CHAPTER 11Approaching the Asteroids, the Fourth Earth Fleet proceeded with caution. Ahead lay part of the 50,000 planetoids, large and small, scattered all the way around as a belt at an average distance of 275 million miles from the sun.
The former Asteroid Republic had not occupied or even attempted to hold sway over every last rock and lump. They had only knit together a government over the larger bodies that exceeded 5 miles in diameter. Even so, that included several thousand Asteroids, as far apart as a half-million miles on the average.
As the largest Asteroid 480 miles in diameter, Ceres was the natural capital of the fragmented republic, holding the seat of government. It was now firmly in Martian hands under a puppet regime. The former government heads had been duly executed, i
