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“Hey, uh, Cap?” A the top onto his ther?”

“What, A?”

“Don’t we vote on shit like this now?”

“Don’t pout,” Naomi said She was stretched out on a crash couch next to the main operations panel on the ops deck Holden was seated across the room from her at the comm panel He’d just sent out Avasarala’s data file to her two UN adeneral broadcast But they’d debated the issue for the crew, and she’d won the vote The whole voting thing had seeht it up After losing his first vote, not so much They’d all be dead in two days, so at least it probably wouldn’t happen again

“If we get killed, and Avasarala’s pet ad with the data we just sent, this was all for nothing”

“You think they’ll bury it?” Naomi said

“I don’t know, and that’s the problem I don’t knohat they’ll do Wethe ship”

“So send it to someone else too,” Naomi said “Soet the word out if the UN guys turn out to be working for the wrong team”

“That’s not a bad idea”

“Fred, hed “Fred would see it as political capital He’d use it to bargain with It needs to be so it I’ll have to think about it”

Naos and sit on his lap facing hi any of this any easier”

Not all of us

“Naoalley, I guess I have souys there in ten htly on the nose “Okay We’ll be there”

When she disappeared froht down the crew ladder, Holden opened up the chief of the watch’s locker Inside were a set of very out-of-date codebooks, a azines of ballistic gel rounds He took out the gun, loaded it, and strapped the belt and holster around his waist

Next he went back to the cohtbeam transmission that would bounce fro public routers all the way It would be unlikely to send up any red flags He hit the video record button and said, “Hi, Mom Take a look at this Show it to the faht time to use it is, but when that tiuys, and I love you”

Before he could say anything else or think better of the whole thing, he hit the transmit key and turned the panel off

He called up the ladder-lift, because riding it would take longer than cli the ladder and he needed time to think out exactly how to play the next ten minutes When he reached the crew deck, he still didn’t have it all figured out, but he squared his shoulders and walked into the galley anyway

A on one side of the table, facing him Prax was in his usual perch on the counter Bobbie and Avasarala sat sideways on the other side of the table so that they could see hi between her and hiht be a probleun at his hip to make sure everyone saw it, then said, “We have about two days before eleh to overwhelm our defenses with a torpedo salvo and destroy this ship”