Episode 136, Where's the Profit?
21 Dec 2024Ryuko Ntsikana
Mandalay Explorer
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Not since my return from Colonia had I jumped so far with such purpose. What began as a simple return to exploration turned into a botched chase that led us to unexpected places.
Lysandra was the first to report it—a strange, pinpoint red light in the distance. Corvus confirmed the sighting, and soon enough, so did I. It might have been nothing, but it was peculiar enough to warrant a closer look. Tara plotted a heading, theoretically calculated to bring us nearer to the anomaly. The more we jumped, the stranger it became, and before long, we lost our bearings entirely.
The chase eventually left the carrier a single jump from the California Nebula. None of us had been there before, so I had Captain Akio set a course.
The nebula itself was stunning, its vibrant hues contrasting against the black canvas of space. But once the awe wore off, it was clear there wasn’t much to gain here. The local politics and Thargoid drama meant no viable cargo runs or profitable opportunities. Even the Thargoid barnacle sites were empty and barren. The expense of Tritium made the detour a poor investment.
Frustrated, I tried once more to triangulate the anomaly’s position, using the last system where we’d spotted it as a starting point. I charted a course spanning several hundred light-years, but the elusive red light didn’t reappear. Burning through hundreds of tons of Tritium with nothing to show for it grated at my nerves. If I was going to squander resources, it needed to be for something worthwhile.
Leave it to Tara to uncover something unusual to divert my focus.
The Thargoids I’d learned to fight had an ancient enemy—an alien race lost to history millions of years ago. Victims of their own civil war and the wrath of AI war machines they had created. Their ruins, scattered across a distant expanse of space, had become a treasure trove for humanity’s reverse engineers. Clever humans had deciphered and adapted parts of their ancient technology, combining it with our own to create new weaponry and modules.
En route to “Guardian Space,” we made a detour to a Thargoid planetary site. The area was crewed by drones and dominated by towering spires that housed a substance called Meta Alloys. Tara assured me the site was completely safe—no interceptors, no scouts, just mindless workers and resources waiting to be harvested.
“These alloys,” she explained, “along with mechanisms inside the drones, are crucial for crafting a module you’ll find invaluable in niche situations.”
“What kind of edge are we talking about?” I asked, skeptical.
Her eyes glinted with amusement as she sidestepped the question. “Trust me—you’ll like it.”
I wasn’t convinced, but whatever this supposed “edge” was, the cost to chase it had been steep. First, the foray through the Goid planetary site. Then, the long haul to the Guardian ruins. By the time the carrier settled into position, it had burned through over four hundred tons of Tritium ore. That’s all I could see—credits evaporating into hyperspace, all for the promise of potential gain.
***
I had thought my whirlwind effort to streamline my holdings was an adventure, but it was nothing compared to the trail Tara had put me on. By the end of the first 48 hours, I was utterly spent. I’d battled Thargoid and Guardian drones, rummaged through their territories, and gathered all the materials and data on Tara’s extensive checklist.
The first item on her “to-do” list was a corrosion-resistant cargo hold. For that, we had to raid a Thargoid surface site, thrash their automated caretaker drones, and harvest their materials. On top of that, we raced around shooting at barnacles to collect their organic fruit, which, as it turns out, are the infamous Meta Alloys.
Learn something new every day.
With everything gathered, our next stop was several human systems to procure specific commodities. Then it was off to a technology broker, who took our hard-won haul as payment for a Class 4, 16-ton capacity Meta-Alloy Corrosion-Resistant Cargo Rack.
No sooner had I taken a moment to catch my breath than we were revisiting the Procyon system. We returned to the surface settlement where I’d encountered and bagged my first Hydra. Its green, ruined carcass was easy enough to spot. Fortunately, it was no longer caustic—but no one wanted to take any chances. Tara’s insistence on getting that specialized cargo rack suddenly made a lot of sense.
That was the first 12 hours. By then, I was already running on fumes, but Tara took the controls, pushing us to keep going.
I grabbed a quick meal and a nap while she piloted, only to be shaken awake when we reached the first Guardian site.
As a pirate-turned-bounty-hunter-turned-business-passenger-executive, I’d never been a miner or explorer—until Zaria taught me the profit in both on our way back from Colonia. Now, with Tara leading the charge, I’d added alien hunter and forensic archaeologist to my resume. Fighting off their automated drones while gathering the ancient materials and data Tara demanded was proving to be an adventure all its own.
By the 48-hour mark, I was practically falling over in the pilot’s seat. I didn’t know what Tara’s design limits were, but even she seemed to sense my breaking point. She helped me out of the seat, following close behind as we made our way to our room on the Mandalay, hovering silently in normal space.
The days that followed remained hectic, though not as grueling as the initial whirlwind. We returned to human-inhabited space, visiting ports that carried the commodities Tara needed and making stops at various technology brokers. Each broker crafted modules and weapons from the materials we’d gathered. The process felt monotonous but necessary, a slow transformation of the ship’s arsenal into something far deadlier and more versatile.
The only oddity was a required visit to a Sirius Corp technology broker, the sole supplier of the last two items on Tara’s list: Thargoid-inspired caustic missiles. Their inclusion on her checklist had raised an eyebrow, but by now, I’d stopped questioning her motives.
When the work was done, the Mandalay was equipped with Guardian-human hybrid weaponry, a corrosion-resistant cargo hold, and a Guardian FSD booster that extended its already impressive jump range by another 10 light-years.
As I sat in the cockpit, staring out at the vast expanse of stars, I couldn’t help but wonder: where was the profit in all this?