Miner Miracle
18 Feb 2016TheDarkLord
Dalton Dock, Gaohikel. Cobra MkIII “Legacy”.November 3301.
“If you want a break from all the murdering, hang out twenty clicks from those Resource Extraction Sites you’ve been frequenting.”
I was, as is reasonably commonplace for me, at the bar. I seemed to have developed a pattern of using alcohol to calm my mind after a session of bounty hunting. It helped that I didn’t mind striking up shallow conversations with strangers. This night, I’d met an engineer pilot. The patch on his overalls said “Dave”. He seemed pragmatic, the sort of bloke who’d been there, seen it and done it. Grey eyes that had their fair share of wrinkles, a salt & pepper hair do, and a couple of days of stubble. This wasn’t some grizzled pneumatic drill operator though. He seemed entirely relaxed and content. If he were a planet-dweller, he’d be the sort who’d chucked in the banking job to sell street food by the beach. And found himself unexpectedly content in so doing.
Dave wrote out a shopping list on a beer mat, and told me to buy a Hauler taxi to Sirius space.
Not unusually, I had far too much beer, and then when the bar closed I found myself locked in with the landlord and some of that rare Lavian Brandy.
I awoke the next morning with a sore head. An unfamiliar beer mat lay on the desk. Scrawled over the garish design were the following:
- Type 6
- Refinery
- Prospector
- Collector
- Limpets
And then – with the handwriting considerably more alcohol-fuelled – one further word: Delkar.
This was a proper four-star hangover. But the plan seemed magnetic. I was going to go mining. I picked up a cheap long-distance Hauler, and laid in a course for Ising Dock in 109 Piscium. Li Yong-Rui space, where the shipyard and outfitting emporia both had excellent stocks and a 15% discount.
Down at the shipyard, I met Jos. He was sceptical. “Mining? Really? Boooorriinnnngggg!” It didn’t stop him from taking my money, of course.
The Lakon Spaceways Type-6 Transporter had an economy of design that I quite liked. Big engines at the back, a tiny goldfish bowl cockpit at the front, and in the middle racks and racks of cargo and equipment. There was no frippery, no flourish of a stylist's pen. It could have been drawn on one of those Etch-a-Sketch toys from the 20th that you see on the antiques vids. It all looked very shiny, and I wondered how long it would take to acquire the patina of hard graft.
Laying out six million on a non-combat-capable vessel paradoxically seemed more risky than spending the same on a craft to throw into harm's way, but I had conviction that this was a good move for my bank balance as much as my mental health. I checked off the build sheet, configured the module power priorities and fire groups, then signed Jos's release form. I was all set.
As my new Type-6 transporter dragged itself from the pad, I ruminated on how the ship’s lack of sprightliness was going to enforce my vocational slowdown.
I dropped into the asteroid field some 350km from a Resource Extraction Site. The rocks all lay beneath me, ready to have themselves eviscerated in my quest for precious cargo. It all seemed to go pretty well. Dave had been right. There was a tranquillity to this process of prospecting, lasing and then collecting. Sure, my refinery module needed babysitting, as it’s a pretty stupid bit of kit. But as long as I did all its thinking for it, things seemed to go OK.
That first haul was just over 900,000 credits.