As we come about, out formation shifts into a patrol around Ceres. Each of us has a path around the giant asteroid where we’ll circle around looking for trouble. After dodging the space junk thrown our way, everyone’s alert and in no mood to play around. We ignore the various complaints and gripes as we circle.
Search and patrol are only part of the reason we’re out front here, anyway. We’re literally showing Jupiter’s colors and making a statement. “We’re here,” we’re saying. “We’re not going to ignore this provocation, and we’ll stand and fight if we have to.”
Above us, the blue stars of the fleet’s drives grow steadily larger and brighter as our ships come into dock.
* * *
Back aboard the Weston, the debrief goes quickly. We didn’t get hit by anyone or anything, and we didn’t have to shoot at anyone or anything. Cranky traffic controllers and irritated merchant skippers are the higher-ups’ problems, not ours. The grand strategy of what’s unfolding in the solar system is the problem of the highest higher-ups, though the consequences will most certainly be our problem later on.
As for the wrench and rock-throwers we had to deal with on the way in, ship’s security will be working with intelligence and the local Ceres Police on the matter. My guess is that no one saw anything. Even if they did see it, they won’t have seen anything—maybe especially if they did.
Little acts of sabotage and aggression like that are unfortunately standard all around the Belt. We protect their shipping and habitats, subsidize their local industries, and we’ve saved them from invasion and destruction numerous times.
And they hate us for it.
At the end of the day, Ceresians would like to be on their own and have us entirely out of the Belt. Frankly, so would I. If it were up to me, I’d be happy to leave them to succeed or fail on their own and make their own destiny in space.
Unfortunately, they won’t be left alone, and neither will we. Ceres is in a perfect location for trade, or for raiding shipping, and historically they’ve often chosen the latter. We’d go in every few years and clean the place out with the Marines. What we couldn’t ignore was when Saturn installed interplanetary antimatter missile bases to attack our home world. So the next time we came in, we stayed. Maybe if we’d backed Ceres against their traditional enemies in the Belt, things might have gone easier for us, but no, we tried to make peace in an interplanetary family feud. Ceres has always dreamed of being the capital of a Belter empire, but they’ve never managed to do more than patrol their own space, and even that they do poorly.
So we’re stuck patrolling the Belt because nobody else wants to or can. We’re stuck with it because if we don’t, Saturn will militarize the whole place and use it to strangle the entire solar system.
Still, Ceres has turned out pretty nice over time. It’s now the trade-hub for the Belt, and one of the busier ports in the solar system. New buildings and new technologies have caused it to grow into a minor metropolis. We gave them our nanotech supplements that combat the deleterious effects of zero and low gravity, and now there’s a whole generation growing up without constantly breaking bones or dying young.
And still they hate us for it.
Because, deep down, they still see themselves as the greatest of the Belter tribes, and the rightful rulers of all the Belt. They tell themselves tales of the glorious corsairs of the past who made worlds tremble and pay them tribute. They tell themselves that life in deep space is the purist life, and planet-dwellers are backwards, primitive, and decadent.
We took all that glory away from them, and they’ll never forgive us for it.
So even though they’re one of our important allies, and even though we’ve got a whole carrier task force stationed here, Ceres Base is a dangerous place to visit.
Still, we’re going ashore.
Shore leave isn’t canceled after all, and we’re still Navy. You just can’t keep sailors away from a bar, and I’m buying the first round.
* * *
Ah, Ceres! Garden and Jewel of the Belt!
As we come in on the CAST, I get a good look at it. It is actually not so bad to look at…from outside…and from a distance.
The “jewel” part comes from the hundreds of glittering geodesic domes covering its surface. Their facets flash in the sunlight, and red light from the grow lamps makes them shine from within. Here and there are yellow- and white-lit domes for habitats or recreation, some shining green from the plant life within. Lines of superstructure sprawl across the cratered surface in gleaming metal, shining with glowing windows and blinking navigational hazard beacons. Glowing transparent walkways, railroad tube-ways, and endless pipes and tunnels connect the whole together in a gleaming web of silver.
The massive peak of Ahuna Mons comes into view over the close horizon, a monster mountain all out of proportion on such a tiny world. The slopes of the cryovolcano are streaked with pale salts and other minerals, and a steep road winds up to the peak. A colossal mining tower rises from the summit into space, and our CAST has to adjust course to avoid colliding with it or the mining craft stopping by to pick up the ices, minerals, and chemicals bound for the nearby refineries.
We curve north to the pole and Asari City. Like Luna and Mercury, civilization on Ceres tends to collect on the poles, where water ice can easily be found, and it’s naturally shielded from the solar wind. Unlike Luna, the polar city is a chaotic collection of domes, star-scraper towers, rings, and tubes with no overall plan or structure. Except for
