Free The Jupiter Pirates by Jason Fry Page A

robotic drills and the shouts of miners in armored suits.
    Now it was silent except for the low hum of air scrubbers and the burbling of water pumps. The mine had been exhausted within a century of the Hashoones’ arrival, and soon after that, Gregorius’s great-grandson Lodovico Hashoone had taken a desperate gamble. He’d armed the family’s old ore boats with converted laser drills and promised the family’s miners wealth and adventure if they’d bring their carbines and knives and sign on as space pirates. Somehow, Lodovico’s plan had worked. The Hashoones’ mining days were over.
    On the lower level, couches, a table and chairs, and a simple kitchen shared space with a giant steel water tank and filtration equipment. Beneath the tank, Tycho knew, meter-wide pipes descended for nearly two hundred kilometers, tapping into a salty ocean of water and ammonia far below Callisto’s crust. Tycho had never liked thinking of that pitch-black ocean somewhere beneath his feet.
    Tycho heard a polite cough. He looked up and saw Parsons, who kept Darklands in working condition, standing nearby.
    â€œDo you require anything, Master Hashoone?” the gray-haired man asked, polite and dignified as always.
    â€œNo, thank you,” Tycho said. “Are Mom and Dad and Aunt Carina back yet?”
    â€œThey are still at their meeting at Callisto Station,” Parsons said.
    Tycho sighed. “It’s taking forever. Where’s everybody else?”
    â€œYour sister is in the simulation room, working on a piloting exercise,” Parsons said. “Master Carlo took the grav-sled on an errand to Port Town. And I believe your grandfather is sitting in the crypt.”
    â€œThank you, Parsons,” Tycho said. The man bowed slightly and glided away as Tycho sank onto the couch and drummed his fingers on the metal surface of an end table. He wished he’d known Carlo was going to Port Town. It was a dull huddle of pressure domes and converted mines, not nearly as exciting as Ceres, but it was something.
    Tycho looked around, frowning. If he were honest with himself, he had to admit that the complex had never felt like home. He and Yana had spent the first eight years of their lives here, but they’d always known they belonged in space—that learning their lessons and working hard enough to satisfy their aunt Carina was the way to become midshipmen aboard the Comet , as Carlo had done. Childhood at Darklands was about waiting until it was your turn to leave.
    The quiet unnerved Tycho all of a sudden. The familiar living room somehow felt lonely. Carina had kept only an occasional eye on Carlo, Yana, and Tycho, leaving their raising to a series of governesses, along with invalid pirates too badly injured to return to space. The governesses had long since gone back to Ganymede, the pirates had retired to Port Town, and now there were no Hashoone children left to get in trouble for jumping on the furniture.
    Tycho decided not to bother his sister. She’d just be annoyed with him, and the last thing he wanted to think about right now was flight simulations. That left his grandfather, down in the crypt. Tycho had rarely been down there; as a child, he had been frightened by the gloomy chamber.
    He hesitated, then carefully descended the stairs to the crypt, softly illuminated by a bluish light. He caught sight of a green square and a white dot in the gloom.
    â€œHullo, Tyke,” Huff said, the white light of his artificial eye turning toward his grandson.
    â€œWould you rather be alone, Grandfather?” Tycho asked.
    â€œNo harm in company,” Huff said. “Just payin’ respects to the departed. Do it whenever we return.”
    Tycho came and stood next to Huff, who was looking up at a shimmering hologram of a bald man with a sharp nose and a slightly mocking grin.
    â€œThat’s my father—yer great-grandfather—Johannes Hashoone,” Huff said.