Interzeit: A Space Opera by Samuel Eddy Read Free Book Online Page B

for the escort.
    They close in on Vesta Minor. A n asteroid the size of a building suddenly changes course. From its harmless drifting it bolts at Lei . She raises the electro shield just as it smashes into Tiger West.
    She winces on impact, but notices a jet trail coming from the back of the rock.
    “Clever.” She thinks. Tiger West leans, allowing the rock to slide past along the shield. As she pivots away, a myriad of hooked tendril s burst forth from the asteroid’s rocky surface. They latch and grab against Tiger West’s deflectors as it passes.
    It shoots past, and then drags her Mech with it. The metal tendrils go taunt and both are whirled around in chaotic orbital spin dance. The convoy dashes around them and continues forward unprotected.
    “What is it Basil?” Lei asks
    “I’m afraid I do not know. It appears to be a drone of some kind.”
    “Fuck,” She swears, “Contact the convoy, I’ve got this.”
    She swings the edges of electroshield, the crackling circumference of the field slices through the durable tendrils with ease. With every cut and snapping tendril, the spin and velocity of their tumbling alters.
    With the last anchor remaining, they drift in a vicious co-orbit. The rock shell of the drone explodes suddenly. The hull and metal of the device is revealed. It is glowing white hot. Something inside triggers , and it explodes into a tremendous fire ball.
    It crashes and squeals against Tiger West’s magnetic barrier. The energy readings from the shield fall dramatically,
    “Fucking hell!” Lei yells , the heat from the explosion thickens the cockpit.
    Finally she locates the last tendril on a rear deflector plate. She finds the deflector emergency switch array, and releases the rear plates one by one. Finally she flicks lucky and Tiger West goes hurtling away from the white hot sphere.
    She watches it, for a moment it seems to pause in space, no longer vanishing. Her sensors scanned the object to reveal that it was indeed moving, but also growing in size in the process.
    Its surface ballooned outwards exponentially, emitting strong radiation and searing heat. Suddenly it discharged a huge plume of gas in all directions. The space dust bl o w s around Lei in a color stream. N othing remained of the globe outside a dying dune of sparkling dust.
    “Basil, was that a…sun?” She asked,
    “I share your hypothesis Miss. Sensor scans on the dust seem to indicate fusion reaction product.”
    “A fusion bomb…” She mutters, watching the Technicolor dust slowly dissipate into the vacuum. The dust pulled apart from itself, wandering to some particular unknown destiny decided by angular momentum and gravity. None of it would ever be destroyed, but that state, form, and change was dead, only temporary .
    What remained now was divided by space, and incorporated into its vastness. The concept not destroyed, but emptied, and thinned. It was f alling forever towards non-existence, lines and slowing curves never reaching zero, forever to exist a kiss’s distance away.
    That was the fate of anything destroyed in space, to become a micrometer of the nothingness , of the empty.
    Basil reported that the convoy had stopped responding to hails and ionic pings a few moments after they had been intercepted. Fearing the worst, they returned to the original course. There was no sign or trace of them as they proceeded towards Vesta Minor.
    Lei knew the many things that could mean. As with the space dust, so to were they all vulnerable to their own infinite smallness.
    They soon came within sensor range of Vesta Minor. A colony loosely affiliated with TianShan, it was a cylindrical enclosed atmosphere ship , twisting its own gravity into existence .
    So far from the sun, such a colony was an expensive endeavor, however due to the mining operations on the nearby mega asteroid , Vesta, an operation this scale was feasible . W ith the proper discipline and force of will of course .
    Despite the wealth, they