She thumbed open a storage locker, slid the tank into place, and dropped into her couch. “I got the seals replaced, but I don’t like the inner airlock door in the cargo bay. It’s not throwing errors, but the power’s dirty.”
“Dirty dirty? Or inside the error bars but it pisses you off dirty?”
“Second one,” Peaches said, and then grinned. But her grin faded fast. “You all right?”
He smiled. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re not all right,” she said.
Amos leaned b
ack, shifted to crack his neck. Part of him wanted to talk to her about the torpedoes, but he couldn’t picture Holden doing it. And this was kind of a Holden thing, so he only shrugged. “Need to talk to the captain about something.”
“Then we’re back to the ‘throw ships at them until they run out of ammunition’ plan,” Bobbie said. Her voice was clear and sharp. Someone who didn’t know her might have thought she was pissed, but Amos was pretty sure that was her having a good time. He hesitated in the corridor outside the galley. Truth was, even if they decided to go after Medina like they were stomping snakes to death, they’d be in port for a couple more days. There’d be time to ask the question later that didn’t mean putting his elbow in the planning. But he also wanted to get some decent sleep, so he went forward anyway.
They were sitting across the table from each other, leaning in like two kids dissecting the same frog. The display between them glowed blue and gold. Holden looked tired, but Amos had seen him looking worse one time and another. Holden was the kind of guy who smoked himself down to the filter if he thought it was the right thing to do.
“We should talk to Pa again,” Holden said, looking up at Amos and nodding. “If we go for the station, we risk losing a lot of people.”
Amos ambled to the food dispensers. They were topped up fresh, so he had a lot of choices. There was a part of him that liked it better when it was just a few.
“It’s called war for a reason, sir,” Bobbie said. Even though she didn’t hit it, the sir had a sting. A reminder that it wasn’t just them anymore. “We know the fire rate. We know the retrain rate. We can do the math. If we can get even a small team onto the surface—”
“Of the alien station that we totally don’t understand but strapped a bunch of artillery to anyway,” Holden said. Bobbie wouldn’t be interrupted.
“—we can take control of them. The lack of protection on the station is the best shot I have.”
Amos keyed in noodle soup. The dispenser hummed and chugged for a second while Holden raised his eyebrows.
“Best shot you have?”
“I’ll lead the team,” Bobbie said.
“No. Look, I’m not getting you into this just because you want a fight.”
“Don’t be insulting. Name one other person you know you’d rather combat-drop onto a hostile station and I’ll bow out.”
Holden opened his mouth to reply, then just froze, gaping like a fish. When he finally closed it, his only reply was a shrug of defeat.
Amos chuckled. Both of the others turned to look at him as the bowl popped out, steaming and smelling like salt and reconstituted onion. “Anyone who can shut the cap’n up like that wins the ass-kicking contest every time,” he said, taking a spoon. “I’m not the boss of anything, but seems to me like having Babs here and not putting her in the front line? You use a welding rig to weld things. You use a gun to shoot things. You use a Bobbie Draper to fuck a bunch of bad guys permanently up.”
“Right tool for the job,” Bobbie said, and it sounded like thank you.
“You’re not tools,” Holden said. Then sighed. “But you’re not wrong. Okay. Just let me consult with Pa and Avasarala and the OPA Council, or whatever we’re calling it. In case someone has a better idea.”
Amos took a spoonful of noodle, sucked it up, and smiled while he chewed.
“All right,” Bobbie said. “But guideline? A decent idea now is way better than a brilliant plan when it’s too late.”
“I hear you,” Holden said.
“All right,” Bobbie said. “What about this Duarte asshole? What’s Avasarala’s guess on his reaction?”
“You know,” Amos said around his noodles, swallowed, “I hate to bust in, but you think I could borrow the cap’n for a few minutes?”
“Problem?” Holden asked at the same moment Bobbie said, “Sure.”
“Just need to check something,” Amos said, smiling.