=== Empire of Man, frontier station – Diamond.===Time: About three months since last chapter.===

=== Ethan POW===

Ethan was sleeping – currently dreaming about the time a few weeks ago, when he bought the suggested mining upgrades – the compressor and purifier upgrades, for the mining laser of theirs.

That day, just like usual Thalia had installed the upgrades and they were leaving the station with all the strict control and by now usual checkups.

As she explained back then to him, now all ore that would be mined would first pass the purifier, where it would be heated and all the impurities removed, so allowing more pure and more expensive ore to be stored within the ore holds. Compressor on the other hand, did just that it compressed ore, by making the ores molecules knit with one another tighter so making it take less space. This by her calculations should bring their profit up by about 25%. and that was quite a nice and welcome increase. There never is too much money.

--Ethan wake up, precious cargo unloading has finished – old man Duke has just picked it up. Its time to go to the fields. - Thalia tried waking up Ethan, but he still was drunk, so it was quite hard.

--Ethan wake up, or I will activate emergency fire control in your cabin!

A low mumbling could be heard from Ethan after those words, with occasional cursing at the Thalia.

--Aaaaah god!!! THALIA BITCH STOP THAT!!! AHHH IM AWAKE!!!! IM AWAKE I SAY!!!!

Ethan started screaming out loud, as soon as Thalia activated emergency fire control valve just above his bed.

The view was spectacular, Thalia wondered if Ethan has ever got up so quickly before? She was considering on making this a usual method for waking him up, too bad after every use of it a report would have to be filed to the station administration, about why it was used – as what was the emergency.

All wet and angry Ethan was still shouting, with all those wet clothes and blankets stuck to him he looked like some strange ball of fur. In a few minutes as he began to calm down Thalia decided it was about time, to begin to talk with him again.

--So how was your sleep? I see you wet your bed again...?

--Dam you crazy machine! Why did you do it?! Cant I just have a nice day off once in a while? It feels like a fucking forge has opened in my head!

--I did it – to wake you up. Our cargo has been unloaded and already picked up by Duke, even the chit transfer is completed. We have now nothing else to do in the station, it is time - to go back to work. Or maybe you dont want to travel any more in the future?

--Dammit! You sound like my father! And he sounds bad! Fine, I get it.. time to work... Fuck I will have, to file that emergency report again... that fat ass control tower lady is going to scold me again... aaaaaaaahhhh.... Fix me up something, to calm down that forge in my head...

--Okay Ethan... But you know, there wouldnt be any forge in your head if you didnt drink so much? You should really think about you health more – previous time because of your aggressiveness when drunk you almost got your self arrested, not to mention the beating you received, from those space elves...

--Ahh, dont remind me about that! Just fix up something for my poor head...

--Fine.

Ethan took about half an hour, to recover his usual good appearance – cold shower(not because he wanted to, but because Thalia disabled the water left him extremely refreshed and with teeth chattering) and fresh, clean clothes do miracles... Theres also coffee and such.

Though, to his headache reporting, to the stations administration didnt help at all, just like he guessed that fat administrator was on duty, and gave him far more questions, than he wanted to answer. This whole interrogation of his took about fifteen minutes, after whitch he was left as empty as a used lemon.

Finally, after all these, not so pleasant matters to Ethan, they were doing the undocking procedures, preparing to leave for the asteroid belt, to continue mining the ore.

Thalia was downloading the newest ore price list and depositing all their available chits into investment funds, until they will come back – these small tricks allowed them to compete with real specialized mining barges, though – not in the amounts of ore that they would have liked.

As always Thalia commanded the ship away from the station for a few hundred kilometers, and activated warp drives. Their trip wont be long, just a few hours. So as to pass the time Thalia decided to talk with Ethan about something, that was on her mind for quite some time.

--Ethan are you free? I would like to talk.

--You can see trough my eyes, and yet yous till ask if im free.. of course I am, does looking trough the screen at stars with longing eyes count as doing something very important?

Thalia simply ignored his reply and began to talk.

--You keep mentioning, that you want to go into the deep space, the unexplored space. So I did some research and have found, that the smallest ship class allowed for solo exploration into deep space are cruisers... I was thinking, that if you really want to go there, than upgrading ship to a cruiser early, would help us prepare for some unexpected situations... Also we dont need so much chits to upgrade the ship into a cruiser – all the new free space could be used as an expanded cargo and ore hold, thus increasing our mining capabilities even further.

--yeah, that's actually a good Idea, I too know about that only cruiser rule. Did you check what would be the price of upgrading?

--Yes, it would be about two hundred fifty thousand chits.. a little less or a little more, depending on what integrated equipment you would choose and on some other parameters.

Ethan just whistled lightly at the price, it was no small price after all.

--Hoho.. Thats quite a price. Any way to cut some corners?

--No, I expected you to ask that and already calculated with all the possible shotcuts.

--I see, well preparing for deep space exploration wont be an easy task anyway.. so yeah... how much do we currently have saved up?

--Sixty eight thousand chits currently. In bout a year and a half, we should be able to upgrade, then things should go faster.

--I see...

--Also Ethan I have found out, that its a common practice to build control towers when going into the deep space, they can have all the needed repair and refuel facilities installed to make them an optimal base for an exploration.

--And how much would that cost?

--They come in three sizes - small, medium and large. And they cost respectively fifty thousand, five hundred thousand and five million. Modules for a tower have to be bought separatelly.

--Yeah, quite an expensive stuff, we will think about them later okay?

--Sure, we are already approaching our mining belt, should I start collecting our scan drones?

--Yes, go ahead and find us a nice rock to mine.

Thalia sent a command to return to all their scanning drones to return to ship.

These drones were one of their newest purchase – Ethan got a suggestion to buy them while he was spending his free time In a bar from one old miner, who told that while not highly effective these drones really did help to increase your profits. Lets say a ship takes two hours to scan a medium asteroid - the drone will take six, but the point is the drones are an autonomic programmed devices, that do just that and a ship is a piloted piece of equipped, that doesnt always have the capacity to do a dew things at the same time – just like Ethans ship it couldnt mine and scan at the same time because it would simply be too far from the unscanned asteroid while mining. So they bought some scanning drones, to help them with scanning, and the drones were truly useful.

Soon drones, that were called in docked in the small drone bay, they have added just recently too and began to recharge, while simultaneously uploading all their collected data about the asteroids around.

Ethan was scrolling trough through the data the drones just uploaded, he was looking for a good asteroid to mine, he didnt like to fly from one to another every few hours, it was a waste of time and he was going to do that only, when all the bigger asteroid were mined to the very last drop of their ore.

--Ah, Thalia help me out here a bit... find us a nice fat asteriod.

--Done, this one should be enough for us to mine for almost all our session this time.

--Oooh, that a big one then! Haha, good.

They approached the asteroid that was identified by the drones as rich with minerals and in big quantities. It had a few minerals that were unidentified even! They might just find something, that would make them rich! Looking at the data in front of his eyes Ethan was already imagining, what he would do if he got rich... after some time he returned to reality and while preparing to mine began to talk with Thalia.

--So what do you think we could find in these unidentified minerals? New alloys or just some useless crystals?

--I do not know, though I believe the empire would pay greatly for either of them, since you can newer know what it might be useful for.

--Yeah I agree, good thing they havent given order to make mining permits for this system, or most of our profits from these new discoveries would go to their pockets.

--Yes indeed, but like history shows, after every new ore discovery the system with that ore was closed down and mined by the empires ships.

--I see, so better to mine until we cant find it anymore and then sell it to them, okey! Lets do just that.

The ship has aligned itself with the asteroid, matched it's rotation speed and Ethan ordered Thalia to deploy the mining lasers, once they were out it was time, to begin the work. The laser cavity was filled with special gas, to increase the output of the laser. A bright crimson laser shot into the asteroid surrounded by it's integrated small tractor beam field, that pulled useful ore into the ship.

That warm sound of this complex machine working was now all but usual to Ethan and he continued to work.

Ethan has already been mining for four hours, when he decided to go rest a for a while. He left all the setting on automatic and went to grab a bite.

Back in the ships kitchen he grabbed some cheese, some bread and a few bottles ow while light wine, for some lunch. He sat down there behind the table, making sandwiches and drinking wine, while looking at the screen he had bought recently and put it on the wall of the kitchen. In the screen view of the ship surroundings was showed – small cameras he got installed delivered it. Ever since he was a child he liked to look at nebula and other wonders of the space. Relaxing in his seat, thinking about going to get a nap... he was blown out from his seat and thrown into the wall where the screen was.

A millisecond later Thalia shouted...

--Ethan! Are you okay?!

--Uhh... I'll live.. What happened?

--An explosion! From outside the ship...

Ethan didnt let her to finish and cut in.

--Damage report quick, assess the damage. And find out what happened.

--Already working on it. There is a lot of systems damaged, some even offline, our hull was breached in some places.

--Wasn't there a shield present all the time?

--There should have been, but I had lowered it's power, to save the energy needed to power up the mining lasers... The damage looks spread trough many systems, but all of it is easy to be fixed even with the maintenance bots we have onboard.

--Good, prepare some ice back in the med bay.. my head will need it.

--Okay, im currently checking, from where the explosion came... Oh no... It came from that spot that showed unknown in the asteroid! Looks like it wasnt a concentration of new minerals! It was a cavity withing the asteroid full of explosive gasses!

--Of course it couldn't be... my rotten luck wouldnt allow it... Begin the repairs.. im going to get that ice.

--Yes... BRACE YOURSELF A SECONDARY EXPLOSION IS COMMING!!!

Ethan barely managed to react to Thalia's warning, when he was again thrown all around the kitchen, loud sounds of breaking metal and explosions could be heard from various sections of the ship.

--Thalia whats the damage?! Is there any more explosions coming?

--Nnno.. Critttticall-al-al dammage.. Aster-r-r-oid destroyedd... i'mm shu-ti-ti-ting dd-own...

--Thalia shit! Respond!

--Oh, dont shout.. I managed, to transfer more of my functions over to your local body processor.

--Thank god, what happened?

--The heated gasses withing the asteroids other pockets exploded, tearing it to pieces and since we were so close to it, we have received full damage from it. Many of the main systems are critically damaged, and hull integrity is critical. Power lines were cut off somewhere, it is possible, that the power core itself was destroyed. We are stuck here, until we do emergency repairs.

--Shit, how long will the repairs take?

--Maintenance bots already began strengthening the hull, so the ship woulnt break apart, you will also have to help... Hull is breached, we are leaking oxygen!

--Just close the damaged section, I now really need that ice...

--I can't access the systems needed to do that! They are down. You have to seal the sections manually. Air filtering system also was blown to shreds, we have to get back to “Diamond” station as soon as we can!

--Oh balls... Wheres the closes emergency suit right now?

--Only on the other side of the ship. Near the ships entrance door. But path to it is blocked.

--Think of something Thalia, can your bots reach it? Can we cut the walls open somehow?

--Yes... Yes we can! There was a laser cutter in the engineering, it's entrance isnt blocking, but theres a fire going on there, and the emergency fire system is down! We have to wait, until it will die down.

--No, im going in, if it dies down, then it will have consumed all the oxygen left by then, and I will be long dead before then. Im going, show the way.

--Showing.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

A path was highlighted for him, to reach the engineering as quickly as possible. Running Ethan was thinking he was lucky to be alive.. at least for now... a quick thought entered his mind about all the cost, that will be needed for the repairs, but he threw it out of his head for now... this wasnt the time to think about money it was time to think, how to survive.

He was close to engineering now, when a small explosion blew him into a nearby wall. He recovered quickly, while cursing and continued on. Engineering was a true hell – fire everywhere, his old welding set was leaking gas and making the temperature inside the room get even hotter, most of the floor was beginning to melt from the heat.

Ethan inhaled before diving into the burning engineering room and began to search for that laser cutter, but all the tools were lying around, those two explosions made a huge mess, when he finally saw it, it was close to the melting floor and soon would be consumed by that melting mass of liquid boiling metal. Ethan was running out of air and had to breathe - he exhaled quickly, and lowering himself as much as he could tried to inhale that a little cooler air near the floor... But it still was really hot, a burning sensation and pain reverberated trough his lungs, but he just gritted his teeth and and ran to grab the laser cutter. Good thing his hands couldnt feel pain anymore, or he might have screamed because, the laser cutter was extremely hot, it burned the soft padding off of his cybernetic hand. Quickly turning around Ethan wanted to run out of the room, but just as he began... he flinched from pain, that entered his one still organic leg... without himself noticing he had splashed some of that molten metal with his cybernetic leg onto his good one..

Balls he thought and now grinding his teeth even more continued to run at the direction of the exit.

Once out he slammed the console's emergency lock down button and locked the room. Doors slid form withing the wall and with a loud metallic shrieking sealed the room. Trough the holo-screen integrated into the door he saw, how the fire burned out in mere seconds, because all the oxygen has burned out.

--Thalia, show me where to cut the walls.

--A sec, calculating. Okay, go to the ore hold - cutting one of its walls we will be almost at the entrance to the ship, where all the closest suits are located.

--Got it, light up the way.

Going quickly to the ore hold he looked around... there was a lot of fucking damage done...

Once in front of the ore hold he pressed the emergency open button – usually you dont open it when its half full, but it didnt matter now. Once the door opened he entered, and found the marked wall, it was on his left so he rushed to it, to begin cutting.

--Quickly Ethan, I calculate, that oxygen within ship is disappearing even more quickly... looks like a few more fires have spread into other sectors.

--Shit, im working as fast as I can...

Slowly, ever so slowly was the wall giving in to the laser cutter, after all it was build to withstand quite a big pressure of all the ore collected. Just as he was to finish cutting a hole big enough for himself, all the light went offline.

--Fuck, what now?!

--Looks like the power core is damaged heavily or, main cables were cut! Ignore it for now, continue cutting, we need that suit for you!

And so he continued, after a few moments emergency light came online, they were fed by batteries and would last more than a day, but he didnt care right now. Kicking off the part he had cut off, he crawled trough the hole. A nearby room was full of fire, he had to move quickly – it would soon spread into this room.

--Balls. - Ethan cursed and continued to run.

He was about to slam the emergency door close button, but Thalia shouted, that he wouldnt do it. So he didnt, fire was spreading more and more quickly. As he finally reached the entrance and grabbed a suit the fire was just five meters behind him. He rushed to put the suit on.

--Now, open the main door! Just hold on, the vacuum will suck out all gases and so put out the fire.

Ethan tied himself to a pipe on the side of the wall and opened the doors with an emergency override. A mass off flame tongues passed next to him – whistling as if from fury, to be carried out of the ship so rudely... Ethan himself was being pulled, but luckily the cable he used to tie himself to that pipe held.

--The fire is out.

--I can see that, but so is our air.

Without any delay hi closed the door, then checked his suits oxygen supply – it was full, for three days, and even a small air filter was installed, giving him effective air for almost two weeks. Good, at least he wont die from suffocation... maybe he will starve during that time.

He untied himself from the pipe, and sat down right there, to rest a little – he was shaking from the adrenaline now slowly leaving his system and his leg together with his lungs were burning up.

--Ethan, you have to go to the med-bay and get some stimulants, or you will pass out soon from your burns and injuries.

--Yes honey, doing it honey...

He tried to joke, getting up was hard, now that all his sides hurt and the strength from adrenaline has worn off. But he managed, and now slowly leaning to walls he walked towards the med-bay.

Once he reached it, he took a small box, that supposedly was an automated med-kit and added it into the suits module slot.

His suit connected to the added equipment and installed it, then offering Ethan to use it. Once he agreed a small pop up window appeared asking if he wanted to be sedated, not to feel the pain, because simple painkillers the module was equipped with were ineffective against his burned lungs.

He declined, at least for now, he still had a lot of things to do.

After a little more rest, now a bit more comfortably since the meds were injected into his body lowering the pain he continued to the engine-room, he needed to bring back the power, everything else could be done by next fixing Thalia's main system.

Once inside he saw, how everything was thorn out, by a fragment of that exploded asteroid. Thank the stars, the power core was unscathed, as it had its separate shielding system, that was still online. He started to look for the problem and found it soon enough – main cable was torn in one place, looks like by another shard of that damn asteroid.

Groaning Ethan got on his knees and began to weld the cable – of course he disconnected the cable from the power core first... you know frying yourself by a sudden surge of electricity going trough the reconnected cable wasnt the way he wanted to die. It took him some time, but he managed to weld it back into one piece and even isolate with some of the materials lying around. Then while praying he reconnected it.

For a few minutes nothing happened, but then emergency lights went offline, and those usual ones sprung back to life.

--I have reconnected to my main processor, its badly damaged – we have to move my main memory to another processor, then I will be able to operate maintenance bots.

--Okay, working on it.

Ethan began to make his way to his next destination withing the ship – the bridge, there beneath the bridges floor all the main ships processors were located. It didnt take long to reach it, there werent so much damage in the main corridor, that was going trough the ship... well except for that one huge hole, that he had to jump over...

The bridge itself had its hardened layered plexi-glass windows blown out – he could see that ir was the doing of some of the asteroids shards, one such shard too has embedded itself into the floor, just behind the captains seat, smashing and short circuiting Thalia's main systems.

He hardwired the system, to bypass the damaged part and reach all the other systems, after this was done, he didnt even need to move her main memory - a simple reboot was all that was needed.

--I'm back Ethan, thank you. I will begin emergency repairs imediatelly.

--Yes, do it.

Armored shielding began to lower itself over the command centers windows, and over all the others within the ship. Maintenance bots came to life and began their long, and tedious work of fixing the ship at least into the flying condition, by Thalia's calculations it should be done in two days. Hearing this Ethan gave her some short orders and informed her, that he will inject himself with some sleeping drugs – she will have to wake him up, when she needs him.

He felt a small needle piercing his skin, and then Ethan drifted off to sleep... To again meet his nightmares from before...

Ethan's ship was now one big lump of metal, that maintenance bots were running all over cutting here, welding here, dragging a spare armor plate to fill the hole, cutting out small pieces of asteroid from the hull, where they have embedded themselves and cut some critical wires... This lump of metal was now alive with activity. Thalia was routing and rerouting systems, from one line, to the newly fixed another – trying to balance the ships now dangerously low computing power... some processes were even using Ethan's processors. But slowly ship was being fixed, no not to its original state, but fixed, at least there werent any more open holes in it right now.

As the time passed this lump of metal, recovered a bit and now again looked something similar to a spaceship. Its hull melted in many places, patched up all over but able to fly again.

--Ethan the repairs are done. We can fly back to station.

For the second day Ethan was feeling a little worse and worse each hour, he guessed it was his lungs... but he couldnt do anything, just wait for the repairs to be done. And here! Finally he heard those magic words, that repairs are done.

--Good Thalia, thanks... now get us the hell out of here.

--With pleasure.

And the ship initiated warp drive...

=== Empire of Man, frontier station – Diamond.===.===

=== Stations docking deck supervisor – Druliana POW===

Ahh, today is a much better day, my sweat coffee is so tasty and this french cream bread is just divine. Yes, this is a much better day than yesterday...

Good, my techs and operators are hard at work already, its good to be boss, you can come to work whenever you want - remembering those times, when I was one of these people so hardworking is strange everything seemed so gray and dull back then... Haha! But now I am the boss! I can enjoy myself at last!

Ah, the day when I got this position is burned into my mind like it was yesterday! I remember how that old fool reassigned, to live on some dirt ball back in the core empire... Such a stupid man, doesnt he know, that you can live longer in space? Whatever he was an idiot anyway, but my hard work had paid off then, I got his position! Ah, yes... such good memories..

--Lady Druliana! Ma'am we have an emergency!

She almost choked on a bite of her french cream bread.. WHAT MORON DARES TO DISTURB HER HEAVENLY EATING MOMENT?!

Her big an fat body swayed from side to side, once she began to look for an idiot who dared to disturb her.

--What kind of a fucking emergency?

--Ma'am, we have a ship coming in – it doesnt respond tom communications and looks heavily damaged!

She spotted the fool it was one of the operators, to her left. He made a note to herself, to give him hell later.

--Put it on the main screen, gather all information about it from our database.

--Yes, ma'am.

On the screen in front of her a ship was shown, zoomed in it looked all battered and tattered, with big parts of its hull melted, and patched. Marks of inside fire could be seen, here and there were some asteroid fragments embedded into the hull of that ship.

--Fffffuck... - Druliana said out loud. - Well, whose ship is it?

--It's one of those new miners, who came to us just a few months ago... Ethan's. Damn, his ship was battered up if I van say...

--No you cant, now shut the fuck up and tractor beam it to the emergency dock three... Fuck he must be one more victim of that defective drone sale. Ffffuck... Scan for life, is that boy still alive?

--Scan's picked up a heat signal, it's weak.

--Shit quickly tractor him in and call medics, also techs I want all the logs of his ship a week before his accident, also a week before he bought those defective drones if thats the case! Move it you lazy assholes!

--Yes ma'am. - a chore of man and woman voices replied at her order.

This day just went to hell for her.. this was first ship today, she had two such cases the day before and a single case even earlier...

=== Empire of Man, frontier station – Diamond.=== Med-bay ===

=== Ethan POW===

Ahh, this is good, I think I will have to think about getting one of these med-pools installed inside my ship... once I have some spare chits... damn...

Remembering the things, that happened during the past week I wasnt happy... my ship damaged, I myself almost dead... interrogated as soon as I was in a stable condition by that fat-ass eat-all monster of a docks supervisor... Brrr... a shiver ran trough my back remembering the so called “Lady Druliana”... how can one get himself so fat I wonder?

Nonetheless, now everything is back in order - my ship is being repaired... though that will cost almost all my chits... good thing there is insurance, but that will be transferred to me once im out of this med-pool and can sign the papers with my own hands... That are currently detached from my body, together with my cybernetic leg – for repairs. I dont even know the sum, so I dont even really care about it, just like everyone says im happy to be alive right now. Thalia is handling all the repair matters, also shes communicating with me only trough my neural implants. So to say my ship right now is in good... electronic hands?

It will be three more days, until im fished out of this pool of healing liquid – my body got damaged badly... Broken ribs, cracked bones, burned skin, heavily damaged and pierced by bone fragments lungs... One medic said I was almost dead, by drowning in my own blood, that filled my lungs, when they got me over here... Yeah.. that would be one shitty way to die.

Other than that everything is cool right now... I was informed, that I wasnt the only victim of that defective drone scam... Some asshole bought a bunch of cheap scanning drones, then installed an upgraded, but unfinished scanning system into them and was selling them as if new. The poor motherfucker is currently waiting for his trial, as much as I heard, there currently are more than five victims including me in our station and they are looking for more in other stations – that bastard was traveling from station, to station selling those shit drones. I believe he will be executed.

Yeah... I think I will sleep more right now.