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Prologue: Filip

The twin shipyards of Callisto stood side by side on the hemisphere of the moon that faced perhtest star in the endless night, the wide ses of the craters, harsh white work lights glared down onto buildings, loaders, scaffolds The ribs of half-built ships arced up over the regolith of stone dust and ice Two shipyards, one civilian and one military, one Earth-based and one owned by Mars Both protected by the sa and repairing the vessels that would take hus when and if the fight on Ilus got worked out

Both in a lot uessed

Filip slid forward, the rest of his teaed out, the cerah to cast a reflection Even the heads-up display was dimmed almost to the point of invisibility The voices in Filip’s ears – ship traffic, security feeds, civilian chatter – were picked up on passive He listened while trans laser strapped to his back was powered down He and his tea shadows The faint countdown timer in the left of his visual field passed the fifteen-minute mark Filip patted air barely thicker than vacuum with an open palm, the Belters’ physical idiom to move forward slowly Around him, his team followed

High in the void above the the shipyard spoke in clipped, professional tones As thinly as their fleet had been stretched, they had only two ships in orbit Probably only two It was possible that there were others hidden in the black, hugging their oaste heat and shielded from radar Possible but unlikely And life, as Filip’s father said, was risky work

Fourteen minutes, thirty seconds Two secondary timers appeared beside it, one with a forty-five second counter, the other with two minutes

“Transport ship Frank Aiken, you are cleared to approach”

“Message received, Carson Lei,” Cyn’s farowl came Filip could hear the old Belter’s smile in the words “Coyos sabe best ai sus bebe come ?”

So the Martian ships with innocuous ranging lasers set at the same frequency as the one strapped to Filip’s own back When the Martian co in his voice that showed fear

“Don’t copy you, Frank Aiken Please repeat”

“Sorry, sorry” Cyn laughed “You fine upstanding gentlefolk know any good bars a poor Belter crew could get a drink once we get to the surface?”

“Can’t help you, Frank Aiken,” the Martian said “Maintain course”

“Sabez sa Solid as a stone, straight as a bullet, us”

Filip’s crew topped the crater ridge, looking down at the no-man’s-land of the Martian military yard; it was just as he had expected it to be He picked out the warehouses and supply depots He pulled off the targeting laser, set the base into the dirty ice, and powered it up The others, spread along the line wide enough that none of the guards would be out of all their sight lines, did the sa platfored from a dozen different sources Before the tiny red LED on its base turned green, the first of his two secondary timers reached zero

The security alert tritone sounded on the civilian channel, followed by a woman’s anxious voice

“We’ve got a runaway loadingfor the meteor array”

The panic and alar the rim of the crater Thin puffs of dust rose around the instead like ato respond to overrides, trundled across the no-man’s-land and into the wide eyes of thetheed from their bunker, as protocol demanded Their powered ar on ice Any one of the worse than a moment’s pity Filip hated them all and each one individually on principle The repair creere already scra would be back in order within the hour

Twelve minutes, forty-five seconds

Filip paused, looking back at his team Ten volunteer soldiers, the best the Belt had to offer Apart from himself, none of them knehy the mission to raid the Martian supply depot was i to All of them ready to die if he told them to, because of who he was Because of who his father was Filip felt it in his belly and in his throat Not fear, pride It was pride

Twelve minutes, thirty-five seconds Thirty-four Thirty-three The lasers they’d placed ca the four marines, the bunker with the backup team, the perimeter fences, the workshops, and the barracks The Martians turned, their arentle caress of invisible beaht was noticed As they nize the tea away from the lasers and toward them Toward him

He caught his breath

Eighteen days before, a ship – Filip didn’t even knohich one – out in the Jovian syste out at ten, s At the nanosecond specified by the costen with four disposable, short-burn rockets at the center of le-frequency sensors tied to theh to be called s more sophisticated every day, but accelerated as they were to one hundred and fifty kilometers per second, they didn’t need to be coo