Chapter 2

Mars, June 16, 2161
Lake Jezero

The Scrapper made her living by not existing. Her reputation was a living thing. It moved from the Asteroid Belt where it was born, to Venus Prime, to Mars. Everywhere that Captain Scarlett went, this scrapper followed, poking and prodding her way through the flotsam and jetsam of war that Captain Scarlett and the Strike Force Berserkers left behind. The Scrapper doesn’t even exist to those that traded in goods that were gotten through “creative means.” The Scrapper worked through front men, a cadre of loyal followers who helped the Scrapper convert the goods that she “found” into cash through a network of receivers and movers. Middlemen who resell The Scrappers finds, do it for a percentage. The Scrapper keeps the best of these men close, because strong fences make good neighbors.

Even the fact that the solar system famous scrapper is a female is not known to anyone, even to the fences. Every now and then a slim young woman would contact a fence and hand him “something daddy found,” and would tell the fence, “there’s more where that came from.” Who would believe that such a skinny little waif could sneak into restricted areas and loot the area of the finest stuff the Earth’s Military Industrial Complex could crank out.

The battle between The Holland Company and Zendaya Smelting LTD. was where the legend of the scrapper was born. The battle had raged across the “Top End” of the asteroid belt, from one mining camp to the next, and was eventually brought to heel by the Strike Force Berserkers. Eventually, space was littered with derelict space craft and barges filled with ore. There were tools and test equipment to be resold to fledgling asteroid miners who wanted to start a mining company with good equipment sold at bargain basement prices.

The Scrapper followed Captain Scarlett and his men around the solar system. She provided a valuable service to the spacemen and their families through the solar system. Somebody has to pick up the mess, right?

Not every battle location was gold for her. The Battle of Himalia, a battle for mining rights on Jupiter VI, the largest irregular prograde moon of Jupiter, had the potential to be a huge windfall. Several mining companies battled it out until Captain Scarlett’s squadron stopped the fighting. The battle left high end mining equipment scattered across Himalia. Most of it looked like it was in good shape. It didn’t work out well for The Scrapper, however. She ended up losing money and time traveling all the way out to Jupiter for a shipload of contaminated tools. The radiation that pours out of Jupiter contaminated everything and she was lucky to get out of there without serious damage to her DNA. She returned in time for several smaller battles around the solar system, including a battle at Lagrange Four in the earth/sun orbit.

Then came the big one, The Battle of Venus Prime. Ships of all shapes and configuration drifted above Venus. So did bodies. She grabbed everything she could from environment suits (empty or full) to fighters! There were several hangar decks full of Eastern Bloc fighters that were catapulted into space when the first bombs hit the vast space station and she towed a dozen away. Floating not too far away were two abandoned destroyers, and a burned out carrier, she wisely avoided them. Good thing too, because they were soon towed off to the Epps Whitson Shipyards for rebuilding and refitting.

The Scrapper made millions off that haul. The cache of side arms she collected alone was worth a fortune. Each dead Venusian she found was armed to the teeth with two pistols, a rifle, and several knives. The Scrapper also found several MA-2A fifty-caliber machine guns floating in space, and belts of space rated fifty-caliber ammo floating free. She wanted to hold on to those. She had ore barges full of items from Venus to fence, enough to last her a lifetime, but a couple of years after Venus Prime she heard of another big score, the Jezero Crater. There were rumors that the Eastern Bloc had built a huge base in the bottom of the Jezero crater on Mars, and Captain Scarlet somehow covered it with ice.

She couldn’t resist. Slipping through Martian radar and early warning systems was easy. Mars was a pacifist planet dedicated to scientific research. No wonder why the Eastern Bloc could build an enormous base on Martian soil. They even made up a cover story of pirates building the bases. She set down her tiny freighter, the Fey Gang (Eastern bloc lingo for Scrap), on the outside of the crater and hopped into her “scooter” to investigate.