CHAPTER 2

NEEDFUL THINGS

Bridge

Leena, Captain Yi, and a colonial overseer by the name of West Franklin stood around a display table that was projecting an image of a powered exoskeleton suit in the air above it. West was indicating the right arm of the unit, and the display zoomed into the indicated section of the arm as West continued his briefing.

‘These suits come equipped with magnetic manipulators on each arm and a slew of anti-grav plates. One of these could easily take care of the all the cargo hauling needs of say a small space port, and we’ve got six in our cargo hold. Frankly Captain, it seems a little bit over kill. I would have preferred a bit more… digging equipment, if you understand.’

Yi shrugged and hit a key on the console next to him, the table displayed a different piece of equipment. It was a specialized mining unit, meant to bore through rock and ore, depositing it out the back as it went. As it dug along, it would shore up and reinforce the tunnels it made.

‘Three excavation rigs is not insignificant. Besides, we’ll have more coming as our production maxes out.’

Leena stroked her chin and looked at the display, they were hauling some impressive hardware. Their ship would establish a mining colony on a world some two hundred and thirty six light years from Earth. The colonies in that sector were several years old and their industrial sectors were needing more raw minerals to fuel their work. The I.S.A. had partnered with Axion to sponsor a mining ship, complete with Guardian-run mining equipment, for the benefit of that sector of space.

‘How many excavation units will Xavier be able to run?’ West asked.

‘About thirty simultaneously, but that’s not counting other colonial administrative and logistical duties he must take care of. Once we are in in phase three of our development growth, we may need to put in a request for a secondary core to manage just the equipment,’ Leena said, manipulating the controls and displaying a map of the world. She pointed to a point of light on the screen.

‘Our administrative hub in the central mesa will double as the star port for off world exports. Seeing as this planet’s star is now a red giant, and whatever life was once here is long since dead, we’re going to crack open this place in as many places as we can and strip every scrap of useful ore we can find,’ she gave a smile and shrug, ‘sure it’s a sand blasted rocky wasteland, and it’s no one’s idea of paradise, but the pay will be real good.’

West smiled at this. ‘Mining gigs on a world like this don’t come to everyone, twenty years on this rock, and I can probably retire on some freshly chartered fringe world for a hundred years.’

‘Back to your original point though, West,’ Yi said, ‘we do seem to have a lot of cargo suits versus what we’ll need to begin with.’

‘It’s not that big a problem really, when Leena opened this map it got me thinking,’ he manipulated his controls and more points of light lit up on the map of the world, ‘We’re going to have a lot of sites to prepare for new mining camps all over. I could probably retool some suits for construction duty. We could send them out to some nearby camp sites and have them lay down the basic infrastructure. As we get the pre-fab buildings in, everything will be in place and ready to set up. We’ve got enough gear here to set up at least four sites before we need more infrastructure gear sent to us.’

Yi nodded. ‘That’s a sound plan. Do you feel up to it?’

West laughed. ‘I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t think I could do it. Of course, Captain!’

‘Get to it then. I’ll want regular status reports. Remember to leave enough for the main hub.’

‘Of course, Captain. Anyway, I’ll get right on it.’

West nodded to each of them and left.

Yi and Leena regarded the holographic map in front of them.

‘Leena, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.’

Leena looked at him with the display hovering in the air above their line of sight.

‘Yes, Captain?’

‘Why did you sign up to this mission?’

She gave a sad kind of smile. ‘When my dad died, it left mother on her own. My brother does his best to make sure she has a little extra money here and there, but he’s got a family of his own. I can’t have a family, not biologically anyway, and I figured I’d be around longer than the rest of them. Taking twenty years out of my life at a high paying position doesn’t mean as much when you’re going to be pushing two hundred plus years. I figured I can have more than enough to live off of, have some set aside for the future, and make sure my mother is comfortable in her old age.’

Yi smiled warmly. ‘A very admirable goal, Leena. Truly your heart is full of love for your family.’

The systems that controlled her bio-mechanical skin responded to the emotions and caused her to blush.

Yi saw this and his eyes went wide. ‘I’ve never known an Advocate that could blush.’

‘My generation can, but we can also choose to shut it off. I leave it on, it seems better that way.’

‘Your generation can? You mean the previous one couldn’t?’

‘No, the skin,’ she said, lifting her hand in front her, ‘wasn’t as advanced as ours. I mean we’ve still got that classic sheen and all, but it’s much more alive.’

‘Even though you can survive in space without a suit,’ Yi commented.

She smiled. ‘Yeah, even then.’

‘I saw that once,’ Yi said, moving away from the table and back to the main space of the bridge.

Leena followed him. ‘Did you now? We're required to try it once in the course of our training, but it’s very controlled. The instinct to breathe can be an overwhelming one.’

‘Really? But do you actually need to breathe?’ Yi asked.

‘In a way, yes. It replenishes our internal oxygen reserves. But we can survive off our internal life support for up to three days without any oxygen or food. I don’t like doing that, though. It… feels wrong. Like part of my can’t get over the fact that I should be hungry or should be breathing, but I’m just… not.’

Yi regarded her thoughtfully. ‘I can’t imagine what that’s like.’

‘Neither could I. Even though I’ve done it, it still feels a little unreal.’

‘I guess human nature is hard to forget.’

‘Oh you never forget as an Advocate. Never.’

‘Well, Advocate Renfort, I’ve got a ship to tend to.’

‘And Xavier has some learning to do. We’re dealing with ‘tact’ presently.’

‘Ahh delightful.’