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“We can throw the first one,” Sam said. “Get ’em hooked tight before we drop the hammer and wipe their roll.”
“Sounds good to me,” Naomi said, then tossed her empty bottle into the recycling bin and started back up the ladder. “See you at eight, then.” She tossed a little wave at Holden. “Later, Captain.”
Holden said, “How much longer, do you think?” to Sam’s back as she finished with her tools.
Sam shrugged. “Couple days, maybe, to get her to perfect. She could probably fly now, if you’re not worried about nonessentials and cosmetics.”
“Thanks, again,” Holden said, holding out his hand to Sam as she turned around. She shook it once, her palm heavily calloused and her grip firm. “And I hope you mop the floor with those chumps from C7.”
She gave him a predatory grin.
“It’s not even in doubt.”
Through Fred Johnson, the OPA had provided the crew with living quarters on the station during the renovation of the Roci, and over the past few weeks, Holden’s cabin had almost come to feel like home. Tycho had money, and they seemed to spend a lot of it on their employees. Holden had three rooms to himself, including a bath and a kitchen nook off the public space. On most stations, you’d have to be the governor to have that kind of luxury. Holden had the impression it was fairly standard for management on Tycho.
He tossed his grimy jumpsuit into the laundry bin and started a pot of coffee before jumping into his private shower. A shower every night after work: another almost unthinkable luxury. It would be easy to get distracted. To start thinking of this period of ship repair and quiet home life as normalcy, not interlude. Holden couldn’t let that happen.
Earth’s assault on Mars filled the newsfeeds. The domes of Mars still stood, but two showers of meteors had pocked the wide slopes of Olympus Mons. Earth claimed that it was debris from Deimos, Mars that it was an intentional threat and provocation. Martian ships from the gas giants were burning hard for the inner planets. Every day, every hour brought the moment closer when Earth would have to commit to annihilating Mars or backing away. The OPA’s rhetoric seemed built to ensure that whoever won would kill them next. Holden had just helped Fred with what Earth would see as the largest act of piracy in the history of the Belt.
And a million and a half people were dying right now on Eros. Holden thought of the video feed he’d seen of what was happening to the people on the station, and shuddered even in the heat of the shower.
Oh, and aliens. Aliens that had tried to take over the Earth two billion years ago, and failed because Saturn got in the way. Can’t forget the aliens. His brain still hadn’t figured out a way to process that, so it kept trying to pretend it didn’t exist.
Holden grabbed a towel and turned on the wall screen in his living room while he dried off. The air was filled with the competing scents of coffee, humidity from the shower, and the faintly grassy and floral scent Tycho pumped into all the residences. Holden tried the news, but it was speculation about the war without any new information. He changed to a competition show with incomprehensible rules and psychotically giddy contestants. He flipped through a few feeds that he could tell were comedies, because the actors paused and nodded where they expected the laughs to be.
When his jaw started aching, he realized he was gritting his teeth. He turned off the screen and threw the remote onto his bed in the next room. He wrapped the towel around his waist, then poured a mug of coffee and collapsed onto the couch just in time for his door to chime.
“What?” he yelled at the top of his lungs. No one replied. Good insulation on Tycho. He went to the door, arranging his towel for maximum modesty along the way, and yanked it open.
It was Miller. He was dressed in a rumpled gray suit he’d probably brought from Ceres, and was fumbling around with that stupid hat.
“Holden, hey—” he started, but Holden cut him off.
“What the hell do you want?” Holden said. “And are you really standing outside my door with your hat in your hands?”
Miller smiled, then put the hat back on his head. “You know, I always wondered what that meant.”
“Now you know,” Holden replied.
“You got a minute?” Miller said.
Holden waited a moment, staring up at the lanky detective. He quickly gave up. He probably outweighed Miller by twenty kilos, but it was impossible to be intimidating when the person you were staring down was a foot taller than you.
“Okay, come in,” he said, then headed for his bedroom. “Let me get dressed. There’s coffee.”
Holden didn’t wait for a reply; he just closed the bedroom door and sat on the bed. He and Miller hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words since returning to Tycho. He knew they couldn’t leave it at that, as much as he might like to. He owed Miller at least the conversation where he told him to get lost.
He put on a pair of warm cotton pants and a pullover, ran one hand through his damp hair, and went back out to the living room. Miller was sitting on his couch holding a steaming mug.
“Good coffee,” the detective said.
“So, let’s hear it,” Holden replied, sitting in a chair across from him.
Miller took a sip of his coffee and said, “Well—”
“I mean, this is the conversation where you tell me how you were right to shoot an unarmed man in the face, and how I’m just too naive to see it. Right?”
“Actually—”
“I f**king told you,” Holden said, surprised to feel the heat rise in his cheeks. “No more of that judge, jury, and executioner shit or you could find your own ride, and you did it anyway.”
“Yes.”
The simple affirmative took Holden off guard.
“Why?”
Miller took another sip of his coffee, then set the mug down. He reached up and took off his hat, tossed it onto the couch next to him, then leaned back.
“He was going to get away with it.”
“Excuse me?” Holden replied. “Did you miss the part where he confessed to everything?”
“That wasn’t a confession. That was a boast. He was untouchable, and he knew it. Too much money. Too much power.”
“That’s bullshit. No one gets to kill a million and a half people and get away with it.”
“People get away with things all time. Guilty as hell, but something gets in the way. Evidence. Politics. I had a partner for a while, name of Muss. When Earth pulled out of Ceres—”
