Nemesis Games
Chapters - James S. A. Corey
Prologue: Filip
Filip leads a covert OPA raid on the Martian military shipyard at Callisto, using targeting lasers to guide tungsten slug strikes and a subsequent asteroid bombardment that destroy the shipyard and its defending warships. His team steals canisters of Martian stealth coating while sacrificing two of their soldiers, Andrew and Chuchu, whom Filip deliberately abandons at the armory. The mission is revealed to be on Filip's fifteenth birthday, establishing him as the son of an OPA faction leader conducting coordinated military operations.
POV: Filip Inaros·On page: Cyn·Mentioned: Marco Inaros
Chapter 1: Holden
The Rocinante is in dry dock at Tycho Station for an estimated six months of major repairs after the events on Ilus, with chief engineer Sakai cataloguing extensive damage including a bent interior mount and buckled rail-gun struts. Holden meets with Fred Johnson, who reveals his long-term strategy of using Medina Station and aid to colonists to position the OPA as the future galactic government, while Holden warns that the real threat is whatever killed the protomolecule builders. Back at their apartment, the crew eats dinner together and discusses the Callisto attack and colony news, with Holden lamenting the lack of peace.
POV: James Holden·On page: Fred Johnson, Naomi Nagata, Alex Kamal, Amos Burton, Sakai·Mentioned: Chrisjen Avasarala, Prime Minister Smith
Chapter 2: Alex
Alex confides in Amos about recurring dreams of his ex-wife Talissa that leave him feeling unsettled, and considers using the Rocinante's long repair layover to visit Mars and seek closure with her. Before he can tell Holden and Naomi his plans, Amos announces he needs to go to Earth because a woman he used to know has died, arranges funds, and departs within the hour. Alex then tells Holden and Naomi he is heading to Mars to visit old haunts, echoing Amos's ambiguous promise to return.
POV: Alex Kamal·On page: Amos Burton, James Holden, Naomi Nagata, Talissa Kamal
Chapter 3: Naomi
Naomi enjoys a night out playing Golgo with Belter repair crew members including Malikah, feeling the comfort of being among her own people and mourning the absence of Sam Rosenberg. She tells Holden they need to discuss hiring additional crew for the Rocinante to address their dangerous lack of redundancy, a conversation he resists but ultimately accepts. Two days later, Naomi receives an unexpected video message from Marco, her former partner, claiming their son Filip is in trouble and asking her to meet his associates Cyn and Karal on Ceres Station.
POV: Naomi Nagata·On page: James Holden, Marco Inaros·Mentioned: Amos Burton, Alex Kamal
Chapter 4: Amos
Amos travels to Ceres en route to Earth, grieving the death of Lydia, a woman from his past whose tattooed face he carries over his heart, struggling to process the unfamiliar emotion of grief. On the long-haul transport Lazy Songbird, he befriends a family and confronts a gang of extortionists, declaring his corner of the ship off-limits before deliberately provoking and defeating six of them in a fight in the showers. The violence temporarily fills the hollow emptiness of his grief, and he protects the family for the remainder of the voyage.
POV: Amos Burton·Mentioned: James Holden, Naomi Nagata, Lydia Maalouf
Chapter 5: Holden
Holden secures a favoured client discount from Fred for the Rocinante's repairs, and Fred warns him about escalating OPA extremist attacks including Callisto, Pallas, and a failed suicide run on Earth, fearing a larger coordinated strike is coming. Naomi abruptly leaves for Ceres on a mysterious personal errand, refusing to explain and threatening to break up with Holden if he insists on coming, leaving him alone on Tycho for the first time in years. Lonely and adrift, Holden falls into a routine of working on the ship by day and drinking at a small Italian restaurant by night, until journalist Monica contacts him on Tycho and shows him footage of a ship that vanished passing through a ring gate.
POV: James Holden·On page: Naomi Nagata, Monica Stuart·Mentioned: Fred Johnson, Amos Burton, Alex Kamal, Sakai
Chapter 6: Alex
Alex arrives on Mars and visits his cousin Min in Mariner Valley, noticing an unsettling number of abandoned homes and businesses - a sign of Mars slowly emptying as people leave for the new colony worlds. He goes to see Talissa at her new home in Galveston Shallow, but she firmly rejects his attempt at reconciliation, telling him they are strangers now and refusing to revisit the past. Stung by the encounter, Alex retreats to a bar and receives a message from Bobbie inviting him to meet and asking for a favour.
POV: Alex Kamal·On page: Bobbie Draper·Mentioned: Talissa Kamal
Chapter 7: Amos
Amos arrives on Earth via Luna, where he is immediately intercepted by security and brought before Avasarala on a video screen; she suspects Holden sent him but accepts his explanation that he is there on personal business to visit a dead friend's grave. Avasarala reveals the UN considers Amos to be Holden's hired killer and warns him not to cause trouble she would need to cover up. Amos then explores the streets of New York, reads Lydia's obituary discovering she married a man named Charles Allen, and books a train to Philadelphia to find the husband.
POV: Amos Burton·On page: Chrisjen Avasarala, Charles·Mentioned: James Holden, Alex Kamal, Naomi Nagata, Lydia Maalouf
Chapter 8: Holden
Monica reveals that thirteen of four hundred thirty-seven ships passing through the ring gates have vanished, a rate six times normal, and theorises the protomolecule is responsible, even suggesting they use Fred's sample to summon Miller's ghost - an idea Holden flatly rejects. Holden instead suspects OPA extremists are pirating colony ships and hiding them with changed transponder codes, and enlists chief engineer Sakai's advice to search for mysteriously appearing new ships rather than the missing ones. He brings his theory to Fred, who resists the idea that radicals have infiltrated Medina Station, and warns Holden to stop meddling, but Holden resolves to investigate anyway.
POV: James Holden·On page: Monica Stuart, Sakai·Mentioned: Fred Johnson, Naomi Nagata, Amos Burton, Alex Kamal
Chapter 9: Naomi
Naomi arrives on Ceres Station and quickly detects she is being followed by a man she mentally calls Wings, whom she evades through the corridors before doubling back to a hidden club where she reunites with Cyn, a massive old friend from her past with Marco's crew. Cyn leads her through armed guards past Karal to a hidden chamber near the centre of spin, where he begins to explain Marco's plans related to the ring gates before being sharply cut off by a young man who enters the room. Naomi comes face-to-face with Filip, now sixteen, her son whom she has not seen since he was a baby, and their tense, emotionally devastating reunion reveals that Marco still controls the flow of information even in his absence.
POV: Naomi Nagata·On page: Marco Inaros, Cyn·Mentioned: Filip Inaros, James Holden
Chapter 10: Amos
Amos visits Lydia's house in Philadelphia and meets her elderly widower Charles, who confirms Lydia died peacefully of an aortic aneurysm in her sleep; Amos accepts the story and is moved by evidence of the good life they shared together. Learning that Erich, a childhood associate who now runs a criminal organisation in Baltimore, cut off financial support to Charles after Lydia's death, Amos promises to fix it. He travels to Baltimore, navigates the unchanged streets of his old neighbourhood by intimidating local thugs into leading him to Erich's renovated headquarters in the old arcology building.
POV: Amos Burton·On page: Erich·Mentioned: James Holden, Charles, Lydia Maalouf
Chapter 11: Alex
Alex visits Bobbie, who asks him to use his Navy contacts to investigate black market Martian military equipment disappearing - weapons, ships, medical supplies, and power armour - a concern sparked by Avasarala. Three days later, returning to tell Bobbie he cannot help, Alex finds her door broken open and rushes in to find her tied up with four armed men interrogating her about him; in the ensuing fight Bobbie kills one attacker and another escapes while both she and Alex are injured. Disturbingly, Bobbie reveals the attackers were not asking about her investigation but specifically about Alex and his connections, suggesting someone powerful is threatened by the Rocinante crew's network.
POV: Alex Kamal·On page: Bobbie Draper·Mentioned: James Holden, Chrisjen Avasarala, Talissa Kamal
Chapter 12: Amos
Amos and Erich share tequila and careful pleasantries in Erich's office, each sizing the other up after two decades apart, with Erich having risen from a crippled hacker to a powerful crime boss. Amos makes his request: keep funding Charles and Lydia's house as the last remnant of the woman who helped them both, backing it with an implicit threat to dismantle Erich's organisation. Erich agrees, and they part on terms that are simultaneously friendly and final, with Erich revealing he had a hidden flechette turret aimed at Amos the entire time.
POV: Amos Burton·On page: Erich·Mentioned: James Holden, Chrisjen Avasarala, Clarissa Mao, Lydia Maalouf
Chapter 13: Holden
Holden hires freelance programmer Paula Gutierrez to mine ship registry databases for vessels that appeared without proper origin records, methodically working through the results while maintaining his day shifts on the Rocinante repairs. He identifies a suspicious ship called the Pau Kant that briefly pinged near the 434 Hungaria asteroid group before vanishing, with no prior records of any kind, and sends Alex a message asking him to rent a ship and investigate. Meanwhile, Monica stops answering calls and messages, and when Holden contacts station security, they find her apartment ransacked, her hand terminal crushed, and Monica gone - prompting Holden to tell Fred the OPA radicals are not just on Medina but on Tycho itself.
POV: James Holden·On page: Fred Johnson·Mentioned: Monica Stuart, Naomi Nagata, Amos Burton, Alex Kamal, Sakai
Chapter 14: Naomi
Through interwoven flashbacks and present scenes, Naomi's history with Marco is revealed: as a teenage engineer she unknowingly built the software that Marco used to destroy the transport ship Augustin Gamarra, killing 234 people as retaliation for the shutdown of the Terryon Lock Belter colony. In the present, Filip asks her to arrange untraceable transport for sixteen people from Ceres to a rendezvous near the Hungaria asteroids with a ship called the Pella, refusing to reveal details of their mission. Naomi arranges passage through the shady outfit Outer Fringe Exports while wrestling with the knowledge that Marco is manipulating her again, but this time she is determined to save Filip and possibly turn the situation to her advantage.
POV: Naomi Nagata·On page: Filip Inaros, Cyn·Mentioned: Marco Inaros, James Holden
Chapter 15: Alex
Alex and Bobbie recover in hospital after the attack, with Bobbie shot twice but characteristically tough, and they compare notes - the attackers were specifically asking about Alex, suggesting someone is threatened by his connections to Holden, Fred Johnson, and potentially Avasarala. Bobbie lays out her full findings: Martian naval ships supposedly scrapped or destroyed have reappeared in later records before being erased again, indicating systematic theft enabled by someone high in the chain of command. Her brother Ben tries to get her to move somewhere safer, but she refuses, and Alex receives Holden's message about the Pau Kant at 434 Hungaria, learning Bobbie has the Razorback and they agree to investigate together.
POV: Alex Kamal·On page: Bobbie Draper, Winston Duarte·Mentioned: James Holden, Chrisjen Avasarala
Chapter 16: Holden
Holden and Fred review security footage showing Monica being smuggled out of her quarters in a sealed food transport crate, but when they track and open it, they find only fungal protein - the kidnappers either switched crates or doctored the feed, indicating high-level infiltration of Tycho's security systems. Fred locks down the entire station despite protests from Sakai, and confides in Holden that he can no longer trust anyone in his organisation, deputising Holden as his personal bodyguard. Using an astronomical imaging rig to reconstruct the image from Monica's shattered hand terminal, they determine she is alive inside a sealed shipping container somewhere on the station, and a targeted scan reveals one warm container in the work sphere.
POV: James Holden·On page: Fred Johnson, Camina Drummer·Mentioned: Monica Stuart, Naomi Nagata, Alex Kamal, Amos Burton
Chapter 17: Alex
Alex visits Hecate Base using his old Navy friend Fermin to arrange a meeting with Commander Winston Duarte, Admiral Long's aide, who confirms that Martian military tracking of ships, weapons, and supplies has effectively collapsed amid the exodus to colony worlds, with leadership covering it up. Duarte gives Alex the name of programmer Kaarlo Henderson-Charles who had been investigating database discrepancies, but when Alex goes to Kaarlo's quarters, he finds the man shot dead at his kitchen table in an apparent staged suicide. After eight hours of police questioning, Alex and Bobbie decide there is nothing more they can safely do on Mars and resolve to take the Razorback to investigate the Pau Kant at 434 Hungaria for Holden.
POV: Alex Kamal·Mentioned: Bobbie Draper, James Holden, Chrisjen Avasarala, Talissa Kamal, Prime Minister Smith
Chapter 18: Holden
Holden and Fred conduct an EVA to rescue Monica from a sealed shipping container where she has been held sedated by Belter dissidents. After she recovers in medical, Monica negotiates an exclusive reporting deal with Fred in exchange for her information about the missing colony ships. Fred interrogates chief engineer Sakai, who reveals himself as a furious anti-Earther operative, and Fred has him thrown in the brig while ordering a full audit of his contacts and activities on the station.
POV: James Holden·On page: Fred Johnson, Monica Stuart, Camina Drummer, Sakai·Mentioned: Anderson Dawes, Alex Kamal
Chapter 19: Naomi
Naomi spends time with her old crew on Ceres, learning that Marco told Filip she left because she was too weak, while she avoids listening to Jim's messages to maintain focus. She takes possession of the Chetzemoka, a small transport skiff she purchased anonymously, and has an emotional farewell with Filip where she offers him the ship and asks him to come with her on the Rocinante, but he declines. As she says goodbye to Cyn, he embraces her and Karal injects her with a sedative, revealing that kidnapping her was always the plan.
POV: Naomi Nagata·On page: Cyn, Filip Inaros, Karal·Mentioned: Marco Inaros, James Holden