The Aftermath Read Online Free

said.
    â€œNot well enough.” Victor leaned on the comm console’s mute button and whispered urgently to his son, “Get down to the habitation module and get your mother and sister into suits. You suit up too.”
    â€œWhat about you?”
    â€œDo it!”
    Theo scrambled out of the control pod, nearly banging his head on the rim of the hatch, and clambered up the rungs set into the tubular passageway that ran the length of the three-kilometer-long buckyball tube. With each rung the feeling of weight lessened, until he let his soft-booted feet rise off the rungs and started scampering along the ladderway like a racing greyhound, his fingers barely flicking on the rungs. The closer he got to the ship’s center of rotation the less g force he felt: soon he was literally flying through the narrow tube.
    Meanwhile Victor sat alone in the control pod, his mind working in overdrive. He’s a killer. He’s wiped out the habitat, must have killed more than a thousand people, for god’s sake. The nearest help is days away, weeks. Hell, it takes more than half an hour just to get a message to Earth. We’re alone out here. Alone.
    The stranger aboard the attack vessel seemed to stir to life. “Well? Where is Fuchs?” he demanded.
    â€œWho am I speaking to?” Victor asked, stalling for time. “You know who I am but I don’t know who you are.”
    The man almost smiled. “I am your death unless you surrender Fuchs to me.”
    His fingers racing across the control keyboard like a pianist attempting a mad cadenza, Victor Zacharias answered, “Lars Fuchs isn’t aboard this ship. Send an inspection party if you want to. I assure you—”
    Syracuse shuddered. We’ve been hit! Victor realized. The bastard’s shooting at us!
    A bank of red lights flared angrily on the control panel. The main antennas. He’s silenced us. And the fuel tanks below the antennas; he’s ripped them open! With a swift check of his other diagnostics, Victor hesitated a heartbeat, then punched the key that released the ship’s cargo. Syracuse lurched heavily as fourteen thousand tons of asteroidal rock were suddenly freed from their magnetic grips and went spinning into space between the ore carrier and the attack vessel.
    That’s the best shielding I can provide, Victor said to himself as he punched up Syracuse ’s propulsion controls and goosed the main fusion engine to maximum acceleration. In the main display screen above his curved control panel he saw glints of laser light splashing off the rocks that now floated between him and the attack ship. Come on, he silently urged the fusion engine. Get us out of here!
    â€œYou can’t run away,” came the voice from the attack ship, sounding more amused than angry.
    I can try, Victor replied silently.
    *   *   *
    Theo banged painfully against the rungs protruding from the central passageway’s curving bulkhead. Dad’s accelerating the ship, he thought. Trying to get away. He grabbed a ladder rung and pulled himself along the tube. Within seconds he was no longer weightless but falling toward the habitation module, where his mother and sister were. Careful now, he told himself, remembering how he’d broken his arm a few years earlier in a stupid fall down the tube. He jackknifed in midair, banging his knee painfully against the rungs, and turned around so that he was falling feet first.
    He heard a hatch creak open down at the end of the tube and, glancing down, saw his sister Angie starting to climb upward toward him.
    â€œGo back!” he yelled at her. “Get into a suit! Mom too!”
    â€œWhat’s happening?” Angie shouted back, her voice echoing off the tube’s curving bulkhead. “The intercom isn’t working.” She sounded more annoyed than frightened.
    â€œWe’re being attacked!” Theo hollered, scrambling toward her as fast