> “...Initial survey of the Roddea System reveals no planetoids. The asteroid belts contain little precious metal, and there’s only a 0.0000000000007% chance that Qoblynesium will be found anywhere in the system.
>
> Furthermore there are no signs of the Primogenitors, except for the two hyper-lane gates making the system highly unattractive...”
>
> ~Analyst A403NM12G
>
> Internal Holy Terran Empire memo
2687-February-19 - Hoggart’s Hub (Roddea System)
I woke up to the internal blaring of my SynC, telling me it was time to get up and that the time was 2300. Groaning, I tried to move Nova from my chest, but she was reluctant to let go of the thin sheet I slept under. She even hissed at me. I knew that it was only playful, since it was part of our usual routine.
A few minutes of petting and scratching her ears satisfied the ritual, and she let me get up from the bed. She spun around two times to the left, then reversed direction and spun around three times, before lying down on my pillow.
I admired her beauty for a few seconds as she looked up expectantly at me. Most of her body was a light grey, with a few dark stripes, except for her paws, chin and stomach, which were all white. She had very vibrant green eyes with just a hint of yellow at the very edges.
With a smile, I turned around to head for the NutriMaker. I heard an indignant meow behind me, also part of our ritual. I turned back and looked at her. Like so many times before, I said, “Sorry sweetie, I forgot.”
With a single thought, I commanded my SynC to turn on the holoscreen at the same channel that it always was on when I left; the History channel. Turning back to my little kitchenette, I went to the NutriMaker. First I checked the stocks and saw that the stock levels were getting low, not an immediate concern, but enough of a worry that I would run out of food in a week. Of course, the flavouring stocks were empty. They always were.
I had to think for a moment. The asteroid was quite a bit larger than the one I had just finished mining. Should be able to do it in around twenty-seven hours. Estimating another hour and forty minutes to get to the edges of the field, the same to get back. Only ten, no fifteen minutes, to get through the field to the asteroid, and then fifteen minutes to get back. Total time would be under 31 hours.
I did not change the setting from Bare Minimum and then punched in 34 hours. It was best to put in a safety margin of roughly ten percent. I also had to walk to the rental office and get back from the bay after all. The NutriMaker started making a cube of paste that held the bare minimum of nutrition I would need for 34 hours. I never ate more than that. It was also the reason why I was so skinny.
While the old machine prepared my meal, I reached up into the cupboard and grabbed some bottled water and the cat food. I was running low on both, I noticed with a sigh. I padded back to the bed and dragged the water and feeding station out from underneath it. I topped both of them up with practiced ease. Next came the emptying the litter box which was also under the bed.
Most of Nova’s things were in the spacious room underneath the bed, including a heating blanket to keep her comfortable while eating. Changing the litter box was easy, just pulling the sealed bag out and replacing it with a new one. I checked the hopper dispensing the cat litter and saw that it was running low as well.
“Next month is going to be hard, sweetie,” I mumbled and gave her a quick scritching under her chin, making her purr reverberate through the room.
With a sigh, feeling the impending financial doom, I got up from the floor. I might be able to secure another loan from Hoggart, but it would be my fourth time doing it. After three it started to get very dangerous to loan from him, his patience would run out faster, his interest rates would go up. In short, it would be a very bad idea loaning from him again.
I disposed of the litter box waste and put the other stuff away. From the other cupboard, I grabbed two small bags of fluid. A spacer water-mix, popularly called Hydras, which was short for hydration bags.
It was clear as water, tasted like water unless you paid for flavouring, but it was not water. I forgot exactly what was in it, but it hydrated better than normal water. Each bag would be able to hydrate you for twenty hours.
Padding into the SanU, I turned to my spacesuit. On the front of it, there were six small pockets, three on each side of the zipper. I had used two of them, so I started switching them out. First throwing out the empties, then moving up the old ones, and then putting the new at the bottom. I had to make sure to rotate the dates.
Normally the Hydras would last for years, however, I tended to buy the stock that was about to expire because it was cheaper, and often the only thing available out here. That meant a little extra work in ensuring I did not get an expired batch, which could kill you. Something about the chemicals turning to poison when the molecular structure got too old or something like that.
About the time I was done, the NutriMaker played its little jingle, telling me that my midnight snack, breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight snack, breakfast, and lunch was ready. All gathered into a single grey odourless and tasteless cube of only eight cubic centimetres. I could not remember the last time I had a real meal.
Two bites and the cube was gone. Filling, but not satisfying.
Stepping back into the SanU I caught my reflection in the mirror. I was not impressed by the milky white man staring back at me. Liam was right, I was a beanpole. I was tall, 214 centimetres to be exact.
A few generations of low-g ancestry in my bloodline. And I was thin, almost sickly thin. I could count my ribs and my arms and legs were almost pure bone. I might get enough nutrients to survive, but I could not afford to eat what I needed to fill out and be really healthy.
No hair anywhere on my body because depilatory wipes were much cheaper than a haircut. If I remember correctly it was a dark brown. The only thing I liked about myself was my hazel eyes. The irises had a bit of green and gold around the pupil, followed by different shades of blue and the edges were dark brown. They looked almost like small supernovas.
Disgusted by the reflection I started changing clothes. I had the SynC block the worst of the pain as I put the catheter in, but not all of it because I would not be able to feel if something went wrong.
I left the SanU with my suit only halfway on. The suit had integrated gloves, but Nova hated the gloves, so I had one arm hanging outside the suit.
“Sweetie, I have to go in a minute, okay?” I asked and started stroking her. She meowed softly and turned onto her back, exposing her belly. I tickled her, listening to her purring. That sound made me happy, some days I felt like it was the only thing that kept me going. She clamped her front paws around my hand, almost as if hugging it.
I smiled, I knew what came next. We had done the routine so many times I had lost count. I started pulling my hand back, and immediately her claws extended. Not enough to hurt, just enough to let me know she was not done with her belly rub. So I obliged her for another ten minutes before she finally let go of my hand.
Standing up, I moved out of the way for the holoscreen and finished getting dressed. As soon as the magnetic collar for the helmet was secured, I said my final goodbye to Nova and made my way out into the station, for another shift of asteroid mining.
It was getting close to midnight, but time meant nothing out here in the deep dark. Everything was open all the time. Only out of ease did we adhere to the STT, standard terran time. It made things easier, especially when conducting trade between the different human civilizations. Things got a little wonky when you started comparing calendars with the alien races though.
I made my way to the rental office without problems. There was a small queue outside. Like me the rest of them wanted as much time as possible for their creds.
You did not rent them for 24 hours, you rented them for the day. So if you rented one at 2300, you paid for a full day just to use it for a single hour. It was bullshit, and so was their excuse. They said that it was easier to manage this way, which was a lie.
However, most miners out in this system were one-man operations without a vessel, so we had no other choice but to rent Hoggart’s crafts under less than ideal terms.
My place at the end of the queue was right behind Enid Neesantos. An old hand at mining. She and her husband had arrived here almost thirty years ago. They had their own mining vessel until five years ago when the bastard left her stranded and ran off with a dancer from Lex’s. Quite the scandal at the time.
When I had first started out she had given me a few tips, but it all stopped when her husband ran away. She became distant and withdrawn. Her skin was insipid, more so than the last time I had seen her. Her dark brown eyes had a haunted look in them when they were not glazed over from whatever drug she was taking.
She was from a high gravity world, not as high as Liam, but she was still only around one metre and forty tall, and she definitely weighed more than me. She turned back to look at who was behind her, and she cracked a sad smile. “Hey Xandros, how are you doing?”
“I’m fine, Miss Enid,” I replied politely with a smile of my own. Even though I did not condone her choice of coping mechanism, I would not be impolite to the old lady.
I felt someone stepping into the queue behind me, the smell told me that it was a Mycolinian, one of the few sentient fungal species we had encountered. They gave me the creeps because I knew they liked to eat human flesh. All kinds of flesh really, the more rotten it was, the better.
I had to restrain myself from looking back, they took eye contact as an insult. Not that they had eyes as we humans or many of the other races had. They did however have a sight organ that functioned by smelling where its spores weren’t. Their sight radius was small, but it stank worse than a full diaper.
With a strained smile, I asked Enid, “How have the rocks been treating you?”
“Oh, you know. Been taking it easy the past couple of weeks,” she said, trying to hide the tremor in her hands. I knew what she meant. She had scored some credits, and spent two weeks high on drugs, making her forget all her worries and sleazy ex-husband. “Got a huge one lined up, going to take one of the hundreds out. What about you?”
I sighed. “Unfortunately, I got a large one, almost too large for that classification. I haven’t had the best of luck lately, so I might only take out a thirty cuber. I didn’t even fill up twenty cubes on my last large run.”
“What did you mine? A small one?” she asked with a frown.
“A large one,” I answered with a sad shake of my head.
“By the Ascended. That’s some rotten luck.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Tell me about it,” I said in the same moment as the queue finally started moving. I gestured with my chin for her to move, but she did not seem to register the gesture, because she was still just looking at me.
“Move, ya fucking wankers!” someone shouted behind me. Someone speaking Etrish, so probably a human from the Etrimarian Sanctuary at least a hundred jumps from here. I wondered what someone did that far from home.
Enid jumped a little as if she had been asleep and something just woke her up. She looked around bewildered and saw that there was room for her to move ahead. She did so and I quickly followed. More worried about the Mycolinian than an irate human, even if it was an Etririan.
Soon it was Enid’s turn, she gave me a strained smile. “Good luck, Xandros.”
“Thank you, you too Enid.”
It became my turn next, and I moved my way up to the counter. A scanner on the floor started scanning my biometrics and queried my SynC. The clerk, a former colleague of my mother’s, did not even look up from the screen in front of him. He never did.
He was one of the few survivors from the administration module after the pirate takeover. My mother was not so lucky. His name was Clarence Wymann, and he was more or less a slave to Hoggart. He ran the management of the mining crafts.
“Xandros Weaver. Renter Rating is Excellent,” he droned on as the information was relayed to him. It had taken me almost three years of delivering back the crafts without a ding in them, to earn back the Excellent rating. It had dropped to Average after the last accident I had. “No surcharges for renting a mining craft. Allowed to rent all sizes. Which size would you like to rent?”
I had thought a bit about that in the queue. You needed an Excellent rating to rent the fifties and the hundred cubers. A thirty cuber would be the safest. It was also the smallest size available. Would probably mean more than one run to get everything out of the asteroid though. A forty cubic one would cost thirty thousand, against the 22500 of the thirty cuber. A fifty cuber would cost forty thousand. A hundred cuber cost one hundred and twenty thousand per day.
“I’d like to rent a fifty cubic one,” I replied. With that large a rock, it had to pay off. Would probably need to fill it twice anyway, unless it was a freaking cheapskate like the last one.
“We got one left, head to Bay Alpha, berth Seven Bravo.”
“Thank you, Clarence,” I said and left.
I heard a muttered “Good luck, Xan.” behind me. I really hoped it would help, I could use all the luck in the universe.
The next thing I heard from behind me as I was walking away was less pleasant. It was someone shouting in Etrish, “Who the fuck rented the last fifty cubic craft? I’ll fucking kill you, you bastard.”
That man had some serious anger management issues. However, it was one of the side-effects from being away from the psychedelic pollen spread by all the flora on the planets in Sanctuary space.
I made my way to the craft and repeated the same routines I had done for years. Thirty minutes after renting my craft, I was leaving the docking bay.
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Manoeuvring through the asteroid field was dangerous, but I was used to it. However, complacency had killed many miners. All it took was one moment of inattentiveness and a large piece of debris would go through the deflector shields. If you were lucky, the armour of the craft would take care of the problem. If you were not—well, you would be walking home, if you were still alive.
As I was moving into position to start cutting into the asteroid I had laid claim on, I caught sight of the mysterious asteroid with the equally curiosity-inducing opening in it. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to think about what it might contain. A secret pirate hoard? A Primogenitor relic? An unmined mountain of wealth?
The possibilities were endless. I almost wished I had claimed that rock instead of this one. I sighed and turned my attention away from it. With the directional thrusters, I lowered the mining craft into position just above the asteroid. I had already studied the drift of the debris, and most of it was as always drifting in the same direction. So I placed the asteroid between me and it.
I checked the scanner one more time, to ensure that there was no immediate danger of collision. Of course, there was not, I had just checked two minutes ago, but one could never be too careful. Sometimes the scanner would not pick up even large pieces of debris until it was very close.
I dropped the forward deflector shield and unfolded the arms. I moved the left arm forward, almost the entire way down to the asteroid before clenching my fist. Clenching my fist activated the powerful mining piston.
It shot out once every second, punching its way into the rock. I moved the right arm over near where the chiseled piston was hammering away and activated the gravitational grappler. It would catch all the small debris.
After thirty seconds the piston needed to cool down. I checked the analyzer that was also in the right arm. Nothing of value. so I moved all the small debris into the atomizer. It was energy draining to turn all the debris into atoms, which was why most miners out here, where there were no laws and regulations, did not do it. It was also why so many mining crafts got damaged or even lost. Hit by debris left by other miners.
The piston had a ten-second cooldown, so were soon ready to go for another round. Another thirty seconds and the large section I had been working on was almost free. Just needed another five seconds. This time the analyzer showed some traces of aluminium and iron. It was a minuscule amount, so not worth trying to save the debris that contained it. However, it was promising for finding something.
Soon I had a big segment of the asteroid free and I grabbed it. Analyzing that big a chunk of stone would take some time. Two minutes later, it had finished looking through the hundred tons of rock. Very small jackpot. Towards the end, there was almost a ton of bauxite.
I was very happy about that. It meant I had some gallium in the mix as well, which was still very precious in this day and age. A lot of the technology that the Primogenitors had left us used gallium.
Though many scientists were sure that it was a substitute for another element that we did not know about. They thought so because the schematics promised more power if the gallium could be replaced with something else. No one had found that something just yet.
Just three or four tons more of bauxite and this asteroid would have already earned me more than the last one. All thoughts about mysterious asteroid caves and lost treasures vanished, the real treasure was just in front of me.
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The asteroid had been a gold mine. Just not as much of one as I had hoped after finding the bauxite. I only found another half a ton of bauxite, then the rest was just mid-grade iron ore. However, there was a lot of it. A whole lot of it.
I had to go back to the station and request an empty container, before going back out again. All told I brought back 81 cubic metres of resources. It had netted me a lot of credits, my biggest haul ever. It also helped that I did not get fleeced by the Leprechaun because he was working another bay. Thankfully, it seemed like my luck was turning around.
Happy I went home, looking at the balance of my credstick. I had prepaid next month's rent and utility, filled up the larder, and Nova’s essentials. Even after all that, I still had almost fifteen thousand credits on the stick. Enough that I thought I would take off a couple of days off before going out again.
“Hey Sweetie,” I said when I entered my room. Nova looked up at me. Seeing my arms full of parcels, she immediately jumped to her paws and sprang down on the floor. The entire way to the cupboard, she was running around my legs, purring and rubbing against them, almost tripping me several times.
She watched intently as I put away everything. Her purring got more insistent, almost impatient. I gave her a smile. “Fine, here’s what you’ve been waiting for. A new toy.”
I threw the toy on the bed, which sent Nova racing after it. The catnip ball had cost me more than a week’s worth of food stock for myself. It was so expensive because Nova was one of only five owned cats on the station, so the supplier only imported a little at a time and charged exorbitant prices.
There were probably a dozen or more felines hiding in the crawlspaces and air ducts. However, seeing Nova go crazy for the ball, rolling around happy and purring was worth almost any price to me.
I quickly took care of my biological needs, except for the food, because I had other plans. It had been too long since I had real food, even if synthetically grown, as that was all that was available on the station.
When I left the SanU I was dressed in my civis, a set of ratty coveralls that was a size or two too short for me, and way too big across the chest. Hearing me exit, Nova looked up curiously. She let out an inquisitive meow.
“I’m going out for dinner,” I said.
She replied with a critical meow.
“You’re right, I should maybe see if I could find a new set of clothes.”
Another meow, this time reproachful.
I looked at her. “Yes, I’m going to Lex’s, it has been a long time.”
She did not reply, just went back to playing with her new toy. When I went to give her a belly rub, she hissed at me. She always did when I left dressed in my civis. I think it was because she could smell alcohol or other people on me when I got home.
She was not very fond of other people. That was a major understatement actually. She freaking hated other people than me, I reckoned it stemmed from the time before I found her.
Three years ago, when I had my last accident, they would not let me rent another craft for nearly two months. I survived by digging through the garbage for salvage, or maybe even some expired food stocks.
It was a day like any other when I heard some kids laughing elsewhere in the refuse piles, spurring each other on to do something. They were also throwing pieces of metal and glass after something or someone. Curious I went to investigate.
What I found was three kids at around thirteen to fifteen years, who were throwing pieces of rubbish after a small cat, which could not be more than a few months old. The kitten mewled pitifully, bleeding from a cut in the ear.
The sight of what they were doing made me angry and I grabbed a piece of wiring and started whipping at them until they fled. I was careful to not actually damage them.
That was how I rescued Nova, and she adopted me. It was a burden on my non-existent resources, especially the next day when the father of one of the kids found me and beat me to a pulp. Luckily, Nova had been able to hide away from the man, otherwise she would probably have been killed.
I had to borrow money for the treatment, a loan I had only paid off three months ago.
I shook my head, dispelling the thoughts of that time three years ago. My route had taken me almost all the way to Lex’s. I was just a few hundred metres when a voice rang out, “Xandros, over here.”
I looked in the direction of the voice calling out. It was not a voice I recognized. However, seeing the woman that had called out, did spark recognition. It was Cobalt, a girl I had gone to school with, back when there was a school on the station. I had seen her from time to time, and last I knew she worked at Lex’s. The diminutive blue-eyed blond girl had been very popular, and expensive, so expensive I had never been able to afford her.
“Uhm, hey, Cobalt,” I mumbled, wondering what she was doing out on the streets. She was practically naked. She was tottering around on high heels, bringing her above a metre and a half. Her top would have trouble qualifying as a bikini, and her short skirt revealed that she was not wearing underwear.
I got a big smile, which in the past would have turned me on, and often had. However, her pearly whites had turned brown and black. A clear sign that she was using low-quality Black Nebula. The drug of choice aboard the Hoggart’s Hub.
“Xandros, I heard you picked a good roid, seeing you on the way to the Cunt, I know it’s true,” she said a walked up to me. Well, more like stumbled. Her motor skills were clearly impaired by the Nebula. She pressed against me, caressing my chest. “I always liked how tall you are, like a real man.”
The way she was talking, and her breath, were both nauseating. Before I could reply, she cupped my nether regions. “How about you forget about that place and come with me? I was the biggest earner in that place, I’ll even let you go bareback. Because you’re a friend, I’ll give you half off, never say that Cobalt isn’t nice to her friends.”
I pushed her hand on my pride away and stepped back. Without thinking I replied, “Sorry, I’m just looking for a meal, not a venereal disease.”
I quickly turned around and walked away. It was a full five seconds before she understood I had rejected her. She then started shouting, “Fucking cheapskate, you meet a real woman and you turn into a wuss! I bet you can’t even get that tiny dick of yours hard. Faggot!”
She continued screaming, but luckily I had arrived at Lex’s, all thought about finding someone to spend the night with was gone. Meeting Cobalt was such a turn-off. The bouncer looked me up and down. With a sniff, he said, “Don’t think you’re getting inside, dressed like that.”
“Uhm,” I said embarrassed. “I just want to pick up some take-away, if that’s possible.”
“Still need to pay the cover charge.”
“Fine, how much?”
“Fifty creds,” he lied. It was normally half that. Looking at the bouncer it was clear that he was from a heavy G world. He was almost as wide across the shoulders as he was tall. All of it was muscles.
“Fine,” I mumbled and paid the fifty creds. I saw that it was to his private stick, not Lex’s.
“Around the back, someone will pop out with a bag,” he said, dismissing me as a couple of Hoggart’s men came ambling up to the entrance. Around back, I got my food and got fleeced for another fifty creds. The cook called it a “packaging fee”.
The food smelled good and would keep warm until I got back home. Even with the detour I took. Maybe Nova would like some.
When I was almost home, I saw that the door to my apartment had been kicked in. Fear took hold of me, not for my stuff or myself, but for Nova. I dropped the takeaway bag and raced to my apartment. The inside was a mess, my chair was gone, the holoscreen was gone, the NutriMaker had been completely trashed. The bed was torn up, Nova’s stuff was gone.
All of that was bad, but nothing filled me with dread as the splotches of blood in the middle of the room. The deep red stood out in stark contrast to the grey metal floor.