The lift stopped with a small lurch that it really shouldn’t have had. The ops deck was all dark surfaces, the decking a deep chocolate brown, the walls an artificial wood grain, the consoles and couches lined in fake leather. Or hell, maybe real leather. It wasn’t like he knew the difference to look at. Erich lowered himself into one of the couches and ran his good hand over his scalp.

“You know,” he said. “You couldn’t have done this without us. Me and your prisoner friend. And now the head of the fucking government, which excuse me if that still breaks my head a little.”

“Well, I —”

“No, I know you would have done something. Just not this. You couldn’t have done this exact thing. This plan? For it, you needed to have us. All of us. And the only thing we had in common was you.”

Amos sat across from him. Erich wouldn’t meet his eyes straight on.

“Plan’s kind of a strong word for it,” he said. “I was just grabbing whatever I could.”

“Yeah, the thing is you had things to grab. I spent a lot of years in Baltimore. Know it like the back of my hand. Knew it. Now, I’ve got all my best people here and no fucking clue what here looks like, you know? Who controls the drugs around here? How do you fake an ID? I mean, I figure that underlying logic’s the same anywhere, but…”

Erich stared at the wall like there was something to see there. Amos craned his neck to look, just to be sure.

“I don’t know what we do from here. I don’t know what I do from here. I’ve got people counting on me to get them through the queen of all churns, and I don’t know where to take them or what we’re gonna do.”

“Yeah, that sucks.”

“You do,” Erich said.

“I suck?”

“You know. You’ve been out here. This? All this? It’s your neighborhood. You know people. You know how things work. You know how to keep people alive.”

“You may be overestimating the amount of time I’ve put into analyzing stuff,” Amos said. “I got one ship and three people. That’s been kind of a handful. All the rest of this just happened along the way.”

“But it got us here.” Erich shifted his gaze. His eyes were hard. “I’ve got enough cash squirreled away that if I get access to it, I might be able to buy a small ship. Not a good one, but something. Or relocate the team somewhere. One of the Lagrange stations or Pallas or… wherever. Start over. Make a new niche. If you want to take the lead, I’ll give it up.”

“Oh,” Amos said. “Yeah, no.”

“They’d be better off with you leading than with me.”