Free Erebus by Ralph Kern

got a small ring at the moment, but a body the size of Io tuning into debris? I think it’s going to make a ring more impressive than Saturn’s.”
    “Yeah, very interesting,” I murmured. Clearly his idea of an intriguing curiosity was different from mine, which was that Io’s demise was a pretty major disaster. “The million-dollar question is why would someone do it?”
    He leaned back as he chewed, pondering. I looked out of the window, letting him have a think. We were so far above Earth that I had to lean forward to see what was now a sphere with the moon rising above the curve of the Earth.
    “I suspect it’s all about power generation,” he said finally. Frampton squinted out of the window. “Hey, watch.”
    “Watch wh—” I started to say, following his line of sight. I saw a star streaking over the horizon. It bloomed suddenly into a huge shape, which I more sensed as an afterimage than actually saw. I instinctively grabbed the table, thinking whatever it was would strike us. “What the hell was that?”
    “One of the space cities,” Frampton grinned.
    “Seriously?” I manipulated my HUD, playing back the last few seconds on slow motion. I watched as the star slowly expanded, taking on the form of a vast cylinder city. It was at least five miles long and seemed to thunder silently by us.
    “Jesus, that was close,” I breathed.
    “Yeah, they normally time the ascents to avoid those kinds of close passes. It’s a little disconcerting. But because they sped us up…” Frampton shrugged.
    “You don’t say it’s disconcerting.” I shook my head, wondering at the apparent near miss.
    “Anyway…” Frampton was incredibly blasé about what seemed to be a near-death experience to me. Even though the rational side of me knew that we were safe, it still had been too close for comfort. “…Io lies well within the flux lines of Jupiter. It’s well known that lots of people were playing around with laying superconducting cable on the surface, trying to tap into it. If anyone could be successful, they would have access to the biggest generator in the solar system.”
    “Maybe so, but surely the powersats are far easier. I hear Io is a right hellhole. Chances are the cable would be constantly wrecked by all the earthquakes—I mean moonquakes—and volcanoes.”
    “Yeah, but a powersat would get the tiniest fraction of the sunlight out in Jupiter space as compared with the inner system. Most power in the outer system is generated by either fusion or the new antimatter reactors, which are pretty dangerous things. If they’d got the Io reactors working properly, the Jupiter Alliance would have safe, cheap, limitless energy for, well, forever.”
    “So how close were people to managing it?” I leaned forward.
    “Oh, years, decades probably. Even with nanotechnology, the engineering problems are—were—massive.” Frampton resumed chewing.
    Years or decades? If that were the case, why attack Io now? Something about that being the motive didn’t quite ring true.
    ***
    I retreated to my cabin for some privacy and opened a link to Giselle to check in with her. “Hey, how are things going?”
    “We’re getting there,” Giselle said, a sad look on her face. “Just so you know, the coroner’s finished with Dev this evening. They’re looking at releasing his body back to his family in the next couple of days.”
    “That was…quick,” I said with surprise.
    “Yeah. But at least his family can lay him to rest.”
    “Yeah, I guess so.” I looked out of the window at the horizon, lost in thought for a moment. Post-mortems didn’t take long these days, especially when there was no particular mystery involved about the cause of death. Apparently in the twenty-first century, a body could stay on ice for months while test after test was performed. “And the funeral?” I finally asked.
    “That’s up to the family. Probably sooner rather than later, though.”
    “And I’m up here. Great.” I