When you are a professional gamer, you live for the big moments. The big action, the big wins, the big losses, the epic fails. Even though the big losses feel the worst of all of them, they are still better than a mediocre session.

But then again, I don’t think this is a gamer specific thing. People in general seem to live for that. The moments of high emotion, when the chips are down, the stakes are high and we sit right on the edge. I think gamers are just more honest about it. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that things are ‘not real’ and losing is just a step to the next game. Let me tell you though, when your earnings depend on your winnings, when your job is tied up in your win / loss ratio, or when your rankings depend on it you don’t want to lose any more than any other person. And yet, you still put it all forward for the next game, knowing full well that this could be your next big loss.

Yeah, I know I am rambling. That’s because the last two days had none of the high energy and high emotion that you would expect from an amazing game play session. And yet, they were some of the most enjoyable ones I had this immersion so far.

I think part of that was simply that there was a clear goal ahead of me and ahead of all of us. There was an excitement in the air about the chance to get into the relic and our researchers were positively vibrating with excitement even though they had yet to make any tangible progress. And there was the mercenary flight group that was hovering over us and for a change we didn’t need to look over our shoulders. It reminded me a little of my first days. Sitting in Rustbucket, may she rest in peace, and chipping away at asteroids. When I was working towards the completion of my contract and was too low profile for anybody to give a shit about me.

After our meeting I had gone and talked to the researchers to get a better picture of the ship including some measurements so I could plan what I needed to do. It turned out, the ship was actually quite a bit bigger than I had anticipated. A part of it was stuck in the rock. Which was weird in its own way as I had no clue what you would do to get a ship stuck in a solid piece of what basically was somewhere between Basalt and Obsidian. I would have imagined that if you collide with something this hard, the ship would end up like Rustbucket had after a rock collided with her. The other curious thing was that the back end of the ship was actually the part stuck in the rock. This came out after First had done several scans with his equipment.

He had also constructed a 3D holographic model of it. According to him it was only 92% certain that his model was actually correct. He had delivered that with the most chargrined face I could imagine a Grey showing. After clapping his shoulder and telling him that this was a good start and to keep up the good effort I actually looked at the dimensions of the ship: 113 meters long, 23 meters wide and 18 meters high.

The cross section was roughly oval which was a major deviation from all the more “bricky” looking ships I had seen so far. Okay, maybe not really flying bricks but most had very simple designs and round areas were usually not part of the design feature. Which in a way made sense since spaceships did not need to be aerodynamic, you know, on account of the whole no air part. So a shipping container with thrusters would serve you just as well as a flying saucer or a sphere. Otherwise the ship looked like a silver-white tube with a squeezed frontend and a wavy kind of dip just where it was halfway stuck in the rock. I could not see anything that would pass as a window or anything.

After some testing with Opisthos and Asami Soto, to make sure that the mining charges would not damage the ship, I had started blasting the area around it to allow the scientists more access. The shield seemed to flare with each explosion but they were up to the task of preventing rock debris hitting the hull. Then they would seep between the loosened rock. However, when we started removing the debris after the explosion, the stone trapped inside the shield would fall out. So the bubble was one way.

I found this whole process as fascinating as I found it relaxing. I had a completely wrong idea about the function of these energy shields. I had imagined that it was a bubble with a certain distance from the ship, especially as it had always been depicted like that in other games and trid shows. And that would have meant the rock chips that get thrown up inside that bubble would just hit the hull, right? But something prevented that from happening. It seemed almost as if the kinetic energy was being bled away and the stone pieces lost their power halfway between the bubble surface and the ship’s hull.

So after I had cleared that up some I had started on a tunnel at the front end of the ship. I measured 25 by 30 meters. That would be tight but not too tight and I hoped that 3.5 meters on either side would be enough maneuvering room.

I had fallen into the usual mining rhythm. Overlay drill hole schematics on the wall in my HUD, drill the holes, set charges, anchor the catch net, hit the button, remove catch net, retract the charge bags and hand over to Ralgau and Ygglog who cleared away the debris and stacked it just outside the cave with the help of our trusty cargo sled while I moved on to the next piece of wall to do it all over again.

Irene: Malcolm I think we have something here.

Malcolm: omw

Yeah yeah, I know I could have been more eloquent but that was what I had to write after experiencing the meditative effects of blowing shit up in space for 1.5 days straight.

“What’s up?” I asked after bouncing my way over to Irene and the researchers.

“Asami found something and First thought that this might be a connector port.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“I postulated that the possibility of it being a connector port is high.”

“Show me!” I ignored his pedantry in the rush of excitement.

Our experimental engineer waved me over and pointed at a particular spot of the shield. I saw nothing and said so.

“That is because right now it is not active. See this line on the hull there?”

I nodded.

“I believe that is a sensor strip where some autonomous function of the ship monitors what is happening around it. When I get close enough to the shield and wave just so…”

I watched him step close to the shield. He held his arm straight up and then swung it down to his side. And then I saw the thing in the shield he had referred to. It looked like a wall plug kinda thing was suddenly materializing on the surface of the shield. And while it didn’t look like much, there was some similarity between this one and the connector plugs I had seen all across the station, in Rustbucket and wherever else.

“So what, you plug in?” I asked.

“I would not recommend that without further testing.”

“Why?”

First looked at me incredulously.

“You think that connecting your brain directly to relic tech is a good idea?” I swear he was judging me.

“I dislike to say it boss but my brother has a point here. From what we know about relic tech, it was secured well. So if this is a connector port that will allow the connected person to power down the shield and open the hatch, I would assume it is secured. And if your brain patterns aren’t recognized or don’t have the right permissions then I believe counter measures will be used.” Opisthos added.

“So you are saying the person connecting might have their brain fried if they are not recognized?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, that takes the fun out of it. What can we do?”

“I can create a safety measure that will intercept all signals and only let them through when they are safe!?”

“Sounds like a plan. Do that.” Then something occurred to me. “So during relic times people didn’t connect without a hard line?”

“Oh no, from what we can conclude from other finds, they connected remotely just as much, probably more than we do. I think this is an additional measure in case ship personnel don't have a remote connection.”

“Fair enough. I guess you get on with rigging up a safety measure so my brain doesn’t get fried and then we’ll see what happens. I’ll go back to building us an exit.”

They all nodded and went to work. So did I. I had about 30 meters of tunnel to dig. Just doing the math on that one made my head hurt. I had somewhere in the vicinity of 75k cubic meters of rock that needed removing. I wished Mrk and Krn were here so we could actually work in shifts. To be honest, even when the claim was fully set up and we were focused on mining, this would be roughly a week’s worth of work. I had no idea how long this would take me but it was nowhere soon.

* * * * *

I blinked my eyes open. My whole body felt like I had been beaten up and I was pretty sure that Ralgau and Ygglog didn’t feel much better. We had mined for another 8 hours straight after the conversation. By the end of it, I had just been hit with another exhausted debuff and we decided to call it a day. Or cycle. Or whatever you call it. Then I had dragged my ass into the shuttle where we were hot racking in the three available cabins.

We were back to six hour shifts since this seemed to be working the best for us and prevented extreme exhaustion. But with the number of people, there was no way for us to all have our own bed. So instead we had split the shifts so that Ralgau, Ygglog and me were on one shift, Irene, Asami and Second were on the next shift and finally Nirazera and First were on the last. But with three available beds, that meant we slept in cycles and when one person crawled out of it, the next one stood in the doorway waiting for their chance to pass out in it.

Now I would not necessarily want to engage in this practice on a continual basis but considering that the shuttle beds were more like the bunk on Rustbucket, I didn’t mind too much either. The beds were basically spongy, mattress-like surfaces that you could lie down on. There were no pillows or blankets or anything. And since we didn’t take more than the helmets of our vac suits off, it didn’t really matter. I ended up sharing with the ladies.

When I finally got my ass into gear and the cabin door slid open, I walked into Irene who had her hand stretched out to the door buzzer.

“Morning sunshine.” She greeted me.

“Hmhm…” I grunted in response.

“I see. Still as cheerful in the morning as ever.” she taunted while smirking at me.

“Still willing to kill people that taunt me too much in the morning.” I grumped back.

She chuckled. Knowing each other on this level really made interactions easier.

“I got your back boss!” While I could clearly hear the air quotes and the sarcasm when she called me boss, what she said next was nearly enough to make me propose to her. “I found that the shuttle has an Alkaf maker and a good supply of it. It isn’t coffee but it should do the trick. There is a big thermos sitting in the galley. Help yourself.”

I groaned. I had tried the stuff. It wasn’t made out of coffee beans but out of an algae. And it was what passed as a coffee replacement. It was not good but it did pack a wake-up kick. Not sure if it actually contained caffeine but it helped. And while the flavor left to be desired, it sounded heavenly.

“I could kiss you right now. But I shall reserve my lips to put them on a cup of the liquid gold you mentioned.”

“Yes, no kissing without paying! Now get out of the way, my turn to zonk out!”

I heard the humor in her voice even though the response was meant to sound gruff. In turn I already had stepped back from the door and offered her a way in.

“Malcolm, I can’t. What would the people think?” she teased me. Then after letting the statement hang in the air for about two seconds she stepped past me. In turn I chuckled. She had a way to make things more fun and she had always managed to bump my mood when I wanted to punch people. Which I didn’t. Not really anyway, I was too sore for that.

“Good to have you around Nic!” I mumbled under my breath as I made my way into the galley where Ralgau and Ygglog were already munching on ration bars.