Chapter Thirteen - Mining
Day pitched herself forwards and back, then rolled from side to side a couple of times to test the change in her weight.
It wasn’t that noticeable. Having an extra pair of point-defence lasers tucked into her sides wasn’t changing her profile much, but they were relatively heavy. Most of that was extra capacitors which were tucked deep into her hull and heatsinks.
The Accord didn’t care about their own heat signatures and tended to vent as much heat outwards as possible whenever they could, but Day couldn’t afford to be quite so bright.
After testing her new weapons on some nearby rocks and then calibrating them some more with the help of a few target drones, she was satisfied enough with their performance.
Upgrading herself felt a little strange, but not in a bad way. It was a step towards making herself a more capable ship, and therefore a more important member of the ERF and a better sister to any future ship siblings.
“Alright, I’m heading out,” Day said as she lowered herself towards one of the factories and allowed a dozen drones to climb up and latch onto her hull.
“Going mining?” Night asked.
“Exactly. We need a few things. Cobalt, mostly, but a few other minerals too. Once we’re done with your body we’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel and I’d rather not have to postpone future projects because of a lack of materials.”
“Yeah, that’s fair. Don’t crash into a rock or anything,” Night said.
“I’ll try not to,” Day replied.
The Weeping of Mothers’ goodbye was a lot kinder. “Be safe out there. And keep in touch.”
“I’m not going too far,” Day said.
In fact, she was only going to travel a couple of days away. There was a very large rock about halfway into the area of the asteroid belt that they’d scouted that had a large deposit of cobalt and a few other trace elements. The deposit itself was a hundred times larger by volume than Day herself and would probably supply them with the mineral for decades. The trick was getting to it.
Day picked up a few more supplies and ignored Night’s grumble that that should have been her job. Mostly these were mining drones, but also generators, unfolding solar arrays, a few smaller construction drones and the kinds of equipment they’d need to set up an auto-mine and have its resources returned to Ceres.
And so, fully loaded to the point where escaping Ceres’ gravity was a bit of a chore, Day set out across empty space towards their new mine.
The trip was wholly uneventful, which was probably for the best. She was worried the entire time that her cargo would come loose or that one of the clamps holding things in place would snap off. It was all rather jury-rigged, and she regretted not taking a little more time to ensure that things would be safe.
She did arrive without any issue though, and nothing happened as she did a turn and burn and slowed down next to the massive asteroid she was aiming for.
Once she was matching velocities, she started to circle the rock while pinging it with every sensor she had. What she was looking for was a nice spot to set down her mine. That would require a flat space, ideally, but she also wanted something with some cover. Having a few metres of stone around the mine would make it that much harder to notice the mine.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
She found something, but it wasn’t exactly perfect. The area had a small crater-like bowl, and the ground was relatively flat, but it was far from the main deposit. Not that far though, so she decided that it was good enough and gently flew into the crater’s bowl.
Once she settled down, she unclamped the drones around her and got to work.
She couldn’t help with her main body, of course. She didn’t have cranes or arms to help with, but she could take over the drones around her and run them with a significant boost to their efficiency.
The first thing to do was to prepare a foundation onto which the mine would be set. That took surprisingly little work since the stone was relatively solid.
Once the first few buildings were laid down and anchored, the actual mining began.
This mine was equipped with a push-drill that had a fair amount of articulation. It would bore into the ground, digging a bigger and bigger hole and breaking up the rocks below so that smaller drones could dip down and scoop them up.
Once that process was started, Day set about installing several solar arrays. These were designed so that they could fold up and hide themselves on receiving a specific signal. It meant that they would be that much less visible when the time came that they needed to hide the mine, if that ever happened.
The mine itself was quickly covered in what were essentially tough tarps shaded the same colour as the rest of the asteroid. She installed those, then removed them after making sure it all fit. It would only get in the way for now.
Once the mining was started properly, Day let loose the last few drones she carried on her hull and set them to work. They’d build storage units, recharging stations, small hangers, and loading docks for incoming and outgoing drones.
The plan was relatively simple. This mining station would have a very rudimentary AI whose entire task was to mine, extract, and then ship raw ores back to Ceres. From there they’d be transferred to one of The Weeping of Mothers’ factories and processed into something more usable.
It was going to be a fairly slow-going process initially, but once everything was set up, it would mean a constant supply of at least one type of ore they needed for... essentially forever, or as long as the mine kept operational.
They would send out maintenance drones on occasion, and maybe once they had several of these mines, Night could start doing a routine check of all of them.
Day remained at the site for another week, making sure that everything was operational, and when the first load of ore left the rock, she left with it.
It wasn’t a big step, but it was necessary. One more thing to ensure that their group grew more powerful.
They’d need it.
***