Read Rebel Stars 1: Outlaw for Free Online Page A

Skylon."
    Gomes moved to the wall and waved her device across it, calling up a map of the system: Inside, including Earth, Mars, the Moon, and a few hundred stations of all sizes; Outside, which started at Jupiter's orbit and extended all the way to the Kuiper Belt; and the Lanes, the safe roads between the two divisions of the Solar System. Skylon was a dot in orbit around Triton, Neptune's only moon of significance.
    "Long flight," Jons said.
    "Thus why it's valuable," Gomes said. "Everything else, it's normal parameters. Do your jobs, keep your heads, and we'll be back on our feet in no time."
    Maybe it was the presence of the two new players, or maybe it was the hangovers, but nobody had any questions. The others filed out, headed back into Beagle to enjoy their last night of leave.
    As Webber stood, MacAdams eyeballed him. Gomes watched them both.
    "For the record," Webber said, "I had no idea what that was about."
    The corner of MacAdams' mouth twitched. "Funny thing to get involved in, then. You in the habit of sticking your hand into dark holes?"
    Taz stepped past MacAdams, putting herself chest to chest with Webber. "We're here on business. Business makes for short memories. But if there's any more bullshit, I will stomp you into something you can't scrub out of the floor."
    She turned and walked away, boots thudding. Gomes gave Webber an odd smile and left with MacAdams, jabbering about wiring.
    Webber went to the galley and had the machine dispense a double.
    Whole thing was puzzling. Captain was in money trouble, yet not only was she modding the ship, she was hiring new crew. On top of that , she was taking a Lane. As far as Webber was concerned, the Lanes were about the biggest scam in the system. At one point they'd served a purpose, yeah. Way back when you couldn't make it through the Belt without stirring up five hives of the unassociated pirates who'd taken to the area the instant it became feasible for a small-count colony. Plenty of real estate in the rocks hollowed out by decades of mining.
    Back then, the frontier had boomed. Intense as a gamma burst. Everyone had been so hell-bent on making sure there could never be another extinction-level event like the Swimmer invasion that they'd flocked to space like lemmings in bubble helmets. For the obvious reasons, Mars and the Moon had been popular destinations, but so many people had headed into the Asteroid Belt that nobody had a true count. There was no one government keeping things in order. People did what they wanted. What they had to.
    Often, "what they had to" meant capturing the cargo of any ship that passed through their territory. Particularly after so many corporations had discovered that it was cheaper and more efficient to employ autopiloted ships that didn't require human personnel or the life support needed to keep that personnel breathing. Drones, though? Drones were dumb. Trickable. You could correct that by assigning them remote human pilots, but unless those pilots were relatively close, the lag in communications meant the pirates could carve up their ships like gouda.
    Naturally, the corps had fought back, but the system was too huge for any one company to clamp down. And the fragility and expense of their navy meant that any losses put them in the red immediately. When they'd tried hardcore deterrents—nuking pirate enclaves, say—the PR fallout had been more lethal than their attacks. Two of the largest spacefaring companies had been broken up and reassembled under new management. There had actually been a full-fledged revolution in the New Roman Alliance. Completely rewrote the corporate section of their constitution. Top executives had been executed for war crimes.
    Pretty cool stuff.
    Then some bigwig had gotten the idea for the Lanes. A series of stations in empty space that could serve double duty as defense bases and as remote-operation platforms for drone pilots. By staggering them across the void, you could provide a response to