Potemkin Village

Excerpted from the Valles Observer, a report from Joe Cleary, embedded reporter aboard the "Hammer", a Thor-class frigate tasked with enforcing IPTO laws on rogue Fabs

The repaired Hammer is a different ship, not physically, but mentally. The damage sustained in the ambush a month previously has impressed on the crew the reality that this is not a simple stop-and-search mission.

There is tension on the bridge as the new raid begins, taut expressions, dilated pupils; exchanges between the crew are fast and clipped. This time, the Hammer is maintaining station 100km from the target fab, and keeping to the far side of an asteroid to which the fab is attached. The view on the main tactical screen is from a miniature surveillance drone in orbit about the asteroid. The fab sweeps into view, and the raid begins: bright flashes pop on the engines of a tug attached to the fab, and dark shapes attach themselves to the "office" section of the fab and close to the bridge of the tug.

I feed a surge beneath my feet, and, lurching, grab a nearby post to keep my balance. The Hammer is breaking cover at last, moving to allow her directed-energy weaponry to come to bear on the target, ready to provide fire support to the boarding party. Almost immediately, the surveillence drone shows brilliant points of light appear on surface of the asteroid: the Hammer's main guns are shredding mining droids.

Captain Jakobsdottir glanced my way and answered the question I hadn't asked:

"Necessary violence, Mr. Cleary; I will not allow a second escape. Also, we want the fabbers to understand immediately the level of force that we are prepared to use. Crippling the tug won't kill its crew; blasting the droids protects my crew and doesn't much reduce the value of the
prize."

The view on the main screen changes; now, we see a schematic of the fab, positions of the breaching party plotted as tiny green men. An overlap shows the helmet-cam feed of the marine leading charge through the breeching-lock (rather than use the ship's own locks, the boarding parties are using the moden equivalent of grappling hook, a marvel of engineering that puncture's the victim's hull like a mechanical lamprey without letting the air out - usually). A long corridor goes past at a blur, then an empty control room appears; the view shudders for a moment, then red lights appear on the consoles.

A moment later, a marine sergeant's voice comes over the bridge speakers:

"Hammer, we've got detonations here, feels big, can you give us anything?"

The raid controller glances at the officer running the surveillance droid, who punches her feed back onto the main display and starts to give a verbal rundown of what her sensors are showing us:

"Blasts coming from the fabbing bays; more showing within the refining section... looks like a controlled demolition"

The Captain ordered the marines out instantly; the bridge went quiet as we all watched the little green figures on the schematic race for the safety of the boarding craft, while on the exterior view, blasts flickered across the exterior of the fab.

When the boarding craft peeled off, I realised I'd been holding my breath. As the boarders raced clear of the self-immolating fab, the detonations increased in strength and number, like the finale to a fireworks show. Slowly, the wreck began to drift apart, in pieces.

The Captain's eyes narrowed and her mouth pursed; then she ordered the surveillance droids in closer, even as the Hammer drew back into the cover provided by the asteroid (in space, shrapnel from explosions doesn't get slowed or stopped by the atmosphere the way it would on a planet - it is just as lethal, if more diffuse, 1AU later).

The robot zoomed in on the wreckage, blackened bulkheads and structural members colliding in chaotic tangles; nothing exceptional to my eyes, but soft swearing rippled around the bridge. Captain Jakobsdottir said something unprintable.

A kind engineer interpreted the imagery for the sole civilian:

"They tried to sell us a Potemkin village - see how thin those members are, and how the bulkheads are just sheet metal?"

I indicated my incomprehension.

"It's a fake, fabbed just well enough to look good when it detonated, with a clapped-out tug attached and a few functioning mining droids for window dressing. Only the Captain just took a second look, we'd be moving on none the wiser."

The Captain turned to me again, her face a study in controlled rage, her voice deliberate, slow and steely:

"They have made a mistake, Mr. Cleary. One mis-timed blast, one unlucky piece of shrapnel, and my marines would have been killed. This is not over."