Honey, I’m home!
02 Sep 2019Ronin D. Karellian
Cmdr Log: 1 Sept 3305Early this afternoon, I ran into my buddy Korz in the commissary. He and his girlfriend, Jean had just come from a little shopping. We sat and visited for a little while, talking shop. Jean's a sales engineer for Delacy, so she just had to tell me about all their new advancements. While Jean and my wife spoke, Korz asked me if my ASP-EX, the Aurous, was done being retrofitted. I told him that it was and after dropping off the girls, we walked over to the hangar. I showed him around, bragged about the advancements that I had made to the Aurous, and he invited me to go mining. "Mining, today?" I asked. "Well, isn't that why you bought and retrofitted her for?" Korz asked. I guess in that moment, I realized that the idea of going mining after only one lesson sort of freaked me out. He recognized the look on my face and assured me that everything would be fine. He knows that I'm a pretty good pilot, so flying around a bunch of terminal/dock sized rocks shouldn't be a problem. After all, he reminded me, it wasn't that long ago that he was a newb miner himself. He promised to be patient with me, and so I agreed to go, hesitantly, but I decided he was right. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I met back up with my wife and told her that Korz and I were going to head out to the Ebor 9 system, Korz' not-so-secret mining spot and to finally break-in my brand-new ASP-EX. "Mining! Are you nuts!" She exclaimed. I was taken back. Della knew that I bought the ASP-EX and why I had it retrofitted from an exploration ship to a mining vessel, but I sort of paused and thought about it from her perspective. She was afraid for me! Rather, she was afraid for both of us. So, to sort of sweeten the pot a bit, I went into my flight bag and retrieved my ace card, a holo-cube that I got from Starport Services' residence bureau. I handed it to her and her eyes widened.
We sat down together and watched the programmed holo-cube presentation with all its lights and music. It was quite the spectacle. "Live in the lap of luxury, high above Ray Gateway. Enjoy exquisite amenities and luxury that extends far beyond the stars. Welcome to the Avia, the premiere residence at Ray Gateway," the holo-cube espoused.
At the conclusion of the holo-cube's presentation, Della, my dear wife, looked at me. The idea of moving to a larger and luxurious apartment made her quite happy, but me flying around in an asteroid belt did not. I took her hands into mine and told her, "Baby, I've got one of the best pilots in the Federation, hell, in the Empire or the Alliance right next to me." She knew, too, that Korz is a great pilot. "Do you mean he's flying and your his co-pilot?" She asked, a bit hopeful. "No," I said. "I have to fly the Aurous while he flies his Python as my escort..." Dammit, I thought. I just stepped into it. "Escort?!" She exclaimed. "Why do you need an escort?" "Honey," I said, "Not an armed escort per se. Yes, his ship is armed to the teeth, and that should make you feel better. It certainly does me. But he will also be showing me how things are done. Instead of doing them himself while I watch and take notes, I will be doing all the mining myself under his guidance." She walked away and looked out through one of the very few view-ports we have in our rather small apartment. Without looking at me, she said, "So, you want me to be okay with you flying through an asteroid belt, needing to be escorted by a Python armed to the teeth by, albeit a great pilot and a good man, firing explosive rounds into rocks the size of this Terminal, if not larger," she turned to look at me, her eyes soaked in tears, "and be okay with that?" All I could do was raise the holo-cube once again. The darn thing immediately re-started the presentation. Her look suggested that there was more danger in that small apartment in the form of a 5'-4" stick of dynamite known as my wife than there would ever be in deep space flying through an asteroid field, so I immediately shut the damned thing off.
I took her into my arms, no easy feat at that particular moment. I promised her that not only would I return home alive, but well-trained and rich. "Rich? How rich?" She asked. "I don't know," I said. "Maybe 60 or 70 million credits richer." I looked at her. I mean I really looked at her and said, "While I am gone, take the remaining 2 million credits we have, go down to residence services, give them the holo-cube and put a deposit on the largest place they have available. Korz tells me he's heading for the 96th floor because it has the best views. Go there! When you're done, come home, pack, and by the time I come back, we can move into our new place and have a great meal." "You promise?" She asked. "Yes. I promise." We held each other for a while, that is until ASTRA informed me that Korz was standing outside our door.
Back in the dock, I gave the Aurous a good walk-through. Korz and I both did. He knew what was at risk, too. After all, he too had to give his significant other, Jean the same speech, and she too gave him one heck of a time. After our pre-flight, we headed out and jumped over to the Ebor system. As we sat idle in supercruise above the rings around Ebor 9, we jumped out into a sea of asteroids, some of them the size of four or five terminals wide and ten high. They were enormous! Seconds after jumping in, Korz suddenly commanded me to high-tail it. A pirate had jumped in after us and had already started firing on me. Knowing my hull wouldn't be able to withstand the damage, he took quick action and taught that bastard a lesson. I did what he said and hit my afterburners and took no haste in putting about 10km between me and them. Before I could turn 180, Korz had already dispatched the pirate. In fact, he killed that bastard so fast, the three security vessels that jumped in didn't even get the chance to fire a single shot or scan the wreckage for any goodies. Thank goodness I didn't go alone. Thank goodness for Korz and his monster 'murder boat'.
As we flew along the center of the ring, I used my scanner to paint all the rocks around me and those about 3 to 4 km away. They lit up in different shades of orange and yellow. As I scanned the rocks, I quickly found a few candidates. Korz checked my scans and agreed that I had found our first candidate. He congratulated me on the find and suggested that I be the one to fire seismic charges into it. I did, but I didn't do too good of a job. I had forgotten when to fire a low yield vs. a high yield warhead, and I overloaded the rock and took it far beyond a salvageable dig. But, it actually turned out okay and broke apart beautifully. Korz was actually a bit impressed and surprised because it shouldn't have gone that way. Maybe it was beginner's luck.
Throughout the evening, we loaded our hulls with void opals, low temperature diamonds and other minerals of great value. I learned a lot about mining doing it myself instead of watching someone else do it. Yes, I made mistakes, but I caught on quick and learned from them. Before the night was over, I was looking at potentially making 30-million just from the void opals alone. The low-temp diamonds, maybe another 50 million.
We jumped to a different system, I forget which now, and parked about 9 km outside the Terminal. Korz asked me to stop there for a bit because he wanted to jettison all of his low-temp diamonds, so I could cash them in for myself. I was stunned! I asked him, "Are you sure, buddy! That's a lot of money." He assured me that he wanted to. He told me that this was his plan all along, that he and Jean had discussed it earlier in the day, even before me and Della met them in the commissary earlier that day. I couldn't believe it! First though, he jettisoned his remaining limpets, and I used those to capture all of the low-temp diamonds. After that, I docked and sold the haul for over 30 million credits!
Back at Ray Gateway, we did the same thing as before. We sat outside the no-fire-zone and as he jettisoned all of his void opals, I used the limpets to capture them all. After we were all done, I cashed in and made a whopping 95,970,329 credits! That was the most that I've ever made ever! The words I had spoken to my wife earlier in the day resonated in my mind. "95 million?" I said aloud. I told her 60 or maybe 70!
As Korz and I walked out of the hangar together, Korz had one more surprise in store for me. He pulled out his cell and showed me a picture that Jean sent him earlier while we were mining together. I looked at it. "Howdy, neighbor!" Korz said as I looked at the picture. "What? Really" I exclaimed. "We're neighbors now?" "That's right man. While we were out, your wife put down a deposit on a 3,200 square foot apartment right next door to mine on the 96th floor in the Avia, and we have adjoining terra-gardens" I was stunned. I kept thinking how happy my wife must have been at that moment and how eager she must have been to share it with me.
But before I could get home, excited to see my wife and our new place, Korz grabbed my arm and pushed me into the Shipyard office. "What are we doing here?" I asked. "Before you go blowing all that money on a new apartment at the residence office, as important as that is, you've got more than enough to do that and buy a new ship." "A new ship? Are you crazy? I just bought one a few days ago." I said to him as I tried to walk out of the shipyard's office. "Dude, trust me. I am telling you. If you think what you made today in that ASP-EX was a lot of money, just think how much you'll rack in with a new Python with cargo space the size of your new apartment!" "And," he added "by the time you buy it, retrofit it and buy your new apartment, you'll still have like 30 million left over." I thought about it for a quick minute. "Really? Is that math even right?" I asked. "Remember, you started your day with only 2 million credits and it took you almost a two months to make that, and then another few months to make what, 5 million? 8 million?" "Yeah," I added. My tone was more than a bit defensive, but he wasn't attacking me. He only wanted me to open my mind a little. I looked at him and his cock sure grin. Right then I just knew that he wasn't full of shit. He knew exactly what he was saying because he'd already done it. So, I bought a new Python for 34 million credits and walked out of there with over 50 million left over.
As we left the Shipyard, I immediately started back toward our old apartment when Korz called over to me. "Hey cowboy, where you going? Home's this way my man." I looked at him and then looked straight up. He was standing in one of the residence elevators that require a special access code to operate. As I stepped into the elevator, Korz entered his access code. We looked through the glass window and the view as it rose and rose high above the Starport.
When we stepped off, even the hallways looked amazing. Less than 10 paces from the elevator, he stopped. "This is me. And there's you." He wasn't wrong. There I was, home and a new beginning. I opened the door, and yelled out, "Honey! I'm home."
#END.