There's a kid on Ganymede. Her mom went to Ceres. Sounds like her parents are getting a divorce. She's doing finger painting and someone is here to get her. She's supposedly going to get to see her mommy. Punchline, she ends up seeing a gross monster pseudo man that I'm assuming is the result of a proto molecule experiment.
CH 1: Bobbie page 7
Bibbie is a lady martian marine stationed on Ganymede guarding a greenhouse. Nobody used to need to guard the greenhouses but now everything is horrible so the martian green houses are guarded by martian marines and earth greenhouses are guarded by UN marines. Then usually spend their days staring at each other from a couple kilometers away. Today is no different. Bobbie is looking at six UN marines. Also she has an old space suit that's leaking. Bobbie's life sucks. Then it sucks more. The six UN soldiers are headed their way. No, there's seven of them now. Orders are to shoot if they get within 509 meters. Bobbie notices that one of the seven UN marines is further back and weird and the other six are running away from them. At 1000 meters bobbie can see the seventh in marine isnt a marine at all. It's some kind of monster and it's super obvious the 6 UN Marines are running away from it. Bobbie tells her marines to fire on Tge monster. It doesn't help. The monster catches up with one of the UN marines and tears them in half. This is super bad. Their bullets don't seem to affect the monster. They just go right through like it was made of water. One by one bobbie sees the monster kill the UN marines, then the Martian marines. Now its just Bobbie. Pretty sure she's gonna die. Except she doesn't. The monster sorta sprouts two arms out of it's chest and then explodes. Bobbie is still alive. But up in space she can see martian and UN ships shooting at each other.
This is a horror show far worse than what the feds are doing to Portland on 7/21/20. To my knowledge they haven't killed anyone. They're making a lot of unconstitutional arrests in unmarked vans. There's the teargassing and shooting people with rubber bullets. Also they broke that poor Navy guys arm. Figurative monsters rather than literal monsters.
CH 2: holden page 17
Sweet, holden is still in this and the chapter a are ten pages long.
Holden is trying to get coffee, buthe can't cause there' sno power in the main cabin at all. So he goes down to engineering to ask amos why. He's working on some panel that had to be removed from the main cabin. But Amos has coffee so all is forgiven. They're persuing some prirate.s They threaten to blow them up and the priates suraneder. Now they gotta get back to Tycho cause Fred has some sort of BS they need to be involved in.
ch 3 Prax page 25
Prax is a ganymede botonist. He's int he agriculture dome but it's all wrong. It should be all lit up with the light that gets reflected by the giant mirrors out in space. But it ain't. Doris shows up and tells him things have gone horribley wrong and it's gtfo time. Prax has been working on this special soy bean that's only grown here for 8 years and he ain't gonna let his lifes work go without a some amount of effort. So he digs a soybeen out of the ground with his bare hands and he follows Doris out of the dome. Prax's number 1 priroity is to find his daughter. Even though everything has been locked out cause of the war fighting described in Bobbie's chapter, Prax gets a scooter and makes his way to the day care center. He's told his daughter's mother came to get her this morning. That's very bad cause Prax's ex-wife lives on Ceres. Prax's life is very bad, his dome is destroyed cause of the war and his daughter has been kidnapped.
ch 4 bobbie page 35
Bobbie is in super bad shape. But some milatary jackass demands she be given a bunch of drugs in an unsafe manner so he can get her testimony. The punchline is they get the video of the monster and it was hard cause her suit is old. Then she's been recovering and eats jello and wishes there was real food. Then a priest shows up who's also a grief counciler and the punchline of that converastion is that sh'es going to earth to give them ehr testimony.
ch 5 avasarala page 45
Avasarala is an Indian lady in the U.N. Government. I forgot her title, it was something vague like information Secretary or whatever. She's the only woman in the war council. There's some war council arguing and Avasarala's influential and they.land on opening up talks with Mars. Avasarala tells one of her people to start monitori my Nguyen's communication. He's a military guy that kinda wants to blow up mars. She seems to know everything. She knows all about the protomole cule and she has video of the protomolecule monster attack on Ganamede. She has a cute conversation with her husband. She doesn't swear as.much as I was told to expect. Maybe she swears a lot more when things get worse.
Ch 6 Holden page 57
The crew is on an old junker to sneak into ganamede. It works. There's a fun thing where Amos is talking shit to some martian marines. Then when the customs guy shows holden spots it as a shake down and is all like, my friend here is gonna kick your ass while I point my gun at your thugs. The customs guy runs away.
ch 7 prax pg 69
Prax Meng is looking for his daughter in the aftermath of the Ganamede insanity. He's at some sort of law building and the lady can't help him. She probably can't help the lines of people behind him either. Things are bad all around. His routine regularly involves him digging through rubblewalking around to different morges trying to find his daughter's body. It's just the saddest. He goes to visit some friends that have a kid his daughter's age with the same medical problem. They tell him they're leaving. There's just no chance their kid is still alive. Prax talks about how his teacher said that Mei wasn't missing, she was taken and there must be a reason so she's got to still be alive, the dad doesn't buy it. He's given up hope and is moving on. Prax gets emotional and punches the dad. This is a bad idea cause the dad is a MUCH bigger dude and having been punched he punches back and Prax is in bad shape.
ch 8 bobbie page 79
Bobbie is having some real PTSD problems. She talks to some civilians about what happened. They callt he monster that killed her fellow marines "the Aberation" and mention that it was blocking their radio signals. Bobbie presents the idea that the Aberation came from a place largely believed to be abandoned and they started out with far more UN marines and the six that were running their direction were doing so to find someone to help them kill the Aberation. Bobbie then has a talk with captain Martens. His basic point is that she is suffering alone needlessly. He could help her. He points out that she hasn't fired her gun once since being on the ship but she cleans it once or twice a day for no reason. Bobbie's all "talking's not gonna make me better. Tracking down who created that thing and killing them is gonna make me feel better."
ch 9 avasarala page 89
she's reading a report about Venus. She says the s word about it. There was an energy spike on Venis when the Ganamede Aberation was let loose and killed a bunch of marines. Her aide is telling her that can't be right cause Nothing launched from Venus. She says what's on Venus violates all the laws of physics so we have no idea what a "launch" from a planet controlled by the protomolecule might look like. Pierre Mao is in her office waiting for her. She is not at all prepared for this meeting. She yells at her assistant (he's got a name and it's Soren) to tell her his background. Mao is VERY good looking. In talking she uses the F word in relation to lawyers. Mao doesn't give her anything useful. As he's leaving she says she's not someone to f word with. Soren has found HOlden on Ganamede.
ch 10 prax pg 101
Prax is looking for his daughter Mei. He finds a hacker that has access to all the security systems on Ganamede. The Martian and UN armies are spending all their time looking at each other and no one is actually securing Ganamede. He's able to find a video where Mei is taken away from her school by her doctor. Dr Strickland took Mei, so Mei must be alive, assuming he's still alive. The hacker says he can follow the feeds to find out where she went, but it's gonna cost chicken. Prax got no chicken.
Prax looks into the other kids that were under Dr Strickland's care. He figures out that they're all missing and he goes to the security office to tell them that they've been taken. A food riot is happening and Holden is at the center of it. Prax is starving so his brain isn't working great. He looks at the "get help" he wrote on the list of missing children. Maybe Holden is that help.
ch 11 holden page 111
The church of Humanity Ascendant: "Humans can be better than they are, so let's do that." Holden is talking to them and they are undwhelemed. The OPA promissed 22 thousand kilos, this is less than 12. Holden doesn't know nothing about that. There's another ship with food on it and people are on the edge of rioting to get it open. Naomi convinces the armed corporate thugs guarding the ship to let it go by calling Amos and asking about the gunships the OPA has nearby and says, if they don't open up that ship, one of their gunships is going to come along and blow the ship up. Prax finds Holden, tells him he knows him and he needs help. Holden likes helping people, so we'll see where this goes.
ch 12 avasarala page 123
She's talking to her husband and playing with her grand children. Gloria calls and she uses the F word in asking the purpose of the call. Nguyen is sending ships to Ganymede. She does some political stuff and ends up stopping all but threee of the ships Nguyen was trying to send. Not enough of a fleet to piss off Mars if they figure out the whole deal. She uses the F word again to refer to the martians in case they're overly sensitive about those three ships. Talking about Venus again. Whatever's building down there is super impressive. Now she's back at her office and watching the ganymede attack again. It's a real bummer. Soren comes in and tells her the martians are there and ready to begin peace talks.
ch 13 Holden page 133
They buy what Prax is selling super quick. They've got chicken so they're going to see the hacker. The hacker decides now's a good time to play hard ball and is like, I need more chicken if you want me to find this guy's little girl. Amos rewards his greed by picking up a can of chcken and hitting him in the head with hit. The hacker falls to the floor and Amos take the can of chicken and does a little more damage to his face. The hacker eventually wisens up and does his God Damned Job!!! They figure out where Mei was taken. Some old abandoned part of the station. They're gonna gear up to go get Prax's girl back. Now I'm thinking of the Hamilton song where Washington says "I gotta get my right hand man back" a billion times and it's wonderful.
ch 14 prax page 143
They're getting ready to go get Mei. The plan was that just HOlden and Amos would go. Prax talks them into letting him come along. on the way they run into some security. Prax is thinking they should start shooting. Amos is like "these arent' the kind you shoot. These are the kind you talk to." Turns out these are belters who were working security for some company that cut and ran when the shooting started. Holden tells them who he is and promisses if they help them out trying to get Prax's kid, they'll get them off of Ganymede safely. So they've gone from a party of 3 to a party of 10 just like that.
ch 15 bobbie pg 155
Bobbie is there for the earth/mars peace negotiations. She's very bored by it all. Eventually she gets angry that they're not talking about the monster. So she stands up and asks why they're not talking about the monster. She gets dragged out of the room by some high level Martian. Said high level martian is pissed off. Not at her, but at Martains who said he had this situation under control. Bobbie decides to go outside. It takes a long time for her to figure out how to do that. She looks up at the sky and finds it all terribly overwhelming. There's a cute interaction between her and the guard at the door she went out of where he's like "try your best to move forward while looking down, never look straight up" and they're both all ooorah cause he used to be a Marine. She makes her way to a coffee shop and has a soy tea.
ch 16 holden page 167
Holden is running this operation real good. Every intersection they get to they leave a guard to cover their asses. They do this a few times and eventually find wha tthey think is an inhabited room because the door is a half a degree warmer than every other door. So there's seven of them now. Naomi gets the door open and Prax yells "NOBODY MOVE!!!" to the pricks inside. There is a bit of a problem though. There's twelve people inside and they've all got guns and according to the Lady that's talking there's more in the next room. Prax seems like he's gonna lose it. People start going for their guns.
ch 17 prax page 177
The Prax chapters are an out of body experience. This one is a real trip. He's yellingand cocking his gun and all of a sudden all the people seem to be gone. That's cause Amost and Holden and Wendel (one of the people they picked up has a name, that's nice) shot them all and the ones they didn't shot ran away. There's a fun thing where the bad guys throw a grenade in and Amos throws it right back. They go into the next room and it's just guts and destroyed equipment. They get to an airlock and they know on the other side of the airlock a ship just lifted off. Prax is pretty sure Mei is on said ship. They go intot he next room and the walls are covered with protomolecule sludge. Holden calls Naomi and is all like "we gotta get the hell off this rock"
ch 18 avasarala page 187
Some biggerwig tells Avasarala she's off the Mars negotiations and Venus is her priority. It's disguised as a special assignment but she knows it's to get her out of the way. She's thinking maybe this is Nguyen's doing. She refers to Bobbie as the marine that shat on the table. She's at a bar with Bobbie and offers her a job. She's thinking about who else she can get for her super secret Venus squad. This is kind a like a heist movie. I expect the next person she talks to is gonna say "You son of a bitch, I'm in." But no,she's talking to some CIA-esque stooge in Atlanta. Somehow he knows what's going on with Holden. She tells the stooge to send in the cavalry and save Hoden and the rest of his team.
ch 19 holden page 201
it's time to GTFO. Holden doesn't much care that they have wounded or that Prax is still thinking his daughter might be around the next corner. He's gotta get off Ganymede NOW. The Protomolecule strands they found are giving him flashbacks to Eros. Everyone he's seeing is someone that's just moments away from death cause the Protomolecule is gonna get them. But it's really not. Holden's just going crazy. There's some shenhannegans but eventually they make it to the ship's airlock. But he's calling Naomi and she's not answering. Then a bunch of seriously armored folks show up and the punchline is that the other guys win.
ch 20 bobbie page 211
Bobbie takes the job with avasaralia. She's handed a GIANT stack of paper to read with Ganymede info. She doesn't get much sleep as she's woken up at 4 am and she was up reading til 1 am. She comes into the office and it's a CRAZY hub of activitiy. Ganymede has become much much worse. Sehs' told it's time to Liase cause she's Avasarala's liason.
ch 21 prax page 223
They're all tied up by whoever these armored folks are. Turns out the "bad" guys were using rubber bullets or whatever cause nobody's dead or severly broken. The "bad" guys, who I'm pretty sure are the group sent by Avasarala, are stopping everyone's bleeding using a cautorizing gun. Then there's word that something super bad is happening and most of the "bad" guys leave and as they do they tell the medics to cut the prisoner's leg restraints cause we're gonna have to move real quick. Never one to sit around, Holden and Amost take this oportunity to partake in some good ole fashioned violence and they end up with a gun and the two medics are not really in a position to keep fighting. Wendell and his group are free to take the somnambalist and go whereever they wanna go. Holden and crew find some space suites cause they gotta get a move on and with the amount of violence that's happening there's like to be a tunnel that used to have breathable air that no longer does. They end up outside and there's all sorts of talk of how the hell they're gonna get to a dome that has communications equipment so they can call Alex on the Rocinante to come get them. Naomi sias this is a moot point because she's pretty sure she sees the Roci setting down just over there.
ch 22 holden page 235
It was the ricante. They get on board and it's a little wierd becuase the ship is in a drive down position and everything that should be forward is up. They all get strapped in and off they go. There's a lot of ships around Ganymede shooting at each other. They're shot at a couple times but they manage to avoid the missles and they make their way out. Holden and Naomi do it. Holden goes on a rant about hwo he thinks this is all Fred Johnsons' fault. Fred used the sample of the protomolecule they gave him to do experiments on Ganymede and they gotta murder him for the common good. Then they have a super sad conversation about how Naomi doesn't recognize Holden anymore. He's all shoot first and never ask questions these days. Holden has turned into Miller.
ch 23 avasalara page 245
Bobbie has written a letter of resignation she's a Martian and they're at war with the U.N. So she can't work for a U.N. lady. Avasarala says that's silly. There was some swearing. Now she's piseed about where Nguyen got all these ships. She thought she had prevented this exact thing from happening. Somebody else that's more political than Nguyen must have made this war happpen. this really sucks. Mars negotiation ed in good faith and Nguyen pulls this shit.
Anyway, now she's watching a video from venus. A U.N. Science ship was observing venus and the video she's watching is the ship coming apart in orbit. Reduced down to its tiniest parts in space in a little over an hour. Whatever is on venus can do that. So that's super scary. She sends the video to Admiral Souther.
Earth is too busy fighting Mars to realize the true threat is Venus.
Ch 24 prax pg 257
Prax continues to be sad because of his missing daughter. He's trying to use his brain to figure otu what it is about the protomolecule and Mei's condition that might be coapsetic. But his brain doesn't figure anything out. So he tells Holden that he needs some sortof communication device to hook up to the net and do more research. Holden's like "we're trying to keep a low profile, so any sort of communcaiton is out of the question." But he's like, maybe we can connect to Tycho's network. Alex and Amost keep talking about soeme sort of mechanical problem with the drive. It's got a 12% problem due to a crack. They're gonna wait until they get to Tycho and have the engineers there fix it. Also the cargo bay door has a hole in it. So they start looking at the cargo bay to maybe figure out why. They see the hole and they can see there's no other holes so it can't have been a gauss round or anything super explosive. What they find is a humanoid figure in the fetal position. It's the protomolecule monster and it's stowed away on their ship.
ch 25 bobbie 267
Bobbie is not having much success calling Martians to get an earlier version fo the official sttement of war. Avasarala wants it so she can compare and contrast to get a good idea of how they really feel. But nobody is talking to her. Avasarala is thinking long term maybe this will pay off with Martian people specifically calling Bobbie to give her bogus intel. So Bobbie shouldn't feel too bad about it. Bobbie is annoyed with Soren cause he's always eating these cookies out of very loud plasticy/foily wrapping and it's really getting on her nerves. She starts to yell at him about the cookies and then all of a sudden Soren gets a call and takes a thumb drive Avasarala gave him to take to data services a few days ago and leaves. Bobbie notices that he didn't head toward data services. He is leaving the bujilding. Bobbie follows him to a bar where she finds him in the back pool room with a military guy she sees Soren has given the drive to. The guy runs out the back and Bobbie grabs Soren and tells him she's gonna tell on him.
ch 26 Holden 281
They're trying to come up with ideas for what to do about the monster in the cargo bay. The current plan is that they try to shoot it full of a ton of holes and throw the pieces out of the airlock. If that doesn't work, Alex will drive the ship into the sun. Holden and Amos go in and start shooting at the thing. It doesn't go well. Holden ends up stuck to the wall by a magneticly locked crate. Amos tried a couple things but each time the monster threw something very heavy at Amos so they stopped trying. They could turn on the thrust and launch the monster out the airlock, but that would kill Holden. Prax goes "that's interesting." So I'm guessing he's got some sort of a plan.
ch 27 prax 293
Prax notices that the monster is hanging out in the spot closest to the ships reactor. And now that they've turned down the power on the reactor it's trying to dig through the walls to get closer to it. The plan is to tkae another nuclear power source outside and hope the monster takes the bait and thye can throw it out away from the ship and it'll be stuck out in the empty void of space. That plan kind of works. The part that doesn't work is that the monster has left behind some kind of explosive. Said explosive goes off shortly after everyone gets back inside. Something hits Prax in the head and the world fades to black. Quite the cliff hanger.
