The Amira wasn't much to look at. She'd never needed to break through atmosphere, so no one had bothered to make her sleek. Bulky, asymmetrical - her mining bay was a swollen mass of plating, extra modules and welds, while the bridge sat oddly small, like a cramped lookout post module tacked on at the last minute.

  Her forward ion thrusters fired, slowing her down. She'd reached the end of her pre-programmed trajectory - the Trojans, the asteroid belt following in Jupiter's orbit.

  Time to get to work.

  "Hey Captain Jamaal! That was one perfect ride. We're back at it!"

  Tomoko burst through the bridge door, wide awake and grinning. A former EMI crewmate from Jamaal and Ty's early days, she was now his second-in-command. She paused.

  "What's wrong?"

  Jamaal didn't look up. He was staring at the NAV display, brow furrowed.

  "We're okay," he said with a half-hearted smile.

  But they weren't. According to the nav system, they were several clicks deeper into the belt than Jamaal had programmed. A small discrepancy -but in deep space, small meant something.

  The Amira's onboard OS had checked out clean before launch. Certificates, history logs -

  -Everything looked spotless. But now Jamaal wondered. Had he made a mistake in the input? He didn't think so. -Unless the deep-sleep had scrambled his memory.

  Or the ship was lying to him.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  He walked to a small viewing port and stared out. Instinctively trying to orient himself — a pointless habit. The Trojans weren't a crowded stream of tumbling rocks like in the movies. It was mostly emptiness, with the occasional distant glint. Nothing outside helped him feel less lost.

  Ty used to say, "Space doesn't care. It's completely unforgiving. You adapt, or you die."

  He missed Ty.

  The scan interface began to blink. Soft bleeps echoed through the bridge.

  [ALBEDO SCAN REQUESTED] the console read.

  Jamaal sat up. That meant the sensors had found something.

  He ran the scan.

  Outside, the Amira's surface scanners shifted, aligning toward 0200. Data began feeding in. On the screen, a model started to build - a slow-rotating object about eleven thousand kilometers out.

  Smooth. Lumpy. Just over 17 meters in diameter. Reddish hue. M-class -metallic. Possibly iron-nickel alloy.

  Tomoko leaned in. "Holy moly."

  The readout continued:

  [-NICKEL -SILVER -GOLD -IRON -IRIDIUM]

  Jamaal ran the scan again. No anomalies. The albedo profile suggested unusually high value content. Normally, nickel and iron dominated. But this rock had a metallic diversity that hinted at something rare - a remnant core, maybe from a shattered protoplanet.

  "I think we struck gold. Maybe iridium, too. And if there's iridium, there might be freakin' rhodium." Tomoko's freckled face lit up.

  "I think we hit the jackpot - on your first go, love."

  Jamaal shook his head, grinning.

  "We just might. Get the team up here. Let's prep for capture."

  The Amira's scanners, drones, and antennas adjusted, aligning toward a single small object - a reddish rock tumbling silently through space, eleven thousand kilometers ahead.