“Alex, since you’re in the neighborhood and it went so well the last time I asked you to check out a mystery ship, I was wondering if you’d be interested in making a little detour. I’m having my temporary pilot figure out a fast burn that will get me to Naomi, but you’re closer and you’re going in nearly the same direction. There’s a chance this is the bad guys trying to trick us, so keep your eyes open. If it is Naomi, though, make sure she’s still breathing when I get there. Let me know what you think.”

Alex’s jaw was clenched hard enough his teeth ached. He already knew what Bobbie was going to say, so instead of starting the conversation, he started quietly feeding data into the nav system and seeing what options were open depending on how hard he wanted to burn and how much fuel he had left, and what telemetry said about the little ship and the convoy it broke off from. The wall screens were set to mimic the exterior view, so when he looked up from the navigation data, he could pick out the dot of light that was her drive plume. He also pulled up an audio feed matched to the broadcast from it. “This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. If you get this message, please retransmit…”

He could feel the disapproval radiating up from behind him. Bobbie didn’t say anything at first, didn’t even make a grunt or a noise. It didn’t matter. Alex knew. When she finally did speak, it was almost a relief to have it out in the open.

“What are you doing there, sailor?” Bobbie asked.

“Figuring the best way to go after Naomi.”

“Any reason you’re doing it?”

“Because we’re going after Naomi.”

“We’re almost at the flip part of the flip-and-burn. Any course changes we make are going to eat up a lot of fuel.”

Alex didn’t look back. Just gestured at the screen. “The way I figure, that’s a distress call. We logged it. We’re obligated to stop.”

“Don’t,” Bobbie said.

“That’s the rules.”

“Don’t throw the rule book at me. We’ve got a mission here. I don’t like it any more than you do, but we need to stand our post. We’ve got orders.”