"Yes, I’m Axelrod Kyzik. You're sure? There's no possible— I see. Thank you."

 

Kyzik ended the call.

 

Normally thin to the point of emaciation, the miner currently looked like a famine victim. It had been a miserable prospecting trip even before he'd run low on supplies, with only one find sent in. And now to cap it all off, the Company had lost it. After being on half-rations for over a month, he couldn't even afford his usual blowout. He was going to have to go straight back out again the moment he'd resupplied.

 

He sighed regretfully. So much for that steak.

 

* * *

 

While awaiting his rations delivery, Kyzik nursed a thin beer in a dockside bar, his customary sour expression driving away anyone who might accidentally mistake him for a people person. Tonight a lot of miners were in, cursing their luck. After a while, he waved the bartender over.

 

"What's bugging everyone?"

 

"Lots of lost ore shipments. Everyone's pissed at the Company for screwing up, but the refinery crew are down hours 'cause they've got no ore to process. There'll be fights tonight, I'll warrant."

 

Kyzik nodded absently. Then he gulped his beer and hurried out.

 

On the way back to his skiff he called the dockyard supplier. The promise of a twenty-credit tip brought fast service.

 

* * *

 

Kyzik wasn't a particularly imaginative thinker, but as a result he acted with no hesitation or the self-doubt that accompanies an artistic temperament. In this case, he'd realized ore pirates were operating, and he wanted to beat his fellow miners to them. He was more curious than bloodthirsty; long ago he'd worked out a sort of plan, just in case, and he was eager to see if his ideas would work.

 

Fortunately for him, independent miners aren't exactly known for their cooperative nature. It would be days before any kind of organized reaction could coalesce, and by that time he fully expected to be well on his way back to base. With any luck, that is...

 

While his normal practice, like that of his fellows, was to restrict his acceleration to around a single G, he blasted out of Luna Two at just over five. Had he been able to maintain that acceleration, he'd have reached his destination in a single day, but fuel constraints made the trip to the Trojans closer to a week. During his limited free time, he worked on some cast iron plates he'd purchased at the last minute, etching a grid of lines into their faces. He then gingerly painted the backs with a sticky substance, attaching an electronic gizmo to each. He completed eighteen in total.

 

Once he arrived at the Trojan zone, the hard work began in earnest. His first task, as usual, was to rope in a couple of small chondrite rocks and set up robot distillers on each for reaction mass. Once they were cooking, he began collecting dozens of baseball-sized rocks, the little ones usually ignored by prospectors. These he webbed together around one side of a single dense high-silica rock, leaving one flattish area exposed. That was where he'd attach the engine.

 

He planted his iron plate devices at equidistant points around the bundle, covering each with more webbing, and finished by burying his claim marker at the front. The marker was attached to explosives hidden at the core of his bundle, which would convert his find into a particularly nasty trap. However, that would waste his mining claim, and he hoped his other surprises would do the trick.

 

By this time, his machines had finished cooking out water for fuel. Kyzik tacked on a robot engine and set his booby-trapped claim on its course back to the Lunar refineries.

 

Once it was a fair distance out, he began following, taking care to stay directly in its path. After a short time, he turned off his transponder. He kept his target painted with a navigational laser.

 

* * *

 

Twenty hours later, he was awakened by a nav alert: his laser had lost the rock bundle. Quickly, he jumped into the pilot's seat and began decelerating. Wouldn’t do to overshoot.

 

After a couple more hours, he switched on his transponder and active scanning. By now, he figured, what was going to happen had done so already.

 

He was correct.

 

* * *

 

From a distance, the damage his improvised claymore mines had done to the ore pirate's skiff wasn't readily apparent, but it was definitely in an uncontrolled spin. Kyzic scoped the area looking for either survivors or other pirates and found nothing.

 

Not that that means much. Space is too big to be sure of anything.

 

His claim itself seemed largely intact. As he got closer, however, he did eventually discover one sign of the pirate: a lone boot from an EVA suit, still tethered to the webbed asteroids.

 

Must've been right over a mine when it detonated.

 

Kyzik didn't feel any sympathy for the deceased, who after all had been trying to steal from him, but he was aware that other people experienced these emotions in the face of death. Thus, he took extra pains to observe the common conventions. Once he'd managed to stabilize the disabled vessel, he had two other priorities. The second thing he did was a quick sweep for personal possessions, which he stowed in a spacer's duffel and labeled for shipping to the pirate's next-of-kin.

 

His first act, however, had been to place a salvage beacon on the other ship. After all, he had found it drifting. It was perfectly reasonable for him to claim it as a prize.

 

There had been a small stack of Company credits in a hidden compartment. Those he pocketed without a second thought.

 

* * *

 

To be on the safe side, Kyzik left the rest of his surprises intact on his ore claim, which would follow along behind. The salvaged ship, however, he took in tow. No sense waiting.

 

Time to go get me that steak, he thought, and grinned.