“How did you do that?” Fred pointed at the rail-gun housing along the ship’s keel. The barrel of the gun ran nearly the entire length of the ship, and the support struts that attached it to the frame were visibly buckling in places.

“So,” Holden said, “have I ever told you the one about the time we used the Roci to drag a heavy freighter to a higher planetary orbit using our rail gun as a reaction drive?”

“Yeah, that’s a good one,” Sakai said without humor. “Some of those struts might be fixable, but I’m betting we’re going to find enough micro-fracturing in the alloy that replacing them all is the better bet.”

Fred whistled. “That won’t be cheap.”

The OPA leader was the Rocinante crew’s on-again, off-again patron and sponsor. Holden hoped they were in the on-again phase of the rocky relationship. Without a preferred client discount, the ship’s repair was going to get noticeably more expensive. Not that they couldn’t afford it.

“Lots of badly patched holes in the outer hull,” Sakai continued. “Inner looks okay from here, but we’ll go over it with a fine-toothed comb and make sure it’s sealed.”

Holden started to point out that the trip back from Ilus would have involved a lot more asphyxiation and death if the inner hull hadn’t been airtight, but stopped himself. There was no reason to antagonize the man who was now responsible for keeping his ship flying. Holden thought of Sam’s impish smile and habit of tempering her criticism with silliness, and felt something clench behind his breastbone. It had been years, but the grief could still sneak up on him.

“Thank you,” he said instead.

“This won’t be fast,” Sakai replied. The mech jetted off to another part of the ship, anchored itself on magnetic feet, and began cutting another section of the outer hull away with a bright flash.

“Let’s move to my office,” Fred said. “At my age, you can only take an e-suit so long.”

Many things about ship repair were made easier by the lack of gravity and atmosphere. The trade-off was forcing technicians to wear environment suits while they worked. Holden took Fred’s words to mean the old man needed to pee and hadn’t bothered with the condom catheter.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Fred’s office was large for something on a space station, and smelled of old leather and good coffee. The captain’s safe on the wall was done in titanium and bruised steel, like a prop from an old movie. The wall screen behind his desk showed a view of three skeletal ships under construction. Their design was large, bulky, and functional. Like sledgehammers. They were the beginnings of a custom built OPA naval fleet. Holden knew why the alliance felt the need to create its own armed defensive force, but given everything that had happened over the past few years, he couldn’t help but feel like humanity kept learning the wrong lessons from its traumas.