James Holden has never really considered himself to be a leader of men, but he's never really been a follower, either. Hell, that's why he's out here, isn't it? Discharged from the Earth Navy for refusing orders that went against his moral code, for assaulting his ranking officer. So many years tossed to the side in that moment, so many years of military prep to end up out there on an ice hauler.
It was honest work. Good work. Dull, dangerous work, and for the first years his bones and muscle ached from the light thrust gravity, but he settled into it. It's easy to keep your head down when the only orders are where to go, what piece to carve, where to take it.
But then their world turned upside down, and is still turning upside down, and their little bare-bones crew is only barely holding together.
The Roci doesn't feel like theirs, not really. It's too sleek, too new, feels like a warhorse in a plowman's hands. Alex loves it. Holden does too, but god, she stands out like a star going nova.
To Amos, though, his mouth presses together, and he doubts. He doesn't know Amos as well as Naomi does — ah, Naomi, who he butts heads with as often as not in current days — and he knows Amos trusts her far more than he. He doesn't mind it; Naomi gets Amos in ways that Holden can't wrap his head around (yet), but this is his crew and what else is there to do but worry? ( A lot; his implant itches, and he resists the urge to rub at it. It's bothersome, bit it keeps him alive. )
" If that's what you really want, I'll have to grow my hair out first, " he says with a sigh, getting his —— god knows which bulb of coffee today. Underfoot, the Roci's engines thrum, carrying them at a steady half-G; he reclines back against the little narrow counter, sleek and new. " Fine, " he says, less in defeat and more in acknowledgment, even though the notion of you can't fix everything tweaks a bothersome, sour note somewhere deep. " We just haven't had much of a chance to decompress. And won't, for awhile. Sort of my job to make sure everyone's holding it together. " Especially after Eros.
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