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“We planning to shoot anybody?” Bull asked

“Hopefully it won’t coentle upward slope brought thereat plain of steel and cera out at it was like seeing a landscape—this was too big to be so humans had made It was like a canyon or a mountain The meadow-filled caldera of some dead volcano The scale alone made it impossible to see her as a ship But she was The construction er than the house Bull had lived in as a boy, but they looked like football players on a distant field The long, thin line of the keel elevator stretched along the body of the dru at one end to ops at the other The secondary car, stored on the exterior, could hold a dozen people It looked like a grain of salt The soft curve was studded with turreted rail guns and the rough, angry extrusions of torpedo tubes

Once, she’d been the Nauvoo A generation ship headed to the stars carrying a load of devout Morineered ecosysteh Now she was the Beheest, baddest weapons platforer-class battleships would fit in her belly and not touch the walls She could accelerate netic rounds to a measurable fraction of c She could hold more nuclear torpedoes than the Outer Planets Alliance actually had Her coh steel if they gave it enough ti on an apart could have been ood, because she was a retrofitted piece of crap, and if they ever got in a real fight, they were boned Bull slid a glance at Ashford The captain’s chin was tilted high and his eyes were bright with pride Bull sucked his teeth

The last threads of weight let go as the platforantry matched to the stillness of the Behemoth One of the distant constructionstarted

“How long before we take her out?” Ashford asked

“Three days,” Fred said

“Engineering report said the ship’ll be ready in about ten,” Bull said “We planning to work on her while we’re flying?”

“That was the intention,” Fred said

“Because we could wait another few days here, do the work in dock, and burn a little harder going out, get the same arrival”

The silence was uncomfortable Bull had known it would be, but it had to be said

“The crew’s comfort and morale need asthe shapes of the words Bull had known hih to hear it The Belters don’t want a hard burn “Besides which, it’s easier to get the in-transit work done in lower g It’s all been min-maxed, Bull You ship out in three”