Free Hidden Empire by Kevin J. Anderson

Roamers’ own strange specifications. His teeth pressed together,
     as if he didn’t want the insulting words to come out of his mouth. “Damned Roachers!”
    After all the corsairs had been similarly executed, General Lanyan himself ejected Rand Sorengaard from an airlock hatch,
     then turned to his Remora pilots standing in the Juggernaut launching bays.
    “One more step to go, men. Scout the vicinity and gather all the frozen bodies. Bring them back inside so we can incinerate
     them properly.” He looked over at Rlinda Kett. “We’re in close proximity to a shipping lane here. No sense in leaving navigation
     hazards.”

13 JESS TAMBLYN
    R iding the lemony-tan clouds of Golgen, the Roamer skymine left a wide wake as it scooped up misty resources. The harvester
     complex—a sprawling cluster of reactor chambers, gathering funnels, storage tanks, and separable living quarters—was similar
     to hundreds of other skymines run by the nomadic Roamers above gas-giant planets across the Spiral Arm.
    The extended clans operated on the fringe of the Hanseatic League, aloof and independent. Families captained their own skymines
     or operated resource stations in the detritus of planets no one else wanted.
    Roamer skymines harvested vast amounts of hydrogen from gas planets, giant reservoirs of resources accessible for the taking.
     They ran millions of gaseous tons through ekti reactors using an old Ildiran process. Through catalysts and convoluted magnetic
     fields, the reactors converted ultrapure hydrogen into an exotic allotrope of hydrogen.
Ekti
.
    Ildiran stardrives, the only known means of faster-than-light travel, depended on ekti as their power source. Huge amounts
     of hydrogen were needed to create even minimal quantities of the elusive substance. Because of their close family ties and
     their willingness to operate on the edge, Roamers were able to provide ekti more cheaply and reliably than any other source.
     The dispersed clans had successfully exploited the commercial niche.
    More successfully, in fact, than anyone in the Hansa realized.
    After Jess Tamblyn’s cargo escort docked with the Blue Sky Mine, the hatches were locked down, airlocks connected, bolts secured.
     The cargo escort was little more than a spiderlike frame of engines and a captain’s bubble; when the framework was fastened
     to the skymine’s storage tanks, Jess could pilot containers of condensed ekti to distribution centers. Even performing a trivial
     job like this, he always did his best, going beyond what was expected of him, setting a good example.
    When all the indicator lights glowed green, he formally requested permission to come aboard his brother’s skymine. The Roamer
     workers teased Jess until he entered a set of override commands and stepped aboard anyway. He shrugged back his hood, patted
     down his many pockets, then gave a shake of his shaggy brown hair. “So, if you recognized me, where’s the red carpet?”
    One of the production engineers, a gruff middle-aged man from the Burr family, gave a good-natured curse. “Shizz, you’ve been
     promoted to cargo driver, I see! Does that mean you’ve had a fight with your father?”
    Jess flashed a rakish smile. “I can’t let my brother get into all the disagreements with my family.” He was handsome, blue-eyed,
     with a vibrant personality that made him appear energetic and relaxed at the same time. “Besides, somebody competent has to
     take the load to the distribution ships. Can you think of a better pilot?”
    The Burr engineer waved a dismissive hand. “You’re just shuttling ekti to the Big Goose. They wouldn’t know a good pilot from
     a blind farmer.”
    The deprecating reference to the Hansa came from the original albatrosslike configuration of the early Terran trading ships—meant
     to look like eagles, but shaped more like fat geese. The name of the Hansa Chairman who had tried to make the gypsy colonists
     sign the Hansa Charter, Bertram Goswell,