She put on a brown leather jacket that looked professional and minimized the breadth of her shoulders, then led him to a fish shack with shredded trout in black sauce that had been some of the best he’d ever had. The beer was a local brew, served cold. Over the course of two hours, the sting of Talissa’s voice and his feeling of self-loathing lost their edges, if they didn’t quite vanish. Bobbie told stories about working veterans’ outreach. A woman who’d come in to get psychiatric help for her son who wouldn’t stop playing console games since he’d finished his deployment. Bobbie had made contact with the boy’s first drill sergeant, and now the kid had a job at the shipyards. Or the time a man came in claiming that the sex toy lodged in his colon was service related. When Bobbie laughed, Alex laughed with her.

Slowly, he’d started taking his turn too. What it had been like on the far side of the Ring. Watching Ilus or New Terra or whatever the hell they wound up calling it as it went through its paroxysms. What it had been like shipping back with a prisoner, which led into the first time they’d shipped a prisoner – Clarissa Mao, daughter of Jules-Pierre and sister to the protomolecule’s patient zero, that one had been – and how Holden and Amos and Naomi were all doing these days.

That had been when the ache hit. The homesickness for his crew and their ship. He enjoyed Bobbie’s wit and the easy physicality of her company, but what he’d really wanted – then and in the days since – was to be back on the Rocinante. Which was why the end of their conversation had been so awkward for him.

“So, Alex,” Bobbie said, her attempt to make the words as casual and friendly as everything that had gone before flagging them at once, “are you still in touch with anyone over at the naval yard?”

“I know a few guys still serving at Hecate, sure.”

“So I was wondering if I could get you to do a little favor for me.”

“Sure, of course,” Alex said. And then a fraction of a second later, “What is it?”

“I’ve got a kind of hobby thing going on,” she said, looking pained. “It’s… unofficial.”

“Is it for Avasarala?”

“Sort of. The last time she was through, we had dinner, and some of the things she said got me thinking. With the new worlds opening up, there’s a lot of change going on. Strategies shifting. Like that. And one of the big resources Mars has – one of the things that there’s going to be a market for – is the Navy.”

“I don’t understand,” Alex said, leaning back in his chair. “You mean like mercenary work?”