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“Sorry,” Holden said quietly to Naoreed not to do that anymore But I didn’t have time to—”

“No,” Naomi said, her voice sad “That bastard deserved to die And I know you’ll feel like shit about it later That’s good enough for me”

The panel opened, and a simple button lay on the other side It wasn’t even red, just a plain industrial white “This is what blows the ship?”

“No ti fail-safe If someone opens this panel and presses this button, it’s because the ship is lost They don’t want it on a ti proble, and she was trying to get an answer out before he could say it “We can solve this”

“We can’t,” Holden said, waiting to feel the sorrow but instead feeling a sort of quiet peace “There are a couple hundred very angry zoht now We won’t come up with a solution that doesn’t leave me stranded in here anyway”

A hand squeezed his shoulder He looked up, and Larson said, “I’ll press it”

“No, you don’t have to—”

Larson held out his arm The sleeve of his environment suit had a tiny tear where the elevator doors had closed on it Around the tear was a paluess But I watched the Eros feeds like everyone else,” Larson said “You can’t risk taking ht be …” He paused and pointed back toward the elevator with his head “Might be one of those”

Holden took Larson’s hand in his The thick gloves“I’m very sorry”

“Hey, you tried,” Larson said with a sad smile “At least noon’t die of thirst in a suit locker”

“Admiral Souther will know about this,” Holden said “I’ll make sure everyone knows”

“Seriously,” Larson said, floating next to the button that would turn the Agatha King into a small star for a few seconds He pulled off his hel breath “There’s another airlock three decks up If they aren’t in the elevator shaft yet, you can o away now”

Holden had to strip off his suit in the King’s airlock It was covered in the goo, and he couldn’t risk taking it onto the Razorback He absorbed a few rads while he stole another UN vac suit from one of the lockers and put it on instead It looked exactly like the one Larson earing As soon as he was back on the Razorback, he sent the remote command codes to Souther’s ship He was nearly back to the Rocinante when the King vanished in a ball of white fire

Chapter Fifty: Bobbie