Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

The thought made her smile bitterly, for both her parents had been adamantly opposed to their daughter taking her inheritance — such as it was — and heading nearly six months from Earth, in the company of common-born miners and engineers. The miners were hardly suitable companions for a young girl, her mother had twittered, while her father had warned of the dangers of a pirate raid taking her alive. If she was lucky, the family would have to pay a hefty ransom; if she were unlucky, she would suffer a fate worse than death. And, so far, the worst that had happened was a steady decline in her assets and financial trouble on the galactic market.

Her concept had seemed brilliant, at first. The asteroid miners worked for the Thousand Families, often paid low wages that allowed their superiors to fix the prices of asteroid ore. Hannelore had calculated that if she established a completely independent mining colony, she could charge whatever prices she liked, including undercutting all of her competitors. The Roosevelt Family would not be amused — she had been careful not to allow them any stake in her enterprise — yet what could they do about it? They couldn’t crush her through their network of patronage, for that would bring the wrath of every other family down on their heads. The Thousand Families couldn’t afford to turn on one another, or the commoners would see the infighting and start getting ideas.

She smiled again, a more relaxed smile, wondering what her mother would say if she saw her daughter now. Hannelore wore a grimy shipsuit, her blonde hair cut back into a short mop surrounding her head… and she looked as if she hadn’t had a bath in weeks. She hadn’t, come to think of it, water was rationed on the platform until they finished melting down asteroid ice and inserting it into the system. Hannelore had no intention of abusing her position; she could never have explained it to her mother, but she liked the engineers and miners she worked with more than she liked her friends back home. At least the miners weren’t plotting her social death every time they looked at her.

The asteroid’s control centre barely rated the name. Her engineers had rigged up a fusion reactor, a handful of consoles and a display they’d pulled out of a freighter that they’d actually had to scrap, after using it as living quarters for the first few weeks. The thought was galling; if she’d had full access to the family funds, she could have provided much better equipment and they wouldn’t be risking their lives every time they used some of the older gear. Once she got the whole complex up and running, once she started funnelling supplies to various worlds… then she would be in a position to claim her rightful place.

“We’re going to have to cut back in 445-67,” Jackson said. He was a burly miner, exactly the sort of person her mother had warned her about. He would have been handsome, at least o her eye, if he hadn’t used an illegal genetic re-profiling system at some point and wound up looking like a biological experiment gone horrendously wrong. Hannelore had wondered — she had never dared ask — just what he’d had in mind. It looked as if he’d gone three rounds with an angry crocodile-analogue and the creature had won. “The mining team have filled all their baskets.”

Hannelore nodded, sourly. “At least we can send the Misfit to pick up their load,” she said, studying the display and calculating times in her head. She hadn’t even thought about distances in normal space until she had come to Tyler’s Star. The flicker drive normally made every location in the system only a few seconds away, but only her freighters carried FTL drives. The mining ships were confined to normal space. “And then transfer it over to another ship or even one of the storage asteroids.”

She scowled as she looked at the storage asteroid. They’d attempted to turn a rocky-iron asteroid into a genuine habitat, but the survey had missed impurities in the metal and the asteroid had burst when they’d tried to expand it. It made a source of raw materials and a storage point, yet it was a dark reminder of her failure. Her first of many failures.

“Of course, My Lady,” Jackson said. Unlike most of the other miners, Hannelore had never been able to get him to abandon formality. “We can…”

He broke off as an alarm sounded on one of the displays. “My Lady,” he said, as he twisted the console around so she could see the icons, “there is an unidentified ship within the system.”

Hannelore bit down a very unladylike word. No one was supposed to visit Tyler’s Star. There was nothing in the system to attract visitors, not even the Imperial Navy or pirates. There was nothing in the system worth stealing, at least not yet. Hannelore had intended to invest in some defensive satellites when she had the mining complex up and running, but the funds were too limited to invest now. Besides, covering an entire system was a nightmare. It was simply impossible without thousands of platforms.

“Can you identify it?”

“Not with this gear, My Lady,” Jackson said. He had a past that remained shrouded in mystery, but he clearly knew his way around a tactical console. There were times when she wondered if he was a deserter from the Imperial Navy. “The ship isn’t transmitting any IFF signals and these systems aren’t good enough to pick up much more information.”

Hannelore rubbed her forehead, cursing her luck. The Imperial Navy wouldn’t have bothered to sneak around her system, which meant that the intruders almost certainly had to be pirates. If they were just from the black colonies, trying to remain undetected, they wouldn’t have come so close to her complex. Hell, why would they even bother to come close to the star when there were thousands of light years of interstellar space to use as a meeting point, without any risk of detection? No reason came to her tired mind.

“Hail them,” she ordered. If they knew that they’d been spotted, perhaps they would flicker out and withdraw. Pirates weren’t known for bravery, if only because the Imperial Navy executed them upon capture. “Ask them what their business is and how we may assist.”

“Yes, My Lady,” Jackson said. He turned to his own console and spoke rapidly, pushing as much confidence into his voice as he could. Hannelore had been tempted to speak herself, but letting the pirates know that there was at least one woman in the complex wouldn’t have been such a great idea. They might have gotten a few ideas. “I don’t think they’re listening.”

Hannelore nodded. The unknown ship was still arcing towards her complex, ignoring the message and the outlying mining ships. Whoever was in charge had probably surveyed her complex under cloak and deduced that the centre — her command asteroid — was the only valuable point in the system. The miners would have to surrender or die in the vacuum of space when their air ran out… if the pirates didn’t just blow the asteroid and leave them to die.

“Sound the alert,” she ordered, and then changed her mind. There was nothing they could do to deter the pirate ship from attacking, if they intended to attack. “Belay that; warn section leaders, but don’t sound a general alert.”

If Jackson disagreed with her logic, he didn’t show it. “Yes, My Lady,” he said, and started to work at his console. Hannelore envied him dreadfully suddenly; if she had something to do, she wouldn’t have had to stare at the incoming icon and worry about what its crew might have in mind. She understood, suddenly, what her father had meant when he had talked about the loneliness of command. She was responsible for the seventy-two miners and engineers she had hired and transported to Tyler’s Star, promising them wealth, reward and patronage — if only they succeeded. And, by doing so, she had brought them here to die.