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down in our hidey hole. Sander generally helped out everywhere. I remember thinking that his suggestions for laser placement were downright scary 'cause they suggested he'd been through this kinda stuff before.
    We’d generally agreed that the artifact wasn't worth losing a life over so we were going to fight a remote battle even though we wouldn't have very good control. We sent out messages to the belt communities asking for help and got a few "wish we coulds.”  This was even when we promised big money from the artifact for help. No one thought we had any chance in hell of keeping it, so to them it would be a bleak investment.
    When zero hour arrived, we all clambered down into our hide, deep inside the 'roid and got ready to man our "battle stations" on the remotes. Sander ran up to his room at the last minute to "get something he'd forgotten".
    I was worried about my hero and so I monitored his room sensor to be sure he got there and started back in time. On the monitor he arrived, pulled a flat case out of his locker, opened it and pulled out a vest. When he put it on I recognized it as a "power jacket" by the flat 'puter compartments on the front and the single large disk of a fusion generator on the back. A generator like that was probably capable of producing something like 10-20 megawatts. He hooked up its output leads to the front compartments and then pulled out a ring interfacer. He slipped the ring onto the back of his head and plugged it into the front compartments of the jacket. I'd never seen a skull ring interfacer before, but knew what it was right away. Invented by an evil genius pirate known only as “the Sandman,” a ring interfacer allowed 'puter interface by brain wave monitoring, and required intense concentration to control superfluous wave formation. Everyone dreamed of being able to use them, but supposedly only 20 to 30 people had ever proved to have that kind of control. Even most of them could only do it as kind of a party trick, not as something really effective.
    Dad musta heard me suck in my breath 'cause I heard him start swearing softly. I turned and saw him staring at my screen.
    Sander pulled out a final piece of equipment and headed for the lock. He grabbed his suit, snapped out the standard HUD (Heads Up Display) and put in the one he'd just brought from his room. He was in that suit and out the lock faster than anyone I've ever seen suit up, before or since.
    Sure enough 30 seconds later not a single one of our remotes controlled a thing. I'd seen power jackets before and seen people run equipment with them. I'd even heard of people with enough computer and broadcast power to take over other peoples 'bots. It was supposedly a favorite pirate trick—especially the Sandman's—to turn your own equipment against you, but it's supposed to take time and hypothetically it’s impossible against hardwired equipment. We’d hardwired everything and instructed the 'bots to ignore broadcast signals.
    At the time I assumed that he must have sabotaged our hard wires and our "ignore broadcasts," so he could access our system. With what I know now, I doubt it. I think he just used those megawatts to induce currents in our hardwires, currents that overrode our own commands.
    Well his equipment was obviously pirate equipment and all our misgivings about his past were no longer uncertain. We were, however, mystified about why he bothered to call in his buddies when he could easily have done the dirty work himself and used our own boat to push his prize wherever he wanted it. Dad was still swearing softly and pounding his fist on his console. Mom had tears welling up and breaking off the ends of her lashes when she blinked. Gen was pale as a ghost and probably would’ve been screaming if she could have got her breath.
    For some reason I wasn't scared this time. I think at that point I was only feeling betrayed and depressed.
    The same guy I’d been admiring and looking up to, he’d just been