Blackness. So total it sucked in the soul.

Captain Saba Aku smiled into it as she reclined in front of her ship's bridge viewscreen.

Interplanetary space. Two astronomical units from Earth. Almost three hundred million kilometres away from the man who'd gutted her life and disowned her.

It was a good day to be alive.

In her opinion, at least.

She cast the ship's pilot a dry glance; thought better of asking for another status update. Havana Drake, retired spaceforce commander, knew her job right down to the brand of grease on her flight suit, and holding the hands of "ex-royal brats" wasn't part of it. A scowl gouged her brow, permanent after seventy years of dealing with "braindead fools". Beyond her com mic, her jaw was as unforgiving as the clippers that'd butchered her hair.

Saba dragged dark, manicured fingers over her own shorn crop, grimacing on behalf of her former stylist. In the asteroid belt, practicality trumped vanity. Fortunately, the twenty-credit space-station cut was passable—possibly even flattering. The Main Belt was rough and under-resourced, but there was talent amongst the canteen whores and rock jocks if one looked for it.

She had to believe that.

Needed to.

She'd spent the ticket price. There was no going back.

Tapping the scarred console before her, Saba checked sensors. No sign of debris that might damage her bargain-bin survey vessel. Pretty much nothing in general. On Earth, art and cinema depicted the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter as a dense field of rubble, near certain death for any spacecraft. In truth, it was blissfully wide open; typically hundreds of thousands of kilometres between rotating chunks of rock.

Saba damped down nerves; ignored the nausea weightlessness still gave her after four months in space. Of the millions of rocks making up the belt, she was only interested in one.

2221 MO. A common carbonaceous asteroid she'd affectionately nicknamed "Baby Mo".

Her baby. Saba curved her lips, eyeing the single object registering on sensors. Her future. If she played things right, got her baby surveyed and financed for mining, she'd be on the path to becoming a Mineral Baron within ten years. She was no miner, but she knew how to hire good people, run a business.

That was one thing her father had given her he could not take away.

Unlike her allowance, title, social-standing, and identity.

She winced, silently cursing the man she'd loved for twenty-eight years. He'd never been her father. According to his lawyers, the hugs and bedtime stories didn't count. Only the DNA. DNA that belonged to some over-muscled sailing instructor her mother had—

"Lady Aku—"

"Captain Aku." Saba sliced her pilot a killing look. Amateur or not, she hadn't blasted the last of her credits into space with this ship to be addressed like she was 'human payload'—a space tourist.

Havana's smirk minced that fine thought. "Approaching the asteroid now, Captain."

"Right. Put it on screen."

"Aye. Here it is, our baby. But—"

"What in the hell?" Saba jerked forward. The crater-scarred rock hanging in the blackness ahead she recognised from the official survey records—but none of those pitiful, token scans had featured a point of reflected light on Mo's largest crater.

Saba's gut twisted. Metal. A material with a far higher albedo than light-absorbing carbon-heavy rock.

A ship.

She shoved down fear. "Claim jumpers? Are they desperate or insane?" Mo wasn't a rock worth fighting over. She was a common C-type; mostly carbon, some phosphorous and water. Useful for survival—growing crops—in belt colonies, but worth nothing to the ore corporations back on Earth. "Hail the fool-headed sons of—"

"Incoming communication," Havana cut in dryly. "Video-call request."

Saba bared teeth. "Put the rats on screen." Mo was hers—all she had. If she had to, she'd climb into one of her ship's festering extravehicular mobility suits and ram a turbo wrench up the idiots' rear thrusters.

Mo's image vanished.

What replaced it had her fingernails digging into her armrest.

Gleaming almond eyes. White teeth bold against olive skin.

Saba breathed deep. She wasn't dealing with delinquent rock rodents.

She'd hooked a damn shark.

Mako Lazzari. Owner of the belt's fourth largest freight fleet; rumoured smuggler and confirmed rogue when it came to gambling and women.

"Captain Aku..." Scarred lips curved, turning the address into mockery. "Congratulations on securing yourself a ship. The betting pools on Red Station were running twenty to one against you." The smile widened into something close to charm. "That hard, mule head of yours made me quite a sum."

"Mako." She hissed the name like a curse; tried desperately not to recall how, just two weeks ago, she'd gasped it breathlessly in the cargo hold of the ship now threatening her claim. Heat washed her cheeks, humiliation and rage, making her grateful for the deep brown of her skin. "What are you doing here?" Mako Lazzari might take five minutes to amuse himself with a self-pitying, inebriated female in the belly of one of his transport ships, but he didn't play games in business. That'd been one of the things that'd appealed to her besides his physique—and the knowledge her father would hate every low-bred cell of him.

"I bought this claim free and clear, Lazzari. You've no right to fly within a thousand kilometres of it."

A dark eyebrow arched. "Upset I haven't called?"

"Of course, let's assume that is what has me irritated as you sit on my claim like a fat toad."

"It's okay if you missed me, princess."

She flinched. Another man had called her that teasing endearment—before he'd tossed her into the gutter. Her birth too distant from the Terran throne, she'd never been anyone's real princess, and she was no longer a lady. "Give me a gun. I promise not to miss you again."

"Mmm, such diplomacy, delivered with peerless elocution..." Mako's gaze gleamed. "Transfer this call to your quarters so you can sweet talk me some more." An insult wrapped in flirtation. A veiled request for private negotiations.

Havana hacked out a chuckle.

Saba ground teeth. "Put the ship on auto and take five, Drake."

The pilot unclipped her harness. "This is why I made you pay up front, milady. Elocution lessons or not, you're outclassed by these rock crawlers."

Mako smirked as the pilot floated out the bridge's hatch. "Long odds have you surviving a week at best if you take on this claim. Hand over the mining rights now, extend your life expectancy."

Unsettling advice from a man with ship-to-ship weaponry.

"You're not a miner, Mako."

"I've been considering diversification." A slow smile. "I enjoyed your business plan."

Saba's stomach slid away. When her father had so swiftly withdrawn his love and support, she'd felt like the biggest fool. But it seemed, she could be a bigger one. In a vulnerable moment, she'd shared more than her body; she'd shared the dreams she'd clawed from the ruins of her life. Warm and naked beside her, Mako had listened, sympathised—offered advice.

Including details on an entry-level asteroid up for auction.

"This is what you wanted all along, isn't it?" She'd never done violence, but she'd do murder now. "I was an easy mark. The means to an end." A man like Mako couldn't buy a rock without attracting attention—competitors who'd drive up the price.

"You're a toy-boy sailor's workplace 'accident', one who thought for a time she was actual Earth royalty. Princess, you're a joke no one takes seriously."

Saba curled fists. "You'll take this claim over my cold dead body, Mako."

Another cool smirk. "Something your crew could arrange."

Saba stiffened, heart thudding. "So, that's how I got such a qualified pilot. Thank you." Bastard.

"You should've spent your last credits on a ticket home, Saba."

She no longer had a home. And what bridges her father hadn't burnt, she'd sooner take a hatchet to than crawl across. She had nothing left but pride.

And she'd be keeping that.

Pulse hard, she sealed off the bridge. "Plotting a course for your position now." She slid up the reactor settings to full burn, spine locking. "I'll hand those rights over personally."

Mako held her stare as engines roared and fists—Havana's—started pounding on the bridge's hatch. "That's what I like about you, princess. Your commitment. Cool your reactor."

"Kiss. My. Arse."

"Happily. In private. However, in public, I'd like every low-bred rock rat to continue kicking your formerly royal hind end hard as they like. Agree to play the tragic princess, I take seventy percent of the profits and finance extraction."

"What?"

Mako chuckled. "Aku, I'm not just here for the rock. Even with its unregistered metallic centre, it's not your most valuable asset right now."

She stared—then narrowed eyes. "Just how much did my buying this rock save you?"

Dark eyes gleamed. "I've IDed two more like it. You in?"

Her pulse thudded—quickened. What he was suggesting... There'd be a cost.

But nothing more than had already been taken.

She angled her chin. "This deal... I have to put up with you calling me 'princess'?"

"Darlin', we're in the mineral trade. We'll make it baroness."

Saba slid down her reactor settings. "You have my attention."

Acknowledgements, Copyright, and Challenge Details

This short story was originally written for the @ScienceFiction October 2021: Asteroid challenge. It was revised for the e-magazine Tevun-Krus, issue #100. Challenge details: Include the following snippet of dialogue: