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Holden couldn’t help s a Martian naval officer’s ju around for her long and thin Belter fra and curly black hair was pulled into an unruly tail behind her head Her features were a striking mix of Asian, South A pot of the Belt He glanced at his brown-haired Montana fareneric by coets you to say the word ‘romantic,’” he said “But I’ the solar system from a horrific alien menace Now this?”

Holden had only known one cop well, and hi the massive and unpleasant series of clusterfucks that noent under the shorthand “the Eros incident,” Holden had tearay, broken man called Miller By the time they’d met, Miller had already walked away fro persons case

They’d never precisely been friends, but they’dwiped out by a corporation’s self-induced sociopathy and a recovered alien weapon that everyone in human history had mistaken for a moon of Saturn By that standard, at least, the partnership had been a success

Holden had been a naval officer for six years He’d seen people die, but only froe of a radar screen On Eros, he’d seen thousands of people die, up close and in horrific ways He’d killed a couple of them himself The radiation dose he’d received there meant he had to take constantin his tissues He’d still gotten off lighter than Miller

Because of Miller, the alien infection had landed on Venus instead of Earth But that hadn’t killed it Whatever the alien’s hijacked, confused progra on under that planet’s thick cloud cover, and no one had so far been able to offer any scientific conclusionshumanity had cost the old, tired Belter detective his life

Saving humanity had turned Holden into an e down pirates Even on the bad days, he had to think he’d gotten the better end of that deal

“Thirty seconds to intercept,” Alex said

Holden pulled his“You all strapped in down there, Airl all shot up”

“No one’s shooting anyone today,” Holden said after he shut the comm link off Naoive me comms I want to call our friends out there”

A second later, the cohtbeareen When it did, he said, “Undesignated light freighter, this is Captain Jaate Rocinante Please respond”

His headset was silent except for the faint static of background radiation

“Look, guys, let’s not play gao, you attacked the food freighter Soines, and stole six thousand kilos of protein and all of their air Which is pretty much all I need to know about you”

More staticky silence