A snippet of Family Law 9
May 6th, 2026 | Ramblings
It’s been some time since a snippet. The book will be titled “A Stranger at the Door” I’m past 100k words on it.
At the Gamma habitat in orbit around Mars, the converted freighter and miner Big Bucket made a last stop before the short jump to her home port of Central on the Moon. Then she would make the sequence of her shuttle stops in reverse with no layover at Gamma. They had very light freight to move and not many passengers. There was a long-term population decline, and always one or two more outgoing passengers than incoming.
Gamma was orbited at Mars because Central was pressed for time to move three habitats out of danger from a North American attack. Home and Beta had obvious matching homes in Derfhome and Fargone. Heather’s quick picks proved to work well as both worlds accepted new heavily populated space stations as assets and retained them.
There simply wasn’t any obvious extra-solar home for Gamma, and running short on time from an already incoming attack, they’d parked her there, meaning to find an appropriate home for her later. Later never happened.
With the other two habitats gone, Gamma was no longer part of a single political entity close to each other in a halo orbit beyond the Moon. Their population was different from Home and Beta, having been chosen by a different filter. The people in the original habs were picked by corporate hiring and matched to their intended employment by technical ability, physical health, and mental stability.
The majority population of Gamma self-selected by being filthy rich and desiring a safe haven to which they could retreat from a deteriorating situation on Earth. The Slum Ball, as Spacers had grown accustomed to calling it. Filthy rich didn’t always translate to other, desirable qualities. A respectable fraction of the residential cubic on Gamma was held vacant for absent owners. They had been an irritating minority who often voted no to proposals easily carried by the whole assembly of all three habs.
When they were on their own, they had no common goals and couldn’t come to any agreement about a destination to seek away from Mars. They were at least smart enough not to want to return to a dangerous proximity to Earth. They had problems with falling under the influence of a demagogue who intended to bind them to the Martian population. Not that Mars had resources he wanted developed, but that would give him the needed voting block to get political control of both the hab and Mars below.
Heather, seeing this happening, visited unannounced and voiced her objections to the direction things were going. After an initially polite exchange, the would-be leader dropped any pretense of negotiating and informed Heather that, Queen of the Moon or not, there was simply nothing she could do to stop his takeover. That was the wrong tack to take with her. She drew and shot him dead with no further discussion.
That’s where things seem to be frozen now. Gamma had no shipbuilding capacity, nor other industry like Home and Beta had. No consensus could be reached to leave their present location for a more favorable one. They slowly bled population and real estate values as those rich owners still back on Earth wrote them off as a possible retreat.
Knowing the deteriorating situation, Captain Roger Fuldheim was still surprised when he asked their traffic control for clearance to approach and dock and got no reply.
“Mister Walters, cease acceleration to match velocity with Gamma,” Captain Fuldheim ordered.
“Aye, sir,” Walters said and sounded the alarm that he intended to cease thrust and return to zero-g over the next minute. Passengers who took advantage of the warning of a drop in acceleration scrambled to do things like make a cup of hot coffee safe for zero g.
“Mister Walters, announce we shall be changing orientation unannounced, and no further acceleration until it is announced. Then jump us within range to have a radio conversation with Central with no more than a second lag.”
Walter conferred with their AI, Tom, on his jump numbers, but didn’t bother the captain with the details of fulfilling his order.
The sun appeared briefly on their right, then closer on their left. Finally, the Moon appeared in front of them much closer than it was seen from Earth. It was receding from them, but too slowly to be directly perceived.
“Central traffic control, this is the star shuttle Big Bucket, off schedule and falling behind you in a solar orbit. We do not intend to land and intend to depart after a brief consultation with your com desk. Transfer me now, please,” Fuldheim requested.
“Com desk, Dorthy Fletcher on duty. How may I help you?”
“This is Captain Fuldheim, standing off the Moon in the Big Bucket. We were just at Mars, intending to match and dock with Gamma coming from Fargone. We were within radio range but got no response to a request for docking clearance. There were no shuttles docked at the station. Neither was there any other radio traffic in the vicinity. Would you check the recent radio traffic to Central from Gamma, please?”
“Big Bucket, there is all the usual data traffic from automated systems, but there has not been a real-time voice message from Gamma in the last seven hours. This is unusual. I don’t believe anyone thought to set up a warning alarm for the possibility of them going completely off the air. In my opinion, this is sufficiently unusual to warrant a call to the sovereign. I’m connecting her now.”
Wow. That snippet hit the spot! I am excited to see when the book comes out. Best wishes and hope you are doing well.
I’m eager to read the finished book! Thanks for the snippet!
Yes!!
yay!!!!
The prospect of a new book in this series is always exciting, but this snippet increases the anticipation a hundred-fold. Thanks!!!
glad everything is alright, was getting worried. there have been some author blogs that have just quit without telling anyone and have left everyone hanging.
Many people can’t face the reality of their own mortality.They die without telling relatives or friends the combination to their safe, where the gold is buried, pass words to their electronics, where they have bank accounts, or the fact they have a few hundred dollar bills in every book in their library.
I get a credit union statement every month for the lady who was the second back owner of this condo before me. I tracked down her kids in South Carolina and she is in memory care. They apparently are having a hard time resolving it because I’m still getting them in the mail every month.
Great snippet!
Was the Big Bucket not being used to mine for Lee when the ferry route was set up?
Thanks again for the snippet.
Yes. Lee pulls Silk Road off shuttle runs too.
👍
Gammans drank the Kool-Aid?
Will it be possible to purchase a copy direct from you, or will it only be available from Amazon? Some of my favorite authors sell books direct for a few days before Amazon gets exclusive.
Fantastic!
Always a good day with a snippet!
Mac,
Wonderful snippet as always. Gamma going offline reminds me of Istanbul/Constantinople. The city had a declining population for years until the Turks took the city by little more than walking in ready to fight. Gamma may have simply dropped population to the point that the remaining small population just gave up or were easy pickings for the next catastrophe.
Thank you for the snippet, I look forward to purchasing and reading the completed book!!
Regards,
Cian
Excellent. Looking forward to the next book, whenever you get it done.
The Martians could at any point discover something revolutionary in the alien wreck. Suppose they found a reactionless drive, a jump drive that works from a stationary position, quantum radar, or even the secret of how to make a better AI.
I am looking forward to this next installment of family law. I will read anything you write. But I was wondering, a while back you teased us with a snippet of a sequel to Fair Trade. I really liked the idea and the snippet. Is there any chance you might write a Fair Trade sequel?
Whenever my brain needs a break I’ll go work on that and a couple of others. I’m just so busy now compared to like six years ago that I can’t seem to do more than a book a year. If I hadn’t gotten a housekeeper helping me I wouldn’t be on the home stretch with this book. Depends on my health, my wife’s health, and Amazon not screwing up the book Biz. I do have to be careful that sequel was getting a bit dark.