The northern mountain range loomed like a wall of jagged black iron against the dark sky.
Perched atop the highest cliff was the central geothermal command tower. Its reinforced star-alloy walls were three meters thick, bristling with heavy automated gun turrets and sealed behind four magnetic blast gates.
Overseer Korg’s sneering face suddenly projected fifty feet wide across the clouds.
“Lin Mo!” Korg’s amplified voice boomed from the tower’s long-range speakers. “You bought the deed, but you can’t touch me in here! This fortress was built by the Blood-Tax military corps to withstand orbital strikes! And more importantly, you don’t have the sun!”
Korg threw his head back in a gloating cackle that echoed across the frozen valley.
“Planet #44’s natural star died ten thousand years ago!” Korg yelled. “The surface temperature will always drop back to minus one hundred and eighty degrees! Without my fuel codes to restart the deep boilers, your fancy nine-yang canopy will run out of power in three days! You and your fifty million miners will come crawling to my gate, begging for a drum of heating oil!”
Down below, the miners looked up at the black sky with anxious eyes. For generations, the threat of freezing in the dark had been the whip that ruled their lives.
