Instantly his expression changed. His drive was a Pratt & Whitney Triton engine, known for its three-gear VASIMR design. This meant that his little ship generated thrust. Running on the lowest of the three gears, as he had, at 0.65 g of acceleration…

Crunching the numbers, he found that thanks to his exhaust, his ship would have been visible to anybody within three and a half billion kilometers.

He panicked. Belters were known for treachery. Since the rules said that asteroid claims had to be submitted in person at waystations, a lot of belters would just as soon fire off a mining charge at a ship seen to be coming from a valuable rock and claim it for themselves.

He cringed. He’d just set out from Station 13, leaving it behind to orbit with the Amor asteroids, six weeks ago. Right now it was the closest place he could file a claim.

When crossing millions of kilometers and trying to stay alive in the midst of assaults from the dregs of spacer society, six weeks was an eternity.