"Loving Eros" by Raoul Meuldijk

Loving Eros

Julian Date 76807.2
Slowly the pirate spacecraft Deep Trouble approached asteroid 433 Eros.
“Gerrard, I can see the harvester factory, plus 15 degrees yaw, minus 3 degrees pitch off current vector.”
“Laid in. Touchdown in 34 minutes, Bjarne. The factory has moved more than expected since our last visit.”
“Which means we’ll find more booty!”
An hour later, Bjarne stepped out, onto the asteroid’s surface. Carefully he moved across the regolith in crater Catherine, toward the trail of ore bags that were left behind by the harvester factory. Gerrard followed close by, carrying the lines which they would attach to the bags, to lift them and pull them to their spaceship.
“Lovely clumps of magnesium, iron and carbon here. With this final lot, we’ll be able to build our own harvester back home!”
“Pity the harvester itself is too heavy to steal.” Bjarne said, and attached the cables to the huge bags of purified elements.

For three hours, Gerrard and Bjarne toiled to attach all the cables, carefully manoeuvring by hands, feet and the small jets of their suits. Lift off from the asteroid was a delicate procedure, tautening all the cables without pulling the ship out of balance, but eventually the ore bags were rising out of Catherine. Bjarne fired the chemical rockets for five more seconds, putting the Trouble into its own orbit around the sun, independent from Eros. Gerrard started the winches, which pulled the ore bags into the holding clamps on the belly of the ship.
“It’s a good catch, we’re twice the mass we were!” Gerrard said.
Bjarne answered: “The computer noticed, we’ll be taking a lot longer to accelerate out of here. I have laid in a course for home. I’m starting the nuclear rockets. Put on your g-suit and brace for acceleration, 3 g in two minutes.”

Julian Date 76807.4
Two hours into acceleration, the radio came to life: “This is NSMC Return on Investment, stop your acceleration! You have stolen property from the Near Space Mining Corporation. Wait for our arrival and do not resist arrest.”
Breathing hard under the pressure of their increasing speed, Gerrard said: “It took them quite some time to notice us! They’ll never get us with their puny 2 g engines.”
Bjarne didn’t reply, instead, he played with the telescope and other astronomical equipment for some time. Eventually, he pulled himself up to Gerrard with a look of concern on his face, and handed Gerrard a spectrogram.
“Look at that blue shift! They’re way faster than they used to be! They must be pulling at least 4 g’s! They’ll actually catch up with us in two days!”
“They’ll never be able to maintain that pressure for that long, they won’t even be able to eat!” Gerrard answered.
“Maybe they don’t need to eat, maybe they found yet better ways to travel under high g, maybe they replaced themselves completely by the silly machines they use in their brains. I’m not betting on them giving up. We have to do something.”
“Like what? Change course and be in space for months longer?”
“Something like that, hide on some other asteroid somewhere.” and Bjarne went back to the astronomical instruments.

Julian Date 76808.3
For a day, Gerrard did the math to see what other asteroids they could reach with slight changes in course. But he wanted to go home, to asteroid 5879 Almeria. He’d already been in space for three months, stuck in this tin can with only Bjarne to play chess with. Not that he disliked Bjarne, but he was a bit boring.
Twenty-four hours into acceleration, Bjarne said: “I’ve got their tentative track. They’re already reducing their acceleration to match our speed within seven hours.”
“Hmm, I’ve come up with a place to hide, if we can get up to speed to outrun them. It’s this rock over here, 5370 Taranis. It’ll mean reversing though.” and Gerrard showed an orbital diagram on his computer pad.
“But we can’t possibly outmanoeuvre them with our current mass! We’ll have to dump the cargo!” Bjarne replied with some shock. Gerrard had a smug look on his face. “Look at this, see where Almeria is in two weeks?”
“Crossing our initial path, of course.”
“So, all we need to do is keep our cargo on track. Remember we had a rail gun installed?”
“Of course, that’s for delivering cargo into orbit around Ganymedes for our clients over there. You don’t propose to shoot the NSMC?! I’m a thief, not a murderer.“
“Not at all. We’ll shoot the cargo home! Our brothers on the Tortuga Station at Almeria will be able to catch it!”
“That’s a good one! But we will have to time that well.” and Bjarne went to work at the controls. He disengaged the nuclear engines and turned the ship around, facing towards Taranis. They enjoyed a short comfort of weightlessness before Bjarne reengaged the engines and the ship started to slow down relative to Almeria.

Julian Date 76808.4
Two hours later, their pursuers called again. “Prepare to be towed in in four hours. Do not resist.” Bjarne and Gerrard did not reply. Three hours later, the large NSMC Return on Investment was already clearly visible with the naked eye.
Half an hour before the involuntary rendezvous, Bjarne announced: “The engines are under full thrust. You can fire now, Gerrard.”
“Good, this is the fun part! Brace for acceleration. Firing number one, 3... 2... 1... now!”
A shudder went through the craft as the first ore bag sped along the belly of the hull and shot into space. Gerrard and Bjarne were pushed into their seats as the acceleration increased suddenly, now that the craft had become a lot lighter. Immediately, they fired two other bags. “Urgh...”, Gerrard moaned under the building pressure, “two more...”
“V squared... now at 4 g...” Bjarne read off the HUD.
“Firing number four, 3... 2... 1... now...”
“5 g’s, argh...”
“Firing number last... 3... 2... 1... nowhrgh...” and the ship, now free of its weight, pushed with 6 g’s towards Taranis. The Return overshot them at enormous speed, accompanied by a lot of pleasing curses over the radio from it’s captain. The heavy industrial ship wouldn’t match Trouble’s acceleration.

“Fifteen... minutes... ofh... 6geerrgh...” Bjarne mumbled, after which neither of them spoke for the rest of the time, to concentrate on their breathing under the heavy g-force. After fifteen minutes, Bjarne switched of the nuclear engines. His nose bled, and Gerrard had a slightly dislocated wrist, but both men wore satisfied grins. The industrial ship was only a small speck in their rear view screen. Deep Trouble was quickly falling towards the hide-out at Taranis, while the booty safely shot out the other way towards the pirate nest at Almeria...