"That's when that strung-out jock in a space-buggy took us on for a game of 'chicken'.
"The buggy was a single-seater, tiny, barely ten meters bow to stern, but the way she whipped around us, it was plain to my duty officer that she was charged by a micro deep space drive. My duty officer hit the alarm; I got to the bridge within ten seconds after the buggy's first pass.
"I checked our status and proximity-to-mass in vicinity; then my ship's scope analyses of the buggy's thrust and gyrations. She was obviously overpowered for mass, especially in the confined lanes plowed by slow freighters like mine.
"My three-hundred-meter freighter with all storage bays packed bulkhead to bulkhead with high mass, is barely maneuverable under the best of circumstances. Evasive action against some hot shot in a souped up space-buggy was out of the question.
"It got worse. Not only did the jock ignore my warnings; he lined up alongside my bridge and danced on his thrusters. He flipped from relative vertical to horizontal, then corkscrewed us lengthwise fore to aft and back. To add insult, he whirled his buggy on its tail like a damn dervish, right alongside where I stood on my bridge and then cut across my bow. That hotshot was one good pilot, I'll grant him that.
"After a minute or so of that, the buggy circled my ship, close. The pilot probably liked what he saw, because he surface-snaked us again bow to stern. That must have been boring; he peeled away, tore ahead a quarter-million kay, skewed around, and came straight at my bow, curdling space. When collision was just about unavoidable, he did an up and over. In doing that, he cut us much too close, snapped off a dozen masts, sensors and nav guides.
"The jock must have gone berserk; he took us on for full 'chicken'. He shot ahead about a million kay, flip-flopped, and came at us head-to-head, taunting us with his collision signals. Our computer showed him as boosting all the way."
Another long pause. Brad looked directly at Xindral.
"We collided, head on," he said. "That brightly colored, beautiful little flitter buried itself deep in our forward cargo bay. My rescue team went in, but we knew ahead of time what we'd find. It was there: chunks of metal, shards of bone, and scraps of flesh splattered on mining gear, rock-crushers, and other odd pieces of equipment.
"The Space Guard hearings were followed by a quick trial. The jock was the son of a politician, so here I am."