Life of a Miner (Privateer Tales Shorts Book 1)

by Jamie McFarlane

  "I'm glad you're taking this to heart, Priloe. I'd hate to lose you. There are two big differences between those simulations and real life, though," Silver said. "Care to guess what they are?"

  Priloe shook his head, still depressed.

  "First, your friends and family always have your back, just like you have theirs. If you see someone doing something unsafe, speak up."

  Priloe nodded. It seemed a reasonable point.

  Silver continued, "Second, your AI looks for dangerous situations. The simulations aren't realistic in that all the issues you ran into today would have been predicted by your AI and many could have been avoided. Those that were unavoidable would have been diagnosed and solutions presented."

  "That's something, at least." Her words made him feel some better and he helped Milenette up into his arms, taking just as much comfort from his little sister's warmth.

  "Yes. Now get some sleep, because tomorrow you fly."

  Never Judge a Book

  Priloe hadn't thought he'd be able to sleep, but no sooner had he closed his eyes, his alarm rang, dragging him awake.

  "Time to get up, Mouse." He sprang from the bunk and sat back next to his sister, rolling her over gently. "I've a big day."

  Twenty minutes later, after juice and meal bars, they made their way to the bridge, where Silver was already up. Priloe slid into the engineering station he'd occupied most of the trip.

  "Front and center today, Priloe," Silver corrected as Milenette ran up to greet her. She accepted a hug with a smile and brushed the back of her hand along the little girl's cheek. "If you're going to sail, you need to be in a pilot's chair."

  Priloe didn't need any prompting and leapt out of his seat to make his way into the port-side pilot's chair. The seat adjusted to his smaller body by raising the seat pan and squeezing the sides in.

  Initiate ore-sled training simulation, Silver requested. The ship's AI processed the command and promptly projected holographic images around his seat to provide a close approximation of an ore-sled. His own AI utilized the HUD on his suit to further the depth of the experience.

  Priloe looked around the cockpit of the General Astral T120 ore-sled. Twin blue vid-screens glowed against the forward bulkhead. Beneath his left hand a T-Handled lever emerged from his chair's armrest. The vid screens jumped to life, displaying his hand grasping the virtual lever and moving it back and forth on the port-side screen. On the starboard screen, an ore-sled surged ahead and slowed down as it flew in the middle of a group of similar sleds.

  "Stay with your squadron," the AI instructed.

  The small group of sleds accelerated forward, virtual red arrows stretched backwards from each sled, growing in size. Priloe pushed forward on the handle, shrinking the red arrows as they disappeared into the tails of the sleds. As he continued, green arrows pointing in the opposite direction grew from the sleds. He initially ignored the information and caught up. Unfortunately, he had such a head of steam he ran over the top of the sled in front of him. As he pulled back on the handle he feathered the control, forward and back, until the arrows disappeared entirely.

  For several minutes, Priloe chased the squadron. He quickly realized the length and direction of the arrows were relative to his speed and direction when compared to his target's. It didn't take him long to develop a feel for the differences.

  "That's good, Priloe." Silver stepped into his field of view, standing atop one of the sled's doors. He'd become so engrossed in the exercise that her presence was jarring. "Would you like to guess what the arrows represent?"

  "How much faster the other ships are going?"

  "That's your delta-v. To fly in formation, you need to achieve zero delta-v. It becomes more difficult when you're controlling multiple vectors, but you'll discover that soon enough. Any questions so far?" she asked.

  Priloe thought about what she'd explained and wrinkled his forehead. "How can there only be one delta-v if there are multiple vectors."

  "At any one point in time, without any additional acceleration, you are moving on a single vector. Same is true with every other single object that exists. The delta-v is that perfect acceleration in exactly the right direction that causes you to head exactly the same direction at the same speed," Silver explained.

  "Sounds hard."

  "It's a skill you've been practicing your entire life, Priloe."

  "No way."

  Pause simulation, Silver requested. "Millie, would you be a dear? Would you run from your brother? Now Priloe, I'd like you to gently tag your sister and then come back and talk to me."

  Milenette looked at Priloe and a mischievous grin popped onto her face as she screamed and ran from her chair, sprinting as fast as her chubby little legs would carry her. Priloe allowed her a few seconds and took off after her, catching her in the hallway. He gently lifted her from the ground, then tickled her all the way back, finally presenting his prize to Silver.

  "I guess I never thought of it that way," Priloe said. "Did you tell my AI to display the red and green delta-v tell-tales behind Milenette?"

  "Wouldn't be much of a teacher if I missed an opportunity like that. Now get back to work. We're only six hours from Descartes and if you keep at it, I might let you sail Sterra's Gift."

  Priloe needed no further prompting. As he worked, the simulations became steadily more difficult, first adding the flight stick and finally the variations on the sticks. As the hours quickly ticked away, he realized that while he could certainly maneuver an ore-sled, it would take him hundreds of hours to gain any level of mastery with the machine.

  It was well into the second part of the day when Sterra's Gift's engines spooled down, a clunky shifting of gravity that caused his stomach to lurch as they finally dropped from hard burn. The simulation he'd been working on cut off. Gracefully, Sterra's Gift tumbled one hundred eighty degrees.

  "Feels funny, no more backwards," Milenette complained. Priloe knew what she was saying was merely the effect of having spent the last ninety or so hours decelerating, which, after all is just accelerating in the opposite direction of your initial heading.

  "We're actually going forward, mouse," Priloe explained pointing at the slowly growing field of rocks that stretched as far as his eye could make out.

  "This will help," Silver said and pressed her throttle control forward, gently pushing them back into their seats for a few seconds. "You're right, of course, Priloe, but try telling that to your body when you don't have many hours in space."

  He agreed. He had been feeling the same thing Milenette was, but wanted to make sure Silver knew he knew better.

  "No matter where you live, Priloe, there's no better feeling than coming home. Welcome to Descartes," she said. "Would you like to run us in?"

  "Yes." Priloe jumped at the idea. "How? Where?" He had no idea where they were going.

  Display navigation path to Descartes Co-Op. Silver requested. A blue line stretched out in front of the ship, a projection of his HUD.

  "Do what you've been doing all day and we'll make it just fine," Silver said. Her voice was calm and reassuring. Priloe felt that she might be displaying more serenity than she felt, but he was so thrilled to have the opportunity, he wasn't about to question it.

  A physical throttle handle and flight stick emerged from his pilot's chair and the palms of his hands broke into a sweat as he grabbed on. He gently adjusted the throttle and was surprised by the large ship's immediate response.

  He held himself rigid in the pilot's chair, unable to believe she was actually giving him controls. One wrong move could kill them all. It was nuts. He'd certainly wrecked the ore-sleds enough times, but now he was playing for keeps.

  "Nice and easy," Silver soothed as they approached the first in a series of turns. "You're tense, you need to relax, no different than the sled simulation. You need to have faith in your training."

  Priloe over-adjusted as he entered the turn and then pushed it back too hard. The big ship was nowhere near as responsive as the
ore-sled. He'd have to make smaller adjustments and wait for the ship to respond and even predict the adjustments. By the third maneuver, he'd smoothed out the turn, only over-shooting slightly and bringing it back into line. He'd purposefully bled off much of his speed so he'd have more time to adjust. He dared a glance at Silver who seemed to be letting him figure things out.

  "Almost there," she said. "Can you see the Co-Op?"

  "Uh," Priloe's eyes followed the navigation path to its terminus. "Yes. I see it!"

  "Bring us in, nice and slow."

  As he continued, his tunnel vision diminished and he recognized the red and green tell-tales on the multitude of objects in his visual range. As he focused on an object, the tell-tales became more prominent, disappearing as he looked away.

  At the end of the road, a miniscule docking bay appeared in the side of the shoe-shaped rock. "We'll never fit!" he exclaimed as he pulled back, slowing the ship to what felt like a crawl.

  "Perhaps for another day, then?" Silver asked.

  "Yes. Please."

  Silver re-took control of the ship and throttled up, pressing Priloe back into his seat. The speed at which she approached seemed insane. The asteroid grew in the armored-glass and just as he thought it couldn't get any worse, she swung the bow of the ship around and slid into the docking bay, with thrusters alight. Priloe had hands on his head as he watched the tell-tales on the station grow and shrink irrationally. At the last moment, they all zeroed out and he looked around, fully expecting to hear the sound of the ship crunching into the rock they'd insanely approached.

  "And, we're down," Silver said, still holding Milenette in her lap.

  "Again, again," Milenette clapped.

  "You're crazy," Priloe whispered.

  "Final lesson for the day. Never judge a book..."

  Scuttled

  "Clean up those lines and we'll head in. It looks like you have a nest of those lizards you've been telling us about," Big Pete said to Priloe.

  Priloe looked down at the ore he was working on and chuckled. The pile looked exactly like a Blue Lagarto nest back on Grünholz, with lizard tails sticking out at odd angles. Many shovel trails had scattered the rock out away from the main pile. "Roger that, Pete. I'm on it," he crisply said into his comm, like Pete had trained him. He wasn't sure why people found Pete difficult to work with. Having spent the last six stans with bullies, Pete was a breeze. Sure, he could get testy, but all you really needed to do was listen. Pete always told you what you needed, if not always with an abundance of words.

  For twenty minutes, Priloe dressed the pile that sat atop the Co-Op rock. This particular pile belonged to the Licht family. Pete had been pulling ore from it all morning, feeding the refinery and stacking iron ingots in a new, secure storage building. According to Pete, he and the not-so-friendly Dave Muir had constructed the building while Silver sailed to Léger Nuage for supplies.

  "What do you do with all of those ingots?" Priloe asked when he was satisfied the pile was to the standard Pete had shown him.

  "Generally, they get sold. It's more labor for us to fire the ore into ingots, but it allows us to remove the impurities and reduces shipping costs. Most of the expense of iron is extracting it from its natural resting place - in this case - an asteroid. A close second is moving iron to its destination. Around here, an ingot is sixty percent purer than ore. That means we're leaving a lot of material behind when we ship it," Pete explained patiently.

  "Seems like you need a lot of money to get started as a miner," Priloe said, sighing. Naively, he'd hoped this was a possible future for him.

  "Owning and operating a claim is expensive," Pete agreed. Priloe knew it was the end of the conversation. He'd yet to figure out what exactly caused Big Pete to get chatty. There was a fine line in there somewhere.

  He joined Pete as they both bounded across the top of the station to the central shaft leading to the heart of the emerging station. According to Silver, eight months ago this asteroid had been sitting in a completely different place in the belt, minding its own business. Liam and Nick had come along and pushed it into an optimal position right between their claims. He found it hard to reconcile his knowledge of asteroids with the spacious, bright white common room he entered. It had a perfectly flat floor and an ambient temperature of twenty degrees.

  "Perfect timing," Silver announced as he and Pete entered the room.

  Priloe's internal warning systems had been firing as they walked down the hallway and now he knew why. The common room was filled with the bustle of visitors.

  "Riloe, I have a new friend." Milenette ran up to him, dragging a girl about her age giggling along behind. "Her name is Wilma."

  Priloe was surprised that, for once, his AI didn't show a correction for Milenette's poor pronunciation. "I see that," Priloe answered as the two girls continued on. As he scanned the room, he found two boys about his age, both looking intently at him. Internally, he knew a first meeting was critical. No matter what, he could not afford to show weakness.

  "Come on over," Silver said, catching Priloe's eye. "Meet our closest neighbors and friends, the Licht's."

  "Get over here, boys." A woman, who Priloe hadn't met and who was best described as matronly, was clearly not to be trifled with. The twin boys she had motioned to dropped any pretense of independence and hustled to her side.

  Priloe approached the foursome with his hand out, doing his best not to acknowledge the tension caused by the boy's mother. "Hi, I'm Priloe."

  "Ulran." The first boy shook his hand.

  "I'm Merley. The better looking one," Merley replied.

  "Glad to meet you," Priloe answered, not able to tell a difference between them.

  "And I'm Annalise," the matronly woman replied. "Food's on the table. Let's eat while it's warm."

  Priloe looked over to the large, central table, filled with bowls of steaming noodles and a red sauce. He'd missed the prepared meals from Celina's Diner, as the Hoffens were a strictly meal-bar-only family. The fact was, anything was an improvement over living on the streets.

  "So, is it really true? Were you living in the air circulation vents of Léger Nuage?" Merley asked.

  "Merley!" Annalise corrected, scandalized.

  "What? It's awesome. I just wanted to know what it was like," he said.

  Priloe looked from Annalise to Merley. Apparently, it was a touchy subject. For him, it had been about survival and he felt nothing but relief. "Vents are dusty. And really, we spent more time in an abandoned podball court than anywhere."

  "Merley and I started excavation on the podball court here," Ulran said. "Big Pete said it was okay as long as we used Liam and Nick's plans for excavation. He's even letting us take a standard laborer's share of the iron once it gets delivered."

  "Wow. That sounds like a lot of money," Priloe answered.

  "It is. Although out here, about the only thing to spend credits on is IP," Ulran said.

  "IP?" Priloe asked. As he did, his AI flashed up the definition – Intellectual Property, referring to patterns for replicator parts, music, vids, et. al.

  The Licht boys waited, anticipating the AI's intervention.

  "We're building an ore-sled," Ulran said. "Dad gave us an old frame. We're buying the IP for the parts as we make credits. Some of our iron went to Léger Nuage with Silver, so we actually got enough to replicate the top thruster."

  "How much more do you have to go?" Priloe asked.

  "We won't replicate anything until we can do it all. And we don't have any way to make armored glass," Ulran said.

  "Well, there's one way," Merley said and leaned into the table so as not to be overheard by the adults.

  Priloe couldn't help but follow suit and leaned in to hear what the more talkative twin had to say.

  "What?" Priloe asked, playing the straight man.

  "We could salvage it," Merley said.

  Ulran glared at his brother. "We talked about it. Dad said we weren't to go over there."

  "That
was before Loose Nuts kicked Oberrhein's butts," Merley said.

  "I don't think that's the way he'd see it."

  "Well, don't go asking him. I'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission on this. And, you'd rather have your sled working, wouldn't you?"

  "Yes. Don't be a tewaddle," Ulran said and made a grab for sensitive skin on his brother's chest. The move was countered and the two became entwined in a wrestling match on the floor.

  "Boys, knock it off," Annalise warned from the other end of the table. "Pete would like to get Priloe some sled hours in today, picking up material from home."

  "Sweet!" Merley popped up from atop his brother. "Which sled, Pete?"

  "Take the big one. You've a lot of material to pick up," he said.

  "Roger that," Merley said. Priloe smiled. He recognized the snappy reply that Pete preferred. "Let's grab bars and roll. We've got a lot of work to do."

  "Take it nice and slow, boys," Pete said. "No accidents today."

  "Am I really sailing that?" Priloe asked as they approached the largest sled in a line of seven in the adjacent docking bay to where Sterra's Gift sat.

  "First, for something this small, we call it flying. I'm not sure why - we just do. Second, you sailed Sterra's Gift and this is a gazillion times smaller than she is," Merley said. "I know what Pete said. But let me take the stick first. I want to show you what I was talking about, okay?"

  "Yeah, sure. Of course," Priloe agreed, knowing he had little choice in the matter.

  The boys easily fit in the front of the extended cab which was designed to carry six full-sized spacers. Merley sat behind the controls and pulled the harness over his shoulders.

  "Strap in," Ulran warned as he urged Priloe into the center seat between him and his brother.

  Priloe had only managed to grab the straps when Merley launched the sled from the docking bay, taking off at what felt like reckless speed. "If they think you're flying, you'll get an earful for this." He chuckled as he sped away from the rock.