Cibola Burn
Chapters - James S. A. Corey
Prologue: Bobbie Draper
Bobbie rides the tube on Mars, confronting a fake veteran panhandling with a stolen Ganymede story, and reflects on how Mars is emptying out as people chase the new worlds beyond the gates. At a family dinner, her brother and nephew argue about Mars's future versus the frontier colonies, until a breaking news alert interrupts with reports of tragedy on New Terra.
POV: Bobbie Draper
Chapter 1: Basia
Basia, a former Ganymede refugee haunted by the loss of his son Katoa, loads homemade barrel bombs onto a cart and drives to the colony's landing pad on Ilus despite his wife Lucia's pleas. He and fellow conspirators Coop and Scotty plant the explosives under the pad, but when Pete arrives warning that the RCE heavy shuttle is already descending, Basia frantically tries to disarm the bombs, only managing to remove one blasting cap before detonating the rest, sending the damaged shuttle screaming across the sky trailing fire.
POV: Basia Merton·On page: Lucia Merton, Coop, Scotty, Pete·Mentioned: Felcia Merton, Jacek Merton
Chapter 2: Elvi
Elvi, an exobiologist on the RCE heavy shuttle, survives the crash-landing on a dry lake bed after the landing pad explosion damages the craft, killing Governor Trying and scientist Eric Vanderwert among others. The Belter colonists, led by Doctor Lucia, provide emergency medical care to the survivors despite being the suspected saboteurs. Fayez, Elvi's colleague, delivers the grim news of the casualties and the uncertain chain of command, setting the stage for the conflict to come.
POV: Elvi Okoye·On page: Fayez Sarkis, Adolphus Murtry, Lucia Merton, Eric Vanderwert, Trying
Chapter 3: Havelock
Aboard the Edward Israel in orbit, security officer Havelock manages routine discipline while Murtry, the head of security, holds a team briefing to plan RCE's response to the shuttle bombing that killed Governor Trying and security officer Trajan. Murtry refuses to evacuate, orders Reeve to the surface with a security detail, and instructs Wei to monitor the Belter ship Barbapiccola while keeping the comm laser upgrade offline. In a private conversation, Murtry tells Havelock that the home office denied his request for latitude and that a mediator is being sent, while asking Havelock to keep an eye on any Belter crew members whose loyalties might be divided.
POV: Dimitri Havelock·On page: Adolphus Murtry, Chandra Wei, Hobart Reeve·Mentioned: James Holden
Section: Interlude: The Investigator
The protomolecule construct reaches out one hundred and thirteen times a second, seeking a signal that will never come. It is not conscious, though parts of it are - structures that were once separate organisms, repurposed and encysted within its vast, improvised architecture. The conscious fragments dream and suffer endlessly: one relives her flesh dissolving, begging for death; others hold flickering memories of vanished lives, multiplication tables, images of violence and beauty. The construct harvests energy from passing subatomic particles and reaches out with a reflex it cannot stop.
From among its scars, it builds the investigator - a tool assembled from the most intact template, a pattern that once belonged to a man who found missing things. Something answers the investigator's reaching, something aboriginal and foreign, and so it builds and rebuilds him, making the construct more complex with each iteration. Yet no final connection is made. The insectile twitch will continue forever, the investigator will search forever, and the construct will reach out endlessly into an uncaring void. Fragments of old poetry surface unbidden through the mechanism: 'Full fathom five thy father lies. Of his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes.'
POV: Joe Miller·On page: Joe Miller
Chapter 4: Holden
While escorting OPA freighters through the ring gates, Holden is summoned by Fred Johnson to Medina Station, where he learns that Avasarala and Fred want him to serve as a joint UN/OPA mediator on New Terra (Ilus) after colonists destroyed an RCE shuttle and killed the provisional governor. Holden is reluctant, especially since the Miller ghost - an artifact of protomolecule technology embedded in the Rocinante since Ganymede - is eager for him to go through the gates. After discussing it with his crew, Holden agrees to take the job, motivated by the chance to help set the template for governing a thousand new worlds.
POV: James Holden·On page: Joe Miller, Alex Kamal, Amos Burton, Naomi Nagata, Fred Johnson·Mentioned: Chrisjen Avasarala
Chapter 5: Basia
Basia attends a secret meeting of the colonial resistance led by Coop, where they discuss sabotaging RCE's communications equipment and blocking the corporation's ability to profit from the planet. Coop privately warns Basia to stop expressing doubts, reminding him that everyone knows who detonated the bombs. Back home, Basia and Lucia argue over their daughter Felcia's desire to leave Ilus for university, with Basia refusing to let any more of his children leave, his trauma over losing Katoa on Ganymede driving his determination to keep the family together on the colony.
POV: Basia Merton·On page: Lucia Merton, Carol Chiwewe, Jacek Merton, Coop, Pete, Ibrahim, Cate, Loris, Zadie·Mentioned: Felcia Merton, James Holden
Chapter 6: Elvi
Elvi collects a mimic lizard specimen in the field and attends a contentious community meeting in First Landing, where she attempts to educate the colonists about cross-contamination risks to the alien biosphere but is shouted down by hostile locals, including Lucia's husband Basia. Walking home humiliated in the dark, she meets Felcia, who walks her home and asks what it is like attending a real university, revealing the girl's longing to leave the colony for education.
POV: Elvi Okoye·On page: Fayez Sarkis, Felcia Merton, Carol Chiwewe, Basia Merton, Lucia Merton, Hobart Reeve, Sudyam
Chapter 7: Holden
The Rocinante passes through the ring gate into the Ilus system and begins a grueling seventy-three-day burn to the planet, during which Holden is bombarded with competing demands from the Barbapiccola's captain wanting his lithium released and the Edward Israel's captain wanting the Belter ship locked down. Naomi, unable to accompany Holden to the surface due to her Belter physiology, warns him that both sides are using him as a scapegoat. Holden confronts Miller in the reactor room and learns that the protomolecule placed a local node inside the Rocinante during the Ganymede incident, and Miller cryptically warns that something killed the civilisation that built the ring gates.
POV: James Holden·On page: Naomi Nagata, Alex Kamal, Amos Burton, Joe Miller, Kasim Andrada, Marwick·Mentioned: Monica Stuart, Fred Johnson, Chrisjen Avasarala
Chapter 8: Elvi
Elvi spends time with Felcia and Fayez during a sandstorm, discussing the alien biosphere and Fayez's frustration that the planet's geology appears entirely manufactured, before Felcia blurts out a request for a letter of recommendation for university. Later that night, Elvi spots a light moving in the alien ruins and investigates, discovering hidden crates of high explosives - evidence of the colonists' weapons cache - and reports her find to security officer Reeve, who takes the information seriously and sends her to shelter.
POV: Elvi Okoye·On page: Felcia Merton, Fayez Sarkis·Mentioned: Jacek Merton
Chapter 9: Basia
Coop pulls Basia from his night shift at the mine, revealing that an RCE scientist found the explosives cache in the ruins and that Reeve's security team is lying in wait there. Instead of simply destroying the evidence, Coop arms the group with guns and leads an ambush on the five RCE security officers, murdering all of them in a brutal firefight where Basia witnesses the killings in a dissociative fugue. Basia's own gun was never properly chambered and could not have fired, but Coop credits him with a kill, and the group buries the bodies and washes the scene with corrosives to destroy evidence.
POV: Basia Merton·Mentioned: Lucia Merton, James Holden, Jacek Merton
Chapter 10: Havelock
Havelock talks down a traumatised Cassie, the last RCE security officer on the ground, who is sheltering with witness Elvi after Reeve and the rest of the ground team disappeared. Murtry organises a drop with his remaining security forces in riot gear, giving them authorisation for preemptive lethal response, and privately instructs Havelock to stay aboard and run the ship, weaponise the remaining light shuttle into a remote-detonated bomb, and prepare for potential threats from the Rocinante. Havelock receives a message from RCE headquarters asking for de-escalation strategies, noting bitterly that the signal's five-hour travel time makes it useless.
POV: Dimitri Havelock·On page: Adolphus Murtry, Chandra Wei, Cassie·Mentioned: Elvi Okoye, James Holden
Chapter 11: Holden
Holden and Amos land on Ilus and walk into First Landing to find a confrontation between colonists and RCE security, with Murtry having just declared martial law. Within minutes of meeting Holden, Murtry shoots Coop dead in front of the crowd after the Belter makes what Murtry characterises as a direct threat, undermining Holden's authority as mediator before he can even begin. In a tense confrontation at the bar afterwards, Amos recognises Murtry as a killer who enjoyed the shooting, and the two nearly draw on each other before Murtry backs down, leaving Holden to admit they are in over their heads.
POV: James Holden·On page: Alex Kamal, Amos Burton, Adolphus Murtry, Carol Chiwewe·Mentioned: Naomi Nagata
Section: Interlude: The Investigator
The protomolecule construct continues its ceaseless reaching, one hundred and thirteen times a second. It is not a plan or a desire but a selective pressure against chaos, forming the investigator and leaning into new possibilities as the environment changes. The conscious minds trapped within it interpret this variously - as a hand reaching through graveyard soil, as finding a door where none existed, as a drowning woman's breath of air.
Patterns begin to match as the construct reorients, cascading implicit information that the aware fragments experience as a lotus opening forever or a fractal shout made of other shouts. It touches something and a part of it feels hope, but the reply does not come and it is not over. It flows into comfortable places, old structures, and finds responses that feed back into its impulses - all automatic, empty, and dead. Something deep within it watches with a wariness it does not experience. The investigator senses danger in the new territory, thinking in terms that echo the template's instincts: 'Doors and corners. This could get ugly, kid.'
POV: Joe Miller·On page: Joe Miller
Chapter 12: Basia
Basia watches the Rocinante arrive and briefly hopes Holden can save the situation, then witnesses Murtry's security forces land and declare martial law, followed by Murtry's execution of Coop. He sends his son Jacek home and meets with Cate's resistance cell, where members demand revenge, but Basia argues that they should let Holden work as mediator since he witnessed Murtry's murder and currently sees the colonists as victims. Ibrahim grudgingly agrees to give Basia a chance, and on his way home Basia discovers that Felcia is planning to leave on the next shuttle for university, which he refuses to allow.
POV: Basia Merton·On page: Lucia Merton, James Holden, Adolphus Murtry, Jacek Merton, Felcia Merton, Carol Chiwewe, Coop, Scotty, Pete, Ibrahim, Cate
Chapter 13: Elvi
Elvi is debriefed by Murtry after spending days sheltering in the security office following Reeve's disappearance, and Murtry asks her to help Holden understand how bad the situation is for RCE. She meets Holden in the commissary and is struck by his presence and celebrity, briefing him alongside Fayez on the biological dangers of the uncontained alien biosphere, including the risk that local organisms will eventually learn to exploit human biology. After the meeting, Fayez warns Elvi not to fall in love with Holden, which she denies while still tingling from his handshake.
POV: Elvi Okoye·On page: Adolphus Murtry, James Holden, Amos Burton, Fayez Sarkis, Chandra Wei·Mentioned: Felcia Merton, Lucia Merton, Carol Chiwewe
Chapter 14: Holden
Holden chairs the first colonial arbitration meeting between Carol Chiwewe and Murtry, negotiating a compromise where mining operations continue with RCE controlling access to explosives and the Barbapiccola's shuttle resumes transporting ore. After a town hall meeting, he walks out alone and encounters Miller's ghost, who warns that the entire planet is a crime scene left by a vanished civilisation and something killed them, then meets Basia, who reveals he is Katoa's father and insists the colonists will never leave. As he returns to town, Naomi calls to report massive energy spikes and movement detected on the planet's surface.
POV: James Holden·On page: Adolphus Murtry, Carol Chiwewe, Amos Burton, Joe Miller, Basia Merton, Naomi Nagata·Mentioned: Fred Johnson, Chrisjen Avasarala
Chapter 15: Havelock
Havelock manages the Edward Israel while Murtry is on the surface, dealing with a restless crew of scientists stuck in orbit and increasingly fraying tempers. Following Murtry's orders, he weaponises the remaining light shuttle into a remote-detonated bomb and begins training a militia of twelve engineers in small-group null-g combat tactics using paint guns. Captain Marwick pointedly warns Havelock over dinner that Murtry's aggressive actions have consequences beyond the planet and that they will need to pass back through OPA-controlled space, but Havelock dismisses the concern and continues building the militia.
POV: Dimitri Havelock·On page: Adolphus Murtry, Marwick·Mentioned: James Holden, Fred Johnson
Chapter 16: Elvi
Holden recruits Elvi and Fayez to investigate a massive energy spike and movement detected south of First Landing, and they drive out with Wei to find a huge, insectoid alien machine - similar to ones Holden saw on the Ring Station - that has awakened and is consuming local organisms to fuel itself. Wei kills the creature with automatic weapons fire despite Holden's panicked objections, and they burn the corpse overnight. During the long night watch, Elvi sits with Holden and they discuss the alien civilisation's strategies and its mysterious destruction, sharing an intimate conversation that ends in embarrassment when Elvi accidentally reveals her attraction to him.
POV: Elvi Okoye·On page: James Holden, Fayez Sarkis, Chandra Wei
Chapter 17: Basia
Basia attends a meeting at Cate's house where she has taken over from Coop and is planning a coordinated attack to kill all RCE security personnel, Holden, and Amos simultaneously, framing potential colonist casualties as useful media tools. Basia breaks with the group, declaring their plan evil and threatening Ibrahim when challenged, then walks out. On his way home, Lucia tells him that Felcia is leaving for the Barbapiccola tonight; Basia runs to the landing site but instead of stopping her, tearfully says goodbye and tells her to go become a doctor, then turns back to find Holden to warn him about the planned attack.
POV: Basia Merton·On page: Lucia Merton, Felcia Merton, James Holden, Amos Burton·Mentioned: Adolphus Murtry