At Hurricane Depot, enormous mountains of orbiting stone circled overhead like the hands of a clock. In his private office in the north polar dome, Roberto Clarin reclined in his chair, looking up at the transparent sky. Every hour the mountains passed overhead in an endless parade.
When the original gas cloud had coalesced into the Couarnir star system, no habitable worlds had formed. In the liquid-water zone, scraps of leftover material had pulled together into two large chunks of rock that orbited around a mutual center of gravity, as if a stillborn planet had broken in half. The two components shared a thin, wispy atmosphere, and at the exact center of the rotating body was a stable Lagrange point—a perfect sheltered spot, simultaneously protected and threatened by the obstacle course of debris.
Roamers had used material mined from the orbiting pair of bodies to build a central depot and fuel-transfer station sitting in the eye of the storm. Ships came in from above or below, threading a course through the safe polar zone of the two rotating planetary components.
Like an old Arabian bazaar at a caravan crossroads, Hurricane Depot had become a popular place where ekti cargo escorts could drop off their fuel for efficient distribution to other settlements. Roamer traders lived and worked there, and many more passed through. Metals, fuel, food, fabrics, and even Hansa merchandise were brought here for sale or trade. Two or three ships arrived every day, and their captains and crews shopped, haggled, or bartered their shipments for necessary or desirable materials.
Roberto Clarin was a dark-haired, loud-voiced man who insisted on sampling all the exotic foods that came through his station—his stomach’s equivalent of a tariff. Under his leadership, Hurricane Depot had thrived at first, though now with the hydrogue ultimatum against skymining and the trade embargo with the Big Goose, the station often looked like a ghost town.
His brother Eldon, a talented engineer, had helped design Hurricane Depot. For a while, the two men had been partners, but Eldon was an inept businessman who didn’t understand how merchandising and trade worked, though Roberto had tried to explain the simplest economic concepts over and over again. Eldon could comprehend esoteric physical calculations, stressors and flexors, material strengths, load paths, and energy-process trains, but simple financial calculations were a foreign language to him.
Eventually, frustrated and disappointed with each other, Eldon and Roberto had parted company. Roberto had taken Hurricane Depot to great success, and Eldon had designed new ekti-processing reactors for Berndt Okiah’s skymine. And there, the hydrogues had killed him. . . .
Today, according to the projected schedule, Nikko Chan Tylar was due to arrive, but the young man was usually late because he got easily distracted along the way. Roberto kept a landing bay open for Tylar’s ship, but he didn’t count on using it anytime soon.
The next group of ships that arrived, however, was not at all what Roberto expected. As soon as he saw the full-scale EDF battle fleet, his astounded reaction was similar to what his brother must have felt when the hydrogues rose up to destroy the Erphano skymine.
The large Juggernauts kept themselves safely outside the orbiting rocks, but scout ships, minesweepers, and Thunderhead weapons platforms blundered into the danger zone, using their weapons to blast away debris and clear a wider channel so that the Mantas could descend to the central depot.
Knowing what the Eddies had already done to Raven Kamarov’s ship, Roberto instantly realized they were after more of the Roamers’ hard-won ekti stockpiles. Damned pirates! “I guess picking on single ships is no longer good enough for you. Whetted your appetite for more, did it?”
He triggered evacuation alarms throughout the main station and sent warnings to any incoming Roamer craft. Cargo ship captains raced to their vessels. Within minutes, three spacecraft had already launched, dispersing quickly. Roberto was grateful to see them get away.
General Lanyan, the head of the Eddies, sent a smug transmission. “This facility is currently under Hansa interdiction, by order of Chairman Wenceslas. All matériel, resources, and privately owned vessels are hereby confiscated in the name of King Peter for use by the Earth Defense Forces.”
Opening the communications channel himself, Roberto stood from his seat, suddenly self-conscious that he wore sloppy, casual clothes, and that his belly made him appear less than imposing compared with the EDF commander. “General, it doesn’t matter whose name you invoke—your King and your Chairman have neither jurisdiction nor authority here. The Roamer clans never signed the Hansa Charter. This depot is a privately owned facility, and you have no right to lay siege to it or confiscate our possessions.”
Despite his bluster, Roberto knew that with all those battleships, the General could simply swarm in and take whatever he wanted. Roamer security depended on camouflage and secrecy, but they had no real defenses. Now that the EDF had discovered Hurricane Depot, the Roamers were all just cornered rabbits.
The General scolded him. “Our war against the hydrogues gives us the justification to take vital war supplies. According to some broader definitions, you scum are part of the human race, too. You should be ashamed of yourselves for not doing your duty.”
“Because you provide such shining examples of Hansa decency? You’re nothing more than thieves.”
On the image screen, Lanyan gave him a cold smile. “Thieves are motivated primarily by greed. We, however, have a legitimate claim on these resources, and the law is on our side.”
“The law? Whose law?”
“The treaties your ancestors signed when they departed on the Kanaka.” Lanyan cited chapter and verse, explaining the terms accepted by the forefathers of the Roamer clans. “You are still bound by those agreements. Therefore, we are impounding your stored stardrive fuel and taking your cargo escorts and other spacefaring vessels that we can turn to military use.”
Manta cruisers pulled up against the large station. Lanyan continued: “I advise you to allow us access to the docking ports. If we don’t receive your cooperation, we’ll use our jazers to open this place like an aluminum can, and then we’ll take whatever floats out.”
Roberto swallowed hard. Without a doubt, Lanyan meant his threat. He signaled to his docking bay crew. “Disarm all hatches. Let the thugs in.”
Another delivery ship streaked away, trying to escape, but patrol Remoras swept in and surrounded it, fired enough blasts to cripple its engines, then attached grappling beams. The captain of the delivery ship shot his weapons, but it was a useless gesture. Within moments the Eddies had taken over the ship and arrested its crew.
Roberto groaned. The Mantas had already docked, and uniformed Eddy soldiers had begun to flood into the facility, accompanied by imposing Soldier compies. Overhead, the second half of the planetoid orbited, casting its shadow onto the observation dome. He heard bootsteps marching down the corridors; the EDF had already found the control center.
Within moments, General Lanyan himself stood at the doorway. “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it needs to be.”