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“Pinché rock holed my foot,” Aaman said “Hurts”

Josie answered “Gratia sa didn’t get your cock, coyo”

“Not co,” Aaman said “No complaints”

The scaffold rockets exhausted theravity dropped away Below thehts now Not even fires burning Filip turned his gaze to the bright s on thehts wasn’t a star, but the exhaust plu to collect its ard crew Except Chuchu Except Andrew Filip wondered why he didn’t feel bad about the loss of two people under his command His first command His proof that he could handle a real h clean

He didn’t h that passed his lips Miral chuckled

“No shit, Filipito,” the older man said And then, a moment later, “Feliz cumpleaños, sabez?”

Filip Inaros lifted his hands in thanks It was his fifteenth birthday

Chapter One: Holden

A year after the Callisto attacks, almost three years after he and his crew had headed out for Ilus, and about six days after they’d gotten back, James Holden floated next to his ship and watched a deht taut cables anchored the Rocinante to the walls of her berth Only one of many in the Tycho Station repair dock, and the repair section was only one of many in the massive construction sphere Around them in the kilometer-wide volu on, but Holden only had eyes for his ship

The e section of the outer hull Beneath lay the skeleton of the ship, sturdy ribs surrounded by a tangled confusion of cabling and conduit, and under that, the second skin of the inner hull

“Yeah,” Fred Johnson said, floating next to him, “you kind of fucked her up”

Fred’s words, flattened and distorted by the cout That Fred, the nominal leader of the Outer Planets Alliance and one of the threea personal interest in his ship’s condition should have been reassuring Instead, Holden felt like he had a father checking over his ho up too badly

“Interior mount’s bent,” a third voice said over the coineer at Tycho after the death of Sa the Slow Zone Incident Sakai was h the mech’s suite of cameras and x-ray scanners

“How did you do that?” Fred pointed at the rail-gun housing along the ship’s keel The barrel of the gun ran nearly the entire length of the ship, and the support struts that attached it to the fra in places

“So,” Holden said, “have I ever told you the one about the tiher planetary orbit using our rail gun as a reaction drive?”