Bring it Fools -- Science Fiction Smack Down

The Tin Moon

'So, where do you want it?'

The planet Galene was just another sparsely populated agricultural planet on a quiet part of the Sagittarius Arm. It was some distance even from the nearest commerce planets, with their cities and stress; Earth was impossibly far, a decade of travel on the fastest ships, three times that on the slower ones.

It wasn't particularly interesting, except for its tin moon.

'Honestly, I don't care. It just needs to be far enough away not to interfere with shipping.'

'Can I chuck it into one of your Lagrange points?'

'No, it needs to be properly out of the way. We're using all of them.'

The tin moon was a relic of some extinct alien civilisation. It was roughly spherical, about sixty klicks in diameter, and was once perfectly smooth, although it was now pitted and streaked from micro-meteor impacts. Fifty years ago, when Galene was being colonised, it had made the science news; but the galaxy was littered with the ancient remnants of fallen civilisations, the Great Filter doing its grim job, and humanity had long since stopped caring. Especially out here, four years from the nearest university with a xenoarchaeology department.

Except when it was a hazard to freighters.

'In that case you have two options. The best solar orbit is here. It's not cheap, mind, because we need a lot of delta-v to get it there, and we'll need to leave the boosters on for orbital corrections for at least two years, so you have to pay for them too. But it should be out of your hair. This is the closest, safe orbit I could find.'

'Show me the price?'

Captain Cortez nodded.

'Sure. Here.'

The person on the screen pursed their lips.

'That's a lot of money.'

'Yep. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.'

They called it the tin moon because it shone in Galene's sky with a dull gleam. Galene's natural satellite, Hippothoe, was big, nearly the size of Luna; and the frozen oxygen on its surface filled Galene's night with a wonderful pale blue glow. But the tin moon was small and ugly and no one loved it, and when there was a near collision with a grain ship last year, everyone agreed that something must be done.

'You said there were two options.'

Cortez licked her lips, nervously.

'This alternative orbit, here, will send it into your sun within about five years. It needs less delta-v, and I get most of my boosters back within the month so I don't have to charge for them. The trajectory is safe, so long as you make sure traffic knows about it. But there is the question of,' she paused, trying and failing to be delicate, 'um, legality.'

In theory, Galene's government should have registered the moon as a place of interest, and some bureaucracy thousands of parsecs away that ran even slower than light would have given it some sort of status with protections and whatever else... But Cortez knew the reality. Out here, on the fringes of civilisation, they were just too far away. They could do what they wanted.

The government flunky didn't so much as raise an eyebrow.

'Yes,' they said. 'We'll have to get the appropriate paperwork done for this one. Send us the quotes and we'll get back to you.'

# # #

As she had expected, they had gone for the cheaper option.

So, a week later, Cortez was on her ship, the Stonemason, in a matching orbit with the construct. She was watching as her four boosters landed on the surface of the thing, accompanied by a repair drone.