A Tale of the Belt

 

 They aren’t ‘Roids exactly, more like a large, coalesced pile of debris we called Diamond Dust, and I found one. They are full of rare earths, water ice, and yes diamonds, not dust but industrial grade chunks, easier to harvest than grow in orbit, and this one find set me up for a cycle or so, I was what they called a happy camper.

 

 I pulled out an old style Vanilla Cigar, sat down and had a good look. Too big for a grav lasso, I may need Mylar paint to fab up a bag to put it in, so I ran the numbers and for 2B tonnes, I needed 2000L. Cheap enough. With my claim registered and my Stake buoy in place, I plotted for high G direct to Ceres, there were appointments to be made, but I couldn’t do it over normal comms. No one knew where my claim was except for the Reg. department, so silence was key at this point, Burn!

 

 Ceres, always a welcome sight, I can’t actually see it, sensors take us in from 10k, a flip at 4k and a landing at pad 9, and an easy walk to Rose’s Cantina. Rose keeps a room for me on credit, and she has the recipe for Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, So it’s a great spot for rest and business.

After dinner and a rest period, I dressed in some nice clothes and set out, I had three appointments set up, 2 buyers and a mining company, so I set out to the main strip, and walked the promenade.

 

 Andy was there prowling for girls, he still grinds the gold runs, Which is a lot of work considering gold being cheap, but Volume I guess? He’s making bank, and his wife is fat and happy, so good on him .Marie is still running the Girl House, we shared a quick Espresso, the girls are fine, including my daughter, I paid Marie her the geld and we parted ways. Fredo, Lucianne, Nick, all the usual losers were in their usual places, and I passed on, down to the trade quarter.

 

 Understandably the Investors had concerns over me even getting the Dust back, let alone the pirates, I let them see my armament, shielding and tac systems and they seemed satisfied, so we sealed the deal, then it was off to see a Mining operator, but first…

 

 Kerry!, it’s been a while, and she had a four hour layover, how lucky! 

/3 hours later…..

Oh Shit! I’m late! Damned Bots!

 

 I need a mining ship, a full crew and Mylar tow capacity, and Will Robinson fit the bill, a true roughneck, his Fam were OG belters, and so were his boys.I was lucky, My Mom was an Eart’er, and me Da was a Belter, so I have connects you know? If you want a good job you pay extra and use Belters, they don’t complain about low O2, dust, or the cold, the toughest humans in the system Ya.

/sorry for the slang

 

 Last stop was Martian Security inc.,post13. MS13 is a private security firm that does cloaked backup, very pricey, but we always win. They have been in business for hundreds of years.With the Leopard as Flagship, three mining ships and the MS13 ships in stealth, we were off.

Burn!

 We had to run at less than relative speeds so as not to attract attention, so after a quarter cycle run, we were due for some down time once we arrived.The thing about diamond dust is you can’t burn straight at it or you’ll just blow it out of the sky, so an indirect burn and a flip is required, and without radar, this can be very tricky.

 The Mining ship led the way in and established a stable orbit, then gave us LaGrange points to fix, we didn’t want to create tidal effects and drag the dust apart, these guys are good. With MS13 at an unknown location close by, we took a few days off, and plotted our next moves.