The Aftermath Read Free Page A

handle anything for yourself?” There was no video: voice only.
    â€œYou gotta see this, Dad.”
    â€œSee what?” He sounded really annoyed.
    â€œI think we’re sailing right into the middle of the war.”
    â€œCeres is neutral territory. Everybody knows that and respects it.”
    â€œMaybe,” Theo said. “But maybe not.”
    Grumbling, Victor said, “All right. I’m on my way.”
    Only then did Theo notice that the blank display screen’s indicator showed his father was in the master bedroom. He felt his cheeks redden. He and Mom … No wonder he’s cheesed off.

ORE SHIP SYRACUSE : CONTROL POD
    Theo sat in the command chair, watching and listening to the chatter between Chrysalis and the strangely menacing stranger.
    His father stepped into the control pod, dark face scowling.
    Theo swiveled the command chair and got to his feet, crouching slightly in the confined head space of the pod. Gangling, awkward Theo had his father’s deep brown eyes, but the sandy hair and tall, slender build of his mother. There was the merest trace of a light stubble on his long, narrow jaw. His denims were decorated with decals and colorful patches. “What’s got you spooked?” Victor asked in a heavy grumbling voice as he lowered himself gingerly into the command chair. He had injured his thigh months earlier while loading Syracuse ’s cargo of ores from one of the rock rat miners deeper in the Asteroid Belt. The leg still twinged; Victor had scheduled stem cell therapy when they arrived at the Chrysalis habitat.
    Gesturing to the main display screen that covered half the curving bulkhead in front of them, Theo replied, “Take a look.”
    But the menacing stranger had apparently cut his communications with Chrysalis. To Theo’s dismay, the main screen showed nothing more than a standard view of the approaching asteroid and its environs. At this distance Ceres was a discernable gray spheroid against the star-spattered blackness of space. Circling in orbit about the asteroid, the habitat Chrysalis glittered light reflected from the distant Sun: a Tinkertoy assemblage of old spacecraft linked together into a ring to make a livable home for the rock rats. They had built the makeshift habitat to escape the dust-choked tunnels that honeycombed Ceres itself.
    Radar displays superimposed on the screen showed the images of nearly a dozen ships, mostly ore carriers like Syracuse or massive factory smelters, in orbit around the asteroid; their names and registrations were printed out on the screen. Two other ships were visible, as well. One was labeled Elsinore, a passenger-carrying fusion torch ship from the lunar nation of Selene. The other had no name tag: no information about it at all was displayed on the screen. From the radar image it looked like a sleek, deadly dagger.
    Victor Zacharias scratched absently at his stubbled chin as he muttered, “By god, that looks like a military vessel—an attack ship.”
    â€œShe’s not emitting any telemetry or tracking beacons,” Theo pointed out.
    â€œI can see that, son.”
    â€œThey were talking to Chrysalis before you came in,” Theo explained. “Sounded threatening.”
    Victor’s blunt-fingered hands played over the comm console. The main screen flickered, then the image of the bearded man came up.
    â€œAttention Chrysalis, ” he said in a heavy, guttural voice. “This is the attack vessel Samarkand. You are harboring the fugitive Lars Fuchs. You will turn him over to me in ten minutes or suffer the consequences of defiance.”
    Theo said to his father, “Lars Fuchs the pirate!”
    â€œThe rock rats exiled him years ago,” Victor muttered, nodding.
    The voice of Chrysalis ’s communications center said annoyedly, “Fuchs? God knows where he is.”
    â€œI know where he is,” Samarkand replied coldly. “And if you don’t