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“No, she won’t,” Holden agreed “Pretty sure you can still kick this guy’s ass, though”

“Not in doubt”

“Then gear up, Marine You’re going outside”

Bobbie wasn’t really much of a ship ht bead with a welding torch Over her last couple decades ofthe Rocinante her home she’d spent a fair amount of time outside the ship Sometimes with Amos, who called her Babs for a reason only he understood, and who often assu even when she didn’t Sometimes with Clarissa, who occasionally slipped and called her Roberta, and who explained every procedure in the exhaustive detail you’d use with so

And, almost without her know

ing it, they’d become her family She still had brothers and nieces and nephews back on Mars related to her by blood, but she rarely spoke to thee fired across space on the end of a laser Instead, she had A brother who’d let her fuck up on a repair job and just laugh at her, but then fix it later and neverknow-it-all little sister rapped herself in rules and procedure lists and forile center

And then Holden and Naomi, who couldn’t help but become the parents of the ship Alex, the best friend she’d ever had, and the person she’d realized recently she had every intention of growing old with, in spite of never having seen hiroup of people to fall in love with, to adopt as your own kin and tribe, but there it was, and she wasn’t ever going back

And now Payne Houston was threatening them

“You fucked up, man,” she said to herself as she drifted to a stop over the reactor-bay eency-access panel “You just fucked all the way up”

“Repeat?” Alex said quietly in her ear Bobbie realized she’d left the channel open and the volume low as she’d made the climb down from the crew airlock to the rear of the ship

“Nothing,” she said, turning the volume back up “I’m in position”

“Patching you back into the master channel,” Alex replied, and then suddenly there were half a dozen voices breathing in her ear

“Sound off,” Holden said

“We got through the ered Breaching charge is ready Just call it” Amos’ voice, cal football scores

“I’ve got the Roci in diagnosticfro console,” Naomi’s voice said “But that can’t last Pretty soon he can just start breaking things the old-fashioned way”