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Holden slid the used towel into its cycling chamber and pushed off toward the compartment hatch and up the crew ladder to the operations deck

Not that it was much of an ops deck The Somnambulist was nearly a hundred years old and definitely at the end of her life cycle If they hadn’t needed a throay ship for this mission, Fred’s people would probably have just scrapped the old girl out Her recent run-in with pirates had left her half dead to begin with But she’d spent the last twenty years of her life flying the Ganyistry as a regular visitor to the Jovian ht plausibly arrive with relief supplies Fred thought that with her regular arrivals at Ganyet waved past any customs or blockades without a look

That, it seemed, had been optimistic

Naomi was belted into one of the operations stations when Holden arrived She wore a green juh the naave him a smile, then waved hiroup of ships that are checking everyone out before they land”

“Daet a better look at the hulls and identifyingse frohter that was currently at the front of the line “And that looks like a boarding skiff”

“Well, good thing you haven’t groo at a lock of his hair “With that bush on your head and that awful beard, your ownthey haven’t recruited htness of tone “I’ll warn A”

Holden, Naomi, and Amos waited in the short locker-filled hallway just outside the inner airlock door for the boarding party to finish cycling the ’lock Naomi looked tall and stern in her freshly washed captain’s unifornetic boots Captain Estancia had skippered the Somnambulist for ten years before the pirate attack that took her life Holden thought Naoal replaceineer’s patch and a bored scowl Even in the ravity of their current orbit around Gany Holden did his best to ery expression

The airlock finished cycling, and the inner doors slid open Six marines in combat armor and a junior lieutenant in an environ boots The lieutenant quickly looked over the crew and checked the on his hand teruessed that this poor junior officer had been stuck with the shit duty of boarding ships all day and was probably in as big a hurry to be done as they were to leave

“Rowena Estancia, captain andSomnambulist”

He didn’t make it a question, but Naomi replied, “Yes, sir”

“I like the na up from his terminal

“Sir?”

“The ship name It’s unusual I swear, if I board one irl they left behind after thatpeople for general lack of creativity”