The Rock Rats

helmet.

“Ready,” he said.

George glanced at the control board, leaning slightly canted against the curving bulkhead of the cargo bay. All the lights in the green, he saw. Good. Looking up through the open cargo bay hatch he could see the distant speck of the attacking ship, a cluster of gleaming sunlit crescents against the dark depths of infinity.

“Fire!” George said, leaning on the red button so hard he forced himself up off the metal deck. He raised a gloved hand to the overhead and pushed gently, felt his boots touch the deck plates again.

The cutting laser was a continuous wave device, designed to slice through rock. Its aiming system was so primitive that George had to sight the thing by eye. Its infrared beam was invisible, and the red beam of the low- power guide laser disappeared in the emptiness of space. In the vacuum of the cargo bay there was no sound, not even a vibration that George could feel.

“Are we hitting him?” Nodon asked, his voice pitched high.

“How the fook should I know?” George snapped. “I’m not even sure the fookin’ kludge is workin’.”

“It’s working! Look at the panel.” It’s working, all right, George saw. But is it doing any good?

The first hint that Starpower was firing back at him came when Harbin’s control board suddenly sprung a half-dozen amber warning lights. Without hesitation, he hit the maneuvering jets to jink Shanidar sideways. It ruined his own shot, but it moved him out of harm’s way. Temporarily.

Frowning at the displays, Harbin saw that one of his propellant tanks had been ruptured. He looked up at Starpower hanging out there and saw the big hatch of the ship’s cargo bay was open. They must have a laser in there, probably a cutting laser they use for mining. And they’re shooting at me with it.

He maneuvered Shanidar away from the open cargo hatch while checking his ship’s systems. Fortunately, the propellant tank they holed was almost empty anyway. Harbin could afford to jettison it. Yet as he did, he began to worry that they might hit remaining tanks before he had the chance to finish them off.

Staring at the dumbbell shape of Starpower rotating slowly against the distant, uncaring stars, Harbin’s chiseled features twisted into a cruel smile.

“Kill or be killed,” he whispered to himself.

CHAPTER 30

It took only a few days of running Helvetia Ltd. by herself for Amanda to come to the conclusion that she didn’t need to hire a replacement for Niles Ripley. I can do the systems management job myself, she realized.

With the habitat more than halfway finished, what was needed was a general overseer, a straw boss who understood the various engineering fields that contributed to the ongoing construction program. Amanda had learned a good deal of the technical skills in her training and experience as an astronaut. The only question in her mind was whether she had the strength, the backbone, to boss a gaggle of construction technicians.

Most of them were men, and most of the men were young and full of testosterone. In general, men outnumbered women in Ceres by six to one. The balance on the construction project actually was better: three men to each woman on the team, Amanda saw as she carefully reviewed the personnel files.

Sitting at her desk, she thought, If Lars were here there would be no problem. But if Lars were here he would take over the task, or hire someone to do it. Shaking her head, Amanda told herself, It’s up to you, old girl. You’ve got to do this for Lars, for all the people living here in Ceres.

Looking into the mirror over the dresser of their one-room quarters, Amanda realized, No. Not merely for them. You’ve got to do this for yourself.

She got to her feet and surveyed herself in the mirror. It’s the same old problem: the men will see me as a sex object and the women will see me as competition. That has some advantages, of course, but in this case the drawbacks outweigh the advantages. Time for baggy sweaters and shapeless slacks. Minimal makeup and keep your hair pinned up.

I can do it, she told herself. I can make Lars proud of what I accomplish.

She set a goal for herself: I’ll handle this project so well that when Lars returns he’ll want me to stay with it to completion.

Despite her best control, though, she could not avoid hearing a fearful voice in her mind that said, if Lars returns.

“He’s coming closer!” Nodon shouted.

Wincing inside his bubble helmet, George hollered, “I can see that! And I can fookin’ hear you, too. No need to yell.”

The two spacesuited men tugged at the big aiming mirrors of the cutting laser, clumsy in their suits as they tried to slew the coupled pair of copper slabs on their mounting. The mirror assembly moved smoothly enough; pointing it precisely was the problem. It had been designed for slicing ore samples out of asteroids, not hitting pinpoint targets that were moving.

“Lars, you’ve gotta rotate us so we can keep ’im in our sights,” George called to the bridge.

“I’m doing my best,” Fuchs snapped. “I’ve got to do it all by hand. The steering program wasn’t designed for this.”

George tried to squint along the output mirrors’ focusing sight and bumped the curving front of his helmet against the device. Cursing fluently, he sighted the laser as best he could.

“Hold us there,” he said to Fuchs. “Bastard’s coming straight at us now.”

“Tell me when to fire,” Nodon said, hunching over the control board.

“Now,” George said. “Fire away.”

He strained his eyes to see if the beam was having any effect on the approaching ship. We can’t miss him, not at this range, George thought. Yet nothing seemed to be happening. The attacking ship bored in closer. Suddenly it jerked sideways and down.

“He’s maneuvering!” Nodon stated the obvious.

“Shut down the laser,” George commanded. To Fuchs, up on the bridge, he yelled, “Turn us, dammit! How’m I gonna hit him if we can’t keep the fookin’ laser pointin’ at him?”

Another string of red lights sprang up across Harbin’s control panel. The propellant tanks. He’s sawing away at them.

He was in his spacesuit now. Once he’d realized that Star-power was shooting back at him he’d put on the suit before bringing Shanidar back into the battle.

His steering program was going crazy. The swine had hit a nearly-full tank, and propellant spurting from the rip in it was acting as a thruster jet, pushing him sideways and down from the direction he wanted to go. He had to override the unwanted thrust manually; no time to reprogram the steering to compensate for it. Besides, by the time he could reprogram the stupid computer, the tank would be empty and there’d be no more thrust to override.

In a way, though, the escaping propellant helped. It jinked Shanidar in an unexpected burst, making it difficult for the enemy to keep their laser trained on him.

But I can’t afford to lose propellant! Harbin raged silently. They’re killing me.

The amphetamines he sometimes took before going into battle were of no use to him now. He was keyed up enough, stimulated to a knife-edge of excitement. What he needed was something to calm him down a little, stretch out time without dulling his reflexes. He had a store of such medications aboard his ship. But inside his spacesuit, his cache of drugs was out of reach, useless to him.

I don’t need drugs, he told himself. I can beat them on my own.

He called up the highest magnification his optical sensors could give and focused on the area where he’d