Landing Rustbucket was a routine exercise by now and after ferrying everybody from the mining site to the ship and back to the mining site, I had also become rather familiar with how to set her down. It wasn’t even a hard bump anymore when the landing gear made contact with the rock. Oh, and I had also picked up a 6th point in piloting on my way here which probably helped as well.

After announcing myself via com, I had simply brought the ship in, not in the mood to have drawn out conversations. I preferred to sit down for those because it was time to make some real plans and get shit done.

As I walked down the ramp I saw Ralgau pulling up in one of the ore transporters.

“Took you long enough.”

I grunted noncommittally into my com and climbed on to the loading bay of the transporter. When I locked my mag boots in place, he sped towards the shelters. I looked around and noticed that the guys had put a good sized dent in the asteroid. Looking at the visible progress and then checking the time, I realized I had been gone for over nine days. Considering that pickups were scheduled every five days, it meant they had nearly a full load together again. Damn, this time difference between Earth and Black Space was making it hard to keep things straight.

I also thought about the last few hours on the station. After I had my ass handed to me and gotten fixed up, I had gone and updated my CLON contract to a ninety skill point one. Then I had paid off the rest of my credit. And since I got harassed by the mafia-pirates again, I decided to spring for another two laser turrets and a small missile turret and ten heatseeker missiles. The annoying thing about the latter was that the launcher turret cost more than double of the laser and that each missile was about 10% of the launcher. So my current finances were back down to about 130k.

Ralgau pointed me to his shelter and I was equally curious and concerned about what I might find inside. It wasn’t a surprise birthday party for me, that was sure. Which meant it must be something even worse and that did have me a little worried.

As expected all the others were sitting in the shelter. Mrk and Krn on their chairs, the rest on boxes and Ygglog stood there. All eyes turned to us. Ralgau also sat down, although he lowered himself to the floor.

“Uhm, hi guys… What’s going on?” I started awkwardly.

“We have a problem!” Brelic stated, his voice holding an annoyed edge.

“What’s up?”

“The Red Moon! They have been harassing us ceaselessly since you chased their ships off!” Mrk burst out.

“What do you mean?” Yeah, three questions starting with what. I was on a roll.

“They keep coming back, harassing us. We are all in constant danger and I can’t take it anymore. I did not come here to deal with pirates the whole time. I just want to mine and build a good place for Krn and myself.” Mrk’s voice became more and more pitched the longer he spoke and in the end it was half-scream and half-sob.

Fuck! I looked at Ralgau and Brelic, they so far seemed to be the most steady under fire. And while I did understand Mrk’s distress about everything I did not like that I got just pushed into this meeting without knowing what was actually going on.

“Either one want to fill me in what the fuck is actually going on? What happened while I was gone?”

They looked at each other, then the Fell started to fill me in.

“The day you left, they came back with their two ships. We tried contacting you but could not get a hold of you. So instead we flagged their ships as red and the turrets opened fire at which point they bailed.

“Since then, they have been back every other day. One day they were firing on the turrets and trying to take them out. That day they nearly lost a ship. After that they have been more careful. Strafing the shelters and the dig. Firing one or two shots at the rock before the turrets can burn through their shields.

“During the last ore pickup they showed up and tried to harass the transport but they were warned off by the pilot and for some reason they ran. Then, for the last two days they have been coming by daily and have been harassing us. Flyovers, shots close to the shelters, etc.

“The thing is that we are sitting ducks. We actually thought about packing up here and moving into the cave. But that also would take a few days and we would have no protection while we are on the way over.”

Fuck again! That sounded bad. But adding my run-in with them on the station made me believe that they were still in the ‘scaring us’ stage.

I walked over to Mrk and Krn. Going down on one knee, I put my hands on their legs. When had I become the fucking camp counselor?

“Guys, thank you for holding out while I was not around. Thank you for not giving in and instead running the claim. You had no obligation to do so, much less to send me a share of the ice that I have not worked for. I know that you have your possessions tied up in this venture and I will do my best to make sure you get to build the future that you want to. And I believe I have some good and some not so good news to share with you too.”

Then I proceeded to tell them about my run-in with the guys in the station. I tried to make a little light of it because I did not want to tell them that I could have been sent to respawn if they had wanted that. But I had a feeling that apart from the Quirt couple everybody understood that fact anyway. And even Mrk and Krn did not seem reassured.

When I told them about the turrets that I had bought for added security they perked up and Brelic was the first to react. He slapped his leg and guffawed. “Boy I do like your guts. You don’t take half measures, do you?”

“What do you mean?” Krn asked.

“Our laser turrets are rated civilian. That is why they can come in here and take two or three pot shots at us before the shields get burned down. Now with two more lasers, we can put on a lot more pressure. But the big difference is the missile turret. You see, there is no civilian spec for those. Even the smallest yield version is rated against frigates.”

He let that sink in for a moment. I knew about it and that was also the reason that I had decided to spend the ridiculous amount of money that they cost.

“It means that if they show up with their two ships again and we target one of them with a missile, this ship will not leave again.”

“But that means that we kill them?” Mrk sounded horrified.

“Yes, it does.” Ralgau responded while giving me a meaningful look.

“Guys, as much as I would like to have all the answers, I sadly don’t have them.” I sighed in frustration.

“I don’t want to kill anybody. But at the same time, I am not above defending what is mine. I am not a killer but I am also not responsible for what happens to other people. We all make our choices. They chose to take what’s not theirs. I chose to defend what’s mine.

“But that also doesn’t mean I want to drag everybody else into my conflicts. I will do what I have to and I am grateful for everybody that stands with me but I am not expecting any of you to do so. In fact, I think for you…” I looked towards the couple. “... it would be a lot safer if you fly out with the next pickup until things are settled. I have a feeling that this will get worse before it will get better.”

After I said that I sat down heavily on a chest myself. I just wanted to make some money and get the ship. Why could things never be easy?

The conversation turned towards making plans from there. Brelic and Ralgau were going to check the turret placements and plan the three new additions. The rest of us planned on mining until the transport for ore pickup showed up. Mrk and Krn agreed that they would rather be shipped back to the station until the situation was resolved. Ralgau and Brelic looked forward to some fireworks and Ygglog was his usual stoic self.

That settled, we got back to work and while asteroid mining was by no stretch of the imagination exciting work, it felt good to just burn off some of my frustrated and annoyed energy. The thing is I was not responsible for the lives of the people here on the claim. They chose to be here. So why the hell did I feel that I needed to protect them. It didn’t make sense. Was it because I had declared myself the leader in this venture? Was it because they had agreed to it? Was it because they looked to me to solve the issue? Or was it because my actions were the cause of it?

Nah, that last one was bullshit. My actions were not the reason. Some assholes trying to live off of other people’s work were the cause of the problem. But until someone punched the bully in the nose, the bully would not stop. I just hoped I was not punching too much above my weight class.