CRACK-GROOOOAN!
Two hundred yards outside the Planet Ten Star-Gate, the smooth silver walls of the newly cut space-tunnel gave a deep, metallic shudder.
Even though Ye Guhan’s Cosmic Highway-Carving Blade had welded the torn edges of space flat, the outside storm of the Broken Star Belt was pressing billions of tons of wild gravity against the tunnel roof every second. Small hairline ripples were already starting to show along the ceiling, like wet mud walls drying too fast in the sun.
And two hundred miles further down the tunnel, the four black smuggling skiffs were still racing down the freshly paved right lane at top speed, spitting foul black exhaust smoke all over the clean stone roadbed!
“Look at those greasy rats!” Hong Ling shouted, pointing her left kitchen cleaver at the floating radar screen. “They’re not just skipping the toll—their leaky spirit-burners are dripping black oil onto the new road bricks! Do you know how much lye soap it takes to scrub engine oil off porous granite?!”
“Twenty-four copper coins per gallon of soap!” Abacus Su hissed, his eyes bloodshot behind his thick spectacles as he clutched his heavy iron-bound coin box to his chest. “Plus sixty copper coins an hour for two scrubbers! Young Master, if we let four boats ride for free today, tomorrow there will be four thousand boats! By next Tuesday, every pirate in the Broken Star Belt will be treating our highway like a free public park!”
