The Aftermath Read Free

Syracuse ’s systems: propulsion, navigation, life support, logistics supplies, communications, emergency equipment, and the fourteen thousand tons of asteroidal ores held in magnetic grips at the center of the slowly turning buckyball tubes.
    â€œWe’re on the approach course for Ceres. The controls are locked in, so you don’t have to worry about navigation. Are you sure you can handle the responsibility of being in command?” Victor asked anxiously.
    That’s a laugh and a half, Theo said to himself. The ship’s on automatic and I’m in command of nobody. Plus I’m not supposed to touch anything. Some responsibility.
    Misunderstanding his son’s silence, Victor said, “It’s a dangerous world out there, Thee. There’s a war going on.”
    â€œI know,” Theo muttered.
    â€œShips have been attacked, destroyed. People killed.”
    â€œDad, the war’s between the big corporations. Nobody’s bothered independent ships, like us.”
    â€œTrue enough,” Victor admitted, “but there are mercenaries roaming around out there and out-and-out pirates like Lars Fuchs—”
    â€œYou told me Fuchs only attacks corporate ships,” Theo said. “You said he’s never bothered an independent.”
    Victor nodded gravely. “I know. But I want you to keep your wits about you. If anything unusual happens—anything at all—you call me at once. Understand?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œAt once,” Victor emphasized.
    Theo looked up at his father. “Okay, okay.”
    With a million doubts showing clearly on his face, Victor reluctantly went to the command pod’s hatch. He hesitated, as if he wanted to say something more to his son, then shrugged and left the pod.
    Theo resisted the impulse to throw a sarcastic two-fingered salute at the old man.
    At least, he thought, it’s a beginning. I’ll just sit here and let him take over once we’ve entered Ceres-controlled space. It’s a beginning. At least Mom got him to let me babysit the instruments.
    Slightly more than an hour later, Theo sat in the command chair, his brows knitted in puzzlement at the fuzzy image displayed on the ship’s main communications screen.
    Syracuse was still more than an hour away from orbital insertion at Ceres. But something strange was happening. Theo stared at the crackling, flickering image of a darkly bearded man who seemed to be making threats to the communications technician aboard the habitat Chrysalis, in orbit around Ceres, where the rock rats made their home. The image on the display screen was grainy, the voices broken up by interference. The stranger was aiming his message at Chrysalis: Theo had picked up the fringe of his comm signal as the ore ship coasted toward the asteroid.
    â€œPlease identify yourself,” said a calm, flat woman’s voice: the comm tech at Chrysalis, Theo figured. “We’re not getting any telemetry data from you.”
    The dark-bearded man replied, “You don’t need it. We’re looking for Lars Fuchs. Surrender him to us and we’ll leave you in peace.”
    Lars Fuchs? Theo thought. The pirate. The guy who attacks ships out here in the Belt.
    â€œFuchs?” The woman’s voice sounded genuinely puzzled. “He’s not here. He’s in exile. We wouldn’t—”
    â€œNo lies,” the man snapped. “We know Fuchs is heading for your habitat. We want him.”
    Theo realized that something ugly was shaping up. Much as he hated to relinquish command of Syracuse —even though his “command” was nothing more than monitoring the ship’s automated systems—he reluctantly tapped the intercom keyboard.
    â€œDad, you’d better get up here,” he said, slowly and clearly. “Something really weird is going on.”
    It took a moment, then Victor Zacharias replied testily, “What now? Can’t you