let it hang there. Everyone held their breath, watching the two of them cracking apart.

Amos looked down, like he'd lost something, then got up silently and walked out of the room.

At least there was more work for her. Naomi had no clue what to do about Amos, settled for giving him space while she dove into the Rocinante's systems, learning more of the ship's secrets as she wove in her new program. Nothing vital to her operations was going to be touched by anyone but herself, or Jim Holden. He could not be swayed away from his foolhardy plan to work for the O.P.A.; but Naomi was doing everything she could to ensure the radical organization couldn't have them. She wasn't sure if she meant the ship, Holden, or herself, but whichever way, it felt good.

As Johnson's assigned crew boarded the Rocinante, prepping for the mission and assembling its disguise as a gas freighter, Naomi was overcome with a surge of primal protectiveness, like a mother standing in front of her young. She glared at each intruder in turn. "You alright?" Holden asked her, stepping up close.

Naomi clenched her jaw and nodded, knowing her face looked absolutely sick with anxiety.

"Relax. You rigged the failsafe, right?"

She nodded again. "They try to access any areas that they shouldn't," she said, voice getting louder with each word, "and the Roci's core will self-destruct." She looked menacingly around at the strangers on her ship.

Holden chuckled like she was being cute. She continued to glare at him. "I'm confident you got us covered," he said. "You feeling confident?"

She tried.

"Come on," he said conspiratorially, leaning in. "Let's let them do their thing, and we'll go get a drink in the crew lounge."

She made a dismissive sound, shook her head 'no,' but felt herself starting to smile. Something about talking to Holden was making it easier for her to relax, lately. And she desperately needed to start letting some of this tension go.

"You sure? I could use a drink," he said sincerely. "We'll charge it to Fred's tab," he offered.

Now that would make it worth it.

Naomi, Alex, and Amos sat around the faux-wood dining table in one of the suites Fred Johnson had provided for them during their stay on Tycho station. Holden was off somewhere else, prepping for his mission no doubt. After sharing a few drinks the other night, her attitude toward him had softened even more. She actually felt like she was going to miss the guy.

Naomi picked at the remnants of her sashimi take-out. The Butcher had turned out to be a very generous host. Posh accommodations, expensive meals, but not one of the survivors of the Canterbury looked like they were enjoying it. The luxury and calm were just as disorienting to Naomi as the chaos they had just lived through. This didn't feel like her real life either. And yet Fred Johnson had promised they could stay here until this trial of his was held, whenever that would be.

Naomi looked up at Alex, watched him chew slowly, staring off at nothing with a faint scowl. She hoped he wasn't still upset about the way Holden's secret had come out. No one had mentioned it again, and she certainly wasn't going to be the one to reopen the topic. She glanced over at Amos. He was still shoveling rice into his mouth, eyes on his food. He appeared to be in his default emotional state, just existing. Except that he had barely spoken to her since they left the Roci, barely even looked at her. There was nothing default about that. Naomi looked down at her plate, let out her breath much more loudly than she had intended.

Alex looked up, as if she had started a conversation with the sound. "I don't like the idea of a buncha O.P.A. yahoos flyin' around in the Roci."

Naomi nodded in sympathy. "We didn't have her for long, but I got pretty attached, too."

"She's still ours, if ya ask me. Legitimate salvage from the wreck of the Donnager."

"And yet here we are, letting Holden fly away with her, risking his neck without a care for the consequences. Again." Naomi regretted the last word as soon as she said it.

"While we sit here, in the lap of luxury," Alex said, irony in his voice.

"Safe and sound."

"No one trying to blow us up, or threatening torture, nothin' to worry about at all."

"Not yet," Naomi said glumly. She could not summon much optimism.

"Look around," Alex consoled her. "Posh rooms like this, shows how valuable Fred thinks we are. This ain't how you treat a refugee, or a suspected terrorist. I gotta believe he means it when he says we're gonna be his star witnesses."

It still made Naomi uneasy. Just because someone in the O.P.A. thought you were useful, didn't mean they were always going to treat you well. "Until the facts change. The Butcher says he wants a trial, but he doesn't even know who to accuse yet. How long will the handouts last, if Holden's investigation doesn't go anywhere? And what happens to us if it does, but it turns out the truth isn't politically convenient for the O.P.A.?"

Alex sat back, chewed on that for a while. "We could go back to ice haulin'," he tossed out. He didn't sound like he found the thought very appealing.

It had been a perfectly decent life, before all this. But something deep in Naomi's gut twisted at the idea of walking away from everything and signing up for one more long haul. She glanced over at Amos, who hadn't weighed in. He sat with his elbows on the table, arms folded. He was listening to the conversation, but his face was still that blank mask. Any other person would have felt pressured to speak when she made eye contact. Amos just looked back at her coolly, didn't move a muscle. It wasn't hostile; he just wasn't sharing.

"The Roci is still ours," she said, turning back to Alex. "No one's getting around the programs I installed. Either one of us is in command, or the whole ship blows." It was an odd jump in the conversation, but Alex just nodded slowly.

"It's not the smart move, what Holden's doin'," Alex said slowly, staring off over her shoulder again. "Guess he's just got those mystery ships stuck in his craw."

"He feels responsible," Naomi said, feeling like she was walking on thin ice again. Words started rushing out of her, guiding the topic away from the distress call. "He always feels responsible. So he needs something to do. And the crazy thing about him is, he always seems to think there's actually something he can do." She was a little surprised with her own insight into the man. But they had been shipping together a long time now. "He tries to run away from it. But he always feels like he should save people. And he's foolish enough to think that he can." It was why she tried to keep her distance from him, and lately why she just couldn't.

Amos shifted, reacting somehow to her words. Naomi didn't look at him.

Alex picked at the last bites on his plate. "It would feel pretty good to be there, when he tracks down those bastards that blew the Cant," he said.

Naomi sat back, blew out a breath. Was that what they were talking each other into right now?

"I'll never get a chance at a ship like the Roci again," he continued, almost like he was just talking to himself. "She is one beautiful girl."

Naomi looked at Amos again. Brows furrowed, he seemed deep in thought too. He didn't look up at her.

She turned back to Alex. "So what, now you're good with running errands for the O.P.A.?"

"Well, I'm starting to reckon I'll feel a might more comfortable behind the helm of the Rocinante, after those points you just brought up. You'd rather sit tight on an O.P.A.-controlled station, rely on them for your air, that's up to you."

It was still a rock and a hard place, then. But she was coming around. She could feel the anxiety creeping up already, just sitting here. "No telling when Fred Johnson's goodwill could run out," she agreed. "Better to be on a state-of-the-art gunship when it happens." She paused, then added: "Even if that means serving under a captain who goes looking for trouble any chance he can get?"

Alex shook his head with a smile. "Welp, I know I can trust Holden to always at least be tryin' to do the right thing. Not sure I can say that for any government, legitimate or not, right now."

Naomi's face twisted into a pained smile. "So we're going to be outlaws?"

"I don't think anyone's gonna offer up a better choice," said the man who had only recently recommended they turn themselves in to the Martian Navy. Maybe their little group was finally starting to all see things the same way. Naomi looked at Amos again.

"I'm good with outlaws," he shrugged.

Naomi heaved one more sigh. "So we go back to Fred Johnson, get the same deal he's giving Holden. Leave our testimony and go find his missing ship."

Alex stood, wiping his mouth before throwing the napkin on the table. "I'm gonna go take care of that right now. Can't stand to be off my ship one minute longer than I have to be."

Naomi smiled at him as he walked out, as amused by his attachment to the Roci as Holden had been by hers. Her smile faded when the door shut behind him. Now there was no one left but her and Amos, with so much still unresolved between them.

She hated how it felt; insecurity and regrets swirling in her gut. He had been a comforting presence at her back for so long, and she had taken his loyalty, trust and admiration for granted. She felt his withdrawal from her like a hole in her side. She had to fix this somehow.

Naomi turned back to him. "So, you're coming too?" she started, with a tentative smile.

"Well, a brand-new ship like the Roci don't seem to need much from a grease monkey like me." Naomi tried to think of something encouraging to say, but Amos kept talking. "But with the luck that we have, there might be a few things you need help breaking. Like maybe some faces." He looked pointedly at her. "That's what I'm good at, right?"

She felt like he had punched her in the gut, even though his voice was neutral when he said it. She had known him long enough to be able to tell when he was having feelings, usually before he did. It had hurt him to see how much she feared what he was capable of; and she had no clue how to help the situation now. "It's… one of your skills," she tried to deflect with a joke, "but that's not why I'm happy you're staying with us."

"You sure you're happy about that? Now that you're such good buddies with Jim Holden."

She ignored the jealous undertone of the statement; she still had to make sure everyone was safe, first. "You're not going to… do anything to him, are you?"

Amos sat back, folded his arms over his chest and studied her face for a moment. "Nah. Turns out he did the right thing, right?"

He was repeating her words back to her, but not with his usual calm agreement. "Do you really believe that? You seem pretty upset."

"No, I'm not," he said, body language still bristling.

"Ok. Then what is this?"

"What's what?"

Naomi made a frustrated noise. "Something's wrong between us." She couldn't help him get over it if he wasn't even going to acknowledge that.

Amos just looked at her in silence. After a moment, Naomi stood up, started cleaning up the remnants of their meal. If he wasn't going to talk, there was nothing she could do.

"You never kept anything from me before."

Not that you knew of, she thought. She set the empty cartons down. How could she explain herself without hurting his feelings worse? "I just wanted to make sure we all focused on surviving the next crisis, before we worried about who to blame."

"Yeah."

She hadn't addressed his real problem. "You know how you get, Amos. I just thought-"

"That you couldn't trust me." He leaned forward, looked at her intently. "When have I ever not trusted you, Naomi? I've always listened to you. After everything we've been through, how could you still be afraid of me?" The hurt was there in his eyes again, but this time there was anger, too.

Naomi didn't know how to respond. If that was the heart of the problem, there was no easy fix. She had always suspected Amos would only respect someone he couldn't shake, couldn't shock. She was reminded of that moment, early on in their relationship, when she felt like she was staring down a wild animal. And now he had finally seen the panic behind her eyes. She still couldn't think of an answer that wouldn't confirm every bad thing he ever thought about himself.

"Yeah." He stood up suddenly. "I'll see you later."

She watched him leave, couldn't bring herself to call him back.

The pre-launch checklist for the Rocinante was much shorter than one Naomi was accustomed to working her way through on the Canterbury. The Martian warship ran through most of the standard diagnostics by itself, and it was entirely absent any ancient, unreliable parts or jerry-rigged temporary solutions that she had to check on personally. If the Roci had any tricky quirks, Naomi hadn't discovered them yet. It was the most pleasant and easy launch preparation she'd ever been through, but she was a ball of emotions anyway. She was ecstatic to claim possession of this beautiful ship again. She was happy to not be left behind, and terrified of what they were getting themselves into next. She also found she was excited to surprise Jim Holden when he came on board. She could tell by the way he spoke to her that he didn't want to put any pressure on, but he had still been hoping she, and the other crew, would change their minds.

She smiled to Alex, standing next to her on the ops deck, when she heard Holden's boots clanging up the ladder. On the trip to Tycho she had already memorized what each of their tiny crew sounded like, moving around their new home. She turned to him dramatically when he came up. "You're late," she chided.

"What is this?" Holden asked, looking dumbfounded.

"Oh, spare us the speech," she said, the look on his face warming her heart.

"Ship's ready," Alex said, looking up from the terminal he had been checking. "Are you?"

"I guess we lost Amos," Holden observed.

"Oh, he'll be here in a sec," Naomi said, forcing her voice to stay warm. She really was happy he was coming, even though nothing felt resolved between them. And the thought of him painting the ship's new name on the hull outside right now filled her with pride.

"OK," Holden said, face twisting up in a smile. "I guess I'll go put on some coffee."

Alex was warming up the engines when Amos finally came up the ladder from the airlock, ready to secure himself for the rapid gravity shifts the ship would undergo as they detached from Tycho and got enough distance to initiate their burn toward the mysterious asteroid. He sat down in the crash couch next to Naomi and started to strap in. He didn't look at her.

Naomi closed her eyes, gathering herself to try again to reach out, repair the void that was starting to gape between them. She looked over to him. "I'm sorry," she offered with a sad smile. She had realized she didn't even apologize in their last conversation.

Amos looked up at her, face frozen in something that might have been deep thought, or just an attempt to mirror her expression, and said nothing. Holden came up the stairs with two bulbs of coffee, and Amos looked away, resumed buckling.

Holden handed her the warm drink with a dazzling smile that almost made up for the sinking feeling Amos's brush-off had given her. He was here, but was he ready to really be a part of the crew?

Naomi held her breath as their captain held out his peace offering to Amos. The two shared a long, inscrutable look before Amos accepted it. She tried to let her tension go on the exhale. He had said he was going to let Holden off the hook; she needed to take him at his word. Naomi realized she was quite ready to be done feeling responsible for Amos Burton. If there were any problem lingering between those two, she promised herself she was going to let them work it out between themselves.