Heavy Mining Time

[Taeli Raaf]

It had been awhile since she had personally come to the Aurora Industries operations on Bal'demnic, but they seemed to be in still working order and producing plenty of material. Taeli smiled as she looked outside from the operations center, the lines of material flowing out of the mine.

"So everything is running smoothly?" she asked, looking over at the foreman who was in charge here. Foreman Scoli was a formidable looking Zabrak who had been mining for over twenty years before being picked up in one of Jaxson's hiring sprees.

"Running as smoothly as can be, ma'am," the Zabrak replied gruffly. "Any reason for your trip out to here?"

"The Harbinger project is going into its next phase and we need a larger shipment of cortosis for it," she replied. "I wanted to oversee things, get to know the place."

"We will need to establish a second mine then," Scoli said, walking over to a survey map. "Good thing, we had an idea where to make a new one."

 

[Taeli Raaf]

"We've marked the location as Site Charlie," Scoli was explaining while Taeli took a sip of her tea. "We originally were going to try a Site Beta, but further surveys showed that the cortosis identified there was not as large a node as we had hoped. Charlie has a significant amount, but is going to require some digging."

"That's fine," Taeli said. "The heavy mining equipment is here already from the excavation from a few months back is still here so no need to move equipment from elsewhere."

"Indeed, ma'am," Scoli replied, circling the area. "My men here will keep working, and I'll gather a crew up to start the next mine."

"I'll accompany and help where I can," Taeli said with a smile. She wasn't above getting down and dirty when it came to the company. It was something that her employees respected about her, the fact she helped with the work and even invented stuff herself.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

Cracking her neck, Taeli strapped a pair of goggles on as the team she was being transported with touched down at the new dig site. No laser mining equipment, cortosis was unable to be mined that way after all, they would need to do it bluntly. Grabbing a pair of dampening gloves, she also knew that touching pure unrefined cortosis would generally kill the person. For whatever reason, it had a charge in it to begin with.

"Ready boss?" one of the miners said.

"Of course," she said, getting up and picking up a hydraulic jack with the Force. Placing a breathing mask over her face, she followed them out of the transport into a hectic work zone. The whirl of the drills and the excavators filled the air, mountains of dirt already piling up.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

"So tell me more about the process and risks?" she asked one of the miners as the jack she was using pounded away at the wall of the beginning mine. "I know mining cortosis is not the easiest thing."

"Not at all, ma'am," the miner replied, his voice garbled by his breathing mask. "Cortosis mining is excessively dangerous. Raw cortosis will kill a man if they touch it. Even the dust will make one sick in the end. Hair falls out, we get sick easier ... eventually you die. Dust clogs the pistons of the jacks too, the rock blunts the head so have to switch eventually."

"Lethane gas pockets too," another miner chimed out. "If you aren't careful, you hit one of those it reacts with air, and boom."

"Why do you ask boss?" the first miner asked as the chink of jacks kept going.

"I'm thinking we need to improve the conditions for you all," Taeli replied. A general murmuring broke out, but she only smiled behind her mask as she kept working.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

It was truly monotonous work, Taeli realized after four hours of pounding away at the rock that contained the cortosis. It seemed to be harder to mine than phrik, probably because of the energy resistant properties of the material. She had to stop twice to clean out the pistons in the jack, otherwise the motor would have blown.

Two other miners had to stop because of the motors blowing out and had to go get new ones. Taeli was making a mental note of everything here, thinking brand new equipment was needed for the men, new safety equipment as well as they had heard a boom from a lethane pocket getting punctured.

Humming a tune to herself, she smiled as some of the metal laced rock fell to the ground and she hefted into a nearby tram cart to be taken to be processed into a usable form.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

After another two hours of just mindless pounding away at the stone, she had spent most of it thinking up the final designs for the project this stuff was for and humming, Taeli had excused herself from the work to go to the command center for the mine to make a call. Sitting at the holo-projector, she had only removed her goggles so a layer of mine dust and sweat was everywhere on her face except around her nose mouth and eyes.

"I want the miners' pay doubled and brand new equipment made for them that can get around the limitations of the current jacks," she said, talking with Jaxson. "After going through that experience for several hours, I can say they deserve more from us."

"I will get right on that, Taeli," Jaxson said, scribbling a note down on his datapad. "We also received the final modifications you want done to the Reavers. I have to say, we're going to need to dig through archives to get the proper data."

"That's fine, there should be plenty," she said, leaning back and taking a sip of water. "Has the first shipment of cortosis arrived at the facility on Saleucami yet?"

"It's enroute," Jaxson said, checking his datapad. "Not the largest shipment, but it should be enough to get on with production. I'll send you progress reports in the meantime."

 

[Taeli Raaf]

With her conversation done, Taeli decided to go check out the processing operation to see how cortosis was refined enough to be usable in operations. She knew it involved eliminating the charge in the metal so touching the metal wouldn't kill someone and one had to get rid of the actual stone too.

It was impressive to watch, seeing the metal going through de-ionization fields and such to eliminate the charge while the rock was cleared away by precise seismic vibrations. It would leave the metal untouched for further processing and the rock would be diverted away to be used in something else, whether it be for building or just put back in a hole somewhere.

"It's impressive, isn't it boss?" Foreman Scoli said, coming up next to Taeli. "The metal gets placed in containers that get shipped to the droid facilities to get smelted down into what it needs to be and either further refined with alloys or left as pure."

"We're going to be going with pure this time," she said. "Two layer armor design, the cortosis plates are molded to fit over the other plates. Sort of like the old CB-3 battle droids."

 

[Taeli Raaf]

"I don't need to know what's it being used for, boss," the Zabrak said. "My job is to see you and the other inventors get the materials. I heard what you told Jaxson to do ... I appreciate you looking out for my boys. It's a risky business and not many actually take the time to see that risk first hand."

"Of course, I never want my workers to do something that I myself won't do," Taeli replied, heading back towards the speeder that was designated to them back to the landing bay. "I want my employees to know that, Scoli. That's why I'm promoting you to run all Aurora mining operations on Bal'demnic. You'll have leeway to assign who you want to oversee the individual mines, but you're in charge overall."

She took some small pleasure in the new Overseer's shock, but he had come through on his end. Him and his workers were working diligently to provide the cortosis needed for Aurora projects, it was only fair that they get something out of it.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, holding the door open for her. "I'll make sure things keep working properly here. Did you want to see anything else for the operation?"

"Just want to see the loading process and make sure the ships carrying our cargo are assigned properly," she said.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

After seeing the latest load of cortosis getting loaded onto waiting transports to the Saleucami system, Taeli had gone back to the mine and helped out some more. The miners had heard of what her orders had been and a renewed vigor was among them. She also decided, right there and then, that they would find a cure for cortosis dust poisoning. Another job for the bio-engineering department.

The whine of drills continued, some men cursed as a stone fell on a foot or a jack started to act up. Still, there was a charm in the job ... even if it was mindless work that had so many risks.

"Thank you, ma'am," the miner she had been working with before said, throwing a large chunk of rock into a cart.

"It was nothing, really, I just want my people to be happy," she responded, using the Force to crack the area she had been working on so a cascade of stones fell to her feet. Using the Force, she deposited all of them into the cart.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

It had been an educational experience, and now she was all refreshed and ready to go oversee everything else that needed done. Jaxson would take care of the droid project, but she had another goal in mind. A trip to Obroa-Skai was called for to gain information. She hadn't been to an actual library world in a long time and she had some time to kill before linking up with Connor again.

The cortosis was loaded up and bound for Saleucami, at least the current batch, and there it would be made to help design Aurora's newest droid that was descended from the Harbinger line.