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“Yeah”

Fred stood up His expression was hard, but not without coht, Holden But there’sweaponized, or even just set loose again —”

“That doesn’tOf course thatWe can’t…” He paused, sed “We can’t go after her I’ve got one ship, they’ve got half a dozen Everything in ines and burn like hell after her, but it won’t help”

Fred was silent The distant sound of Sakai’s laughter filtered through fronored it Holden looked at his hands He felt like he was confessing so Maybe he was

“Whatever’s going on here?” Holden said “Whatever she’s involved with, I can’t fix it by putting oninto battle The only way I can see to do her any good at all is to do e had planned Get you to Luna If you can use Dawes and Sakai and Avasarala to open some kind of coaining chip We can trade her for so Or Sakai Or so”

“That’s the conclusion you’ve reached?”

“It is,” Holden said, the words tasting like ashes

“You’ve grown up some since the first time we met,” Fred said Holden heard the syret my ‘reckless’ comment”

“I’ Have you ever done this? Loved soer?”

Fred put a hand on Holden’s shoulder For all the frailty that age and trouble had put in the older rieved for more people than you’ve met You can’t trust your heart on this You have to do what you know, not what you feel”

“Because if I do what I feel…” Holden said, thinking that the end of the sentence was soet us all killed Fred surprised him

“Then we lose her”

“Course set,” Chava Loh said from the cockpit “On your order, sir”

Holden tried to lean back into his crash couch, but without thrust gravity to give hi of the neck His heart was racing, adrenaline ticking coolly through his veins

It wasn’t supposed to be like this The command deck felt too full Sun-yi, serious and relaxed, was at weapons Maura had co them because that hat she did more than from any actual need It should have been Alex’s voice It should have been him and Naomi in the couches