Dyson’s Game

Book 1: Salvage Claim

Chapter 1

Efraim

EVAs weren’t something that one simply got used to.

Being out there in the deep dark, with nothing but a tether and an RCS unit to keep you from floating off into space… there was something intrinsically terrifying about it, that made me want to stay away from it as much as possible.

Still, making a living at the Bries Salvaging Wrights meant that I had to have at least one EVA under my belt, even just as a ‘graduation test’. It was also my last, considering the fact that I jumped ship to drone command the first chance I got. It paid less than EVA work, but at least I didn’t have the specter of being spaced looming over my head every time I get off the airlock.

Not that drone command was any less dangerous. Boredom was the real kicker here, coupled by heaps upon heaps of paperwork. Technicians that I have to assign to fix drones, pad-tappers that I have to listen drone on for hours and hours on end, the rare times that we drew lots to determine who’s going to slug it out of the surface to fetch a busted drone…

The folks living space-side might have those fancy mag-gens to keep the solar winds from scouring them clean, but we don’t have such luxury. Best we could do was hop on a shielded vehicle, hope that the weather was fine, and leg it before we cook ourselves inside our suits.

Although, it’s not every day that we get to do that. Today was just another routine of checking in, sending orders to the drones, and checking out once base time clocks in at 17:00. Or at least, it would’ve been.

I was certainly enjoying the cup of wake-up that I brought with me before Shisholi stopped me in the hallway, that’s for sure.

“New thing’s come up.” She piped up, sending me a greet-cant that I returned almost-instinctively, “Boss was originally planning to inform you once you got to the terminal, but he’s still checking the pad-tappers to see if their info was correct.”

“We didn’t get another drone wrecked, did we?” I asked with a raised brow, closing my tab before Shisholi could see that I was watching a rerun of the 33rd Space Cow Polo, “Did Osfjor fuck something up during his shift?”

“He didn’t.” Well that was a relief. “Space-side command just send word that they’ve got a derelict ship that got snagged in Bries orbit, but it crashed before they could send an EVA team to ease it off. Landed right near our sector, apparently.”

“And I’m supposed to command the drones to check it out?”

Shisholi nods.

“Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, then.” I shrug, taking another sip of my wake-up before letting out a sigh. “See you later?”

“Yep.” Shisholi grins, “Broodmother guide us all, yes?”

“You too.”

We sent our farewell-cants at one another, before I walk off into the command post, pulling up my pad once again. A priority message from the Boss immediately popped itself in the middle of my screen, basically informing me of what Shisholi had just said a while ago. Derelict ship, crashed into our sector, go and check it out.

Scavenging ships was certainly a lucrative business. It became the secondary breadbasket of Bries Salvaging Wrights after metal mining was placed lower on the list, and no doubt that anything that we could find on any ship could sell for a lot of krannts. Maybe even enough for some of us to buy a vacation trip to the Crownworld… but that’s a pipe dream at best.

Mostly due to the hazard involved, what with trying to scavenge a crashed ship. Bries might have half of the Crownworld’s standard gravity, but some parts might still be jostled around or melted by the crash and impact. If it hit the reactor…

I guess Boss had the right idea to scout it out first with drones. It would probably cut into the amount of ore that we could dig out, but I Osfjor could have some overtime. Call it ‘additional credits’ for his education or something like that. Poor sod would no doubt lap it up.

The door to the command post opens with a beep, the airlock cycling for a few seconds as my MMI interfaced with the controls. Others liked using the manual switch, but they’ve got more arms than me. I’ve only got two.

“Bossman”, I greet my superior once the cycling was over, stepping into the command post proper while raising my mug, “How’s your day?”

“Like I’ve been shot with synthale.” He grumbles, a glowing green eye turning towards the pad in my other hand, “Cut that off, will you? We already have enough chatter as it is without space cows cluttering the airwaves.”

With a sheepish grin, I turn off my pad, waving it once so that Boss can see it before stashing it under my wraps. He nods in response, cybernetic eye still trained on me, and I join him up on the holotank as my MMI thrums once more.

The holotank lights up in a rough area of our surroundings, pock-marked mountains and valleys that now dotted Bries’ landcape after the initial wave of mining was hoovered up by the Tesselation. It shows our base, underneath fifty meters of rock close to the mountain that we aptly named Mount Tang’Na, and it shows the locations of our drones, still in standby mode as their photovoltaic cells lapped up the radiation from the sun. Planetside quadrants, longitudes, and latitudes were the next to come, along with a handy marker for the geographic north pole.

“So where’s the ship located?” I ask, taking another sip of my wake-up just as a red ping pops up on the holotank. “Ah, close to Marrsha’nai. We just got a nickle-iron sample from B-16, though. Good for subsidy for some of the mining clans while getting the pad-tappers up in a tizzy, the last time we checked. If this drone blows up while exploring the ship…”

“Lost money. Lots of lost money.” Boss grumbles, “And we’ll probably have to send another drone there to get another sample. Insurance would probably come through if I give a call, but it’d take quite a while before we’d get another drone up and running. We’d still be at a net loss.”

“We only got five of them though, so we better make them count.” I pause, “Not to mention that two of them are still in maintenance.”

Boss hums, two of his arms shifting to think-cant while his other pair crossed over his chest. A few moments pass, before he points towards a drone in sector A-9, and glances towards me.

My MMI heats up, and I feel an uncomfortable sensation at my nape as I urge the thing to power on and take a gander around. Local landmarks was around… that way, and the rangefinder shows that it’s at least 5 kilometers away.

“It’d take the better part of a day to get Bosh’lagi up to that ship.” I hum, sending the little rover on its merry way, “Maybe even more if we want to take a look around, see what can be salvaged and hash out a rough plan. Are we gonna get a sensor sweep soon?”

“I’ll be putting in a request space-side.” Boss replies, “For the meantime though, you’ll have to rely on past sensor data and local ladar scans. Pretty sure you can handle that by yourself.”

“Be a shit employee in drone command if I couldn’t.” I sniff, “Things might be different if it was Osfjor at the helm, though.”

Boss fixes me a stern stare. “Cut the poor boy some slack. You don’t see Crownworlders getting out of their comfort zone all that often, don’t you?”

I nod. Bossman pats my shoulder, before giving me a farewell-cant, sauntering off back to his office. As the airlock cycles behind me, I take another sip of my wake-up, nudging the holotank to wake the other drones up as my MMI begins thrumming once more.

Overlaying the sensor scans and what I could see from the drone feeds, I began relaying orders to the little guys hacking it out on Bries’ surface. Marrsha’nai was set to returning back to base to get that sample shipped off once the cargo runner comes, Bosh’lagi to begin checking out the crashed ship, and for Grimaldi to keep on scouting for other metal-rich sites in the area.

All in all, a trifling task. You just needed to keep a head straight and check up on things every now and then to make sure that things are on track.

It certainly beats doing EVA work.