:- Right: 

Leareth drags at foggy memories dating to back when he was (more imminently) busy dying of Proto infection. :The Scopuli was your ship, before? ...Did you leave the Martian-made distress beacon: 

No! We didn't have time to leave anything and we didn't have MCRN distress beacons. 

:Remind me of the circumstances under which the Anubis captured you from the Scopuli? Was the protomolecule involved, yet, at that point, or did you only see it after you escaped the hold of the Anubis?: 

They'd suspected that the Anubis had the protomolecule on board. It was going from Phoebe to Eros, and they knew there was something planned for Eros, and they knew Phoebe was where the bioweapon - what they'd thought was a bioweapon - had been discovered. They'd intended to intercept it. Hopefully board it and learn more about what was going on. The Anubis had better guns than they did. There was a short fight, which they lost. No protomolecule involvement, though maybe the Scopuli damaged the Anubis in some way that enabled the later breach? She wouldn't have guessed they'd done any real damage but there's a lot of luck in that, and it seems more unlikely that the crew just packaged the proto badly or something. The crew of the Scopuli was taken aboard the Anubis. They recognized Julie, locked her up separately. Executed most of the others, she thought. 

At first they brought her food and water. And then the gravity went out and then - nothing. For days. Until she kicked her way out. By that time, the protomolecule was everywhere. 

Leareth nods. Absorbs it in silence for a minute, trying to hold the full picture in his mind. Find the blank spots in his map... 

:The Anubis was not a Martian ship, right? It was - from the organization your father runs, the one that is studying the protomolecule and probably bribing the UN?: 

Yes. Well, I think so. They had a sample, and they - obviously had orders about me in particular -

:Is it possible that your father's team also has the stealth ship technology?: 

It'd probably require having a spy on Mars, but - that wouldn't be very surprising, really, next to everything else.

:No, I agree it would not: Leareth lifts a hand to rub his forehead, which is aching again. :All right. I think that the simplest story here - the only one that hangs together at all, given what I know so far - is that the stealth ships belong to your father's organization, not to any of the planetary governments. The Anubis had a mission. You tried to stop them and failed. They– the simplest explanation is still that they had a Martian beacon, and left it on the ship as - some sort of decoy? To deflect suspicion to Mars: 

He glances at Holden. :Which worked. Then they destroyed the Martian ship as well - because it was too close to the secret? That makes much more sense than Martians destroying their own ship. And - now the two planets are escalating toward a war footing. I am guessing this is convenient for your father, perhaps because it draws attention away from Eros and the situation with the protomolecule:

Which could've been the goal in the first place. If he was planning to release the protomolecule on Eros and try to communicate or negotiate with it once it'd had a million people to eat.

:He could have done it with several hundred cows and an uninhabited asteroid! Though I suppose he had no way of knowing: 

Leareth looks over at Holden. :I think you are right, and we ought communicate with someone and explain the situation. Ideally we would not make the broadcast directly from this ship, but it - might be good to record and prepare it, just in case we are somehow ambushed before we pass Ceres: 

"Well. I can do that, I guess, since I don't think your telepathy will work over video. We might be able to tightbeam Tycho."

Nod. :It will not work, no - maximum range is several hundred miles. Remind me what - who? - Tycho is?: 

"Fred Johnson's station. He has very good comms equipment, I bet Naomi can come up with a good secure way to contact him. We'd be trusting him with whether to release the message, but it probably beats having nothing. And if patching things up between Earth and Mars makes it harder for them to pull off whatever it is on Eros, all the better."

:All right. I think - we should do that and we should also relay the message to Anderson Dawes on Ceres, for redundancy. We should include basic context on the protomolecule and the Eros plan as well - Julie, can you help Holden draft that?: 

He hesitates. :I think for now, we should not mention Julie's excursion to Velgarth or our magic. It will...probably confuse things more than anything else. Make the rest of the message more tempting to disbelieve as well. And - I may want that surprise in reserve, later, if things get worse: 

Separately, to Nayoki, :I want you to find Naomi and tell her that Holden and I wish to speak with her about comms. Additionally, I - want you to ask her if she is hiding anything relevant about her past or hid anything when she was captured by the Donnager. It came up while I was speaking to Holden. It might be relevant: 

:All right:

Nayoki starts looking for Naomi. 

On the bridge, being miserable about the gravity. She'd honestly go down to the sick bay except for the thing where it's full of alien.

Nayoki sits down beside her. Gives her a worried look. :Are you all right?: It's not by default obvious to her that it's related to the gravity, it feels totally reasonable to her. 

"I'll be fine. Assuming we stop this thing."

:Mmm: 

Nayoki stomps on the urge to fidget. :Holden wants you to figure out a secure way to contact Tycho, and - Fred Johnson, I think is his name? To pass a message explaining what has happened and our plans. And...I had a question for you: 

She looks Naomi in the eye, and opens her Sight fully. Including the Truthseeing. :Holden told Leareth, just now, that the crew of the Anubis accused you of hiding something when they questioned you. And Holden said you never talked about your past. I am aware this could mean nothing, but - is there anything there that could be relevant?: 

"No." If he were involved in this Julie would've known about it; it clearly wasn't a long list of people.

:Are you sure? Is there anything that could be - politically relevant in general, to any of the factions? ...There are still some pieces of this puzzle we are missing, Leareth is confused: 

"It's pretty confusing. What in particular is he confused about."

:The tension between Mars and Earth. It - is looking currently as though Julie's father tried to stage an incident and make it incriminate Mars. Also the situation with the Belters and the OPA is confusing and we are not quite sure how it plays in. And...unknown unknowns, right, we came into this with no context. Leareth disprefers operating without context: 

"That's understandable. But I don't actually know you people, and my life story isn't relevant here. I'm not in the OPA and I didn't destroy the Cant." That much is true.