Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey Page A

short-cropped hair. Even before the man opened his mouth, Miller saw the signs of shock and rage in his eyes and the way he held his head forward.
    “My name,” the man said, “is James Holden.”

Chapter Five: Holden
     
    T en minutes at two g, and Holden’s head was already starting to ache. But McDowell had called them home at all haste. The
Canterbury
was warming up its massive drive. Holden didn’t want to miss his ride.

     
    “Jim? We may have a problem out here.”
    “Talk to me.”
    “Becca found something, and it is sufficiently weird to make my balls creep up. We’re getting the hell out of here.”

     
    “Alex, how long?” Holden asked for the third time in ten minutes.
    “We’re over an hour out. Want to go on the juice?” Alex said.
    Going on the juice
was pilot-speak for a high-g burn that wouldknock an unmedicated human unconscious.
The juice
was the cocktail of drugs the pilot’s chair would inject into him to keep him conscious, alert, and hopefully stroke-free when his body weighed five hundred kilos. Holden had used the juice on multiple occasions in the navy, and coming down afterward was unpleasant.
    “Not unless we have to,” he said.

     
    “What kind of weird?”
    “Becca, link him up. Jim, I want you seeing what we’re seeing.”

     
    Holden tongued a painkiller tab from his suit’s helmet and reran Becca’s sensor feed for the fifth time. The spot in space lay about two hundred thousand kilometers from the
Canterbury.
As the
Cant
had scanned it, the readout showed a fluctuation, the gray-black false color gradually developing a warm border. It was a small temperature climb, less than two degrees. Holden was amazed Becca had even spotted it. He reminded himself to give her a glowing review the next time she was up for promotion.

     
    “Where did that come from?” Holden asked.
    “No idea. It’s just a spot faintly warmer than the background,” Becca said. “I’d say it was a cloud of gas, because we get no radar return from it, but there aren’t supposed to be any gas clouds out here. I mean, where would it come from?”
    “Jim, any chance the
Scopuli
killed the ship that killed it? Could it be a vapor cloud from a destroyed ship?” McDowell asked.
    “I don’t think so, sir. The
Scopuli
is totally unarmed. The hole in her side came from breaching charges, not torpedo fire, so I don’t think they even fought back. It might be where the
Scopuli
vented, but… ”
    “Or maybe not. Come back to the barn, Jim. Do it now.”

     
    “Naomi, what slowly gets hotter that gives no radar or ladar return when you scan it? Wild-ass guess here,” Holden said.
    “Hmmmm… ,” Naomi said, giving herself time to think. “Anything that was absorbing the energy from the sensor package wouldn’t give a return. But it might get hotter when it shed the absorbed energy.”
    The infrared monitor on the sensor console next to Holden’s chair flared like the sun. Alex swore loudly over the general comm.
    “Are you seein’ that?” he said.
    Holden ignored him and opened a channel to McDowell.
    “Captain, we just got a massive IR spike,” Holden said.
    For long seconds, there was no reply. When McDowell came on the channel, his voice was tight. Holden had never heard the old man sound afraid before.
    “Jim, a ship just appeared in that warm spot. It’s radiating heat like a bastard,” McDowell said. “Where the hell did that thing come from?”
    Holden started to answer but then heard Becca’s voice coming faintly through the captain’s headset. “No idea, sir. But it’s smaller than its heat signature. Radar shows frigate-sized,” she said.
    “With what?” McDowell said. “Invisibility? Magical wormhole teleportation?”
    “Sir,” Holden said, “Naomi was speculating that the heat we picked up might have come from energy-absorbing materials. Stealth materials. Which means that ship was hiding on purpose. Which means its intentions are not good.”
    As if in