Page 225 (1/2)

It was the first time in Holden’s memory that Amos had called him by his first na out his thigh ar scared enough”

A his favorite auto-shotgun out of his locker

“No shit?”

“Yeah He made a joke and I’m scared out of my skull, so I yelled at him and threatened to relieve him”

“Can you do that?” Amos asked “He’s kind of our only pilot”

“No, Amos No, I can’t kick Alex off the ship any more than I can kick you or Naomi off the ship We’re not even a skeleton crew We’re whatever you have when you don’t have a skeleton”

“Worried about Naoht, but his words hit like hao out of hiain for a minute

“No,” he said “I mean, yes, of course I aht now”

Holden picked up his assault rifle and looked at it, then put it back in his locker and took out a heavy recoilless pistol instead The self-contained rockets that were its a all over the place if he fired it in zero g

“I watched you die,” he said, not looking at Amos

“Huh?”

“I watched you die When that kidnap team, whoever the hell they were, took us I saw one of them shoot you in the back of the head, and I saw you drop face-first on the floor There was blood everywhere”

“Yeah, but I—”

“I knoas a nonlethal round I know they wanted us alive I know the blood was your broken nose when your head slammed into the floor I know all of that now At the time, what I kneas that you’d just been shot in the head and killed”

Aun and racked a round but, other than that, didn’t ile,” Holden said, waving around at Amos and the ship “This little faets lost”

Aht?”