Bedan paced around the work room, running a hand through his dark hair at intervals while he spoke with Joran and Scruffy, who sat on the ramp.
“Look Bedan, I know you’re newer to this than Scruff or myself, but you are letting your paranoia control you. There have been no beatings, no lock-up. It’s been a damn paradise here since the new guy took over.”
“Tell that to the two lobotomized stiffs out there Joran! That’s farked is what that is. I still think we could make a run for it.”
“All he would need to do is press a button on that master datapad and your collar would go off or incapacitate you. Worse yet if he engaged the escaped slave protocol for you to broadcast to any nearby control pad? How long do you think you’d last on Nar Shaddaa? No. I’m happy, just going to talk to him about the indentured part of my contract when I get the chance now that he speaks the language.”
The younger man was quiet for a minute before Scruffy spoke. “It could be worse, I reckon. Joran and I will talk to him about the “indentured” part of this, see if’n we can rope you into it.”
“I still think he’s just gonna lobotomize us but be my guest.”
“Bedan,” Joran Began, “I get it. I’ve heard of some pretty kriffed ways first contact with a new civilization can go. And while we haven’t really been able to ask him questions yet I’m sure it’ll go well. The man learned Basic in a week, so I think he’ll see the wisdom of working within our laws. Since you were taken by the Black Sun illegally, I think we can get his help.”
“You don’t know that man. He had a dozen of those stiffs! Who’s to say what he could do to us.” Bedan Looked out the ramp entrance, “What do you think he was doing in the ass end of nowhere the pirates set up?” Bedan asked, rehashing a conversation they have had multiple times.
Joran rolled his eyes, “We won’t know unless he tells us. That giant hunk of metal can’t have gotten into orbit around the moon itself, so it’s probably the mothership. Or was, the pirates seemed to think it wasn’t functional.”
Bedan kept pacing, chewing on a thumbnail.
“Besides Bedan, I don’t think it’s as bad as you are saying.
“No, no. Really. Don’t look at me like that. He only killed the pirates. And none of them were turned into the “stiffs” you’re so worried about. I do wonder about them but if we were at risk don’t you think the other shoe would have dropped by now?”
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Walking along the promenade, lit by a setting sun, the flares of garish light advertising beautiful corporate offices and the transports above was both alien and comforting to me. The business and shear capability of the industry to make a hive the surface of the planet, towering kilometers over the original surface never fails to induce a little giddiness in me. I yearned to survey the machinery keeping the residents of this planet alive but had some sense of self preservation. The under hives were always dangerous.
Most of the way back to the landing pad, making a survey of the xeno I saw one that nearly made me stumble. A massive form that would stand a head above a fully armored space marine meekly following a cream skinned Twi’Lek. An immense collar of grey metal along with bracers of the same and arms filled with boxes and bags. I was barely eye level with a bicep as he held the goods aloft. I made sure to note the curiosity. Xeno of such size and bulk were typically of extreme danger to the people of the imperium. I could only hope it shared only its bulk as a similarity with the orks of my home galaxy.
The giant furred xeno was one of many different types I saw on the way back to the ship. The city seemed much busier now that it was later in the day. Mobile street vendors hawking sauced foods, sign extolling the virtues of casinos a few levels lower and even brochures getting passed out by some sort of service droids, and armsmen walking with weapons in plain view. It was cacophonous.
Getting back to the ship wasn’t too difficult even with the added business of the streets. Hovering next to the ship was an air vehicle they had here. The rear was already open with a pair of troopers that looked achingly similar to Imperial Guard troops in their flak vests. That detail nearly stopped me shorter than any other of the xeno technological marvels I had seen around the city today. I continued to walk up to my ship and a Muun got out of the vehicle. Flanked by a further two guardsmen.
He was haughty, but the transfer of the stolen goods went smoothly, and I was given the agreed upon credits. In total with the credits on the ship I had over six hundred thousand to fuel my shopping spree.
I started with the purchase of fuel and supplies for the Gozanti. Over eleven thousand credits went into this. Mostly into comestibles for the organics, with some extras. Plenty of caf for me. In all this was good for around 2 months of ship fuel at regular levels of power draw and 3 months of food for the crew with some dense calorie bars to add to the servitor supplies.
I did manage to dip a mechandrite into the fuel for testing and got back that it was a very toxic unstable hydrocarbon. I would need some lab equipment to do further examinations of the molecules to determine if I could copy it for export. The smallest amount of fuel came in small glass canisters, with ferric properties, to be added to the Ion engine’s reaction mass. They only used miniscule amounts of liquid metal and lots of energy to power their thrust. Another thing I really needed to study in this new galaxy. Perhaps the Corellian Mining Corporation kept bio and mineral testing equipment on hand. Though I would vastly prefer the facilities back home.
Before I went out again, I spoke with the slaves to verify everything had gone without issue. The servitors also, everything was nominal, though the slave Bedan seemed far more fidgety than usual. But that was something he could deal with later if there was an issue. It was time to see what the corporations sold in this part of the moon.
After going through the plans and material I would need to begin a nascent industrial base without compromising security. Not only have I made an enemy of a pirate organization I was getting more worried about the space hulk. There had been no activity, but that wasn’t indicative of there being no threats. Defenses would be a priority along with a transport large enough to get them and mining equipment. Ideally, I’d be able to get refining equipment as well.
Might as well get started at the CMC building.
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Beacon I (Molten Metal):
Orbitals:
Ground based facilities:
Known Resources:
----------------------------------------
Beacon II (Rocky Barren):
Orbitals:
Ground Based Facilities:
Known Resources:
----------------------------------------
Beacon III (Ice):
Orbitals:
Ground Based Facilities:
Known Resources:
Planned:
Ice Mining Operation (Priority: Secundus)
Survey of Planet (Priority: Tertius)
----------------------------------------
Asteroid Belt:
Known Resources:
Facilities:
Planned:
Survey of mineral wealth (Priority: Tertius)
----------------------------------------
Beacon IV (Terran, Uninhabitable):
Orbitals:
Moon:
Planned:
Mining of impact debris (Priority: Prima)
Survey of mineral wealth (Priority: Tertius)
Space Hulk:
Population: Unknown
Tech-mining candidate
Plentiful Industrial Metals
Planned:
Orbital Defensive systems (Priority: Extremis)
Vibrant echo:
Crippled Vessel
Servitors
Planned:
Orbital drydock capability (Priority: Tertius)
Orbital or mobile refinery capabilities (Priority: Secundus)
Ground Based Facilities:
Crater:
Possible candidate for tech-mining: Reclaim surviving vaults (Priority: Prima)
Planned:
Ground penetrating scanning (Priority: Tertius)
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Known Resources:
Sulpheric Deposits
Plentiful Geothermal Energy
----------------------------------------
Gas Giant Beacon V:
Orbitals:
9 moons of appreciable size and many smaller, the size of large asteroids
1 hyperspace computer (Between the Beacon system and Fornos) L5 Position
Planned:
Survey of mineral wealth present (Priority: Tertius)
Planned:
Gas Siphoning (Priority: Tertius)
Material Refining (Priority: Tertius)
Facilities:
Known Resources:
(Plans in Beacon system)
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Walking into an arcology whose upper levels are dedicated to the display of the products the Corellian Mining Corporation seemed designed to dazzle and awe. The showroom proudly displayed many sturdily made craft for persecuting a mining operation of scaling size. From set and forget automated equipment to a replica of a whole prefabricated facility which required a load capacity of eleven thousand tons minimum. I saw all of this on a tour of the facility when I asked about their Digger-Crawler line and void based analogues.
“And this is one of the most recent additions to the line of wildcat mining ships we support. The YM-2800 Limpet.”
Across from the salesperson and I is a crescent shaped vessel built around a cylinder and engines similar to the YT series of transports he had shown me before on the meandering path to this vessel.
++ Calculated pathing at less than thirty percent efficiency ++
I held my tongue as I knew a Magos charged with sale or purchase of equipment to a rogue trader or planetary governor would use similar tactics to either entice further purchases or dissuade the same. It was a tried-and-true tactic when fishing for certain outcomes. It did have me curious as to why he seemed to show me as much curtesy as befitted a noble.
“We have several on-site ready for purchase. They have an acute sensor package and can transport one hundred and twenty tons of freshly mined ore. An excellent system-based addition to any mining operation!” The exuberance he exuded did not detract from what he wasn’t mentioning.
“This vessel requires transit to said system, correct? What transports are typically used for this?”
“Due to the compactness of the vessel, it can fit in most reasonably sized holds. Even a Wayfarer can fit one into its hangar attachment. And it weighs slightly less than four hundred tons, so it isn’t a burden on any mothership or orbital platform. Were you hoping to purchase a ship for that? The Trade Federation is pretty fair with their transit pricing. Getting one of their SuperFreighters to carry your equipment would be much more affordable than the down-payment on one of the CEC’s Action Freighters or an equivalent.”
I took a few breaths to mull the suggestion over. I might already have made enemies, but it wouldn’t do for more xeno to know where I was staying. I would need to find an affordable bulk freighter that could be piloted back to the Beacon system.
“I’ll keep what you said in mind. How many credits per Limpet?”
“Without any additional options installed these are one hundred and fifty thousand credits off the floor. Licensing requirements will cost you fifteen thousand to register with the republic, though for a small fee we can help with the bureaucracy.”
“It was my understanding that Hutt Space was not beholden to republic licensing requirements.”
“Well, that’s true. But finding an unclaimed area to mine in Hutt Space would be a tossup and dangerous. The Limpet isn’t designed to contest mineral claims. The medium laser cannons are exceptional for a ship of its disposition, but it’s made to out-run any threats, and return to the safety of an orbital dock.”
I spent some time to read over the holo-panel of the ship’s specs. It was fast, twice as fast as the Gozanti in atmosphere, but only had particle shielding to protect from debris in asteroid fields. It had no ray shielding installed and lacked a hyperdrive. It was also fitted with extra passenger quarters to accommodate 6 miners in addition to the 6 crew to pilot the thing.
“Does CMC recommend any particular droids to supplement the crew?”
“Industrial automation is always a good bet with ships like these, and Cybot Galactica is also a good option. Though we don’t have a specific recommendation.” He continued with a confident look on his face, “But I’ve got to say, the Nabooan upgrade to the Cybot PK is worth looking into. Its multi-use so can be paired with any outfit as a worker/assembly droid or given a beam drill for harvesting ore.”
Nabooan? The name wasn’t familiar, but I’d look it up. “How about the CMC line of Digger-Crawler? And I’m curious if you carry a lux-net for orbital power supplementation?”
“The CMC Digger-Crawler line is right this way. But, Lux-net?”
I realized I had slipped back into the diction of the Imperium. “Solar collectors. I’ll need some for orbital work.”
“Ah, sure. We have several modular items for any size of orbital platform. Universally compatible of course. Some of the best ones for uninhabited system can be purchased for twenty-three hundred per ton.” He continued to talk about other supplemental systems for independent mining operations including a water and nutrition reclamation system and recommended a portable fusion generator that was typically used as an emergency option, though in most small-scale applications they lasted nearly indefinitely. They carried a line of them and for eight hundred and fifty credits I could get one. I asked for ten to be put aside as an addition to my purchases.
“This is the workhorse of the CMC. These Digger-Crawlers have been around since Czerka made the first iteration four thousand years ago and most mining companies have their own version.” The vehicle was immense. Twice the footprint and height of a standard guard issue Baneblade. “The difference between this and the current Czerka model is that this one loads ore from the front and has two powerplants rather than one. Otherwise, we get our molecular forges from the same manufacturer, it’s just that this one gets to move while it chews through the ore in its hold.”
He said this as I was reading through the holo-panel. The reactors had a couple years of fuel handy and had an excellent maintenance profile due to the dual reactors never being over-burdened with the demands of the crawler. It could hold fifty tons of processed material and you could either expand that to two hundred tons or keep the droid storage and maintenance bay that could house up to fifteen hundred droids. It was recommended you utilize the droid storage as the crawler was not made to mine the material itself, just process it in a forge that could spit out specific molecules of metal alloys with ease.
“Can the material forge handle hydrocarbons?”
“Well, sure but any more than a liter or so at a time. Anymore and the explosion might damage the ore-hold.” I’m certain he didn’t understand the question.
“Clarification; processing the hydrocarbons in the void or with a non-reactive atmosphere?”
“These are designed to be utilized in a habitable atmosphere sir.”
I turned to the readout and manipulated it, so it gave me more on the model of molecular forge. Indeed, it had warnings about hydrocarbons and other flammable material. It even warned against placing high amounts of fissile material in the forge. It burned at an extreme temperature and utilized magnetic fields to manipulate the metals put inside. I might be able to use it in a depressurized compartment of a ship and ionic or ionized compounds in, though it would need a constant air feed to replace any plasma lost as it extruded the metals. I might have to edit its programming extensively.
“How much does the CMC expect for these?”
“One hundred and fifty thousand. Licensing is an easier process for this in the republic than the Limpet, so that doesn’t cost as much, though removing the droid workshop saves twenty thousand on the final product.”
“Would it be possible to buy a single reactor and material forge separately?”
“Well, I suppose? If you purchased them together with a digger crawler, I’m sure we could make a deal on it.” That wouldn’t do. “No, separately. While this is an inspiring piece of machinery, after seeing what you have, I think I will be basing my operations orbitally.”
“Do you want to look at what we have for orbital refining capabilities?”
“What is the least expensive orbital for processing fresh ore?”
“The Procurator-01 class is the smallest out of a line of orbital refining docks and is around one-point-two million credits without any options. The hangar can easily fit six of the Limpet Mining vessels and they, without modification, can empty their loads directly into processing for the refinery. It has components for two hundred workers to run the refinery.” He turned his dataslate toward me. The readout displayed a time-lapse of how one was set up into the heart of a mined asteroid. “The best part is that this line is very space efficient and can be paired with either an agri or administrative package as well without going over the internal volume of an asteroid of reasonable size.”
What I noticed immediately was how lacking in defense it was. Relying on the hypothetical rocky asteroid and heavy hangar doors to keep out any scavengers. “What about orbital defenses? What sort of things would this be paired with to prevent piracy?”
“The CSA carries a long line of different defensive platform. The Ld-12 is the latest, a platform that carries a couple of dual heavy lasers. Though the Ld-7 is still in production as its one of the most popular among more mundane mining operations. That one is a ring of point defense lasers with a medium laser in the middle. CSEC has a license to produce as many of those as a customer can order, and they cost twenty-three thousand credits apiece. The 12’s are forty.” He brought the dataslate back around and began typing before showing me the LD-7. The ring was six meters across with a sphere in the middle that had a ventral and dorsal small weapon mount that seemed to roughly equal a las cannon in size.
They each came with their own sensor capabilities and system wide encrypted comlinks, which was good. “I’ll need two. Now, about the beam drills you mentioned earlier?”
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It took a couple hours to finalize what equipment I was purchasing directly from CMC. They had at first suggested something called financing but in the course of finding out more about that they learned I had just opened my first bank account that day and they decided a credit-on-hand payment was better. Confusing, but I already had hundreds of terabytes of data to sift through, why not add a few more. The noospheric connection to the Dusty Crow through my comlink enabled me to utilize the non-ftl datalinks in the docking bay to download publicly hosted libraries on much of the information to rectify my ignorance. Truly astounding how much free information was at the tip of my mechandrites.
My next stops had led me through several other corporate shops. Though none had as many goods that I was interested in as the CMC office, except the automata companies. The Droid manufacturers I spoke with about their line up were fairly willing to answer my questions about programming. It seemed no one considered a base-line droid sentient though they did use the term artificial intelligence when describing droid brains of spaceships. Though all of those were still leashed by their programming.
Unless you installed something called a heuristic processor into them instead of the basic droid processor most came with. I was told this was typically an after-market enhancement, though they claimed it wasn’t really worth it unless one desired a high level of autonomy in a given application.
All of this was to say that research and development into artificial intelligence wasn’t curtailed here. In fact, it seemed encouraged, there was a planet called Mechis III that had a population barely over one million yet being filled with billions, perhaps trillions, of droids to see to the day to da functioning of the automated factories. It was one of dozens of forge worlds that ascribed to the notion that it was more efficient to utilize droid labor than weak flesh.
I was at a loss of what to do in this situation. These automata were used in every facet of life in this galaxy. Plotting hyperspace routes, maintaining fleets, mining raw material and putting weapons to use to kill each other and organics whenever war broke out.
The worst thing was? I was pretty sure I could trust them more than the organics around me as I could freely edit their decision trees and base programming. I had nothing like that to indoctrinate skitarii and the galactic laws I had been perusing would see me executed post haste if they discovered me making new servitors. I wish I could get my mentors advice. But needs must, until I can get some proper Industry, I felt trapped.
As it was, I was stressed. And stepping into the ROCHE building did not help matters. I had seen all manner of xeno at this point but human sized mantises that looked like they would be more at home in Catachan nearly had me blasting them and making a run for the ship. They were similarly unused to actually getting customers in, this was quite a ways from the bank and nearest spaceport and seemed positively giddy to show me their wares. Industrial Automation had a well accredited Pilot drone that was on my list of possible purchases but what I saw now was much more interesting to me.
The 11-17-Series Mining Droid was a meter tall and a little over two long. It mined much like a mole through the ground utilizing a modular frequency plasma jet that could attune to what you wanted out of the ground and slag the rest. They worked best in teams and could do so in vacuum or inimical atmosphere with little issue. What I did have issue with is the Verpine described the things as having a “lust” for work and would work when they should be seeing to things like maintenance. Bizarre but I had seen servitors give themselves to work as such before. They also had cargo for one-hundred kilograms of raw material before they needed to return to the slag pile or ore transport. They also had a multitude of advantages other mining equipment did not and worked extremely well as a team. Once I mentioned how many I could budget for the Verpine told me they’d give me a deal if I bought the rest of the equipment, I needed from them.
It was hard to pass up, so I left after a down payment and a promise to swing my ship by in the next day or two for the material.
With that, I need to prepare to meet a Hutt. Having found testimony on some message boards that gave me visions of wanton violence I decided I would swing by Czerka Interstellar on the way back to the ship. They’d been involved in industry and the arms trade for millennia so I couldn’t go wrong with that.