“Bull,” Sam said. The young man’s face was a pale mask of rage. “This is Gareth. He’s decided laying conduit’s icky.”

“I’m an engineer,” Gareth said, spitting out the word so violently it gave him a degree of spin. “Did eight years on Tycho Station! I’m not going to get used like a fucking technician.”

The other welders didn’t turn from their work, but Bull could see them all listening. He looked at Sam, and her face was closed. Bull couldn’t tell if calling him in for help had been hard for her or if it was part of how she expected him to make things right to her after the thing with Pa. That it had been the shortest detention on record didn’t pull the sting of being caught up in his political struggles. Either way, she’d escalated the problem to him, and so it was his now.

Bull took a deep breath.

“So what are we working on here?” he asked, less because he cared than that it would give him a few extra seconds to think and his brain wasn’t at its best.

“I’ve got a major line faulting out,” Sam said. “I can take three days and diagnose the whole thing or I can take twenty hours and put up a workaround.”

“And the conduit’s for the workaround?”

“Is.”

Bull lifted his fist in the Belter’s equivalent of a nod and then turned his attention to the boy. Gareth was young and he was tired and he was an OPA Belter, which meant he’d never been through any kind of real military indoctrination. Bull had to figure Sam had yelled at him enough before she’d called for backup.

“All right, then,” Bull said.

“Está-hey bullshit is,” the man said, his educated grammar fracturing.

“I understand,” Bull said. “You can go. Just help me get your rig on first.”

Gareth blinked. Bull thought he saw the ghost of a smile in the corners of Sam’s bloodshot eyes, but that could have meant anything. Pleasure at the weariness in Bull’s voice or at Gareth’s confusion, or maybe she’d understood what Bull was doing and she thought he was really clever.

“I talk to the guys on the other ships some,” Bull said. “Earth or Mars. Someone’ll be sending a ship back. I’ll see if I can’t get you a ride as far as Ceres anyway.”

Gareth’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. Sam pushed off, hooking the welder’s rig with one hand, pulling it close to speed up the turn and then extending her arm to slow it. Bull took it from her and started pulling on the straps.

“You know how to do this?” Sam asked.

“Good enough to hang conduit,” Bull said.

“Security can lose you?”

“Shift’s done,” Bull said. “I was just heading for my bunk, but this needs doing, I can do it.”

“All right, then,” Sam said. “Take the length at the end, and I’ll have someone join it up with Marca’s. I’ll come check your work in a minute.”

“Sounds good,” Bull said. He was spinning just a few degrees each second and he let the momentum carry him around to face the boy. The rage was still there, but it was sinking under a layer of embarrassment. All his arguments and bluster about not doing something because it was beneath him, and now the head of security was using his off-shift to do the same work. Bull could feel the attention of the other welders on them. Bull lit his torch, just testing it out, and the air between them went white for a second. “Okay, then. I got this. You can go if you want.”

The boy shifted, getting ready to launch himself back across the bay and out into the ship. Bull tried to remember the last time he’d actually welded something with no gravity. He was pretty sure he could do it, but he’d have to start slow. Then Gareth’s shoulders cupped forward, and he knew he wouldn’t have to. Bull started taking off the straps, and Gareth moved forward to help him.

“You’re tired,” Bull said, his voice low enough not to carry to the others. “You been working too hard, and it got to you a little. Happens to everyone.”

“Bien.”

He put the torch in the boy’s hand and squeezed it there.

“This is a privilege,” Bull said. “Being out here, doing this bullshit, working our asses off for no one to give a shit? It’s a privilege. Next time you undermine Chief Engineer Rosenberg’s authority, I will ship your ass home with a note that says you couldn’t handle it.”

The boy muttered something Bull couldn’t make out. The flare from the other torches made the boy’s face dance white and brown and white again. Bull put a hand on his arm.

“Yes, sir,” Gareth said. Bull let go, and the boy pushed off to the wall, situating himself over the length of pipe that was waiting there for him. Sam appeared at Bull’s elbow, sliding down from the blind spot above and behind him.

“That worked,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t hurt that you’re an Earther.”

“Didn’t. How’s it all coming?”

“Apart,” Sam said. “But we’ll stick it back together with bubblegum if we have to.”

“Least no one was shooting at us.”

Sam’s laugh had some warmth in it.

“They wouldn’t have had to do it twice.”

The alert tone came from all their hand terminals at once, simultaneous with the ship address system. Bull felt his lips press thin.

“Well, that timing’s a little ominous,” Sam said before Captain Ashford’s voice rang out through the ship. The openness of the spaces and the different speakers made the words echo like the voice of God.

“This is your captain speaking. I have just received confirmation from the OPA central authority that the actions undertaken by the criminal James Holden were unauthorized by any part of the Outer Planets Alliance. His actions put not only this ship but the reputation and good standing of the alliance in threat. I have informed the central authority that we took swift and decisive action against Holden, and that he escaped from us only by retreating through the Ring.”

“Thanks for that, by the way,” Sam said.

“De nada.”

“I have requested and received,” Ashford continued, “the authority to continue action to address this insult as I deem fit. The evidence of our own sensors and of the Martian and Earth feeds to which we have access all show that the Rocinantehas passed through the Ring in good condition and appears to have sustained no damage despite the physical anomalies on the other side.

“In light of that, I have made the decision to follow Holden through the Ring and take him and his crew into custody. I will be sending out specific instructions to all department heads outlining what preparations we will need to complete before we begin our burn, but I expect to be in pursuit within the next six hours. It is imperative for the pride, dignity, and honor of the OPA that this insult not go unanswered and that the hands that bring Holden to justice be ours.

“I want you all to know that I am honored to serve with such a valiant crew, and that together we will make history. Take these next hours, all of you, to rest and prepare. God bless each and every one of you, and the Outer Planets Alliance.”

With a resounding click from a hundred speakers, Ashford dropped the connection. The flashing white light of the welding torches was gone, and the bay was darker. Laughter warred against despair in Bull’s gut.

“Is he drunk, do you think?” Sam said.

“Worse. Embarrassed. He’s trying to save face,” Bull said.

“The Behemothfilled its diddies in front of God and everyone, so now we’re going to be the biggest badass in the system to make up for it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Gonna talk him out of it?”

“Gonna try.”

Sam scratched her cheek.

“Could be hard to back down after that little once-more-into-the-breach thing.”

“He won’t,” Bull said. “But I’ve got to try.”

The inner planets came out to the black with an understanding that they were soldiers sent to a foreign land. Bull remembered the feeling from when he’d first shipped out: the sense that his home was behind him. For the inners, the expansion out into the solar system had always had the military at its core.