Six and a half hours later I was woken up by my alarm. That was the signal that we would ship out in 30 minutes. I got up, grabbed a cup of water and a food bar and planted myself into the pilot seat. Then I put in a com request to Ralgau which after 2 seconds connected.

“Hey man, ready to get going?” he greeted me.

“Yep, can’t wait. Everything looking good on your side?”

“Yes, all loaded up and buckled in. The pilot is just standing by until departure.”

“Okay, I will make my way over to you and then convoy with the transport.”

“Sounds good, I’ll let the pilot know. You can probably set up a direct com once you are over here.”

“Yeah, I will do that. See you in a bit.”

I pulled up my autopilot and then set up a course from my berth to the docking position the transport was located at and from there to the asteroid. The depressing thing was that I was informed that Rustbucket was actually about one third slower than the transport. Let’s meet up first and then we see.

Rustbucket undocked when I hit the activate button and then slowly gained distance from the station only to swing around at a distance of nearly 10 kilometers and once again arch towards Belt Station. Break thrusters fired and my approach slowed to a full stop at 2.5 kilometer. At the same time the slowly approaching transport was highlighted on my hud.

I set up a com request to it and then waited for it to be accepted. A few seconds later I got an answer.

“This is Transport A15 of Stellaris Inc.”

“Hi there. This is Captain Malcolm Solo of ….” Yeah, nothing came to mind. The whole captain thing had slipped in because the transport pilot talked so formal. But then I wanted to represent the co-op group but since we never decided on a name, there was nothing I could say.

“Nevermind that. I am Malcolm Solo and I have a prepared course to the claim. I can transmit the data directly if you accept. I was also hoping to enter convoy but my nav computer informed me that my ship is quite a bit slower than yours. I wouldn’t want to hold you back or make the trip longer for your passengers.”

“No problem.” With those words I received a ping that direct data connection was enabled and an invite to the convoy. After I hit the transmit button for the course, I noticed a blinking button in my interface. Pulling it up I noticed that there was a new option called “Fleet” which had a whole bunch of information.

First and foremost was that the name and type of the ship were mentioned. There were also roles in that got assigned. In our case the transport was labeled as convoy leader and Rustbucket was labeled as ‘convoy 1’. I guess the first ship that followed. And then there was another 2 columns: Equipment and Skills. There was nothing mentioned in the equipement column. But there was a skill icon displayed in this column next to the transporter:

Belt Pilot: Up to three ships in this fleet group will have their speed and maneuverability matched to the pilot’s ship while navigating through asteroid belts.

Ah, now it made sense that he was so nonchalant about me wanting to convoy. It didn’t make any difference to him that my ship was slower. I would not slow him down. I am sure that my little civilian miner was more maneuverable than the transport ship with it’s 8 containers of freight. But then again I would gain a lot of speed. I think this was a really worthwhile, while situational skill. Yes, only in asteroid belts. But imagine you put someone with this skill into something really fast and really maneuverable and then add three more ships that were neither but could take a beating… or deliver one. I had to check up on how one got this.

“Thank you for accepting convoy. The nav plan looks good and I will follow it. You can relax at the controls as the convoy settings will take over. Please disable autopilot and manual steering.”

I disabled both in the hud in front of me. “Okay, all done.”

“Estimated time to arrival 3.5 standard hours. I will update with any information that is pertinent. Have a good trip. In case you want to leave the convoy, please notify me beforehand.”

“Sure thing. I will be on standby until we arrive or I hear from you.”

“Have a good trip.” With his final words the com channel switched into standby.

Once again passenger in my own ship. But then with the autopilot that I had been using until now… you know, you get used to it. The only time I had ever actually flown the ship was when I had explored the asteroid. I hoped there would be more of that in the future. To be honest, being relegated to enter a destination in the navigation system, letting the computer do all the work, approve the course (without real review since I had no idea what I was doing) and then hit the autopilot button did not feel like piloting. And I am sure that the ‘Belt Pilot’ skill wasn’t earned that way.

I sighed and pulled up the plans for the asteroid mining co-op we had come up with. We had used my previous scans of the rock, after I had sanitized them, and had sketched out said plan. First we would create three hollows that were just big enough for us to set up our shelters. According to both Brelic and the Youngs it was better that these structures didn’t stick out above the surrounding area. While they were shielded, there was always a chance to be hit by a micrometeoroid or something like that. Yes, they should be able to withstand the impact but that the same time, why take extra chances.

After that we would work together to smooth out one of the already flatter sides and create a section where we would set up the ore processor and also store the ore containers that would arrive 12 hours after us. They were delivered by LoGov and we would use them to both deliver our rent payment as well as sell our excess.

The ore processor itself was a big ass machine that we would dump any chunks up to half a cubic meter into. They were then broken down to dust. Some complex electromagnetic processes then got the mineral dust out of it and into sorted containers. This particular processor could sort anything up to and including Tier 3 minerals. Which was also the best they had on belt station and the single most expensive piece of equipment of the whole claim operation.

After looking over the plans I double checked them with my unsanitized scans and I could see where the entry to the hollow with the ship was. We would stay far enough away from that area. I planned to show Ralgau what we were actually there for but I did not want to get the rest of them involved just yet. There was still too much unclear about the whole leak situation and while I believed that for the moment our shared interest in the claim would get us working together, I wasn’t so sure how the ship salvage situation would fit into that.

After that I turned my focus to reading some more about asteroid mining techniques to bridge the time to our arrival.