Chapter 35: Asteroid Mining

 

“You know, I expected more asteroids to be honest,” Abyssal said as she looked all over her ship’s cameras.

According to the sector map, Abyssal was right in the middle of the whole area. The place was very different from what she imagined when she thought of asteroid fields. In her mind, asteroid fields are like those places where there is a huge piece of rock everywhere that makes it hard for a ship to manoeuvre through. Instead, what she got was a place that could still be called an asteroid field— just that the asteroids are so far apart from one another it might as well be no different than empty space. The rocks in the so-called Asteroid field were at least a few hundred thousand kilometres apart.

“That is to be expected in a sparse asteroid field, Master,” Kuon replied.

“Yeah I know.. I just thought it would be more… you know," Abyssal said.

This was an unfortunate byproduct of her imagination after watching and playing all those sci-fi games. Reality is often not as pretty as it is in stories. Letting out a disappointing sigh, Abyssal used her camera’s to look around herself. She could see a few asteroids within her sight— rocks that range from a few meters in length to large kilometres sized asteroids. As she travelled along the asteroid field, she could see other people as well. On several large asteroids, Abyssal could see a few dedicated mining ships and stations. 

One of these ships is a large cargo ship with several large mining drones, drilling into the surface of an asteroid. Another ship that could be seen was a construction vehicle that looked to be building a stationary mining drill on a large asteroid— so large it could be a planet’s moon. However, the most peculiar ship was one which just looked like a huge drill with rockets attached to its back. It’s a literal space drill.

“Wow. Plenty of different ships designs out there, huh. Considering these people are mining, I expected things to be more standardized,” Abyssal said. She was amazed at how different the people here are— from their differing ships to the difference in the way they are mining the asteroids.

“That’s ‘cause it’s Freedom United, nyaa,” Meica replied to Abyssal. She was sitting at her stationg, looking at the camera with excitement. In her hands was a notebook that she is writing notes on as she looked at the ships within the asteroid field.

“Huh? Why is that? Is this a Freedom United thing? Are the other nations not the same?” Abyssal asked.

“Yep! Freedom United very unique!”

“I see…”

Hearing Meica’s inadequate response, Kuon let out a small sigh before responding to Abyssal. “It’s the culture around here, Master.”

“Culture?”

“Yes. People from Freedom United value freedom and uniqueness. The people from this nation make and buy all sorts of different ships. Having different ships is one of the few ways that they can express themselves. Other nations don’t really do this. It is very different from New England, at least. Sure, New England has differing ships here and there, but you are far more likely to find more or less the same designs,” Kuon explained.

“Yep! Same in Crimson Tide and Dawn Star, everyone uses almost the same ships! Only difference is components,” Meica added.

“I see… That’s good to know.”

‘So it’s a Freedom United thing only, huh. I guess if I ever want to find a good design for a ship, I know where to go,’ Abyssal thought to herself as she continued to cruise within the asteroid field. 

She was currently looking for a suitable looking piece of asteroid to start mining from—  something that was about the size of her own ship, maybe a little bit smaller. As she travelled, she could see more and more ships and asteroids who were just doing their own thing. Abyssal outputted whatever she saw into the main display on the bridge. Meica, who was excited, scribbled whatever she saw into her notebook. Kuon, on the other hand, just looked at the screen without muttering a word, looking for a suitable asteroid as well.

During this search, Abyssal realised that something was off.  “You know, I have yet to see a single escort ship despite being here for quite a while now,” Abyssal said.

“Escort ship?” Kuon asked, not understanding what Abyssal meant.

“Yeah. We are in neutral territory right? There is no law enforcement around here. All these ships here mining for resources would be in big trouble if some big pirate raid were to happen.”

“Ahh. I see what you mean. Indeed, it does seem a bit peculiar now when you mention it.”

“That’s ‘cause escorts are expensive. Best for miners to group up with each other if raid happens. Mining ships can still fight, one or two ships should be easy,” Meica cuts in on the conversation.

“A miners union. Interesting. I never thought of that. Things were different from where I came from,” Kuon said before focusing her sight on Meica. “You seem to know a lot about the matter, cat. I’m honestly surprised,” she added.

“Hmphh. Meica knows a lot more than you think stupid maid drone,” Meica stuck out her tongue at Kuon.

“Play nice now you two,” Abyssal said to her crew members. “I think I’ve found the perfect asteroid.”

On the screen, the image of a perfectly sized asteroid appeared— irregularly shaped and about 70m in length and 40m in height. Just right enough size to be able to fit within the S.A.S. Abyssal if mined in its entirety. Shining light onto the piece of rock, Abyssal could see a smooth shiny surface filled with dust

“Are you sure that this asteroid contains resources? Just look like any normal piece of rock to me,” Kuon asked.

“One way to find out. I’m moving to the Fierca. You two take care of things over here.”

“Understood, have a safe trip, Master,” Kuon bowed down.

“See you later, Abyssal!” Meica waved at her.

Abyssal waved back and left the bridge.

 

* * * * *

“How are the preparations, Abby?” Abyssal asked within the original fighter corvette— the S.A.S. Abyssal (Fierca Class).

“Preparations are done. Nanomachine injection to mass driver projectiles, successful,” Abby replied.

“And the reactor? How’s the power?” Abyssal asked as she walked towards her engine room. In the corner of the room, next to her nuclear heart was another reactor, smaller in size and within a cylinder as well. 

The ability to replicate components from blueprints have allowed Abyssal to make an exact replica of it.  By assimilating The Maxwell, she gained knowledge on how to reliably reconstruct them from scratch through the use of her nanomachines. However, she did have to scrap some of the more lesser needed components from her ship in order to make it happen. 

It took her a few weeks and some tiny modifications in order to construct the thing. It was a secret project hidden from Kuon and Meica— the restoration of her original ship. Sometime in the future she plans to either sell the Maxwell or scrap it and enhance her original ship instead, slowly upgrading it to become a better ship. This was the first step towards her goal and she gained quite a bit of experience using her nanomachines doing this.

The result from this project was a replica generator that supposedly generates 300 megawatts of power. It wasn’t the Maxwell’s powerhouse of a reactor but it should be plenty enough to power the Fierca Class. This coupled with her original nuclear reactor and she currently has 315 MJ/s of power to work with. 

Originally, she planned to scrap the nuclear reactor, but decided to retain it. She remembered that the smugglers said that this reactor is a Lancetech antique and could go for high prices in the market. As a matter of fact, the entire ship was an antique that could net her a small fortune.

“All reactors functional. All systems checked. Ship is ready for launch,” Abby replied.

“Alright. Disengage the platform. Launch the Fierca Class.”

“Affirmative. Disengaging artifical gravity. Activating atmosphere barrier. Deployinglaunch bay.”

*Clang

A weird noise rang out and Abyssal could feel the force acting down upon her going away. Due to having her thrusters activated, Abyssal’s personal drone crashed right onto the ceiling of her ship.

“Urgh… I forgot about that. Dammit Abby, could have warned me before doing that...” Abyssal said softly, disengaging her thrusters in the process.

“Engaging thrusters, destination Asteroid One,” Abby said as she piloted the ship out of the Maxwell class. The Fierca class slowly moved out of a thin green barrier. 

Through the use of her cameras, Abyssal could see that she was moving away from The Maxwell. She then shifted her view towards the internal cameras of the Maxwell, to check if she could indeed control both ships at once. 

She could.

Though she did feel a little sluggish in the Fierca class. Like there was some sort of delay to control it or something. It wasn’t that bad of a delay, but it could definitely be felt by Abyssal. This extended to her personal drone as well, who she felt had a split second delay when compared to when she was on the Maxwell. The delay got worse as she moved further away from The Maxwell, eventually culminating to a few milliseconds of delay.

As expected, there was some sort of latency the further she was away from her core. The only problem was…

‘Why am I experiencing the delay on the Fierca? Shouldn’t the delay be on The Maxwell? My core is in this ship, right?’ Abyssal asked herself.

She then shifted her focus to a construction drone on the Maxwell and tried to control it. She moved its legs and its hands and confirmed that she didn’t have much of a delay as compared to her personal drone on the Fierca Class.

‘What does this mean...? Is my core not on this ship? Did I move it to The Maxwell without noticing?’ 

“Arrival to the asteroid in T-Minus 5,” Abby announced, breaking Abyssal’s thoughts.

“Oh, noted. Keep the Maxwell nearby the Fierca class and let me know if we were to lose connection to the Maxwell.”

“Affirmative.”

And so, the two personalities kept quiet as they approached the asteroid. Though this silence would not last for long as Abyssal opened her voice box.

“Hey, Abby. Where is our core located?” Abyssal asked.

It was a question that was given no answer by her logical self. 

“Abby?”

Again, no answer by the other personality. The only thing she said was: “Arrival to asteroid in T-minus 3.”

“Oi! Are you listening to me? I’m sure you know where our core is. Where is it?” Abyssal asked again, a slight annoyance in her voice.

“Arrival to asteroid in T-minus 1.”

“... godammit, Abby,” Abyssal let out a sigh. “If you don’t know, you can just say that you don’t know. Don’t have to play the quiet game.”

“Ship has arrived at Asteroid One.”

“We need to have a serious talk one day, you know that,” said Abyssal as she pushed the matter to the back of her mind and focused on the asteroid.

Taking control of the ship, she aimed her twin mass drivers at the Asteroid before loading up a specially made projectile into the weapon. It was a projectile that contained a sizable amount of Abyssal’s own nanomachines. She planned to shoot this at the asteroid to see if she could deconstruct the asteroid into basic resources.

“Alright, weapons loaded,” Abyssal said as she pointed at the Asteroid with her imaginary arms. “Fire!”

*BANG!

The two projectiles shot out of Abyssal and hit the asteroid. There was no sound when it hit the thing, but Abyssal could see large clouds of smoke at the point of impact. Both the Asteroid and the ship moved away from each other slightly. Abyssal could feel a little bit dizzy as she shot the nanite filled projectiles into the thing, but nothing that she couldn’t handle.

“Deconstruction of Asteroid One, beginning,” Abby said.

It was then that Abyssal could see a small part of the asteroid slowly being eaten by the nanomachines, creating more nanites and converting the asteroid into raw resources. She could tell there were all sorts of resources within the asteroid as the nanomachines eat away at the thing — iron, platinum, magnets, copper, gold, silver, rare metals and even a little bit of water. 

Everything went well according to Abyssal’s expectations. If there is one thing that she was dissatisfied with was that despite the asteroids containing all sorts of resources it also contained non useful stuff like rocks.

Lots and lots of rocks. 

The ratio of useful resources to non useful resources seemed to be very bad for this particular asteroid. It’s not exactly a dud, but not a good asteroid either. 

‘If only I have a scanner like in games. That way I can tell which asteroid has the most resources. Ah well, resources is resources, I’ll take what I can.’