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1. A Game of Catch with Stardust
This particular job was, for the Mace sisters, genuinely the most orthodox work they'd taken in some time: the survey and extraction of a deep-space ore sample.
According to the Guild's intelligence, an unusual solitary asteroid had been observed hurtling toward the local belt from a distant, uncharted sector — moving at exceptional velocity. Its mass was not especially large, but preliminary scans suggested the possibility of an extraordinarily high-purity concentration of rare metals in its interior.
The problem was the approach. The asteroid was moving too fast for a standard mining vessel to match. And so the job had found its way to the Silver Anchor — a craft entirely at home in the frontier debris fields. The request was specific: bring the target's inertial momentum to a complete physical stop, then conduct a preliminary structural survey.
"Target asteroid entering this sector shortly. Here it comes, Shutia — get ready!"
On the main monitor's radar, a red point of light appeared and blinked. A misshapen rock some tens of meters across, batting aside the surrounding debris as it came, closing at the velocity of a projectile.
The Silver Anchor's interior was, as always, functional to the last centimeter — every instrument arranged with the logic of necessity, nothing present that couldn't justify itself.
"That is a lot of speed, sis. If we just took that head-on, the Silver Anchor's armor would be gone in one hit."
"I know. Which is why I have no intention of taking it head-on." A pause. "Shutia — set the traction anchor to maximum output and lock it there. Begin impact buffer synchronization."
"Ready whenever you are, sis."
Shutia's fingers moved across the control levers with the precision of a craftsman working in a medium she knew by feel.
The Silver Anchor did not sit and wait. Under Ledea's thruster control, the ship accelerated until it was running almost parallel to the asteroid's trajectory — drawing alongside it, matching its course, closing the relative velocity toward zero. Not fighting the object. Becoming its companion.
"Now. Release!"
"Here goes."
Shutia pulled the trigger. From the Silver Anchor's bow, the traction anchor launched with tremendous force — a high-tension molecular-weave cable driving a spike of ultra-hardened alloy. The anchor's claws bit into the asteroid's spinning surface and held.
Zzz — THUNK.
The inertial energy hit them like a wall reversing direction. Every safety valve in the cockpit screamed. The ship groaned through its frame.
Ledea didn't flinch. Pressed deep into the seat — all hundred and forty centimeters of her — she worked the controls in millimeter increments, firing the counter-thrust jets in precise pulses across the hull. She reeled in the cable by degrees, absorbing the asteroid's momentum through the ship's own mass and engine output, bleeding it off through each firing sequence, working it down to nothing.
"Energy absorption complete — fifteen percent remaining... ten... five... System stable. Asteroid has stopped."
"Sis, you are genuinely the best pilot in the universe."
"We're not finished." Already moving. "Shutia — mining laser. Strip the outer shell. I want the core exposed."
"Survey mode — go!"
Shutia switched consoles. From the Silver Anchor's main cannon port, a high-output blue-white laser fired in a thin, precise beam.
No sound in vacuum. But the surface layer of the asteroid — accumulated space dust, impurity-laced rock — simply ceased to exist on contact. Shutia's laser shaved away the outer shell the way you might peel fruit, layer after clean layer, without touching what lay below. The rare-metal deposit inside was undamaged.
And then it emerged: a crystalline formation refracting the artificial starlight in every color, purity approaching one hundred percent.
"...Remarkable." Ledea's voice carried something approximating satisfaction. "This exceeds the Guild's projected yield by a significant margin. With this data, the compensation for this job should be—"
The alert console went off.
A different alarm this time. A low, warning tone.
『Alert. Three unidentified vessels approaching. Weapons systems active.』
"...Ah." Shutia sounded entirely unbothered. "We have guests."
On the main monitor: three ships, each ugly with bolted-on salvage plating, bristling with jury-rigged weapons. Raiders. This sector had several groups of them, and they all looked more or less the same.
『Ha! Some luck! Looks like a little freelancer did all the hard work and just sat there waiting with the goods!』
『Hey, kids! Leave the asteroid and everything on that ship, and start begging right now! Otherwise we'll scatter you with the rest of the debris!』
The transmission came through on the public band: bravado, broken syntax, laughter in the background.
Ledea released a breath. Very slowly. The kind of breath that communicated, with complete precision, the full depth of her contempt.
"Why," she said, "do frontier scavengers uniformly possess the learning capacity of mineral deposits."
"Sis, do you want me to shatter their cockpit module with the anchor? I can do that."
The tone was entirely serene. The content was not.
"No. Excessive force would earn us a fine and a suspension from the Guild, and I have no patience for that today." A brief pause. "Fortunately — we happen to have, right here at hand, an excellent mass-based deterrent."
Shutia's smile was the smile of someone who had already run the numbers.
"Shutia — keep the anchor locked. I'm rotating the ship. Maximum thrust."
"Understood. Ready to throw whenever you say, sis."
Ledea pulled the controls to their limit. The Silver Anchor's main thruster output blazed. And with the traction cable still attached — trailing behind it an asteroid dense with high-purity rare-metal crystal — the ship began to spin. Slowly at first, then faster, carving a great circle through the sector.
There was no other word for it. This was a hammer throw. In space.
The centrifugal force built. The asteroid's effective impact mass multiplied with every rotation.
『What the — that ship is SPINNING the asteroid—!』
『You're joking. It's coming this way! Evade, evade—!』
"This is your penalty for attempted piracy." Ledea's voice was precise and entirely without mercy. "Take it."
Shutia hit the release.
At peak velocity, the cable lock disengaged. The asteroid, freed, described a beautiful and terrible arc through the sector — and struck the lead raider vessel square in the starboard hull.
The ship spun. Then it kept spinning, all the way into a debris field several sectors over.
The two remaining vessels had just watched something several times their own size get scattered like loose cargo from a single impact. Neither of them fired.
『What IS that thing? Run — if you stay you're next—!』
They ran. No parting words. Just the exhaust trails of two ships turning hard and accelerating away as fast as their engines would carry them.
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2. The Encirclement of Ordinary Life
"...Right then. Clean-up complete." Ledea worked through the post-operation consoles at a measured pace. "Survey data is preserved. I'll log this in the Guild report as a defensive debris-clearance activity."
A moment of quiet settled over the cockpit. The Silver Anchor drifted in the dispersed aftermath of what it had just done, and Ledea allowed herself one breath of genuine satisfaction. It had been some time since a job asked for actual precision work. The result was clean.
"Brilliant, sis! Even for you! Using a planetary body as a throwing weapon to take out three raiders at once — you really are the most magnificent and most adorable pilot in the universe!"
"'Magnificent' is redundant." Already plotting the return trajectory. "We're heading back to Subaru Station. When we arrive, I need to place an order for the new sensor modules — the compensation from this job should cover the full array if we—"
She didn't finish.
Shutia had risen from the gunnery seat without a sound. And now she was there — directly behind Ledea's chair, close enough that the next thing Ledea registered was the sensation of two large hands settling, with great and deliberate care, onto her shoulders.
The smile on Shutia's face contained depths that could not easily be surveyed.
"Hey, sis?" she said.
"...Yes?"
"The job's done, right?"
"It is. Is something—"
"You haven't forgotten what you said earlier, in front of the simulator, have you?"
"What I said... earlier...?"
"You said it, sis. 'I intend to surpass Shutia — I will upgrade myself too!' If sis is that fired up about self-improvement, then as your little sister and dedicated personal trainer, I have a duty to support that growth with everything I have!"
"I don't think that is quite what I—"
"First up: a one-hour course of ultra-intensive rub-and-pat hugging and deep-tissue snuggle-recharging, for the purposes of improving physical flexibility and mental decompression. Starting now!"
"Wha — what are you DOING, Shutia, stop kneading, stop it — not the ribs, that is TICKLISH, don't you DARE — hya ha ha — I cannot reach the controls — LET GO—"
"Not a chance! This is advanced training for sis's continued development! Come on, sis, your silver hair smells so good today — rub rub, pat pat pat~!"
"None of this constitutes training by any recognized standard! This is an abuse of the crew structure — no, this is a siscon RUNNING COMPLETELY LOOSE — let go of me this instant, you enormous DOG — hya ha ha ha — stop, stop—!"
The autopilot had taken the helm. In the cockpit of the Silver Anchor: a fifteen-year-old pilot, entirely pink, wriggling with every available limb; a twenty-four-year-old sister who had been quietly sulking for considerably longer than she would ever admit, and who had now obtained what she wanted and had no intention of releasing it.
The lights of Subaru Station glimmered ahead, warm and familiar, through the viewport.
As always. As ever. The Silver Anchor sailed for home in the middle of a complete uproar.