The screech of the drill changes suddenly, the high pitched keen becoming somewhat more throaty, and Samuel knew he was up. The drill was picking up debris, the metal getting hot enough that stone and metal below was melting. As the drill cycled up and down Samuel could see through the maintenance cage that large chunks of rapidly cooling material were attaching to the drill. He was suddenly reminded of the odd barnacles that appeared to grow within hours on the hulls of the scratch made boats he and the Reapers had used during the trade war. There was a depressing little world that had a wealth of edible algae that command had deemed worth fighting over, and during the course of the short campaign, Samuel had found himself burning off hundreds of the creatures.
The Grotto hand welder was small enough to be used inside the cage, which had barely enough room for Samuel as it was, much less the tanks and hoses of more traditional welders. The hand tool was also powerful enough to do the job, which would have been rather difficult for anyone less skilled in its use. Samuel not only had to be swift and precise with the application of the torch, he had to be deft enough not to burn away any of the drill bit itself.
Samuel took a deep breath, watched the drill long enough to pick up on its spinning rhythm, and then leaned in to do his work. The moment his torch, set to max burn, hit debris then molten rock and metal began sluicing away from the drill. There were catch pans affixed just below the cage. James and another roustabout were already switching out a filled pan with an empty one. It was dangerous work, both for Samuel and the roustabouts, and yet it was a process unique to the Rig Halo, made possible by Samuel’s tools and expertise. Any other operation would have to just keep drilling until they’d either forced their way through the planet crust, torn apart all their pikes and juicers, or burned out all their spare engines.
Samuel entered something of a trance, all his focus zeroed in on the spinning metal and stone in front of him. The marine became unaware of the passage of time, his world shrinking down to the light of his torch and the swirling molten fluids splashing away from the drill and into the pans below. It was good to work, to have his finger on the trigger of a torch instead of a gun, and for a time, Samuel was at peace. Try as he might, the marine was still a man of Baen 6, and for all the struggle such an origin guaranteed, there was a begrudging love of labor that ran deep in Grotto culture.
Eventually, the drill bit through the last of the planet’s physical resistance, and the cacophony of noise being emitted by the machinery died down to a low rumble. Moments later the molten rock and metal debris ceased to harass the drill, and Samuel stepped back from it as he shut off his torch. Yanna activated the juicer, and something that looked like a titanic hypodermic needle slid through the center of the still spinning drill. In the next few minutes, Samuel knew that the juicer would plunge into the tightly packed mass of ink-rock granules and start to suck them up.
Ink-rock was a strange and volatile material, functioning at times like a liquid and a solid, giving it physical properties similar to mercury. It tended to bead, even when mixed together with other ink-rock particles under pressure, and so when the particles began to flow up the juicer there was a rattle to it as if millions of glass marbles were flowing up the tube.
Samuel became aware of a cheer from the crew going across the comms channel, and he smiled in spite of his prior dark mood. The job, thus far, had gone smoothly. The marine knew better than to hope that every job could be like this, and in fact realized that most would likely not. Still, the marine walked back up the stairs with a lighter step than he’d come down with.
No combat, no gray areas, just a good play and honest work.
6. THE DAGDA
Dagda Station was a massive structure, one of only a handful this side of mapped space that possessed sufficient resource capacity and rugged design to occupy deep space coordinates. It resided just off the corporate shipping lanes, close enough to do a robust trade in official goods, but well positioned to entertain buyers and sellers from necrospace and the frontier who did not wish to attract corporate attention. While Dagda was owned and operated independently, like most stations outside the civilized core of mapped space, the corporations still had a presence in some capacity.
One of the benefits of corporate citizenship was the station and starport embassy system. As citizens moved through the universe they would always have some manner of lifeline to their parent company. Outside of the nasty business of a trade war, corporate citizens traveling outside the marked territory of their company could remain connected.
It was no different on Dagda, even if its position in the black gave it a dubious, even if well deserved, reputation for generating just as much illegal revenue as it did official revenue. The Bottom Line passed no judgment so long as the flow of commerce was strong, and where there was revenue the corporate interests found ways to mingle with independent elements. Even Grotto Corp, with its reputation for isolationism, maintained an embassy and exchange desk for modest hauls on board Dagda.
As the station’s docking clamps gently shook the Halo, Sura missed the weight of the combo revolver on her hip, the mighty weapon now resting in its holster, slung from a peg on the wall in the cramped quarters she shared with Samuel and Orion. It had been a long time since she’d needed to use it on an enemy, and for that, Sura was thankful but more than a little bored. The last several plays had been uneventful, at least for her.
Narek’s security team, with Samuel’s help, had become a rather effective deterrent when it came to scavengers and claim jumpers. Despite Dar’s best attempts at discretion and assurances of the same from Ackerman and Jemma, word had gotten around about the Osi massacre several years back. These days when the Rig Halo broadcast its ident codes, most prospectors competing for a play would back off without a fight, and claim jumpers would pass them by for a less difficult score when the Rig was already drilling.
Sura’s job on board the ship had transformed into her being somewhere along the lines of Dar’s second. While she commanded no official authority, the crew had begun to treat her like a first mate. She and the captain had grown closer, and part of that made functioning as a de facto first mate feel natural for her. The crew respected her, and she found that, for the first time in all her years, she had something approaching control over her own life. No longer was she drifting from life raft to life raft, daydreaming about the future and waiting for her husband to return home. Her presence meant something on the Rig Halo, and as they hunted for their prizes amid the black of space and on the dirt of alien worlds, she felt good about herself.
Now that their reputation preceded them, for good or ill, the process of boarding stations and selling their haul at the various exchange desks was much less complicated. Clerks in the know were much less inclined to drive the hard bargain. So, too, were the various criminal elements stationside, for while there were technically no firearms allowed on the station other than those carried by the security staffers, this was necrospace after all and small caliber pistols were a reality station side, even if officially banned.
There was a multitude of ways the crew of the Halo could be relieved of their cargo or their lives while docked. However, these days even the bad men of most stations avoided plotting any schemes against the Halo. Not after the Captain had used his not infamous sword to run through several bravo toughs on Andromeda a year ago, long before that Red List raiding party nearly killed the station.