The bridge of the Free Will wasn’t large—roughly an eight-by-ten-meter trapezoid.
On the left was Dorian’s station, tied into the ship’s flight systems.
On the right was Big Blue’s station, controlling weapons.
Front-center was Wyatt’s command seat. Behind it sat a holographic star-map table—Danser’s job was to run navigation.
The ship had its own intelligence. With a single order from Wyatt, it could execute every system. Most of the time, Dorian and the others didn’t need to do anything at all.
But if the systems failed—or if fine control was required—they could take manual control.
Wyatt settled into the command seat and linked into the ship’s visual feed.
The walls vanished. The exterior world wrapped around them.
Looking down, they could still see Starling and Linneya waving. Then the hangar doors closed. Five-Color Fortress shrank. The white expanse of Aurora Plateau slid past beneath them.
And then the curve of the planet appeared.
Most of Lansen was smothered in thick cloud. The three-month rainstorm still hadn’t ended.
In near orbit, countless glittering crystals drifted—like shattered ice.
The Free Will looped around the planet at three kilometers per second, accelerating steadily. In the end, it would punch free of orbit at escape velocity—eleven kilometers per second—and head for the Ring four hundred million kilometers away.
Lansen was close to Earth in size. It had a moon. Its distance to its sun resembled Earth’s as well—so Plando’s earliest explorers had called it a “New Solar System.”
But unlike our system, this one had only a single planet.
Beyond that… a great band of debris, like a belt around the sun’s waist.
The Ring—also known as the Coberton Asteroid Belt, named after the Plando scientist who first charted it.
It lay between 2.71 and 3.62 AU.
Within that vast region, asteroids were scattered in impossible numbers. Bodies larger than 200 kilometers across numbered in the millions. A few were even close to qualifying as planets.
And smaller rocks?
Too many to count.
Four broad types were most common in the Ring:
C-type (carbonaceous), S-type (silicate), M-type (metal), and I-type (ice).
C-type made up more than seventy percent.
M-type was the rarest—only about four percent—and it was exactly the resource Phantom Forge and Lord Julian competed over.
To make Wyatt’s search easier, Lord Julian divided the Ring clockwise into twelve equal sectors—like a clock face—and set the point closest to Lansen as the six o’clock position.
Most of Phantom Forge’s known space bases and mining sites clustered between six and eight o’clock.
The day before departure, Wyatt had asked Lord Julian a question that had been bothering him:
How did Miller send I-type ice asteroids toward Lansen?
Lord Julian’s answer was simple.
“The Ring and Lansen both orbit the sun counterclockwise,” he said, “at nearly the same velocity. The inner Ring holds plenty of I-type bodies.”
“All Miller has to do is find an ice asteroid of suitable size between nine and eleven o’clock. Apply a small force, push it out of the Ring’s path, and slow it down.”
“In a few days, Lansen will collide with it as the planet swings through that region.”
“So it’s not that the ice hits Lansen,” Wyatt said. “It’s that Lansen hits the drifting ice.”
“Exactly,” Lord Julian said. “This method was in my own plans—if I could defeat Phantom Forge. It’s the simplest way to restore Lansen’s oceans.”
“But it still requires precise calculation,” he added. “Too much mass, and the impact becomes catastrophic. Too little, and it won’t reach the surface—it may get captured by Lansen’s magnetic field and become a new satellite.”
“And the trajectory must be exact. Otherwise it misses the planet and achieves nothing.”
“Sounds complicated,” Wyatt said. “Miller must be smart.”
“Somewhat,” Lord Julian said. “But not that smart.”
“To ensure collisions, he pushed out a large number of ice bodies. More than a few missed.”
“We’ve had to clean them up and intercept them. If we let it continue unchecked, Lansen would become an ocean world with water hundreds of kilometers deep. No land left.”
“It might even get shattered.”
“Fine,” Wyatt muttered. “A barbarian.”
“Which is why your search should focus between eight and twelve o’clock,” Lord Julian said. “Phantom Forge has located several bug hives there. I want you to find Miller before Phantom Forge does… and talk.”
“He calls himself a god,” Wyatt said. “He won’t be easy to persuade.”
“The Free Will carries a Starbreaker triphasic warhead,” the Gentleman said.
“I set it to maximum yield. It’s enough to grind a dwarf planet into nanometer dust.”
He smiled and patted Wyatt’s shoulder.
“How you ‘talk’ is up to you.”
***
After Wyatt’s departure, Starling stayed at Five-Color Fortress for her body upgrades.
Linneya, thrilled to be out, wanted to stay a few days as well. But after only one day, she was already bored.
She couldn’t see Starling. Little White had been pulled back into teaching duty. The base was full of busy robots who barely acknowledged her.
And worst of all—it was freezing.
The next morning, Little White arrived early and found Linneya. Linneya immediately asked to return to Edean.
Little White made a dramatic face.
“You sure?” she drawled. “I was planning to take you ice-cliff climbing today, plus a skiing exploration.”
“Guess we’ll just cancel it.”
Linneya’s eyes lit up. “No no no! I changed my mind—”
***
Half an hour later, Little White drove a hovercar to the base of a near-vertical glacier.
The wall was high, but cut through with cracks and grooves. With electromagnetic grip pads, it was perfect for a beginner to practice.
After Little White helped Linneya into her gear, they began to climb.
As they ascended, Little White demonstrated techniques and corrected Linneya’s posture. Linneya learned quickly. Each meter up came easier than the last.
Two hours later, they’d reached roughly two-thirds of the height.
The wind howled across the face of the ice. The temperature had dropped well past minus forty.
But Linneya’s heated suit kept her warm. If anything, she felt hot. Her cheeks were flushed with effort and excitement.
“Tired?” Little White asked, pointing at a protruding ledge nearby. “Want to rest?”
“No,” Linneya said, glowing with achievement. “Not tired at all. Let’s rest when we reach the top!”
Under the aurora, Linneya’s smile looked impossibly pure.
It stirred a memory in Little White—something distant and painful—and she froze.
“Sister White?” Linneya called. “What’s wrong?”
“Uh—nothing,” Little White said, snapping back. “The view’s great. Let me take a pretty picture.”
“Sure!” Linneya laughed.
She held a crack one-handed, tilted her head, and struck a pose.
Little White raised the headset camera and snapped several shots.
Then her expression hardened.
Into her headset, in a voice barely audible even to herself, she whispered:
“Linneya… don’t move. Don’t move, no matter what…”
“What?” Linneya asked softly.
The warning made fear spark in her chest—but after everything she’d survived, she obeyed. She didn’t move an inch.
Little White slowly drew a dagger from her leg.
Then, in one violent motion, she hurled it past Linneya’s back.
Ping!
A shower of sparks erupted as the dagger struck something invisible. There was a metallic clang—
and a soccer-ball-sized sphere shimmered into view, tumbling downward.
“Aah—!”
Linneya flinched at the sparks. Her hand slipped.
And she fell after it.