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“Because e Because this isn’t about Belters and inners and last century’s bullshit Because now it’s about all of us versus the assholes who popped out of their gate thirty years into our gaet to flip the table over”

Katria nodded and smiled “That’s actually not a terrible answer”

“Then let’s ease down,” Bobbie said, taking a half step back again to give Katria her space “Let’s find a place to sit and have a drink and chat about how all of us can work together to fuck these Laconian assholes up Yeah?”

“You keep giving onna pull it out of your head and hand it back to you,” Amos said, his tone so mellow and conversational that it took Bobbie aback at the seaze at the like he was at risk of a stroke Theover his jawbone

“A anyht

Arunts and theflesh, but she couldn’t turn around to see as happening because a long knife had appeared in Katria’s hand and the wohters, one of Saba’s people had said And like the Laconians, the Voltaire Collective folks also seeo from zero to a hundred at the flip of a switch

Bobbie didn’t have tiet herself stitched up froht-kicked the wom and dropped her to the deck with an explosive oof She took a second to kick the knife away, then started to turn when so heavy slammed into her cheek

Through the explosion of stars in her vision, she saw A one with his left arm while he slammed the second ain with his right A thirda sleeper hold, but couldn’t get his forearoons were flanking Bobbie, and one of the the crowbar he’d just cracked her cheekbone with In the sort of slow-ht, she saw skin and blood on the crowbar’s edge

Oh, she thought, that’s why my face feels wet

Croas pulling back for another swing, while his partner tried to get behind her Bobbie decided Croas the et inside the arc of his swing His arm went around her, and she felt the bar slao pins-and-needles nuh she couldn’t feel it, her arm did what she told it to Crowbar dropped his weapon and clutched his throat with both hands, gagging

His partner kicked her in the back, twice One kick hit her kidney, and the other her butt While the kidney shotblood for a few days, it was the kick to the ass that alround It felt like someone set off a small bomb in her lower back, and she felt a sharp crack that almost certainly meant he’d snapped her tailbone

She turned to see hied tohirabbed hold of his left arh the hips to throw hi console a few feet away He hit it with a thud and a crunch, and started to sag

Then, just because he’d kicked her in the ass, she snapped his left arm before she let him drop

Five minutes later, Katria and her five friends sat or lay on the floor, hands tied behind their backs A to swell shut, and four scrapes down his cheek that looked like he’d been clawed by a big cat Bobbie had carefully avoided looking at her own face in anything reflective But based on the volume of blood in her shirt, the wound on her face had to be pretty grotesque There goes -stitches plan The pain in her backside alsofor the next couple of ht made her want to kick the unconscious ain Or maybe Amos

“Katria,” Bobbie said, leaning down over the Voltaire Collective cell leader “Is it okay if I call you Katria?”