cheap hotel on Eros because Naomi had done exactly what she'd said she would. What he himself had ordered her to do. His resentment refused to listen to reason.
"We're dead," he said, and sat down on the edge of a fern-filled planter.
"How long do we have?" Miller asked, looking up and down the corridor while he fidgeted with his gun.
"No idea," Holden replied, gesturing vaguely at his terminal's flashing red radiation symbol. "Hours before we really start to feel it, I think, but I don't know. God, I wish Shed was still here."
"Shed?"
"Friend of mine," Holden said, not feeling up to elaborating. "Good med tech."
"Call her," Miller said.
Holden looked at his terminal and tapped the screen a few times.
"Network's still down," he said.
"All right," Miller said. "Let's go to your ship. See if it's still in dock."
"They'll be gone. Naomi's keeping the crew alive. She warned me, but I - "
"So let's go anyway," Miller said. He was shifting from one foot to the other and looking down the corridor as he spoke.
"Miller," Holden said, then stopped. Miller was clearly on edge, and he'd shot four people. Holden was increasingly frightened of the former cop. As if reading his mind, Miller stepped close, the two-meter man towering over him where he sat. Miller smiled ruefully, his eyes unnervingly gentle. Holden would almost have preferred they be threatening.
"Way I see it, there's three ways this can go," Miller said. "One, we find your ship still in dock, get the meds we need, and maybe we live. Two, we try to get to the ship, and along the way we run into a bunch of mafia thugs. Die gloriously in a hail of bullets. Three, we sit here and leak out of our eyes and assholes."
Holden said nothing; he just stared up at the cop and frowned.
"I'm liking the first two better than the last one," Miller said. His voice made it sound like an apology. "How about you come with?"
Holden laughed before he could catch himself, but Miller didn't look like he was taking offense.
"Sure," Holden said. "I just needed to feel sorry for myself for a minute. Let's go get killed by the mafia."
He said it with much more bravado than he felt. The truth was he didn't want to die. Even during his time in the navy, the idea of dying in the line of duty had always seemed distant and unreal. His ship would never be destroyed, and if it was, he would make it to the escape shuttle. The universe without him in it didn't make any sense at all. He'd taken risks; he'd seen other people die. Even people he loved. Now, for the first time, his own death was a real thing.
He looked at the cop. He'd known the man less than a day, didn't trust him, and wasn't sure he much liked him. And this was who he'd die with. Holden shuddered and stood up, pulling his gun out of his waistband. Under the panic and fear, there was a deep feeling of calm. He hoped it would last.
"After you," Holden said. "If we make it, remind me to call my mothers."
The casinos were a powder keg waiting for a match. If the evacuation sweeps had been even moderately successful, there were probably a million or more people crammed into three levels of the station. Hard-looking men in riot gear moved through the crowds, telling everyone to stay put until they were taken to the radiation shelters, keeping the crowd frightened. Every now and then, a small group of citizens would be led away. Knowing where they were going made Holden's stomach burn. He wanted to yell out that cops were fake, that they were killing people. But a riot with this many people in such a confined space would be a meat grinder. Maybe that was inevitable but he wasn't going to be the one to start it.
Someone else did.
Holden could hear raised voices, the angry rumble of the mob, followed by the electronically amplified voice of someone in a riot helmet yelling for people to get back. And then a gunshot, a brief pause, then a fusillade. People screamed. The entire crowd around Holden and Miller surged in two opposing directions, some of the people rushing toward the sound of the conflict, but many more of them running away from it. Holden spun in the current of bodies; Miller reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt, gripping it in his