The project work was going very well as far as I could see. Once we sorted the men and women workers into who had the ability and attitude to do the work and who didn’t things fell into shape real quick. We were pleased and proud of our progress and the teams had a very positive vibe about them that spoke of excitement and pride in the precision of their work.
We started at one end of the Trade Station and worked the upgrades, enhancements, improvements, new code, etc. etc. until we were happy with what we had. That environment configuration then became the benchmark that all the other levels were built to. The Station is a series of levels strung together, each level having airtight doors between it and the next level up and down, including airtight doors going out on the arms. So once we had the desired template assembled and tested, and our crew sorted out, things became lovely repetitive, no surprises, just move the equipment to the correct area level and or arm and do there exactly what you did on all the preceding arms and levels. It was grand and the work moved along steadily.
Inside a couple of months we had the hardware installed, upgrades in place and most of the heavy lifting and mechanical work was complete. Frosty, Muther and the sisters still had a ways to go on the tuning and optimization programs of the new code and burning in the new gear. Then there would be an extended test period before the old mechanical components were removed. So for a window of time I was “out of work”. Mongo was back safely in the ship and I had performed all required and optional maintenance on him so that he would be fit and ready the next time we called on him. Man, I never ever figured we would use his services as much as we did and do.
Fred did not do as many site inspections any more as the work was now more internalized to software so the meeting had reduced considerably. That also meant Beast was not called into service as much as before. Beast does not like too much “down time” he needs the thrill of the hunt to keep a sharp edge to his Wolf senses.
Chapter 3: Lynas Corp
D was very busy with her Youth Center, not only was she administrating, teaching, but she was also recruiting and training for a replacement for herself. Frosty, Muther and the sisters were re-engineering the trade Station environmental control codes. That left myself, Beast and Poe kinda at loose ends. We had covered off all the items on our to-do lists and there was not much call for our particular service on the Trade Station. Big Mike asked to see me, so Beast and I made our way to his office.
Therese, the very hot new auburn haired beautiful, Office Admin for Mike greeted us. Today she was resplendent in a very expensive and well-tailored dark blue business suit, looking more like the CEO than the real CEO Mike did.
“Well look who came to visit, come over here for a little pet and cuddle Beast.”
Of course Beast loves Therese so he was an easy sell for attention.
“How come you don’t ever say that to me Therese?” I pout.
“Cuz I like Beast better, he’s such a sweetheart, and I like his type of Wolf. You can go on in Matt, Mike’s expecting you.”
“Hey Mike, how are you?”
“Good thanks Matt, and how are you Beast?”
Beast gave him a little yodel and padded over so Mike could scratch his ears. Mike sat down in his desk chair and Beast sat beside him at the same level, eye to eye while Mike scrubbed his ears. I sank into a leather arm chair and stuck out my legs.
“Mike, one of these days Therese is going to run off with Beast, you know that?”
“Ha, it reminds me how nice it is to have a big dog/wolf around. I miss that and Therese does too obviously.”
“It’s a human trait, we like our creatures.” So what’s on your mind Mike?”
“Would you guys be interested in a short bounty hunter assignment, or have you given that life up?”
“It’s been pretty quiet since we entertained ourselves with your bad asses here on the Trade Station, but we do have some spare time while the techy members of our group are re-engineering your place. What have you got?”
“I know a lot of Corporate CEO’s of Mining and Exploration companies that bring their business here prior to stepping off into deep space. One such firm has been having difficulty with a certain small planet that is ridiculously rich in a rare mineral. Seems every time they send a party down to the surface for exploration and to get samples they wind up dead.”
“Well that’s rather inconvenient isn’t it?”
“It certainly is and there is a bit of mystery around the planet too as it seems to react to the presence of the geologists in a negative fashion. Almost as if the planet was sentient. Anyway this mining company is looking for someone who could investigate on their behalf and perhaps negotiate an agreement if possible. So far they have not found anyone at any price, so the fee is just ridiculously high. I’m half tempted to try it myself.”
“Kinda perks a fella’s interest for sure, can you send us the data package you have on the company, planet, and situation so far?”
“Therese will send it on, if she hasn’t already.”
“Pretty confident aren’t you Mike?” I chuckle.
“I recognize bored people when I meet them and you and Beast are bored and in need of a challenge. Check it out and let me know what you think.”
“Sure thing Mike, thanks for the lead.”
“Hey Beast,” says Therese, “Why don’t you come back when you can stay longer, and don’t bother to bring the human with you?”
Beast gives her a little yodel and a snuff of appreciation.
“Nice seeing you too Therese, later.” I grin.
Therese, Beasts very hot girlfriend, sent the data package along to us and we have an examination of it back in the Ship. All of us have a look-see, as we are one team and this assignment means possibly splitting the team, something that none of us were too fussy about. We had survived and done extremely well for ourselves and no one was very interested in messing with that recipe.
Lynas Corp made their first fortune and second fortune mining rare earth elements (REE) out of the earth in Western Australia and processing them in Malaysia. Rising cost for processing in Malaysia was severely cutting into Lynas Corp profits. In addition Australia’s REE’s were getting mined out. Then China put an export restriction on REE’s which drove the price of processed REE’s for the world’s electronic markets up by some 2000 percent. The upshot of all of this commotion was that Lynas Corp had to obtain an alternate source of REE’s or they were out of business. There are seventeen rare earth elements, but the ones Lynas Corp was most interested in were the elements used in electronics and high tech. Elements like Lanthanum, Neodymium, Samarium, Europium, Terbium and Dysprosium.
The REE resource rich Planet 55 Cancri e is the future and bright light for Lynas Corp, also the life jacket they must have to survive. So every effort was to be made to acquire the REE’s contained on that planet.
This assignment if we choose to accept it split the team into two groups. Frosty, D, Muther and the sisters on the Trade Station working on the re-engineering project, and Poe, Beast and I on the Ship out to hell and gone investigating why a planet apparently killed geologists. It goes without saying that space distances are so vast as to not even bother computing the distance, but according to the Lynas Corp data the planet, 55 Cancri e was about two weeks travelling time away. Muther conferred with Poe and they decided it was an easy week away at the speeds that Poe could take the Ship to without putting anything at risk.
Another aggravation, though certainly not impossible was Muther and the sisters would be working from the backup copies in the Trade Station Data Center. Not a show stopper but it did allow for the Ship based Data Center and the Trade Station Data Center Backup to get out of synch. A situation frowned upon by Data Professionals and while it can be tolerated briefly it is not good practice.
D was not in favor at all of splitting the team as it disrupted her and she would have to move onto the Trade Station, as would Frosty. In addition D was pouty as I would not be with her
in the evenings and neither would Beast. So key members of her support structure would be missing and available by VR only.
Frosty was ambivalent to his surroundings and could live literally in a cardboard box and be happy as a clam as long as he had his computer systems around him, so he didn’t care about that at all. However he was concerned about the out of synch aspect of the two Data Centers.
The Lynas Corp data didn’t say much about their missing people other than to say that the rare earth element (REE) were apparently in abundance. However when a team landed and began preliminary exploration and investigations, the deaths of the team members began. Lynas Corp tolerated the first team deaths, but after the second team was killed they put a stop to any exploration of the planet completely. For the least part as they could not pay a team of geologists and miners to go down to the surface to face death.
The Lynas Corp group that met with us was composed of a VP second in command under the Chief Executive Officer, a gender neutral corporate assistant, an Assistant VP of Mineral Exploration and a geologist. The VP, Theodore Hennessey III, is your typical stereotyped picture perfect finely dressed executive with not a mark or blemish on his face or hands. He loved his big words and flowery speech and was appropriately obtuse so that he could never be cornered on anything. I took an instant dislike to this son of a bitch. He would use his own mother as ass wipe if it suited his purpose.
His boss the Chief Executive Officer of Lynas Corp, Durward Beardsley Addington IV, was not available due to prior commitments. Which is just as well as I would have disliked him even more than Hennessey. Durward Beardsley Addington IV is one of those authentic bred and raised aristocrats who have been taught their breeding blood line and esteemed position in society entitles them to the very best the world and civilization has to offer. Addington was never in his spacious and superbly equipped office. He is the outward public facing CEO of Lynas Corp and hobnobs only with the worlds very exclusive elite. Billionaires, yachts, corporate jets, Monaco, Singapore, shipping tycoons, industrial magnates, Presidents and dictators were Addington’s playground. He would show up for annual meetings and brief interaction with his Board other than that he was off and about ostensibly drumming up business opportunities for Lynas Corp and letting his Corporate minions run the company.
The corporate assistant was a poof and represented nothing and was there to blow hot air up the pant leg of the VP and tell him how wonderful he was. He/she/it did not represent either threat or useful resource, just waste of skin. The Assistant Vice President looked uncomfortable and somewhat out of place. It looked to me like Harold had worked his way up through the ranks and had a very good picture of the company and what was going on. But he seemed to be perspiring heavily, as if he was under considerable duress.
Bob the geologist is the only fella not wearing a suit and I could tell right away he knew his stuff cold and wanted no part of the senior management environment. He radiated “let’s get this shit done as I have plenty of work to attend to”.
Hennessey made the introductory comments and set forth the parameters and objectives and then handed control of the meeting to Harold and Bob. Harold explained the challenges they had encountered and loss of life. Bob kept his comments to the rare earth elements and nothing else.
My read was Hennessey was a sleaze ball and there was more afoot than mentioned and Harold was appropriately nervous as there were aspects of this job that they were not speaking about.
They warned us about the weather and how vicious it was and extremely unstable. Harold suggested quietly the weather seemed self-aware and would observe you until bored or you annoyed it and then all hell would break loose. His comment got him a very stern glare from Hennessey.
There was an aspect to the weather being sentient that caused the hair on the back of my neck to tickle and standup. Over the years I have learned to pay particular attention to this “sense of foreboding” or “precognitive foreknowledge” as it is accurate more often than not, and that adds to the whole affect. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have yet to decide, the sense of foreboding is not highly accurate. Sometimes it picks up on probability waves that are not specifically in my future. Notwithstanding when the back of my neck gets tickled and I feel a chill my senses go into overload to detect and attempt to evaluate the source.
The assignment for us is to go down to the surface of 55 Cancri e and scan for the presence of a particular REE mineral that had a name which I would never try to pronounce. The failed attempts were the reason Lynas Corp was interested in using a third party contractor, namely us to get to the bottom of the hostility of 55 Cancri e. Our meeting with the Mining folks complete, we retreated back to our ship and pondered the task at hand.
Chapter 4: Logic
“Trees are aware and react when they are under attack, so just suppose for a moment that the weather or planet or both are self-aware.” says D as she pushes her chair back and sticks a foot on her desk.
“Alright, it’s self-aware and it watches us and our actions until it figures out what we want and then it moves to kill us.”
“Umm, possibly, or it attempts to communicate with us, and when we don’t respond then it attempts to kill us.
“Why would it insist on killing us?” I ask scratching my neck.
“It is treating us as an intruder, so it is reacting in a predictable manner of protecting itself.” muses D.
“If that’s the case then our first step is to passively observe and attempt to learn its communication methodology.”
“Yup, that would be my approach,” says D.
Beast, the huge robotic wolf, pads softly into the common area where D and I are sprawled out as we noodle on the particulars of this curious assignment. He snuffs at my hand to get me to scratch his ears and show him some attention. I oblige him and he leans into me hard enough to nearly push me off the couch. Then gets up and pads over to visit D and does the same thing. D snuggles and fusses with him and he climbs onto the couch and flops down with his massive head in her lap. Beast just adores D, animals are an excellent judge of character; in my experience I have never seen them wrong.
“Do you see what just happened?” asks D as she strokes Beast.
“A huge robotic wolf just became your best friend,” I offer?
“Exactly, we communicated, not by speech, but by action and reciprocal action. We need to find a way to communicate with the planet in a similar fashion.”
“Well, let’s go into a planet friendly orbit and have a look at it without any invasive scans. Just be passive for a while and watch.”
“Ok, but I have a wolf’s head on my lap so maybe we should all have a little nap first before the fun starts.”
“Yeah, I like that idea a lot,” as I kick off my shoes and swing my legs up onto the couch, wiggle around and get comfy. “An hour power nap to refresh us, sweet!”
Soft beeping drags me back from the dreamy softness of the nap. Beast has his eyes open and is watching me accusingly for the interruption.
“Beast says we should be very careful to present no threat to the planet, act and move slow, don’t show your teeth, and perhaps offer something of value to the planet.” says D.
“He’s a very smart wolf, isn’t he?
“Of course I am, you guys assembled me and Daria did the artificial intelligence coding so I know that part has to be extremely strong, and don’t talk about me in the third person!” xmits Beast.
“Sorry Beast, I wonder how many attempts the Lynas Corp made to get what they want? I muse.
“How did people die?” asks D.
“By large carnivorous animals and really brutal storms.”
“How nice for you to enjoy the weather on a remote rock in the middle of nowhere. So appropriate for splitting the group and leaving me here.” sulks D.
“I have an idea, based on what Beast said. Let’s slowly go to the site locations, not land just look. I would bet Lynas Corp made a hell of a mess. Perhaps if we clean up the me
ss we might be allowed to look around a bit. What do you think,” I ask?
It’s worth a try and it won’t hurt you to do a little manual labor for a change for the good of the planet and your waistline.” smiles D.
Beast wags his tail enthusiastically.
“Be great to get out and run around and smell stuff,” xmits Beast.
“Ok, Beast, but no killing anything, this is self-defense only,” I remind him.
So against some opinion and misgivings we split the team with Poe, Beast, and myself, heading off to 55 Cancri e to investigate WTF. While D, Frosty, Muther and the sisters stay on the Trade station to complete the software tuning and testing of the new orbit stabilization and HVAC systems.
While I was glad to get out for some possible violence I left with trepidation and did not feel all that great about having our intrepid team split. I made a mental note to not do this again. We simply do not need to take any additional risks.
Once we had things all fastened down and set for travel Poe released the huge docking latches and we silently and slowly fell away from the Trade Station. Christ, looking at the receding Trade Station I don't think I ever felt so lonely. Well that’s not quite true, but I’m not going there anymore. The good byes to D were tearful and very hard on my heart. What the fuck was I doing anyway, why did I think I needed to do this dumb mission? Why couldn’t I just stay put with an entity that loves me and that I love in return. Why am I going into battle when I don’t need to?
Once away from the Trade Station Poe sets course and begins the acceleration to get up to velocity to make the trip to 55 Cancri e as quick and as safely as possible. It takes three days of very high speed travel before the planet comes up on our sensor arrays. After a day in orbit just watching and not doing any probing of the planet, we drop down into the atmosphere and start to follow the terrain from about two miles up, mapping and having a look around.
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