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“We can,” A pained “But damn, I sure don’t want to”

“Fast mover!” Naomi yelled

“Holy shit,” Alex said “The OPA just fired a torpedo at us”

On Holden’s panel, a yellow dot separated fro

“Go evasive!” Holden said “Naomi, can you blind it?”

“No No laser,” she replied, her voice surprisingly cal”

“Fuckus all the way out here just to kill us? Coulda done that at Ceres, saved us the trip”

“Alex, here’s your course” Holden sent the pilot a vector that would take theh the heart of the Martian fleet As far as he knew, the Martians only wanted to arrest hiain?”

“No,” Naoone dark No active sensors, no drives”

“Kinda big and kinda close to be trying for sneaky,” Alex said without any real humor “Here cos to keep the high g fro bitch”

Before Holden could ask what he meant, Alex opened up the Roci’s throttle and the ship took off like a racehorse feeling the spurs The sudden acceleration slah to daze him for a second The ship buzzed him back to his senses when a missile proxi closer Helpless to do anything about it, Holden watched the orange dot thatRocinante He looked up at Nao back, as helpless as he was, all her best tricks taken ahen the coravity dropped suddenly “Got an idea,” Alex said over the coh several sharp ain The Rocinante had added a new alar Holden realized he’d never actually heard a collision alarm outside of drills When do spaceships run into each other?

He turned on the exterior caht they were broken, but then Alex took control of the the vast expanse of a Martian cruiser’s skin The target lock buzzer cut out, thethem

“Put this Martian heavy between us and the h the ht hear if he spoke too loud

“How close are we to the Alex’s

“’Bout ten meters,” Alex said, pride in his voice “More or less”

“This is really going to piss the,” Amos said Then, almost meditatively, “I don’t even knohat a point defense cannon does at a range like this”

As if in answer, the cruiser hit the laser Then all of the other Martian ships did as well, adding a few dozen ravity came back like a boulder rolled onto Holden’s chest None of the Martian ships fired, but the original uiding it in, now that the Behemoth seemed to be out of action Holden h to finally see real Martian-OPA cooperation It wasn’t as gratifying as he’d hoped