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didn’t like the Lunar Accord. What was publicly hailed as a great step forward for the peace process, he saw as a disaster brewing. And he said so – loudly and publicly, using his new notoriety to get his message out. He advocated building a new international space force, designed to protect our facilities in space from attack and armed well enough to be able to do so. There were some powerful political figured who’d staked their careers on the success of the Accord though, so he made some powerful political enemies. They took the offensive, billed him as the ‘Mad Bomber’, turning his wartime actions into something darker. The press played along, and suddenly the war hero found himself on the news as a mass murderer and advocate of senseless killing.
    That was my father, of course. He argued long enough for the UN to agree to fund a space force – the two toothless ships in orbit around Earth now. Then he retired from the Navy and used his own money and contacts he had made in the Navy to establish a business in space. His – our – family company founded the first human settlement on Mars after surveys he funded found that the planet had more fissionable materials than Earth and Luna together. His ships were among the first sent out to the asteroids to mine metals there for industry on Earth and Mars. And in time, Stein Space Industries became one of the more prosperous companies in the solar system.
    “I told them this would happen,” he said. “Figured it wouldn’t take too long before someone would want to take advantage of all the power and wealth space represented, all with nothing out here to protect it.”
    “How’d you get around the export protocols?” I asked. But I figured I already knew the answer. Most of the best shipbuilders in the solar system were living on Mars now, not Earth. And a good chunk of them worked for us.
    “I wasn’t the only person who felt the way I did about the Accord,” he said as we jetted gently against the airlock. “Just the most vocal. When I resigned my commission in protest, a few other folks joined me. Others followed within the next year or two and helped form the nexus of the company.” He smiled. “Some of those folks are here on this station today.”
    “A few stayed on Earth, and with their help I was able to acquire any materials that we couldn’t just manufacture outright on Mars. Mostly though, we just produced the ships ourselves.” He stood up – we’d picked up spin from the station so we had an up and down again – and headed for the hatch just aft of the control deck. I got up to follow him while he opened the hatch and yanked down the ladder stored there.
    I was torn between feeling horrified and bemused. Dad had known precisely what he was talking about when he’d told Turrell how easy breaking the Accord would be, back on Mars Station. He’d managed all this – the station, the ships, everything – without the United Nations ever guessing what he was up to.
    The station was set up as a wheel, with the aired sections in the ring around the outside edge and a huge solar array in the center. The hangars were sitting in the lee of the station, away from the Sun, and the station had a nice spin that gave it something which felt like gravity. Mars equivalent, I noticed, not Earth. Had to grin inwardly at that. Nobody who’d been on Mars for any length of time enjoyed being dumped back into Earth’s higher gravity much.
    We marched down a long corridor, following the rim of the wheel. The place had a pretty spartan feel to it. No frills, just the essentials. It was clean and everything looked well maintained. I’d been around places where ex military hung out often enough to notice the signs.
    I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the silence, so I asked, “What’s the plan then, Dad?”
    He didn’t answer. We came up to a door. He pressed his palm against the door lock, which glowed a moment before opening the hatch. He gestured