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Another tap and the central sphere took up the entire screen “We’re calling it a station pretty much only because it sits at the center of the slow zone, and we’rethe entirely unfounded assuates would be located there The station has no visible breaks in its surface Nothing that looks like an airlock, or an antenna, or a sensor array, or anything Just that big silvery blue glowing ball”

Holden turned off the monitor and both of the camera operators swiveled to put hi factor of the slow zone, and the one that gives it its name, is the absolute speed limit of six hundred meters per second Any object above the quantu faster than that is locked down by what seeed off to join the garbage circling the central station At a guess, this is so Station and the gates theht and radar still work norer particles like alpha and beta radiation does not exist inside the slow zone At least outside the ship, that is Whatever controls the speeds here only seems concerned by the exterior of the objects, not the interior We’ve done radiation and object speed tests inside the ship, and so far everything works as norrabbed by the field and is nowThe lack of alpha and beta radiation leads me to believe that there’s a thin cloud of loose electrons and heliu”

“Can you tell us what your plan is now?” Monica said from off camera Cohen pointed his mic at her, then back at Holden

“Our plan now is to re Station’s attention, and keep studying the slow zone using what instruments we have We can’t leave until we repair the comm array and let everyone outside know that we aren’t psychoticfor ourselves”

“Great!” Monica said, giving hi shots to cut in later They shot the instru in her ops station crash couch She s after the burn?” Holden asked, Clip’s blood-pinked eye still drawing his attention

Cohen touched his side and grimaced “Got a rib that I think just slid back into place thisave me a little more respect for the navy”

Holden pushed off the bulkhead and drifted over to Nao of the navy, how’s that co ures out a way to lob a slow- torpedo in here after us”

She blew out an exasperated breath at hi on her hair like she did when she was lost in a co control? Every tiot coetting in”

“And the weapons?”

“They keep on powering up, but they never fire”

“So there has to be some connection”

“Yes,” Naomi said, and waited Holden felt a self-conscious disco you didn’t know”