The Callisto Gambit Read Online Free PDF Page B

Earth, so I ran away.”
    “Why did you run here?”
    Michael shook his head. “I just want my ship back.”
    Brian took them safely around the cloud of asteroid fragments this time. As they cleared the danger area, a burst of bright light flooded over the Dumptruck. Something’s blown up, Michael thought. He saw his own small shadow hunched on the wall of the skip. The war’s come here, after all. He realized with great clarity that he didn’t want to die. He’d told the boss the truth: he had run away—from the war … but he hadn’t run far enough.
    His breath came in high hoarse pants.
    The light didn’t go away, like an explosion would have. Its source moved rapidly. Their shadows slanted and collapsed into a corner of the Dumptruck.
    The boss jumped to his feet, gesturing angrily. Michael clicked through all the channels on his FM selector, eager to hear what was being said. He didn’t look up until one of the men nudged him. “It’s a drive.”
    The light source was now bluish-tinged, identifying it as the white-hot plasma from a fusion drive. It shrank into the void and vanished.
    “What ship?” Michael wondered aloud.
    “The Monster.”
    “Gone. Gone!” the boss said. “Good riddance. We don’t need their negativity.” But he sounded tense, not happy about it.
    The Kharbage Collector was still there. The rotator arm was barely turning. The ship looked abandoned. But a puff of gas wisped from one of the auxiliary ion thrusters around the main drive shield. Someone was in there, station-keeping.
    The Dumptruck cruised along the Startractor’s spine. Brian’s men crouched at the back, laser rifles at their shoulders. Nothing moved.
    A dozen fully inflated Bigelow habs now occupied the cargo bays. There was nowhere left to dock, so Brian deployed grapples. Magnetic clamps glommed onto the plate between Cargo Bays 2 and 3. They all jumped out and bobbled towards the quarterdeck, still tethered to the Dumptruck.
    The airlock of the little quarterdeck module opened. A group of people in patched black EVA suits floated out. None wore tethers. They held their positions in the vacuum effortlessly, dribbling gas from their personal mobility packs to stay upright.
    The tallest one carried the same Habsafe™ laser rifle he’d used to chase Michael and the Haddock gang off the ship.
    “What do you want?” Kiyoshi Yonezawa said.
    My ship! Michael thought, but he was too frightened to say it out loud.
    T he boss floated up to Yonezawa. “The Monster’s gone.”
    “Yup.”
    “Where to?”
    “You mind your own business, and I’ll do the same.”
    “Didn’t take you. Who did he take?” The boss turned his helmet, glancing at the clusters of Bigelows in the cargo bays. “Ha! He didn’t take anyone, did he? Left you here. Stranded.”
    “We’re not alone,” Yonezawa pointed out. “Got the Salvation parked next door, packed full of life-support essentials. You’ve procured enough stuff to last a thousand people a hundred years.”
    “Longer than that,” the boss said. “And none of it’s yours.”
    “I procured a heck of a lot of that stuff, running your errands in the asteroid belt and beyond. I’ve worked for you half my life.”
    “And you were well paid for it.”
    “You still owe me for my last run.”
    “Money,” the boss said. “Money, money, money. That’s all you ever think about, Yonezawa. Money’s going to be about as much use as plastic toilet paper when Earth falls.”
    Yonezawa laughed. “Earth isn’t going to fall. Have some faith.”
    “Faith in what? Your Christian god?”
    “Whatever god you like. I know you’re a devout Muslim.”
    That explained the beard, but Michael did not take this revelation too seriously. Yonezawa was obviously being sarcastic. Anyway, Michael had known plenty of Muslims on Ceres. They were just like everyone else, except they didn’t drink or do drugs. He approved of that, naturally. Spending time around professional astronauts, he’d