Leviathan Wakes, Chapters 3-5

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These chapters are the ones in which someone targets the Canterbury and literally nukes it, for reasons we have no hint of yet but which I'm assuming may have to do with the nightmare flesh-blob on Julie's ship. Meanwhile, Miller is dealing with a partner who doesn't understand what he signed up for when a transmission declaring war comes in on the airwaves. 
Thanks to all of you so much for listening, and I will see you all again soon with a new episode!
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering the expanse Book one, Leviathan Wakes, chapters three, four,
and five. In these chapters, somebody blows up an entire ship.

(00:27):
I think just due to their proximity to a different ship.
Something bad's going on, and I have no idea what
the connections are between anything. I'm very interested to see
how this hangs together. Welcome to spoil Me. Welcome to

(01:04):
the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very much too.
Let's see who is it today? Guys? Who if we
got I'm in October on my calendar because I was
just checking something else, so forgive me. It's Heather Raisbee. Heather,
thank you so much, appreciate you very much. This is

(01:27):
so okay full disclosure, You guys know, the last recording
for this was a whiles ago. I'm looking and it
was April eighth. My god, it was so much longer
ago than it even feels like. However, I went and
reread the first two chapters because after this long, how

(01:50):
could I be responsible in recording this episode and not
do that? And I really am impressed with how fleshed
out this world feels. And also, y'all, this opening chapter.
I know that I've covered it already, but my god,

(02:11):
what a choice. Like there are just some It's interesting
because some books have like a sentence toward the beginning
that will really grip you, preferably the first sentence, you know,
but this one has like a great first sentence, and
then the the last chapter or the last paragraph of

(02:36):
the first chapter, I was just like, what are we doing?
And then it goes into like and where business as
usual with a bunch of other people. And I always
think that is such an effective storytelling device to have
there be something really heightened and supernatural feeling and dramatic

(02:56):
and then jump into business as usual for other people
who don't know what's coming for them. It just builds
this wonderful sense of dread and in combination with how
different this whole you know, colonized, the entire solar system
vibe is to red rising, which I know I compared

(03:17):
this to last time, and the different like types of slang,
and the way that like certain types of racism have developed.
It's just really as somebody who is like doing some
world building right now myself for a project I'm doing
with a friend. I've grown to really appreciate how much

(03:39):
work goes into this aspect of storytelling, and I always
wonder how much an author figures out before they begin writing,
and how much of it just sort of comes along
as they're writing, and how they keep it all organized,
because there's a lot happening, and this entire solar system
is like accounted for in what everybody's special in and does,

(04:01):
and how the difference in gravity changes how you look
and all of these different things. Sorry, everybody in the
in the chat is having connection trouble. I'm so sorry, guys.
This has been an ongoing issue with crowdcast recently, and
I do not think it's my connection. I think it's crowdcast,

(04:22):
and I don't know what to do about it. I'm sorry,
but okay, let's get into chapters three through five here.
So three were with Holden, who is our every man
I guess I want to call him because Miller is

(04:44):
sort of he's, you know, a working class guy, but
he has got a certain kind of power due to
his line of work. And Holden is very much like,
I'm part of this band of misfits doing this shitty job.
That's like feels comfortable for me, but doesn't challenge me
that much, and is there's just something about him that

(05:07):
feels very workaday, and so it feels like he's meant
to be our person that we relate to the most
on a certain level, at least so far. Sorry. Michael
is in the chat and says these guys were assistants
for George R. Martin. They learned from him what not

(05:28):
to do when planning out a series and keeping to
their plot points and not losing control. Fair well, good
for them, there is no better example to learn from.
I think. So Holden has been in high gravity a
little bit, and this is something that I'm not going
to get like too into the weeds on, but overall,

(05:50):
I just think it's very fascinating examining the difference in
what gravity does to you because and I know I'm
going to probably tire a lot of people who haven't
read the Red Rising series apologies ahead of time, but
I did finish covering recently, and it does have a
similar like a similarly built world in some ways, and

(06:15):
in that there is an acknowledgment of gravity's effect on
your dexterity. But because everybody is like engineered. They are
built to withstand a lot of the changes in gravity
without it causing any ill effects because of the way
they have literally been like surgically enhanced to deal with it.

(06:42):
And here everybody is just a person who has grown
up in as natural a way as we have, you know,
inasmuch as there is certainly more advanced technology with medicine,
and their planets are different, and so the gravity they
up and is different. But there's no like real as

(07:04):
far as I have seen so far, huge enhancements in
like the human body itself, because there seems to be
a pretty standardized way of dealing with high gravity low gravity,
the like the juice as we hear about later, which
is something that is meant to like keep you from

(07:27):
getting completely crushed, passing out, having a stroke because of
like the super high gravity when you go into high speed.
There is a sense to me that most people's bodies
are pretty similar to one another's in a lot of
their function, if not their uh, their bone structure and

(07:52):
you know, some other details. So it's just different because
a lot of this stuff is hand waved in red rice.
And then in this they go to a lot of
pains to explain why they have to deal with certain
things the way that they do, which I personally like
because any time that you decide to throw some real

(08:14):
life obstacles into technology that could seem almost overpowered for
the story, I think that's like it's I just always
think it's a good idea to keep some guardrails on
things and make it so that there's not exactly magic.
There's always a limitation. There's always like a price to

(08:34):
pay for whatever it is you choose to do. No
matter how incredible it may seem, there is going to
be a downside. So let's say I'm trying to find
a good place to start. Here. They're talking about Alex Kamal,
who is going to be their pilot, and Naomi says,

(08:59):
I like Alex. He's abuliant. I don't know what abuliant means,
but if it means Alex, it makes me tired, which
is just a really great way to say that I
thought it was going to be. I don't know what
abuli it means, but if it's annoying and hyperactive and whatever,
then then yes it's Alex. But he approaches that statement

(09:20):
from a different direction than I expected, And I really
like the structure of that. So this is when we
meet Alex, who apparently he has this drawl that people
from the Mariner Valley all have that's sort of like

(09:42):
a cowboy vibe, which Holden doesn't like because he finds
it to be an affectation. What I kind of find
funny about it, anybody who talks like this, it's an affectation,
right like, And what I mean by affectation is simply

(10:06):
everybody has like little accents from where they come from
that are just distinctive due to the way people choose
to talk in a place. And it's an interesting choice
of word to me, affectation because this author uses it
kind of a lot in this section, and I'm not
sure if it's something that is a repeated trend, But

(10:31):
later on there's a mention of how this one area
doesn't have sunset or sunrise anymore. They tried it first
to have their like artificial lighting follow the twenty four
hour cycle of the sunrise and sunset, and then after
about four months they did away with that affectation. So
affectation for me is like something that isn't actually natural

(10:56):
and is sort of a put on, which I would argue,
like every dialect of English is a bit of a
put on. So I don't know how to differentiate somebody
who has a sort of like a Texan accent where
I'm from in Texas versus a person like this where

(11:20):
they grew up somewhere where everybody talks like this. So
is it an affectation anymore? Does this count? Like? I
just felt like this was an interesting question. So let's see.
The crew was the minimum necessary hold in his command
Alex to get them there and back shed in case

(11:40):
there were survivors, to treat Naomi and Amos for salage
if there weren't, which is, those are the only people
who wind up surviving later, and it is pretty devastating.
I'll be it'll be about a four hour trip. Flying
tea kettle total mass you said about thirty, but we've
got a full tank total mission time eleven hours. Flying

(12:04):
tea kettle was naval slang for flying on the maneuvering
thrusters that used superheated steam for reaction mass. The Knight's
fuse fusion torch would be dangerous to use this close
to the Canterbury and wasteful on such a short trip.
Torches were pre Epstein fusion drives and far less efficient.
And I'm so sorry, guys, but this Epstein. I know

(12:26):
that it's like in world, it's a thing, but it
genuinely causes my mind to like stutter and stumble every
time I come across this name. It takes me out
of it in such an instant and I have to
remind myself and then get back in it. And it
is not their fault. They didn't know what they were
doing when they did chose this name. But like at

(12:46):
this point in you know, twenty twenty five, it's just
very loaded and it's so wild how you know what
I'm saying. Anyway, so they head out and they have
to get into a bit with the scopuli so that
they're like, you know, going around at the same time,
and the whole vibe of this is very, very off

(13:11):
from the start. Holden is looking at the scopuli up
against this asteroid and he's just like, I know that
this is probably meant to look like an accidental impact,

(13:32):
but there is so much fucking space around this. There
is no way that they hit this by accident. This
doesn't make any sense. It's just this statistically so unlikely
and it's the first thing that really kind of sets
his teeth on itge and makes him go, oh, I
don't I don't want to go in there, like it's

(13:55):
he knows all is not well, but there's just not
really enough to stop him. And it's very much the
vibe for me of like, we're here now and it
was a pain in the ass just getting here, and
we can't just walk away. What if there is somebody
who needs help. We waste it all this time to
just turn around the moment things seem a little off.

(14:17):
We can't do that. We gotta just at least see
And I really get it. I would make the same choice.
It's not easy sometimes to make that sort of call.
And there's just nothing specific about it enough to make
it feel like it's a threat. It's just off, you know.

(14:43):
So they identify it positively as the scopuli the reactors
shut jet shut down. It's just that little distress beacon
must have been manual and not damage because we're not
getting any radiation leakage either, which later on we find
out there's a stress beacon is this little box with
like a battery strap to it, which is it's essentially

(15:08):
feeling like the piece of cheese under a box being
held up by a stick. It feels like this is
such bait, but I don't get why. I don't know
for what reason. It's a setup somehow it feels like,
you know. But there's also the first chapter where we

(15:29):
have what's her name? I can't remember her name. I'm
going to jump back just to make sure and get it. Julie, Julie, Julie.
She is the only person left on her ship when
she finally comes out of the locker. Right. It's other
than the man made out of Puddy who is wrapped

(15:50):
around the com console. I do not even know where
to begin with that. So I don't know if you
could call him like a live or or a person.
He says, help me, and it feels like it could
be a conscious request, or it could be a person
only barely able to get out any words. And that

(16:11):
is simply instinctively what he is asking, because of course
you would, But I don't know how much it's like
really understood or consciously asked. And she's not here now.
The mass of flesh isn't here now either. What the

(16:33):
fuck I'm assuming that the big hole in the side.
It's somehow like punched out of the ship. But why
the beacon then, or is it still there and they
haven't run into it yet. I don't know, And like
the beacon, I could see maybe if he's taken over

(16:55):
the com console with his weirdness, then Julie would create
a distressed beacon using other equipment because she can't reach
it right. So maybe this was built and then something
happened caused her to leave, or she's still on the
ship and we haven't found her yet. I feel like
the ship doesn't from the way that it's described in

(17:19):
her chapter, it seemed big enough that this small group
Holden goes with of five people total. I think it's
reasonable that they may not have found her, but I
would expect them after like this search, if she weren't
actively hiding from them, that she would be waiting to

(17:44):
greet them after putting up this beacon. So all I
can think is that she sets the beacon because the
com console is wrapped up in silly putty, and then
something happens and she and the thing are like yanked

(18:06):
out of the ship somehow, and so the beacon is
left running, but she's not there anymore, or the thing's
not there? I don't know. And the question is about
like later on when they get attacked, somebody seems to
know they're there. Somebody seems to have an issue with

(18:27):
this whole thing, but I do not get why. And
Julie being attacked no longer feels like, oh, this was
just like a pirate attack gone wrong. It feels like
somebody was targeting them for some reason. Ordinarily I would
be like, Oh, they're targeting them because they're trying to
get a hold of whatever this weird thing is. But

(18:50):
then why would there be nobody remaining and that thing
is left in the ship with her? Why would they
leave it there? Where did everybody go? Where they all
absorbed into it? Did they know that this was part
of the thing. There's just so many questions and there
are so many directions. Is Julie even herself anymore? Did

(19:13):
she get sucked into this weird mass? Or is she
like like apart from it and studying it and trying
to keep it contained and taking it somewhere. You know,
I have no fucking idea, guys. I'm just it's very
very compelling though. So they go inside after because he

(19:37):
has this moment, are anything on the scope? Nope, hold
and tapped out a rhythm. He felt hot. If you
see anything out there that seems off, don't play a
hero again. Just pack up the toys and come home.
Those were his orders. He looked at the image of
the scopuli the hole in its side, and he's like,

(19:58):
all right, let's go investigate this hole and see what
the fuck the scopula got hold and someone left it floating.
No one is on the scope, so maybe that means
it happens a while ago, and let's see. We'll go
through that hole and poke around. If we find anything

(20:19):
remotely booby trap like, we will come back to the MEC.
Maybe we ought to be armed, and Holden is like, yeah,
if it makes you feel better, I guess. But inside
he's like, yeah, bring a gun. Thank you. I'm so
glad I didn't have to say it. I really enjoy
when we're in Holden's POV how much he understands the
weird pr you have to do as a leader, where

(20:42):
you don't get to say how you feel. You have
to keep up a certain image and do things to
make it seem as if other people's ideas are definitely
not your idea, but you are giving approval. It's just
a fun detail that I always find sort of fascinating
because this ecology of being a leader is something that, like,

(21:03):
I am very interested in, even though I am not
in this position really, and I always think about how
I would handle certain things. And there are times where
I get frustrated because I think something would have been
the right call, and then a character will not do that,
and it will turn out what I thought was not
going to be the good call, actually, and it's for
reasons I hadn't even considered. So I just like this detail.

(21:27):
It gets sprinkled in in his earlier chapter when I
reread as well, So they get some weapons they head
on in there. I like this moment a little bit.
Like everything else human's built for space travel. It was

(21:47):
designed to be efficient, not pretty. That always made Holden
a little sad. There should be room for aesthetics even
out here, a men, Holden, do you all know how
much I would be flying around in a magenta spaceship? Okay,
I would be a gold trim. You would absolutely know

(22:11):
my ship from a million clicks away. You'd be like, oh,
it's sparkling weirdly. Oh yeah, she had the hull done
up in like rhinestones. Oh that's what it is. Yeah,
So the night seemed to drift away from him. He
turned to look at the asteroid and felt they were

(22:32):
hurtling toward it. Up close, scopula didn't look all that bad.
Other than the gaping hole, it didn't have any damage.
It clearly hadn't hit the asteroid. It had been just
left close enough that the micro gravity had slowly reeled
it in. So he takes a bunch of pictures with
his suit camera, and this is when they mentioned there

(22:53):
was a breaching charge. This is like, not a torpedo
that came in. Somebody was able to do something from
the outside to bust it open. And he's like, why
would they just let somebody like there has to be
defenses against that. This doesn't make any sense. And let's see.

(23:18):
The breaching charge had been placed almost exactly amidships, blasting
a hole into the galley. When Holden landed and his
boots grabbed onto the galley wall, he could feel flash
frozen bits of food crunch under them. There were no
bodies in sight, and as things go on, he keeps
waiting for bodies, and there keep not being bodies, and
he starts to be like the fact that there's not

(23:39):
bodies is so much worse, which I really do get,
Like it's it's one thing to have horror that you're
like prepared for and that you understand, and it's another
thing to have like a mysterious horror that the shape
of it isn't even clear. Because none of this seems
to go together. They pass a spot where all kinds

(24:06):
of expensive gear is still there, so whoever it was
wasn't trying to rob the place, So it's just everything
that they could theorize. It keeps getting crossed off as
an option as they continue inward. And let's see the
reactor wasn't killed by the blast. Someone went through shutdown procedures.

(24:31):
If everyone's dead from the attack, who shut it down?
And if it's pirates, why not take the ship? She'll
still fly? And before they turned off the power, they
went through and opened every interior pressure door, emptied out
the air. I guess they wanted to make sure no
one was hiding. So this is kind of what makes
me think it was Julie maybe trying to kill the thing,

(24:54):
or if there were additional creatures on board, making sure
that they died or something. I the thing that I
can't decide is like, we don't see Julie's reaction really
to finding this mass. We have our own reaction and

(25:16):
her just being like what the fuck in a general
like she can't make sense of what she's seeing right away.
But I can't tell if she is a person who's
gonna be like, I need to take this to a
lab right away, or if she's gonna be like kill it,
kill it with fire. I don't really know her well enough,

(25:38):
so I can't decide which way she would go with this.
And I feel like, if I'm just going off how
I would react, my instinct would be, I'm out, You're
not coming anywhere fucking near me, thank you very much,
And I'm going to make sure everything behind me is
fucking dead before I leave, because I never want to

(26:02):
encounter this fucking freak of nature again. But I don't know.
I don't know if that's how she operates or not.
And like, how many people were in that mass too? Again?
Reminder she got boarded all of her people. You can
hear somebody being thrown out an airlock at one point

(26:24):
it's not like a creature takes over their ship. It's
people initially who are torturing and killing and tossing people out,
and they like try to rape her. There's a possibility
that they do, but that she like was passed out
during it. All of this is very human. It's very

(26:48):
pedestrian violence that I know about and can understand. So
when in the mix does this thing surface? When? Because
she's in that locker for like a week, I think
it might be a little bit longer than that. And
by the time she comes out, like there's nobody left.

(27:08):
Did the pirates leave? If so, why didn't they steal
the expensive shit that we're seeing them walk by now?
My assumption is somehow they like brought the thing with
them knowingly or unknowingly, or were possessed by the thing.
But there's no description of them behaving weirdly by her

(27:32):
when she is still interacting with them as regular people.
I'm so guys, I'm so sorry. I know, I know
that I'm getting caught up and sort of talking about
the first two chapters again here, but this is just
gonna happen. I haven't recorded about this since April, so
that's what may June July August four months. Yeah, I

(27:56):
think that's fair. Oh. This is when Holden is looking
around at the comms and realizing there's no beacon, and
he's like, why is there a beacon when there's not
a beacon? And this is when he sees that box
and he's like, hey, does that look like a bomb
Amos and Amos just just like picks it up and

(28:18):
just like huh no, and Holden almost has a heart attack.
It's just like, I can't believe just picked it up, Jesus,
And let's see everyone back to the night. Something is weird.
We're out of here. Be very careful when you His
radio crackled to life on the outside channel, Jim, we
may have a problem out here. And then we cut

(28:39):
to Miller and I was like, no, I wanted more Holden,
of course. But the good thing about this book is
that each POV is very interesting. So even though you
go no at the start of a new one, within
about half a paragraph you're like, oh, yeah, what's up?
What's up here? So Miller is eating dinner and he

(29:01):
gets interrupted by somebody from this bar called the Blue
Frog calling him up and being like, uh, you have
a pal here who is acting up, and it's a
guy named Hassini, and it says that he has a

(29:23):
smirk that is the result of nerve damage, which as
somebody with a facial twitch, I have. This whole side
of my face has been purposely partially paralyzed with botox,
because if I don't get those injections, it spasms constantly
and it makes it difficult to speak, to eat, one

(29:46):
of my eyes will close on its own and makes
it difficult to see to drive. So I have to
get all of these injections on this side to hold
my face still, which results in this weird lopsided look
that I have now, especially around the mouth where if
I smile, it only smiles on one side, and this
side doesn't go up because around my lips is a

(30:07):
big area for the spasm. So I just felt very
seen here and I was like, oh, look a smirk.
That's what I have perpetually now when I smile too,
because it's just like I can't. I can't smile normally anymore.
But yeah, he's like like, keep him happy for twenty
minutes and I'll get right there. And guys like he

(30:27):
doesn't want to be happy and He's like, do your best.
And what we find out eventually is his partner, what's
his name, I keep wanting to say half Lock, Havelock.
There it is Havelock is being kept out of the

(30:54):
inner circle of the police because he is seen as
from Earth, though as we find out later, he spent
very little time there actually. But there's just a sort
of like there is a hierarchy and Earthers are seen
as somehow outsiders here in a way that's like there's

(31:21):
a dynamic that I'm not quite grasping. Still. All I
know is have Blackhead thought, I'm gonna come into this place.
It's going to be difficult at first. I will prove myself.
I will win them over, and eventually we will all
be besties forever because I have proven that I am

(31:46):
a good sport who can get the job done. And
when it turns out that's not how it's gonna go,
he doesn't know how to cope with it, which I
don't blame him for, because this sort of thing it

(32:08):
sucks when you really believe it's just an obstacle in
my way that I'll be able to work through, and
then you find out it is so completely not about
you that there is nothing you can do to break
through it, because then all of the control is rested

(32:33):
out of your hands. And I hate that for him.
You know, nothing sucks like realizing you are completely at
the mercy of people who have no interest in who
you are as a person. That's not what it's about
for them, And just that there's simply like nowhere to

(32:56):
go with your ambition. No matter what you do, you
will always simply be where you are. And he's young,
and he's at the beginning of his career, and to
know that there will be no upward trajectory no matter
how good at his job he is, is the most
discouraging shit ever. And it just makes me think a

(33:21):
lot some of you might be patrons at like the
higher tier. I covered the book Sula by Tony Morrison
recently for the book Club with Rashaan. It was one
of Rashawn's favorites that she picked for us to read.
And Tony Morrison has a character in this book that

(33:42):
is a man who wants to be the provider for
his family, who wants to be in this very traditional
patriarch role, and he isn't being given the opportunities because
he's black, so he very consciously decides to choose a

(34:04):
wife who will be so incredibly sympathetic to his plight
and so absorbed in his difficulties and struggles that she
will fill that gap for him by babying him when

(34:25):
he gets home from his difficult days where nothing can
go right for him. And it was very eye opening
for me because having been in black space is a
lot more lately as an observer, because I do not
talk because I am not there to talk. I see
so many black women talk about the way that black

(34:47):
men like expect to have a help meet who has
no ambitions or personality of her own and is simply
there for his benefit in a way that is stated
in a much more overt way than I often see
in white spaces. Even though it's definitely an expectation for
white wives as well, it's not staid in quite the

(35:11):
same bald terms, and reading Sula, I suddenly like understood, Oh,
it's because there is this frustrated desire involved when you're
being oppressed due to race that isn't really a factor
the same way for white men, and so black women

(35:32):
are expected to sort of like make up for that,
which is an impossible task. They are supposed to basically
stroke the ego of a black man who is doing
his best to make him feel like I see you
and that you are as much of a man as
you want to be despite what they are keeping from you,

(35:54):
and just that sort of like, you know, not seeing
that Black women are also where who is their support
supposed to be if they are meant to just be
there for the men to comfort them. Who comforts the
black women who are performing this role nobody, of course,
and they're on their own, which is part of why

(36:18):
there has just been such an uptick in black women
becoming educated and getting better jobs and not being in
relationships because they've just started to be like, you know what,
it's super not worth it. Actually, I'll just be my
own provider. So anyway, that whole discussion was just very
eye opening for me because I didn't really get where

(36:38):
that feeling was coming from, of like being entitled to
a woman's labor in that particular way, and seeing it here.
It's just interesting because have Luck isn't in a relationship
as much as far as we know, and he is,
but he is in like a similar position of just
being strangled and held in place and resenting it so

(37:04):
much that he's out here at this bar trying to
pick a fight so that he can kick the shit
out of some wol lifes and somehow gain credibility with
his boss due to that. And it's a really transparent move,
and Miller is like, I should have seen it coming

(37:24):
because of the way Havelock was kept out of the
meeting between him and his boss earlier. So Havelock is
acting out because he wasn't invited to the meeting at all.
She didn't even mention his name and Miller like appeals
to her in that meeting by participating in a little
bit of racism casually. So Havelock's feelings of being locked

(37:46):
out and all of this are completely valid, are acknowledged
by Miller, and there really is like no suggestion from
Miller that he's going to ever be able to overcome
this challenge. It's much more like either you come to
terms with this and you are okay with it and
you do your job despite it, or you find something

(38:07):
else because there's no way you're winning people over the
way that you thought. It just doesn't work that way,
which is like a huge bummer Honestly, it makes me
very sad for Havelock. Let's see, uh, he was holding
up his problem Miller, turning it one way and then

(38:28):
the other, not even looking for an answer. It was
a simple mental exercise, look at the facts without judgment.
Havelock was an earther. Havelock was in a port side
bar again and looking for a fight. Havelock was his partner.
Statement after statement, fact after fact, facet after facet. He
didn't try to put them in order or make some

(38:48):
kind of narrative out of them that would all come later.
Now it was enough to wash the day's cases out
of his head and get ready for the immediate situation.
By the time the tube reached his state, he felt centered,
like he was walking on his whole foot. Was how
he described it back when he had anyone to describe
it too. And I really liked that. This is always

(39:12):
a good exercise in general, is to just like turn
off your storytelling and just look at things because it
is wild. Guys, how much we can get caught up
in storytelling to ourselves and we will just assign a
whole reason for things happening. That if you really step
back and reevaluate there's no evidence to support your little

(39:33):
fucking fairy tale that you've just made up. It's just
that you are so certain of who people are or
their motives that you've decided, and it can be helpful
when occasionally a person goes what makes you think that?
And then you have to step back and go, what
does make me think that? And this is evidence of

(39:54):
him being a good detective, you know, like this is
the only way to do a solid job at work
like this. So, uh, let's see, I'm trying to fight. Yeah.
Here it is the spot where he says I'm here
to pick a fight and have Lock just says good
night for it. Ship come in, yeah, emcn, he asked.

(40:22):
The Earth Mars Coalition Navy often passed through Sarah's on
its way to Saturn, Jupiter and the stations of the
Belt corporate Security rotating out of Euros Protagen. I think
you know, it doesn't matter how many of their asses
you kick Shititid's still not gonna like you have. Lock
snapped to stare at Miller, the anger in his eyes

(40:45):
barely covering the shame and hurt. It's true, Miller, said, Havelock,
rose lurching to his feet and headed for the door.
He was trying to stomp, but in the Sarah's spin
gravity and his inebriated state, he misjudged it looked like
he was hopping. That is just so udignified, you guys.

(41:10):
It's just like one step away from trying to dramatically
exit and accidentally stepping into the broom closet instead of
the front door, Like that is just very funny to me,
or trying to like slam a door that actually automatically
closes or has like a pneumatic you know, and so
it doesn't slam. Ah, that is so funny. So they

(41:35):
go outside, and Havelock at first is super like defensive,
and Miller just doesn't fight him and sort of lets
him just sort of begin to cool down, and he
does the whole like I did my job. I'm a
good cop. And Miller agrees with everything. And finally he's
just like, then, so what the hell And he says,

(41:56):
it's not about you, And that's the worst answer. It sucks.
It fucking sucks. They don't they don't look at you
and see you. They see earth. I was eight years
in the orbitals and on Mars before I ever shipped
out here. I worked on Earth maybe six months total.

(42:17):
Earth Mars. They're not that different. Earth hates Mars for
having a better fleet, Mars hates Earth for having a
bigger one. Maybe soccer's better in full g maybe worse.
I don't know. I'm just saying anyone this far out
from the Sun, they don't care. From this distance, you
can cover Earth and Mars with one thumb, and I

(42:38):
don't belong. And this is when he explains, like I
thought I could break through it and eventually just be
part of the team, and it's not like that. And
Miller's like, no, it is not. You think I'm coming
down here picking fights with people from the inner planets
so that Shadid and uh Ramachandra and all the rest

(43:00):
will think better of me. It occurred to me, you're wrong, Okay,
Miller said he knew he wasn't. They had walked out
with their glasses from the Blue Frog, so they noticed
this and are just sort of like, hmm. So they
go to the distinguished Hyacinthe and give those back and
eventually maybe the blue Frog will see their glass wear again.

(43:22):
Who knows it's a cop bar, So going in here
is sort of making a statement, and when they go in,
he has a different demeanor. He chose a bluff masculinity.
Here it was just as much a pose. So Haveloc said,

(43:45):
what is this super secret private investigation? And Miller's just like,
it's not a child it's a grown woman kidnap job.
And is like, are you okay with that? Because that's
like really not supposed to be what we're about. And

(44:09):
Miller is just like, it's my fucking job. And I
tried to tell you it was a bullshit case that
you shouldn't be jealous of, Like do you get what
I'm saying now? So they have they have some beers
I really enjoy. There's a description in his earlier chapter
and here about how much mushrooms and yeast are used

(44:30):
to make food and that they can be used to
like imitate a lot of different types of food. And
it's just kind of fascinating to me because, uh, what
this leads to are like a lot of very subtle
different types of beer, which makes sense. I don't know
how many of you are King of the Hill fans,
but the newest the reboot just dropped its first like

(44:53):
two episodes, I think, and there is a beer brewing
plotline in one of them, so it was on my mind.
By the end of the night, Havelock was laughing and
trading jokes along with the rest of them. If there
was occasionally a narrowed glance or a subtle dig, he
took it in stride. So Miller's like trying. You know,

(45:14):
he knows it's like likely not gonna work, but he's
got to show some sort of support. And it's not
like he doesn't feel for Havelock. It's just, you know,
there's only so much he can do. And then all
of a sudden, his terminal chimes, and then throughout the bar,

(45:34):
everybody's terminal chimes, and he immediately gets this like sick feeling,
and it's like, oh fuck, what is happening because this
is like, you know, shit's about to go left. And
it's fucking Captain Shadid who has been woken up in
the middle of the night, and she's like, I don't
care what you're doing, drop it and go to the station.

(45:57):
Because we had got some shit happening. We got a
message unencrypted and signed ten minutes ago from Saturn, the
rough direction of Saturn. We can assume some assholes gonna
put it on the network and the shit should hit
the fan in about five minutes. If you're an earshot

(46:18):
of a civilian, turn it off for rest of you.
Here's what we're up against. A moment later, a man's
face and shoulders appeared. He was in an orange vacuum
suit with the helmet off, an earther, maybe in his
early thirties, pale skinned, blue eyes, dark short cropped hair.
Even before the man opened his mouth, Miller saw the
signs of shock and rage in his eyes and the

(46:40):
way he held his head forward. By name, the man
said is James Holden, And I was like, oh shit,
somebody killed his people, Like instantly, I'm just fuck And
I knew it had to be his ship because he's
alive to tell the tale, So why would anybody you know?

(47:03):
But I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be
as total a complete disaster as it wound up being.
So we pick up. We may have a problem out here.
Jim Becca found something and it is sufficiently weird to
make my balls creep up. We're getting the hell out

(47:23):
of here, Alex, how long Holden ask for the third
time in ten minutes? Were over an hour out? Want
to go on the juice? Going on? The juice was
pilot speak for a HIGI burn that would knock an
unmedicated human unconscious. The juice was the cocktail of drugs
the pilot's chair would inject into him to keep him conscious, alert,

(47:45):
and hopefully stroke free. When his body waved five weighed
five hundred kilos. What kind of weird Becca? Link him up, Jim,
I want you to see what we're seeing. Where did
that come from? No idea. It's just a spot faintly
warmer than the background. I'd say it was a cloud

(48:05):
of gas because we get no radar return from it.
But there aren't supposed to be any gas clouds out here.
I mean, where would it come from? Jim? Any chance
the Scopuli killed the ship that killed it, Could it
be a vapor cloud? I don't think so, sir. The
Scopuli is totally unarmed. The hole in her side came
from breaching charges, not torpedo fire, so I don't think

(48:29):
they even fought back, or maybe not come back to
the barn. Jim, do it now, Naomi? What slowly gets
hotter that gives no radar or raadar return when you
scan it. Whil'd ask guests here, Holden said, anything that

(48:49):
was absorbing the energy from the sensor package wouldn't give
a return, but it might get hotter when it shed
the absorbed energy. The infra monitor on the sensor console
next to Holden's chair flared like the sun. Alex swore
loudly over the general calm, Are you seeing that? He said,

(49:11):
I don't know what to think of this? Is that
cloud the creature like? And because that would explain there
being like a temperature to it, But it's a spot
in space, which means that being put out an air
lock wouldn't kill this thing. I'm assuming that later on

(49:34):
there's a mention of how there's cloaking on this ship
and that might be what they're seeing. Is this sort
of like other signature the ship is giving off because
it can't be completely traceless. But anyway, Okay, a ship
just appeared in that warm spot right right right, so

(49:55):
it's smaller than its heat signature. Radar shows frigate sized,
and he's like, how did it just appear? We might
have picked up heat from energy absorbing stealth materials, which
means its intentions are not good. We have six new
high speed contacts on a collision course. Did that ship

(50:17):
just fire a spread of torpedoes at us? And it's
even worse than we think because it turns out that
these are nukes and that hasn't even entered a conversation
at this point. What they think, I believe, is that
this is like maybe a threat, or we're trying to
do some damage so that we can board and get on.

(50:39):
But like what they're going for, as it turns out,
is a wholesale destruction of this entire ship and all
the people on it, which of course isn't something that
we would even consider at this point. And let's see,
you're an hour out at best. The torpedoes are eight

(51:00):
minutes McDowell out, The captain said, his calm clicking off
and leaving Holden listening to the faint hiss of static.
So Holden is trying to get back as quickly as
possible to the ship, and that is his focus initially
until it becomes really clear there is no possible way
we're getting back in time. So there is a point

(51:22):
where he does do the juice and that kind of
like fucks this whole head up. Not that he wouldn't
have been fucked up anyway, Like, considering what winds up happening.
They're painting us with a targeting laser. I'm broadcasting garbage
to scramble it. But they've got really, really good shit.
If we were any closer, that targeting laser would be

(51:45):
burning a hole in our hull. Let's see use the
Knight to try and draw those missiles. Can we do that?
And this had been this moment where Holden is trying
to talk to Ade, the girl that the woman that

(52:07):
he has been hooking up with who doesn't want anything serious,
and he really wants it to be serious. Even though
she's insisting, dude, that's not happening, he is not really
hearing her. So he has this moment where his other
people are talking about this emergency and he's over here. Ade.
I just wanted to tell you you mean a lot
to me, you know, like he's gonna do this whole

(52:27):
thing and he's fucking not listening to the actual important shit,
and I just wanted to be like, Sir, I am
going to need you to knock it off. This is
not the fucking time for your deathbed professions. You are
going to have to focus, because these people need you enough.
She doesn't even see you like that. It's not about

(52:48):
this for her. All this would be is for you,
and who cares? Stop it? Which he does not come
to that conclusion. He just gets kind of shamed for
not having been tuned in and lies about how something
happened in the room that drew his attention. So he
eventually is just like, what you're suggesting won't work. Even

(53:12):
if we manage at the torpedoes designed to disable the
cant would make us into a greasy stretch of vacuum.
All right, Naomi said, what else have we got? Nothing?
Very smart boys in the naval labs have already thought
of everything we're going to think of in the next
eight minutes. Excuse me, very smart people, how about that?

(53:32):
How about we don't just say boys right now when
the whole thing about this world is supposed to be
that we've come a little bit further than that. Stop it,
all right, enough, I don't like it. And then seven minutes,
maybe we can get some people off the ship after
it's hit, help with damage control, as it turns out,

(53:55):
not going to happen. Alex began the countdown over the
general calm Holden checked the straps on his crash couchs
and palm the button that started the juice. A dozen
needles stuck into his back through membranes in his stew
in his suit. His heart shuddered. Wow, that was so

(54:16):
hard for me to say. I was going to say stuttered,
but it is shuddered, and chemical bands of iron gripped
his brain. His spine went dead cold, and his face
flushed like a radiation burn. He pounded a fist into
the arm of the crash couch. He hated this part,
but the next one was worse. On the general calm

(54:37):
Alex whooped as the drugs hit his system. Below decks.
The others were getting the drugs that kept them from
dying but kept them sedated through the worst of it.
And later on there's a point where he's just like,
let everybody sleep, and then he eventually has to be like,
wake them the fuck up. They gotta hear about this,
so then they go hard and this, oh god, it's

(55:03):
really awful. Audi comes in over the calm mains online
full power. We're fully loaded, sir. If we try to
burn that hard, we'll tear the drive right off the
mounts if we have four minutes. If you break it,
I won't bill you, Yes, sir, bringing MAINZ online setting
for maximum burn, Audi said, and in the background, Holden

(55:26):
could hear the high G warning Clackson. So they do
it and there is this horrible sound and McDonell is like,
what the fuck was that? And Audi is like, that
was the main lines going off because there was a
truck a strut that tore. Like I said, the torpedoes

(55:49):
are now at over forty clicks a second and accelerating.
We're down to maneuvering thrusters. They're going to hit us,
Sir Jim, We're going down and there's nowhere around it
clicked twice to acknowledge. Now we need to think about
surviving after the hit, which again nothing turn around, Jim,

(56:09):
hide behind that asteroid, call for help. So Jim calls
Alex and explains we have had to change the plan.
And before the heavy G started up again, Holden turned
on the night's SOS. The channel to AD was still open,
and now that McDonald was offline, he could hear her

(56:31):
breathing again, and he just keeps her on so that
he can like feel that she's near and again, Jim,
I understand you want and comfort, and I have nothing
against this in particular, but it just needs you to
like acknowledge it's not really for Like, there's just something

(56:51):
about this that I feel like it's him lying to himself.
You know what I'm saying. Anyway, doesn't matter. Get ready
to kill the reactor and play dead. After the torpedoes hit.
If we're not a threat, they won't hit us again,
McDowell said. And they get hit, and Holden is like,

(57:16):
what the fuck? There's this light that is way beyond
anything that they were expecting. And the static breaks up completely. Sorry,
that's my dog shaking, and it's obvious like things didn't
go the way that we were thinking. And he's yelling
Alex what happened? And Alex is like, oh my god,

(57:38):
they nuked her. And Holden has to yell a few
times like what is the status? And he says, she's
fucking vapor, dude, there's nobody left. She is gone. And
Holden is like, what why? Because they're just all they
do is they haul ice, that's it. Why would anybody

(57:58):
go after them? It doesn't make any sense, And so
his brain just isn't processing it, but he realizes pretty quickly,
I'm the one that's going to be in charge now
of this tiny crew of people, so I need to
fucking hold it together. So he changes tax and it's

(58:21):
we're witnesses to murder. Get us back to that asteroid.
I'm compiling a broadcast. Wake everyone up. They need to know.
And it's so interesting. He sends a message and is
just like, this is for all of you, you fucking
pieces of shit who just murdered fifty friends of mine.
Here are all their photos so that you can see

(58:44):
each and every one of them was an individual human
being with families. You don't get to just fly the
fuck away. And as he does this, and he's like
telling Naomi, I'm letting them know these were real people.
She's like, yeah, I don't feel like that's working out,

(59:05):
and she points and he turns and sees that the
enemy ship is now painting them with its targeting laser.
And I really was sort of like I knew they
weren't going to fire on them because he makes it
and does this other broadcast that we already saw the
beginning of, but it was very funny to me that

(59:27):
he's trying to do this thing, and they are just like,
we don't want to hear that. They're real people. It
just felt like they were having such a petty reaction
to somebody doing the absolute least in response to them
literally vaporizing their ship. You know, like, just be satisfied
with the fact that you successfully vaporized the ship and
let this man send you some photos and shut the

(59:49):
fuck up just enough. But of course these people are
just not reasonable, so so yeah, all of them are
just absolutely in shock that the entire Canterbury is gone.
Blowing them out of the sky would be my first choice,

(01:00:10):
but since we don't have the weapons, follow them, and
Amos is like absolutely, And Naomi goes, hey, Amos, why
don't you take shed below and get him in a
couch and maybe put him to sleep if you've got to.
And as soon as they're gone, Naomi is like, the fuck,
we're going after that ship? Are you fucking high? We're
getting help. And then when the help tells us what

(01:00:33):
to do, that's what we're gonna do. And Holden starts
to do that I'm in charge and she's like yeah,
and I'm second in command, And the job of second
in command is to reel the captain back in when
he starts doing stupid shit, which is what you're doing
right now. So do you want the whole crew to
die because the rest of us are about to join

(01:00:55):
the Canterbury if you don't get your head right and
look at the situation, you are actual lean and stop
being this fucking cowboy who's trying to go after them
for revenge because we do not have time for a
crusade right now. And it takes a second, and Holten's
finally like, thank you, yes, you are right. Okay. So

(01:01:21):
this is when he puts together his little broadcast and
as he is like figuring out exactly what he's gonna say,
Alex comes down and he says, I've been thinking about
that stealth shit. I don't know pirates that have anything
like that. The only time I've seen tech like that
was when I was in the Navy. And he describes

(01:01:45):
how this works. I won't get into it because I
don't care. I just I believe you that it works.
If we had it, you know others were working on
it too, he said. They looked at each other across
the narrow space. The implications heavier than a ten G
burn Holden pulled the transmitter and battery they'd recovered from

(01:02:05):
the scopuli out of a thigh pocket of his suit.
He started pulling it apart, and eventually he finds a
spot where there's a serial number on the bottom that
starts with MCRN Martian Congressional Republic Navy, and the chapter
ends with him saying, my name is James Holden, and

(01:02:27):
my ship that Canterbury was just destroyed by a warship
with stealth technology and what appears to be parts stamped
with Martian Navy serial numbers. Data stream to follow, which
is basically like a low key declaration of war. It's
not really because, like you know, they are civilians just
doing a job, so it's not really, but like, this

(01:02:50):
is a big deal. So I am real curious how
things are going to shake out once this gets out,
because yikes. And also, it just seems so convenient that
there's like labeling on the thing that was sending the beacon.
It feels like they're being framed, and it may just

(01:03:11):
be that they didn't It didn't occur to them that
there was going to be somebody taking apart the beacon
and looking at the parts of it, but it seems sloppy,
and maybe they are sloppy. Maybe they just are because like,
who go and check me boot, you know what I'm saying.
I don't know, but I will be interested to see

(01:03:32):
so uh anyway, Oh my god, I'm so sorry, guys,
Heather is staying Holden is such a romantic I suppose
that is one way to say it. I think you're right, Heather.
It's just funny because it feels so it feels so
freaking self absorbed. But sometimes like that is what romance
can do. Colonizers, It's another aspect of white folk thinking

(01:03:55):
they have the right to go where they want whenever.
Was this in reference to the earth thing, Heather? Maybe
that's what it was, Serpent, But he's so clearly the
main character. Everything revolves around him. Yeah that is one
percent how old and sees it. And then Heather's his
Naomi is a fucking queen and yeah, that was a

(01:04:16):
great moment. I just really liked her just being like,
shut the fuck up and stop it. Wake up. Yeah,
sometimes we need this, so okay, I have to wrap
up them overtime, but very very excited to have some
more episodes coming up and don't forget guys, the final
episode of UH that's been booked to September eleventh. I'm

(01:04:36):
already booked into November, so if you are interested in
continuing this, make sure to go to on spot podcast
dot com. There's a button at the top book a
spoil me episode and just start looking. I think in
the second week of November, I believe, is when slots
are going to beginning begin to open up, so just

(01:04:57):
to stay on top of that, or you can contact
me if you want to pool money and buy a
bunch of episodes ahead of time. There is a fifteen
percent surcharge for me scheduling on your behalf into a
portion of the calendar that is not open to the
public yet. But if you are able to do that,
it's a good way for you to not have to
constantly check to see if a slot has just opened.

(01:05:20):
So that's also an option. I just thought I would
mention that either way, I just hope that I get
to finish this book because I'm very, very interested. All right, everybody,
thank you again so much for listening. Appreciate you all,
and until next time to Loo motherfuckers. That was an

(01:06:07):
Unspoiled Network podcast.