by Randy Dyess
He should have been one of these lucky miners, by now. At the young age of thirty-one, he was in the middle of his second contract. He had followed his dream and gained enough money after his first contract to buy one of those used mining ships, but his money had gone into the black hole that was his father, instead.
Candus Corporation believed the debts owed by the father was debt owed by the entire family. When alcohol had finally taken his father to his grave, Candus Corporation had reached into Dan’s bank account and cleaned him out. It hadn’t made a damn bit of difference that Dan hadn’t lived at home in over ten years, or that the signing of his contract with Peterson Mining had liberated him from his family and Candus Corporation. It hadn’t even been a full week after his father died that Candus Corporation sent the certified communication telling him of their right to take his hard-earned money. They hadn’t even left Dan with enough credits to pay for the trip to attend his father’s funeral, let alone pay for a trip to a newer and better mine. They’d left him stuck with taking a second ten-year contract on the same mine—a mine that was almost played out, which made Dan work twice as hard for half as much.
A dusty, crappy life, he thought as he opened the outer hatch. After stepping through, Dan looked up and saw the only thing he missed most about his home planet: the stars. Space-rock miners lived their entire contracts underground; there were no domes or even windows in mining complexes. No, radiation-proof glass was too expensive for miners. Even the trip out to the mines took place in a freighter’s windowless cargo hold, or if you were lucky, a crowded, windowless passenger lounge. Windows were for the rich, not for the working class.
Once Dan walked into Peterson Mining’s office complex on Petrus, he never saw the sky again, until Ted told him about the code to the outer hatches. Now he spent time before and after every shift staring at the stars. It reminded him of the big universe out there—a universe just waiting for people like Dan to take. Well, that was, after he made enough money to scrape together his own mining ship and leave this dusty, little rock in space.
*****
Dan took one more look at the stars, knowing that, any minute, his low oxygen alert would start screaming at him. Mining companies usually supplied the complex and its mining tunnels with just enough oxygen for the miners to work. They could work longer if they were in a breathable atmosphere, and the mining company had long ago decided that supplying a little oxygen would easily triple the output of a mine. Since it was space, though, there was always the possibility of hitting a fissure, which would open the mining tunnel to the surface and suck what little oxygen there was out, until the automatic doors closed. If you were the unlucky miner who hit that fissure, you needed something to keep you alive long enough to seal the fissure, so they wore mining suits with a forty-five-minute emergency oxygen supply. It would give them enough time to seal the tunnel, or make it through the nearest airlock into breathable space.
Standing and looking at the stars did not use up nearly as much oxygen as working did, but he didn’t want to take any chances and always left himself fifteen minutes to get back inside and restock his air before going to work. He often wondered if anyone in supply looked at his oxygen usage and questioned what he was doing using up three times more oxygen than normal. He would then think that they probably didn’t care, if he paid for it. In fact, they were probably happy to supply him with all the oxygen he needed at the price they charged.
He was just about to turn around, when the stars began to blur. Damn, was his first thought. Dan had purchased a special miner’s visor for his suit, which allowed him to run an analysis on the rock he was about to mine. This allowed him to skip unpromising areas and only spend his time if there was something worth digging out. The problem was that the visor was very sensitive, and a blurry spot usually meant it needed maintenance, which cost money and wasted time.
Wait, he thought to himself as he moved his head. The blurry spot didn’t move as he did, and it seemed to be growing. He ran the minimal diagnostic routine on his visor and it found nothing wrong. It took him a few minutes before it dawned on him what was going on.
What the hell? Dan thought. I bet that’s one of those FTL tunnel endpoints the flyboys always talk about. He had spent almost half of his life in space, but that didn’t mean he knew anything about space travel. He had only made one trip fifteen years ago when he joined Peterson Mining. Once they’d gotten to the system, Dan had crawled through a docking tunnel to a small cargo ship to travel the rest of the way to the mining asteroid. He’d spent the next ten hours sitting on the floor of the cargo bay, wondering when he would ever get out of the ship.
He had asked one of the flight staff members about why they had to change ships so far from the asteroid field, but he never understood the answer. The man had said something about the accumulated gravity of the asteroid field’s gravity well preventing ships from exiting an FTL tunnel any closer to the field. Some ships could exit closer to the field, but doing so required much more expensive FTL drives. It was cheaper to transfer to smaller cargo ships than to pay for the equipment, and only the military and large company security forces had FTL drives complex enough for it.
Dan watched the blurry spot grow and wondered what military ship or security vessel would come pouring out of it. He knew there would be a bright flash as the ship exited the hole, but he thought his visor could adjust fast enough to protect his eyes. What he didn’t know was that human-generated exit holes were nowhere as big as the one he was looking at. He watched as dozens of small asteroids popped out of the blurry spot, and then bigger asteroids started showing up. Finally, an asteroid the size of a moon began edging out of the tunnel.
Damn, more rocks. He decided that some company must have been clearing a piece of space for a new flight path; it was probably cheaper for them to dump the rocks here than to crush them down. He knew the asteroids wouldn’t be worth anything, since no company would give up asteroids with valuable minerals.
“They better not block my view,” he said to no one. “I don’t need some damn company sending a bunch of rocks. This is not a junk yard for their crap.”
The mining complex’s gravity disruptor popped up out of its hole and scanned the new asteroids. It soon popped back down. Must have figured out the rocks weren’t heading this way, he thought.
Frowning, he turned around to go back into the complex when movement caught his eye. A few of the smaller asteroids had stopped moving away from the complex, turned around, and were heading his way.
How in the hell did they do that… and what the hell are those green balls coming out of those rocks? Dan thought as a dozen small green balls spit out of the asteroid heading toward him. It didn’t take him long to realize the asteroids were ships of some kind, and that they were under attack. He started to run, but after seeing how fast the balls were coming and how far he had to go to make it far enough into the complex to be safe, he stopped and turned back around. As he watched the green balls get closer and closer, he knew he would never be able to get his own ship and explore just a little piece of the stars he saw each day. At least I got to see them one more time, he thought as he jumped through the hatch and his world turned green.
There was no noise—no loud explosion. Whatever hit us didn’t blow anything up, Dan thought as he stood and dusted himself off. He didn’t know who was attacking or why, just that they were attacking and he needed to get to safety. He started to go back down the hall toward the common areas, but stopped himself. If they are attacking, they’ll go to the main areas of the complex.
He turned around and opened a small hatch. The maintenance tunnels were not used by anyone, so they should escape notice by the attackers. He had just gotten the hatch door closed when he heard the oxygen warning. Looking around, he found the small emergency oxygen nozzle to the left of the door. He knew there was an extra charge for using the emergency nozzle, but at this point, he didn’t care. If he was going to survive, he would need that oxygen and
plenty more before the day was through.
Dan sighed in relief as he watched his oxygen gauge rise. He thought about staying where he was, but knew that Peterson had a record of him accessing the emergency nozzle. If the attackers went through the logs, they would know exactly where he was. It took him a few minutes of concentration before he remembered that the mining robot had a full oxygen tank—if he could only get to his mining shaft, he would be safe for now.
Dan had only managed to take two steps before the lights in the maintenance tunnel went off. The attackers must have destroyed the generator. Oh, well, he thought, miners are used to working in the dark. Not wanting to drain his suit’s batteries, he turned on his suit’s outside lights to their lowest setting. It wasn’t enough to see down the tunnel, but enough to see where he was going.
Twenty minutes and half of his oxygen supply later, Dan made it to his mining shaft and robot. Even though there was still some atmosphere left in the shaft, he quickly hooked up to the robot’s oxygen tank to refill his own. He knew better than to depend on the atmosphere in the shaft—one lucky strike by the attackers could vent the entire complex. He had felt the asteroid shaking the entire trip down to the mining shaft as the attackers continued to bomb the complex. Deep down in the mine, the effects were small. For another thirty minutes, the asteroid shook, causing dust to fog the entire shaft.
Not knowing what else to do, he attached himself to the robot and floated above it to rest. His suit was comfortable, and he had spent many a night catching a quick nap above his robot. He thought he might as well ride out the attack down here, rather than take the chance of running into one of the attackers.
He didn’t know how long he had been floating, but dust still fogged the shaft and he couldn’t see anything. He quickly reached over to shut off his suit’s lights, not wanting anyone to see them.
“There,” he said into his suit as the noise came down the shaft. There was just enough atmosphere for sound to travel, but it couldn’t go far in these shafts. Whoever was making the noise was very close. Dan grabbed his strap and pulled himself toward his robot. If he could wedge himself between it and the wall, maybe they would overlook him. It took him a few minutes, but he successfully forced his body into hiding. It was uncomfortable, but better than the alternative.
Dan was sweating—not from the temperature, but from panic—as he continued to hear shuffling sounds in the mining shaft. There must be hundreds of them, he thought as another wave of sound surrounded him. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down, using the techniques he’d been taught to use for a cave-in. Panicking used up twice the oxygen, and while he had enough supply to last, he knew panicking would make everything much worse. He had just calmed down when he heard screams echoing off the shaft’s walls. He’d known others would be in the shaft, but hearing them scream for help caused ever fiber in his body want to jump up and help. That’s what miners did; they might have been in competition with each other, but they still helped in emergencies.
No, he thought, everyone’s in trouble. Don’t expose yourself—you can’t help. Dan closed his eyes and remained still for what seemed like hours before all the noises in the mining shaft stopped. I need to get out of here. He might have been safe for now, but if the attackers wanted to strip the shaft of equipment, they would find him.
“That’s it!” he suddenly yelled into his suit before catching himself. He lay still, hoping his shout hadn’t travelled far enough for anyone to hear. After several minutes, he decided he was safe. Dan had remembered an abandoned mining rep’s room near the entrance to this shaft, and the hatch was manual, so no records would be generated when he opened it. If he could get into that room, he would be safe for days. The company had once used it to store spare oxygen tanks for emergencies, and Dan hoped the tanks were still there.
He pushed off and floated above the mining robot again, knowing he would have to turn on his lights again. Other equipment lay scattered throughout the shaft, and he couldn’t take the chance of snagging something and ripping his suit. He turned on his lights, but the amount of dust in the air once again limited their effectiveness to a few meters. He could make out the shadow of his ore hauler a meter away, but nothing else.
Ten agonizing minutes later, Dan hurt. Pulling himself along the wall while constantly turning to look out for equipment and attackers had given him a crick in his neck and a bad headache. He knew he would have to stop before it got worse, but he didn’t want to stop in the open. Two minutes later, he saw a shape forming up ahead. That must be one massive mining robot, he thought as it grew to fill the entire tunnel. I wonder who owns it; I’ve never heard of something that big down here. Dan figured it would be a good place to hide, though, so he crouched beside it to rest and get that damn crick out of his neck.
Why is this thing soft? Dan thought as he grabbed one of the struts of the large robot. That was the last thing he had time to think before the Freack he had just grabbed whirled around and attacked.
Chapter 6
Woryant paced in the cargo dock of the Nlipirax family base. His tools had reported an unusual species inhabiting the Emea sub-territory and he wanted to get a look at them. I wonder what they are, he thought as he watched his scout ship enter the bay. It was rare for his tools to find a creature not already in his database. The scans forwarded by the scout ships just didn’t make sense to Woryant. He knew there should not be any intelligent species in that sub-territory. They were all exterminated five hundred harvests ago when they tried to fight off Woryant’s harvesting fleets. Instead of developing their technology into a useful industrial base, Klachur just ordered every one of the species to be hunted down and killed. He also ordered every piece of evidence which indicated that the species ever existed to be reduced to atoms. Woryant knew there should not be any of them left. He personally executed the extermination and checked every planet multiple times for survivors. All colonies, moons, asteroids, and space stations were razed. Woryant even hunted down every ship holding one of them in every one of Klachur’s territories. However; The scan taken by his scouts described a bi-pedal species with similar, but not exact DNA patterns as found in the rest of the intelligent species, which inhabited their part of the Syndicate territory. How could a new species evolve to this level of intelligence so quickly?
The eight dirty creatures that exited the scout ship didn’t surprise Woryant, for he had already ordered his AI to extrapolate what the creatures should look like, based on their DNA patterns. The hair on the top of their heads was not purple, and their skin was more brown than light pink, but otherwise, the creatures looked as predicted.
They’re like the other intelligent species we’ve come across in this territory. Are they some offshoot that we missed? It was possible that these creatures were a variation of one of the eight species they had already subdued, but none of the captured records indicated that they had colonized any other systems. The DNA was similar, but the genetic markers varied enough to indicate a separate evolution path and not just a simple colonization.
Did someone seed all nine of those sub-territories? It was the only thing that made sense. It wouldn’t matter to Klachur, but Woryant was curious. If he wanted to rule Klachur’s territory once the Under Boss was executed, he needed as much information as possible.
“Computer, instruct the Freack to take these creatures to my lab.”
“As you command.”
“Also, run a DNA regeneration program to go back in time and determine a possible time-frame in which all nine intelligent species in the sub-territories were a common seed. I want to know when their evolution paths separated.”
“As you command.”
“Summarize all the data from the scout ships and have it on my personal viewer by the time I get back to my office. None of this activity will be recorded in the main logs, or shared without my express permission.” Woryant still worried that Klachur would discover what he was doing. Even though the Under Boss barely knew how to work the b
ase’s AI system, some other Syndicate member could have already breached the system and read his work.
“As you command.”
“Computer, run a match on the creature’s tissue samples and see if you can determine if they are a possible food source for anyone.”
“As you command.”
As much as Woryant wanted to utilize these intelligent creatures to build an industrial tax base, he knew Klachur was only interested in their food value. He needed to prepare his report before the Under Boss had him shuffle all the way back to his office, demanding to know the status of the harvesting. Hopefully, he could give Klachur something to keep him off his back, until he figured out how to harvest the Emea sub-territory without wiping out this new species.
******
“So, they are edible,” Woryant muttered as he finished reviewing the report his AI had created. “Very intelligent and a little aggressive, but edible. In fact, they may actually be a delicacy.”
Woryant went back to the summary provided by his AI. He was shocked to learn how far this species had spread into the Emea sub-territory. They were on all of the major planets, most of the minor planets, and a majority of the moons, and they had spread to thousands of asteroids and created hundreds of space stations. This species was impressive enough that he might be able to use their gene pool to reestablish the other sub-territories, once Klachur fell.
