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“Next hand, you can deal uyen, and at first glance it made no sense at all Six UN destroyers had been ordered off the Ganyh burn on a course that seemed to lead essentially to nowhere Initial reports showed that after a decent period of wondering what the fk, a siuyen was up to so, and she didn’t have the first clue what it could be But Souther had sent it and thought she would see so

It took another hour to find it Holden’s Rocinante had departed Tycho Station on a gentle burn for the Jovian systeht plan with the OPA, but he hadn’t infor hi to kill hi ah-stakes round, which meant the pile of little bits of chocolate candy they were using for chips was almost five centieant Draper With me, please”

The cards all vanished The men looked at each other nervously as she walked back into her bedroom She closed the door behind them carefully It didn’t even click

“I aer,” she said “If I do this, the coe”

Cotyar and Bobbie exchanged looks

“I have soe,” Bobbie said

“I’ll brief thebetween the Guanshiyin and the Rocinante was still too long for conversation, but it was less than it took to get aso far froht-headed Cotyar stepped into the room and nodded once Avasarala opened her terave the transponder code for the Rocinante Less than a minute later, the connection came back refused She smiled to herself and opened a channel to ops

“This is Assistant Undersecretary Avasarala,” she said, as if there were anyone else on board who it htbeaht blue eyes and close-cut blond hair said “That coht now”

“Why the fk isn’t it available?”

“It’s not available, ma’am”

“Fine I didn’t want to do this on the radio, but I can broadcast if I have to”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” the boy said Avasarala took a long breath and let it out through her teeth

“Put the captain on,” she said

A e jumped The captain was a thin-faced man with the brown eyes of an Irish setter The set of his mouth and his bloodless lips told her that he kneas co, at least in outline For a moment, she just looked into the camera It was a trick she’d learned when she’d just started off Looking at the screen i into the tiny black pinpoint of the lens itself left theh-prioritytechnical difficulties with the communication array”

“Do you have a backup syste?”