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“Been watching the news a lot?” Sa heads on the wall ht?”

“Yeah,” Alex said “Pretty much”

“But it’s only Gany I haven’t quite figured out yet”

“Naoht now,” Sa Holden felt his face go still and tried to fight against it, forcing himself to smile

“Oh Cool”

“She won’t talk about it, but if I find out you did so this on your dick,” she said, holding up a torque wrench Alex laughed nervously for a second, then trailed off and just looked uncomfortable

“I consider myself fairly warned,” Holden said “How is she?”

“Quiet,” Saet fabrication to work on cutting this bulkhead patch See you boys around”

“Bye, Sa her ride the ladder-lift until the pressure door closed behind her “I’ plual”

“You and Amos just trade this crush back and forth?” Holden said “Or should I be worried about you two doing pistols at dawn over her?”

“My love is a pure love,” Alex said with a grin “I wouldn’t sully it by actually, you know, doin’ anything about it”

“The kind poets write about, then”

“So,” Alex said, leaning against a wall and looking at his nails “Let’s talk about the XO situation”

“Let’s not”

“Oh, let’s do,” Alex said, then took a step forward and crossed his arround “I’ve been flyin’ this boat solo for over a year now That only works because Naomi is a brilliant ops officer and takes up a whole lotta slack If we lose her, we don’t fly And that’s a fact”

Holden dropped the hand terainst the reactor shielding

“I know I know I never thought she’d actually do this”

“Leave,” Alex said

“Yeah”

“We’ve never talked about pay,” Alex said “We don’t get salaries”