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Fred’s smile reached all the way to his eyes.

“And what exactly would that be?”

“Negotiating terms,” Dresden replied. “You are a man of experience. You understand that your victory here puts you in an untenable position. Protogen is one of the most powerful corporations on Earth. The OPA has attacked it, and the longer you try to hold it, the worse the reprisals will be.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course it is,” Dresden said, waving Fred’s tone away with a dismissing hand. Miller shook his head. The man genuinely didn’t understand what was going on. “You’ve taken your hostages. Well, here we are. We can wait until Earth sends a few dozen battleships and negotiate while you look down the barrels, or we can end this now.”

“You’re asking me… how much money I want to take my people and just leave,” Fred said.

“If money’s what you want,” Dresden said with a shrug. “Weapons. Ordinance. Medical supplies. Whatever it is you need to prosecute your little war and get this over with quickly.”

“I know what you did on Eros,” Fred said quietly.

Dresden chuckled. The sound made Miller’s flesh crawl.

“Mr. Johnson,” Dresden said. “Nobody knows what we did on Eros. And every minute I have to spend playing games with you is one I can’t use more productively elsewhere. I will swear this: You are in the best bargaining position right now that you will ever have. There is no incentive for you to draw this out.”

“And you’re offering?”

Dresden spread his hands. “Anything you like and amnesty besides. As long as it gets you out of here and lets us return to our work. We both win.”

Fred laughed. It was mirthless.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’ll give me all the kingdoms of the Earth if I just bow down and do one act of worship for you?”

Dresden cocked his head. “I don’t know the reference.”

Chapter Forty-One: Holden

The Rocinante docked with Thoth station on the last gasps from her maneuvering thrusters. Holden felt the station’s docking clamps grab the hull with a thud, and then gravity returned at a low one-third g. The close detonation of a plasma warhead had torn off the outer door of the crew airlock and flooded the chamber with superheated gas, effectively welding it shut. That meant they’d be using the cargo airlock at the stern of the ship and spacewalking over to the station.

That was fine; they were still in their suits. The Roci had more holes now than the air cycling system could keep up with, and their shipboard O2 supply had been vented into space by the same explosion that killed the airlock.

Alex dropped from the cockpit, face hidden by his helmet, his belly unmistakable even in his atmosphere suit. Naomi finished locking her station and powering down the ship, then joined Alex, and the three of them climbed down the crew ladder to the ship’s aft. Amos was waiting there, buckling an EVA pack onto his suit and charging it with compressed nitrogen from a storage tank. The mechanic had assured Holden that the EVA maneuvering pack had enough thrust to overcome the station’s spin and get them back up to an airlock.

No one spoke. Holden had expected banter. He’d expected to want to banter. But the damaged Roci seemed to call for silence. Maybe awe.

Holden leaned against the cargo bay bulkhead and closed his eyes. The only sounds he could hear were the steady hiss of his air supply and the faint static of the comm. He could smell nothing through his broken and blood-clogged nose, and his mouth was filled with a coppery taste. But even so, he couldn’t keep a smile off his face.

They’d won. They’d flown right up to Protogen, taken everything the evil bastards could throw at them, and bloodied their noses. Even now OPA soldiers were storming their station, shooting the people who’d helped kill Eros.

Holden decided that he was okay with not feeling any remorse for them. The moral complexity of the situation had grown past his ability to process it, so he just relaxed in the warm glow of victory instead.

The comm chirped and Amos said, “Ready to move.”

Holden nodded, remembered he was still in his atmosphere