“Couldn’t ask for anything more,” Fred said, heaving himself to his feet. At the edge of the ladder, he paused. Holden watched him consider sliding down the sides the way Gor had. He watched Fred decide not to. Rung by rung, Fred climbed down out of the ops deck, shutting the hatch behind him. Holden turned the feed back on, and then off again. His head felt filled with cotton.

He’d been so focused for so long on distracting himself from Naomi’s absence, now she was back, he felt almost overwhelmed. Monica was right. Things had changed, and he didn’t know anymore what his place was in them. Even if he turned away from Fred and Avasarala and the politics of his own minor celebrity, what could an independent ship do in this new, remade solar system? Were there banks that would be able to pay him if he took a job flying cargo to the Jovian moons? And the colonists that had already gone through the rings to new, alien worlds? Would the Free Navy really stop resupply from getting out to them, and the raw materials and discoveries they made from getting back?

More than anything, the attacks seemed inevitable and petty. If the inner planets hadn’t spent generations showing the Belters that they were disposable, there might have been some way… some way to adapt their skills and lifestyles into this larger human expansion. A way to draw all humanity forward, and not just part of it.

And how long would Inaros and people like him really be able to keep the flood of colonists out? Or maybe there was still something more, some layer of the plan that they hadn’t seen yet? The idea filled him with something he decided to call dread because that was a better name than fear.

The monitor chimed. Alex, requesting a connection. Holden accepted it gratefully.

“Hey there, Cap’n,” Alex said through a grin. “How’re you doing?”

“Fine, I think. Just killing some time away from the cabin so I don’t wake Naomi up. I figure she’ll be asleep for twelve, fourteen hours.”

“You’re a good man,” Alex said.

“You?”

“I’ve been showin’ your temporary pilot all the ways he could have beaten me to the Chetzemoka if he’d thought of them.”

“Be nice,” Holden said, but he didn’t really mean it. “Where are you? I’ll come join you.”

“Engineering,” Alex said. “Which was part of why I wanted to talk to you. I just got some good news from Luna.”

Chapter Forty-nine: Amos