In the security office, Fred was pacing, his hands clasped behind his back, when Holden arrived. He nodded sharply by way of greeting. Drummer, at her seat, was a model of the crisp professionalism designed to offer no reason for the boss to yell at you. That was fine. Holden didn’t mind being the one who got yelled at.

“What’s the matter?”

“Medina went dark,” Fred said. “She was supposed to report in this morning, but with everything being at loose ends, I didn’t worry. She’s missed two opportunities since then. And… Drummer? Show him.”

The security chief pulled up a schematic of the solar system. At scale, even Jupiter and the sun were hardly more than a bright pixel. Thousands of dots showed the traffic in-system. Ships and bases, satellites and probes and navigation buoys. All of humanity in a nutshell. With a motion and a syllable, most of the clutter vanished. In its place, a couple dozen green dots with the word UNDETERMINED where the identification codes should be made a rough cloud. Someone’s statistics run with a small but significant correlation.

“As soon as the station went dark,” Drummer said, “we saw these. Twenty-five new plumes. All of them have drive signatures that match Martian military ships, and all of them are under heavy burn for the Ring.”

“Heavy burn?”

“Eight to ten g to start, curving down, which means they’re running at the limit of their drives.”

Holden whistled. Fred stopped in his pacing, his expression placid in a way that spoke volumes about rage. “Those are my people on Medina. If the station has been compromised, or if these new ships are on their way to do something violent there, it will pose a significant obstacle to my participation with the new direction within the OPA.”

“Meaning fuck that noise?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a long way out to Medina,” Holden said. “Even at those burns, it’ll take them a while. But I don’t think we could beat them there.”

“We couldn’t do anything if we did. If I took all the ships at my disposal, one Martian frigate could still rain hell on them. And even the Rocinante would be badly outgunned.”

“Have to wonder where they got Martian military ships,” Holden said.

“I’ll be sure to ask Dawes about that as soon as I’ve told him what I think of his good faith prisoner exchange. How long before the Rocinante’s ready to fly?”

“Put a rush on it, we could be out of here in five days.”

“Mister Drummer, please put all available teams on finishing the repairs and security audit for the Rocinante.”

“Yes, sir,” Drummer said, and shifted her screen to show the work schedules for the construction drum. Fred looked down at his feet and then back up.