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“Do you needhialley, where she’d been describing for hie the Munroe-class light destroyer

No! he wanted to yell I heard you I’irlfriend that I’to look down your dress!

But then he’d look up at her again, and his hindbrain would start bouncing back and forth between attraction and fear, and his language centers would start anized list of bullet points she’d forwarded to his hand terminal “I think this information is very … informative”

He saw the smirk widen out of the corner of his eye and focusedto go catch some rack tiranted,” Holden said “Of course Go Rack”

She pushed herself to her feet without touching the arravity She had tooff He pretended to ignore it, and she left the galley

“She’s soalley and collapsing into the recently vacated chair Holden looked up at her and saw a different kind of sh hi lizards at the back of his head But she wasn’t a giant Polynesian woman, so he could vent his frustration on her

“Yeah, she’s a peach,” he said “But we’re still going to die”

“What?”

“When those destroyers catch us, which they will, we are going to die The only reason they aren’t raining torpedoes down on us already is because they know our PDC network can take out anything fired at this range”

Avasarala leaned back in her chair with a heavy sigh, and the senuine smile “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could find an old woman a cup of tea, could you?”

Holden shook his head “I’h, if you’d like a cup”

“I’ar”

“How about,” Holden said, pulling her a cup, “lots of sugar, lots of a powder that’s called ‘whitener’”

“Sounds like piss I’ll take it”

Holden sat down and pushed the sweetened and “whitened” cup of coffee across to her She took it and gri ss

“Explain,” she said after another drink, “everything you just said”

“Those destroyers are going to kill us,” Holden repeated “The sergeant says you refuse to believe that UN ships will fire on you, but I agree with her That’s naive”

“Okay, but what’s a ‘PDC network’?”