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“Done,” Naomi said, and made the call

“Get everyone buttoned up in their suits, Ao below I hope we don’t start shooting, but what I hope will happen and what actually happens are aler,” A around the deck onthe seals on everyone’s helmets

“Test test test,” Holden said over the crew radio One by one everyone on the ship responded with the affirrade than his decided which way things were going to go, there wasn’t much else he could do

“Wait,” Avasarala said, then hit a button on her console, and an outside channel started playing on their suit radios

“—launch iets on Mars We have a battery of ical weapon ready to fire You have one hour to leave Io orbit or ill launch iets on Mars We have a—”

Avasarala turned the channel off again

“It seems a third party has joined the circle jerk,” Auyen He’s outnumbered, so he’s ordered his Mao cronies on the surface to make the threat to back us off He’ll—Oh, shit”

She hit her panel again and a new voice spoke over the radio This one was a woman’s voice with a cultured Martian accent

“Io, this is Adressional Republic Navy You fire anything bigger than a bottle rocket and ill glass the whole fking moon Do you read me?”

Amos leaned over to Prax “Now, you see, all this is theuns”

Prax nodded “Got it”

“This,” Holden said, listening to the barely restrained fury in the Martian adet seriously out of hand”

“This is Ad,” a new voice said “Adally, at the behest of a civilian UN official with no military authority I hereby order all ships under Admiral Souther’s command to immediately stand down I further order that the captain of Souther’s flagship place the admiral under arrest for treason and—”

“Oh, do shut up,” Souther replied over the saiical weapon project on Io A project which Aduyen is directly responsible for in contravention of UN directives—”

Avasarala cut the link

“Oh, this ain’t good,” Alex said