Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

patched up so many times over it looks like space junk at this point. It comfortably holds sixty people, but knowing free miners, they probably have closer to eighty or ninety people on board.”
    “We can’t conduct the test if they’re there,” said Lem.
    “I’m sure they would appreciate not being blown to smithereens,” said Chubs. “But don’t expect them to pack up and leave any time soon. They’ve been at the rock for a few weeks now building mineshafts. They have a lot of time and money invested in this dig site. And it’s paying off for them. They’ve already sent two loads in quickships back to Luna.”
    Quickships weren’t really ships at all. They were rocket-propelled projectiles that carried a mining family’s processed metals all the way to Luna. The rockets were for maneuvering, and built-in sponders constantly broadcast the quickship’s location, trajectory, destination, and the name of the family. The family ID was always embedded deep within the quickship so it couldn’t be pirated. But pirates had little chance of catching quickships anyway. They moved incredibly fast, far faster than any manned vessel could match. Once the quickships got close to Luna, they turned themselves over to Lunar Guidance, or LUG, where they got “lugged” into Lunar orbit for pickup and delivery.
    “If we did wait for them to leave,” said Lem, “about how long are we talking? A week? A year?”
    “Impossible to say,” said Chubs. “Juke hasn’t done a lot of scans of rocks out this far. We typically stick to the Asteroid Belt. I have no idea how much metal they’re sitting on. Could be a month. Could be eight months.”
    “What’s the next closest asteroid?” asked Lem.
    Chubs turned back to the chart and began digging around again. “If you’re in a hurry, you won’t like the answer. The next nearest rock is four months, sixteen days away. And that’s four months in the wrong direction, farther out into deep space. So it would be four months out and four months back, just to return to this spot.”
    “Eight months. Way too long.”
    Chubs shrugged. “That’s the Kuiper Belt, Lem. Space and more space.”
    Lem stared at the chart. They needed to take the closer asteroid. And the sooner the better. Lem didn’t want the miners taking all the metals. The point was to show the Board the economic viability of the glaser. Lem didn’t intend to obliterate the rock. He was going to break it up, collect whatever metals he could, sell the haul, and slap the asset statement onto the center of the boardroom table back on Luna.
    But how do you vacate free miners from a profitable mine? He couldn’t pay them, which, as a man of wealth, had always been his default strategy for anything. The free miners were sitting on their source of income, possibly a long-standing source of income. They wouldn’t want to give it up. Which meant the only real option was to take it by force.
    “What if we bump them?” asked Lem.
    Lem had never witnessed the practice himself, but he knew that it existed. “Bumping” was a corporate technique, though not one you would find documented by any corporation. It was the asteroid version of claim jumping. Corporate ships snuck in on dig sites operated by free miners and chased the free miners away. They were coordinated attacks that required a lot of tech, but they worked. Free miners were rarely strong enough to defend themselves, and if you timed the attack right, the mineshafts would already be dug. So the free miners did most of the work, but the corporates reaped all of the benefits. It was devious, yes, and Lem didn’t relish the thought of doing it, but an eight-month trip to the second-closest asteroid was simply not an option. Besides, if rumors were true, Father had done a good bit of bumping in his early days, which would suggest that he could hardly object if Lem did it, too—as long as it didn’t become public.
    Chubs raised an eyebrow. “You serious, Lem? You want to bump them?”
    “If you see another option, I’d be thrilled to hear it. I don’t like the idea either, but we can’t ask them to leave. They wouldn’t. And the Makarhu can clearly take them. My concern is the glaser. I don’t want to endanger it in a scuffle. Could we bump them without jarring the glaser?”
    “Depends on how you do it,” said Chubs. “They’re moored to the asteroid. If we catch them unawares, cut their moorings, and cripple their power, we can push them