The shuttle set down gently at the New Liberty spaceport. The stairs were rolled up to the airlock, which had been overridden to allow it to be double-opened. I got off the shuttle and followed the rest of the crowd into the terminal. It was a nice, moderately sized terminal with a small lounge, two gates, a coffee shop, and a small store for last-minute essentials. I walked past them, moving faster than most people since I didn’t have any baggage with me.

  I exited the terminal and took a look around. There was an area for hovercar loading in front of me and flyers to my right, which reminded me I needed to pick one up for myself at some point, as flying the into town for a gallon of milk would be overkill. To the left was a tramline that led to the city center. The choice was easy. A long time spent in a POW work camp had left me with a desire to walk freely regularly—but not to the point of walking all the way across a city.

  The tram took me into the city. We passed through the outskirts, which—like any metropolitan area in civilized space—were full of the less fortunate. It was worse here on a frontier world, where regulations were minimal, and work was abundant. Almost anyone could go three days out of town, near one of the more rural cities, and stake a land claim. There was even government assistance available for the one-way trip. They could then sell the hardwood on the plot to off-world wood exporters. The logging industry on colony worlds like New Ganymede, where the wood grew naturally even before colonization, was massive—but demand was even greater.

  It was hard but honest work that was generally enough to raise anyone with the money for an axe or chainsaw onto a path to stability. That left only the sick, infirm, lazy, and the criminals who preyed on them in the slum areas. The suburban areas came next. Anyone in a settled space would recognize these. Fifteen minutes later, we were pulling into the city center.

  Everyone got off the tram onto the platform. I stepped out as another tram arrived on the other side of the platform, and its passengers mixed with our group as we all headed toward the station. I had just started to turn when I heard a shout of alarm behind me. Spinning around, I saw a man running with a purse—its strap freshly cut, likely by the blade in his hand. A young man in uniform stepped forward, but before he could say or do anything, the thief shoulder-checked him and kept running. That’s when the thief made a mistake that might have saved his life.

  He was too busy watching the cop sprawled across the pavement to see me in his way. I used one of the oldest tricks in the book and simply swept his legs out from under him as he ran. The robber hit the ground hard—the purse skidding away, the knife landing just in front of him.

  I followed him down, driving my left knee into his back and grabbing his right arm. A quick palm strike to the elbow folded it up behind him. I switched control to my right hand and felt him start to reach for the knife with his left.

  Clearing my jacket with my free hand, I drew my Penetrator plasma pistol. The backstrap activator flared to life, the weapon humming with a rising whine—sharp, distinct, as unforgettable now as the rack of a pump-action shotgun had been back when Earth was still the only world we held.

  “Revenue Cutter Service. Touch it and die.”

  The thief froze, and we stayed like that for a few moments before the officer came running over.

  “Thank you for the help, sir. If you would just wait a moment—” The officer didn’t feel the need to wait for my answer. He grabbed the thief's half-outstretched hand and slapped an odd-looking cuff on it. It had a cable that unspooled as he ran the second cuff over to the arm I had secured, then hit a button. The cable began to retract and ratcheted closed—not fast enough to injure the suspect, but fast enough to prevent him from trying anything.

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  “All right, I have him now,” I said, glancing at his nametag. “All yours, Officer Kenith.”

  I stood up as the officer hauled the man to his feet.

  “Actually, I’m just a trainee. I was on my way in for my second day.”

  By then, the woman whose bag had been stolen had arrived.

  Backup showed up from somewhere in the terminal a few minutes later and took our statements. The woman’s purse was returned, and one of the officers walked her to her waiting ride while she gave her statement. The officer interviewing me asked all the usual questions, and I answered in a report format. No speculation—just the when, where, how, and why from my point of view.

  He seemed to appreciate that. He asked for permission to see the Penetrator. Plasma pistols had an inherent armor-piercing capability, and the Union required you to fill out extra forms to carry one anywhere but a ship you owned or crewed, with the captain's permission. While technically only Union-approved law enforcement agencies, like those in the core worlds, could demand to see it unless it had been used, I had nothing to hide, and there was no reason to get on the bad side of the local authorities over a thirty-second check.

  “Sure thing, officer. Here you go.” I slowly used just my thumb and index finger of my off-hand to draw the Penetrator and handed it over. He was careful to keep his hand away from the activator, and after running the serial number, he handed it back.

  “Thank you, Mr. Pickering. That should be everything we need. Thank you on behalf of the New Liberty Police Department.”

  We shook hands and I left, watching an older officer arrive. Judging by the way he was acting and how he had Officer Kenith physically walk him through the event, my guess was he was Kenith’s training officer.

  As I exited the terminal, I decided I’d had enough fun for the day and hailed a taxi to take me to the real estate office. The cab ride was uneventful. The cabbie listened to a classical station playing the Beastie Boys, and we quickly arrived at the office. I thanked and tipped the driver before heading inside.

  The office was well-appointed. I walked up to the reception desk.

  “Hello, I have an appointment with Mr. Michaels about a property out near Tarpica Station?”

  The receptionist smiled and nodded. “Yes, sir, he's right this way.”

  I followed her down the hallway to an office. The door opened, and I saw a middle-aged man sitting behind a desk.

  “Welcome, Mr. Pickering. My name is Aaron. Little Roney asked me to help you as best I could.”

  Ronald “Legs” Michaels was one of the green Marines I found myself embedded with after the was destroyed. When the lieutenant was killed, he became my runner. When I returned two months ago, a friend of a friend let him know I was back, and he got me hooked up with his uncle when I mentioned I was looking for a quiet place on the outskirts.

  “Thank you, Aaron. Legs said you might have the perfect property for me?”

  He showed me to a chair and turned his desktop toward me.

  “This is the old Clear Creek mine. It was the first mine built on the surface, and a lot of the iron and steel for New Liberty came from there. But the mine started to play out, and the owner moved his operation to the planetary rings. The property has a hangar for the ore ships when they would land. I had an engineer check it out when you expressed interest. The hangar is in working condition despite being seventy years old. The maintenance team took a look at everything and said it's good to go and will fit the dimensions you gave me.”

  I nodded. Back when I first started looking at properties, I’d sent Aaron the specs for a ship like my old cutter—the —knowing that once the Confed reparations came through, I’d buy something similar. Whatever I bought had to be able to land on-site, so the specs were non-negotiable.

  Aaron continued, “The property’s fenceline is still mostly intact, though it’s down in a few places. The bunkhouse has been ruled habitable, but the site's reactor has been removed. The low-yield test passed inspection.”

  The ship's reactor could be plugged into the power net, so long as it ran on the standard wattage, which Aaron confirmed. It wouldn’t be powerful enough to run the whole site at full capacity, but it could probably handle seventy-five percent of the load—which was more than sufficient for my needs.

  “There is a warehouse, a few outbuildings, and a company office. The office has been checked as well and is functional. None of the outbuildings have been inspected, though.”

  I took a few minutes to go over the specs. It all looked good. I did note the mine had not been inspected and was outside its one-year cycle for inspections. Years were still handled on the Earth standard, and so were any multi-system deals or events—like an interstellar version of Greenwich Mean Time. The local moon had an eight-day week based on its rotation rate, and a thirty-two-day orbit around the gas giant.

  I finished my review and looked back up at Aaron. “I like it. Let’s go take a look.”