were brilliant, and so numerous that it was suddenly hard to imagine how much empty space there was in the galaxy. Countless thousands — tens of thousands! — of bright pinpricks of light. And those were just the stars he could see, never mind the billions he couldn't. Kieran watched the stars winking at him, flickering on and off, on and off, in random succession — and frowned. Stars don't suddenly stop shining.
A quick look at his sensors revealed that he was in visual range of the asteroid belt. The stars weren't randomly winking on and off, asteroids were randomly drifting in front of them, blocking the light.
Kieran smiled in greedy anticipation and brought up a holographic representation of the belt. Using hand gestures to manipulate the rendering, Kieran panned, zoomed, and swiveled those rocks around until he found the moon-sized rock he'd discovered yesterday. It was still there. That would be a good place to start. He set another waypoint and waved the hologram away. A short roll to port brought his new waypoint into line. 1.85 astroms and counting down. With his current velocity of 1.78 mAps (milé-astroms per second) he would close to tagging range in about 16 minutes.
He had a full complement of buoys — purchased this morning with the extra 500 tokens his brother had loaned him — and this time he'd double and triple checked to make sure they were all functioning perfectly. And so were his flitter's launch tubes. There would be no mistakes this time. Nothing to stand between him and his ticket to fortune and freedom.
As the moon-sized asteroid swelled in his viewport, Kieran had a sudden sense of foreboding. What if Cardian had snuck out during the night cycle? What if he'd already tagged everything? Kieran had gotten up early and spent a few hours turning his flitter upside down, looking everywhere for the tracking device that Cardian must have planted. In the end, he hadn't found it, but it was too late to worry about, anyway. Either Cardian had jumped his claim, or he hadn't. There's one sure way to find out. Kieran toggled through channels on his comm until he reached the one reserved for beacons — like mining buoys.
Kieran's eyes widened, and he blinked at his blank comm screen. There were no beacons broadcasting in the area. He breathed a sigh of relief. No one had tagged anything yet. Not Cardian, not another prospector — no one. Maybe his not-so-subtle threats last night had actually scared Cardian off.
Whatever the case . . . Kieran armed his buoys and waited for the rangefinder to tick down below 100 milé-astroms. Buoys could be dumb-fired from incredible distances, but this time Kieran wanted to follow it in, to see it impact on the surface with his own eyes. Ninety-seven milé-astroms. Kieran tightened his finger on the trigger, and the buoy jetted out on a long, blue streamer of vapor. Kieran fired his thrusters at maximum, catching up to the buoy shortly after its blue contrail sputtered out. Now rendered invisible to the naked eye, Kieran targeted the buoy to keep from accidentally running into it. At 50 milé-astroms away, and counting down, the mountain of rock appeared almost like a planet, with a sharply-dropping horizon, and an almost imperceptible tug of gravity. Proximity alarms began to blare inside Kieran's flitter, warning him to pull up. His current velocity was 4.76 mAps and climbing. A number began blinking in red on the rangefinder inside his cockpit. He was now 28 milé-astroms from the asteroid — that distance was dropping by almost 5 mA per second — and based on current acceleration and velocity, his navcomp had computed that 16.2 milé-astroms from the asteroid was the point of no return. If he didn't pull up before that, he wouldn't be able to.
19 mA.
Kieran wrenched his flight yoke back, pulling out of his dive toward the asteroid, letting his buoy go on alone. He wasn't going to follow it its collision with the dark and lumpy surface below. He
A quick look at his sensors revealed that he was in visual range of the asteroid belt. The stars weren't randomly winking on and off, asteroids were randomly drifting in front of them, blocking the light.
Kieran smiled in greedy anticipation and brought up a holographic representation of the belt. Using hand gestures to manipulate the rendering, Kieran panned, zoomed, and swiveled those rocks around until he found the moon-sized rock he'd discovered yesterday. It was still there. That would be a good place to start. He set another waypoint and waved the hologram away. A short roll to port brought his new waypoint into line. 1.85 astroms and counting down. With his current velocity of 1.78 mAps (milé-astroms per second) he would close to tagging range in about 16 minutes.
He had a full complement of buoys — purchased this morning with the extra 500 tokens his brother had loaned him — and this time he'd double and triple checked to make sure they were all functioning perfectly. And so were his flitter's launch tubes. There would be no mistakes this time. Nothing to stand between him and his ticket to fortune and freedom.
As the moon-sized asteroid swelled in his viewport, Kieran had a sudden sense of foreboding. What if Cardian had snuck out during the night cycle? What if he'd already tagged everything? Kieran had gotten up early and spent a few hours turning his flitter upside down, looking everywhere for the tracking device that Cardian must have planted. In the end, he hadn't found it, but it was too late to worry about, anyway. Either Cardian had jumped his claim, or he hadn't. There's one sure way to find out. Kieran toggled through channels on his comm until he reached the one reserved for beacons — like mining buoys.
Kieran's eyes widened, and he blinked at his blank comm screen. There were no beacons broadcasting in the area. He breathed a sigh of relief. No one had tagged anything yet. Not Cardian, not another prospector — no one. Maybe his not-so-subtle threats last night had actually scared Cardian off.
Whatever the case . . . Kieran armed his buoys and waited for the rangefinder to tick down below 100 milé-astroms. Buoys could be dumb-fired from incredible distances, but this time Kieran wanted to follow it in, to see it impact on the surface with his own eyes. Ninety-seven milé-astroms. Kieran tightened his finger on the trigger, and the buoy jetted out on a long, blue streamer of vapor. Kieran fired his thrusters at maximum, catching up to the buoy shortly after its blue contrail sputtered out. Now rendered invisible to the naked eye, Kieran targeted the buoy to keep from accidentally running into it. At 50 milé-astroms away, and counting down, the mountain of rock appeared almost like a planet, with a sharply-dropping horizon, and an almost imperceptible tug of gravity. Proximity alarms began to blare inside Kieran's flitter, warning him to pull up. His current velocity was 4.76 mAps and climbing. A number began blinking in red on the rangefinder inside his cockpit. He was now 28 milé-astroms from the asteroid — that distance was dropping by almost 5 mA per second — and based on current acceleration and velocity, his navcomp had computed that 16.2 milé-astroms from the asteroid was the point of no return. If he didn't pull up before that, he wouldn't be able to.
19 mA.
Kieran wrenched his flight yoke back, pulling out of his dive toward the asteroid, letting his buoy go on alone. He wasn't going to follow it its collision with the dark and lumpy surface below. He
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