8
I spent another four hours helping Mina in the mass accumulator, the cavernous rectangular tube that made up the bulk of the Malthus II. It was over a kilometre long and constantly exposed to hard-vac, meaning lots of tricky manoeuvring between the array of massive toruses tracking the length of the tube from the opening to the smelter.
“Weaponising one of these is strictly illegal,” I commented. “There’s a whole bunch’ve of treaties about it.”
“When we get to trial, I’ll tell them you forced me at gunpoint.” She grabbed a hand-hold and punched a button below a faded sign reading: ‘Exocore Industries Mass Driver - Wotan Class.’
“Wotan,” she muttered, shaking her head. “They do like their mythical allusions. It’s just a series of ultra-high powered electro-magnets, old but reliable. S
