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“Well,” Avasarala said, then opened the faceplate on her helh She opened her purse and pulled a pistachio out of it She cracked it and thoughtfully ate thechute A tiny bit of the skin floated away in the ravity “No, actually, it should be fine This is all posturing As long as they keep co dicks, no one will shoot”

“But we can’t just wait here,” Prax said, shaking his head A his helet to his feet He drifted away fros “If Mei is down there, we have to go They’re talking about glassing the et there before they do it”

There was a high violin-string whine at the back of Prax’s voice The tension was getting to hi to all of the to shoorst and first Holden shot a look at A been pushed away by thethe base We have to go down there!” Prax continued, the panic in his voice starting to shine through

“We’re not doing anything,” Holden said “Not until we have a better idea how this is going to shake out”

“We ca?” Prax demanded

“Doc, we don’t want to be the ones to move first,” A hied it off without turning around, then shoved off his couch toward Avasarala

“Givefor her comm panel “I can—”

Holden launched hiht and hurling them both across the deck and into the bulkhead The thick layer of anti-spalling padding absorbed their io out of Prax when his hip slammed into the smallerfetal ball

Holden kicked on his boot rabbed Prax and pushed him across the compartment to Amos “Take him below, stuff hiineering and get us ready for a fight”

A Prax “Okay” A moment later the two of them disappeared down the deck hatch

Holden looked around the roonoring thehter to take precedence over everything else had alain And while Holden intellectually understood thethem all every tiht then It left hi to snap at someone

“Where the hell is Bobbie?” he said to no one in particular He hadn’t seen her since they had put in to orbit around Io

“Just saw her in the machine shop,” Aun I think she’s doing all the guns and armor”

“That’s—” Holden started, ready to yell about so “That’s actually really helpful Tell her to button up her suit and turn her radio on Thingssouth in a hurry here”

He took a few seconds to breathe and calm himself down, then returned to the combat operations station

“You okay?” Nao the button to make sure only she heard his reply “No, I’m actually scared to death”