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Prax stopped erator He turned and looked at them with the careful movements of someone who feared he’d be asked to leave if anyone noticed him Holden moved over to him and put an arm around his shoulder “Our friend Prax here can’t be the only guy who needs to hire a ship like this, right?”
“We’re faster andup,” Alex said with a nod
“And e find Mei, it will be as high profile as you could hope for,” Holden said “What better advertising could we get than that?”
“Ad faets us jobs, sure”
“We’rethrough space dead,” Naomi said
“That’s always a possibility,” Holden admitted “But, e? If we find we can’t iant sack of o our separate ways We have an escape plan”
“Yeah,” Amos said “Fuck yeah Let’s do this Hoe start?”
“Well,” Holden said “That’s another new thing I think we have to vote No one of us owns the ship, so I think we vote on important stuff like this from now on”
A ourselves into a coht, they all raised their hands Even Prax started to, realized he was doing it, and then put it back down
“I’ll get us an attorney on Ceres and start the paperwork,” Holden said “But that leads to so else A coistered captain We’ll need to vote for whoever holds that title”
A break Raise your hand if Holden isn’t the captain”
No hands went up
“See?” A uncomfortable happened in his throat and behind his sternuuy”
Naomi nodded and smiled at Holden, which only ineer,” she said “There isn’t a program on this ship I haven’t tweaked or rewritten, and I could probably take her apart and put her back together by myself at this point But I can’t bluff at cards And I’ to be the one that stares down the joint navies of the inner planets and says, ‘Back the hell off’”
“Roger that,” Alex said “And I just want to fly et to do that, I’m happy”
Holden started to speak, but to his surprise and embarrassment, the minute his mouth opened, his eyes teared up Arease monkey,” he said “I push tools And I mostly wait for Naoot no desire to run anything bigger than that machine shop You’re the talker I’ve seen you face down Fred Johnson, UN naval captains, OPA cowboys, and drugged-up space pirates You talk out your ass better thantheir mouth and sober”