The Asteroid Belt Station's Story

By Stephen Brandon

Freedom lovers will sneak around the oppressive politics. The mining space station was one such endeavor. The 5 P’s helped. An unplanned course change results in finding a wrecked spacecraft, and new life goals within the stations population.
Using technology that you don’t understand, can give results you can’t forecast. Young men are always looking and going where they shouldn’t. Two star empires result, one rife with corruption, the other secretive.
Pirates attack a farming planet that is on a trade route of Durham Traders. A copy of an antique trading ship plays its role in freeing those captured by the pirates.
The corrupt empire dooms millions when unbridled greed is unchecked.
The Observers were an ancient civilization that looked upon the younger species in the galaxy as entertainment. Two millennium of experiments had only resulted in three successful translations into the past. However they could detect the shadows of future events to pinpoint areas of interest. Then they would trace that shadow back to catch its beginnings. Included in this book are two background traces.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Brandon
• Release date: May 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463699812

Stephen Brandon

I've loved westerns and science fiction since I picked up my first book at the public library. I've been writing on my computer for years. I never planned on any of my stories being published, just to be read by myself, family, and friends. The base journal is on forty spreadsheets with links to about a thousand files of short one day paragraphs plus other stories. {My claim to fame, written by someone else. Thanks.} "As an earthbound retiree, Stephen writes mostly science fiction and short stories. He is a voracious reader and has written for a few years, publishing his stories on Smashwords."

Book preview

The Asteroid Belt Station’s Story

Published by Stephen Brandon at Smashwords

Copyright 2020 Stephen Brandon

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This E-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This E-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite E-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Author's Note

This book is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, incidents, and dialogue are from the authors imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or other persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Real and fictional locations are used for background only.

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Table of contents (MToC)

Chapter 1 The Star

Chapter 2 The Wreck

Chapter 3 The Valley

Chapter 4 Explorers Empire

Chapter 5 Jedediah’s Traders

Chapter 6 Planning

Chapter 7 Attack

Chapter 8 Invasion

Chapter 9 An Empire Falls

Chapter 10 Belinda's

Added Observers Trace: Off the Grid

2nd Added Observers Trace: Blue Foxes

Acknowledgments

About Stephen Brandon

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Prologue

This story is a stand alone, however you might want to read Jed’s Transport Service published in 2012 as their history.

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Chapter 1 The Star

On her fifth birthday, Christine and Jed took their daughter to the forward observatory. Eveline was fascinated by the stars. She pointed at a bright one and asked, Can we go there?

No honey, it would take more years that we will live.

Jedediah and Albert were also taken to the observatory on their fifth birthdays. Jedediah pointed at the same star, and firmly stated, We need to go to that light.

Christine being the hereditary captain and owner of the station, changed the stations course.

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Chapter 2 The Wreck

Eveline was to interested in research to bother with the office of owner and station captain. She gave it to Jedediah, her brother.

He loved the stars, especially his. For years he’d spent days at a time in the observatory. One day he spotted a reflection.

Going to the control room, he focused the cameras and radar. To his surprise, there was a dwarf planet only half a million miles off their bow. The velocity difference meant that they’d overhaul it in less than two years.

Down in his favorite bar, he started talking about the stories his grandfather had told. A few of his friends were very interested in the dwarf planet. One even wondered what it would be like to explore it.

Another suggested that they fix up one of the old ships.

Another brought up the fact that they’d need spacesuits. They would have to be modified to withstand the cold.

Over many drinks and days, interest grew, and a plan came together.

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Six months later they launched. A weeks travel, and they had a perfect orbit around the dwarf planet. The pictures transmitted back to the station were analyzed.

They were getting ready to head back when they got the call. There is a wreck down there. Hours later they found the spot. The wreck was under feet of ice. Exploring the surface, they decided what they’d need to melt it out. Then they headed back to the station.

Two months later they were back with the equipment to melt the ice. Moving the wreck back to the station they put it in one of the cargo holds. As it started defrosting one of the wives mentioned that they could use the ice to replenish their ice shield, air losses, and water.

Matching trajectories only took a week. Then they had all the time they needed to harvest what they wanted off the dwarf planet. One smart ass named it supply depot number one, soon shortened to depot 1. With the ice removed, traces of ore were discovered.

Within months Jedediah realized what responsibilities the position of Captain brought with it. Paperwork was what he hated most. Checking the archives he found that good captains always had good subordinates, and delegated many jobs. Building a team was a job in itself, but it came together.

Assigning jobs to different teams of the population multiplied the speed results materialized. The boredom of living on the station disappeared. Enough ore was mined that new construction was started. Several more parts of wrecks were found, and reverse engineered.

Then one team stated taking the original wreck apart. It had what the scientist called a gravity drive. They handed their schematics to a team of engineers to build a new one.

The thousand year journey to his star, now appeared to be almost within reach, in his lifetime. He sent survey crews back to depot 1 with orders to cover every square inch, and find the rest of the wreck.

More parts were found to another engine, but it wasn’t complete. The parts of the new engine gave the scientist ideas, but no controls. They worked on it for a decade, and got something to work. The station was big and lumbering, yet the new engine moved it.

The star maps that they’d made were no longer usable. His star was gone, but the star system they arrived at had several planets, and two asteroid belts. The gas giants had satellites. One was almost an earth size moon with an oxygen nitrogen atmosphere. They named it Freedom, and built a new civilization.

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Jedediah Jr’s granddaughter Frieda finally put the theory behind the partial engine they had to paper.

Her son Michael was obsessed with the stories, and the wrecked engine. He became an engineer. Upon his graduation his mother gave him a copy of her engine theory. Years later he built a working model, and took it out beyond the heliopause and tested it.

Everyone thought his experiment had killed him.

He returned twenty-nine years later, and still looked like his mothers pictures of him. He claimed he’d only been gone two years.

Some wanted to explore. They built ships and set out on their own.

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Chapter 3 The Valley

When we arrived we picked the northern hemisphere because we spotted a nice river, flat land on both sides, then a few miles of low hills, and finally an ocean. It looked like a perfect place to farm. It was either spring or fall. The planet looked so good that we named it Paradise. We knew that we’d need to spend at least one orbit to see how the climate was, and the growing season.

Bill, Jed, and Ted claimed the other side of the river. Albert, Fred, and I claimed the right side facing upriver toward the mountains. Albert and Fred claimed areas along the river. I was the main pilot, so I had to insure the ship was safe, so I moved all the way back up the valley to where a small stream fell off a low plateau. Sixteen miles from the waterfall to the river wasn’t to