Scattered Suns Read Free Page A

waste more time and effort chasing them down. It was maddening! Stromo and his counterparts had orders to seek out Roamer infestations, confiscate any of their goods that might be useful for the war effort, and somehow bring those people in line. Sooner or later, they would have to sue for peace.
    Ramirez looked up at him from her command chair, her full lips showing no smile, her face cool, her regulation-short dark hair perfectly in place. “Would you like to assume operational oversight as we approach, Admiral? Or should I continue?”
    “You’re doing just fine, Commander Ramirez.” Although he suspected she didn’t like him very much, she was an excellent pilot and navigator, who had been promoted rapidly, just like many young officers during the devastating hydrogue war. “Can we get better magnification on the screen? I want to have a look at our target.”
    “The first wave of Remora scouts have set up relay stations, and imagery is coming through now.”
    The scattered rubble around Hhrenni looked like a handful of oversized gravel that someone had tossed against the blackness of space. From a distance, the drifting rocks looked unremarkable, but the distribution of metals and the albedo profile of some geometrical objects were a dead giveaway: An uncharted human settlement was hidden there. Roamers.
    “There they are, just as we thought.” He rubbed his chin. “All right, let’s head forward and have a look at this rats’ nest. Power up fore and aft jazer banks and load primary projectile launchers. Tell our Remoras to intercept any ships that try to escape.” He gestured toward the screen. “Onward, in the name of the King, and so on...”
    As the EDF ships swooped in, the audacity of the clans became more obvious. A secret base indeed! Transparent domes dotted the asteroids like pus-filled blisters. Hanging suspended above them at gravitationally stable points, thin arrays of solar mirrors directed sunlight through the shadows to illuminate and provide energy to the dome settlements. Artificial stations orbited at various distances like gnats. Inflatable storage chambers, perhaps?
    “Look at all that! Those Roachers are certainly ambitious.”
    “They have a lot of energy and ingenuity,” Ramirez said, not sounding overly eager. “Commander Tamblyn proved that often enough.”
    Stromo frowned. Not long ago this very Manta had been commanded by Tasia Tamblyn, who, because of her Roamer connections, was reassigned to less critical duties before the strike against Rendezvous. Was Ramirez demonstrating loyalty to her former commander? He’d have thought she’d be pleased with her own promotion.
    “The clans should channel that creative enthusiasm to help all mankind, not just themselves.” Surveying the asteroid complex, with its light-filled domes and expansive mirrors, he shook his head. “Why can’t they just live on planets like everyone else?”
    Though every operation had gone against them so far, the gypsies showed no signs of bowing to authority. They had scattered like wildly fired shotgun pellets, which the Hansa considered a victory, of course. Divide and conquer. With the Roamers leaderless and broken, it should have been easy to bring them back into the fold...but they were as hard to catch and tame as angry, wet house cats. Since Stromo had spent his life in military service, such anarchy made his stomach queasy. “Hooligans.”
    When they were unified under Speaker Peroni, he supposed the clans had felt obligated to show some kind of stubborn backbone. Now, though, with their government center destroyed, who would speak for them? Who had the authority to negotiate on their behalf? Somebody had to sign a surrender order and call for the others to turn themselves in and get back to work. It would take a hell of a long time to root out all the squalid little settlements like this one.
    “We’ve detected four ships, Admiral. Nothing large enough to threaten us. None of the