Space Bugs and their Rocks

[Laira Darkhold]

(Phrik Thread)

The verpine are interesting creatures. They looked me over pretty well, I know that they are communicating amongst themselves inaudibly to me, and for some unknown reason the kept calling me Steel Beast. Don’t know why, but I kind of like the sound of it, I might just keep that little epithet. I was trying to get rights to mine one of their asteroids for Phrik, and they were giving me a pretty good run around through bureaucracy, convincing me to loath politics even more. These were supposed to be intelligent creatures anyway. “Listen, I am more than happy to make some agreements and conditions here, I just need to get to work as soon as I can. My client requires this material as soon as possible, and I am on a deadline. Some of his associates will be arriving soon to ensure that I am on schedule and to assist in the mining process. So why don’t we just skip to discussing what you want in return for the mining rights to asteroid A207916?” I hate have to negotiate with creatures that know they have what I want and think I can’t go elsewhere.

They chittered amongst themselves for a moment, “We would require an agreement for your development team to assist us in a project we will be working on. It will consume all of their time for several weeks we believe.” Benji wasn’t gonna like that, but I needed to work on this Phrik.

[member="Verd Skirata"]

 

[Braha Saca]

After recieving the message Braha was seething with rage, his friend had been hurt. Even though he had just gotten back from a training operation, he quickly gathered a couple of things that he would need, and went straight to where his Ship was. He had just had it overhauled by the mechanics and was waiting for an opportunity to make sure it still flew. He hated to have his ship worked on by another person, but when you are as busy as he was, you don't complain. He quickly asked the mechanic on duty if his ship had been finished. He didn't want to have to take his starfighter, but he would if he had to. "Looks like they are just finishing up with it." The young man said smiling. "with the galactic republic military discount, the amount charged will be 34,000 credits." His head immediately dropped in frustration. that was two month's paycheck down the drain, but he signed the transaction and went out to take a look at his baby. Minutes later, he had fired up the engines and was off to the coordinates he had been given to meet a man called Draco.

After several short hyperspace jumps and almost a day and a half later, he was cursing his hyperdrives, and wishing they would go faster, and cursing the fact that space travel wasn't instantaneous, Braha landed his ship. After hearing how Verd had his Arm cut off by a sith, he had even more hatred of the evil beings. He needed to get this ore for his friend, and he needed to get it fast. He remembered to take his Verpine pistols, just to show some diplomacy towards the people, if any. Running out of his sihp, he was directed into the building where [member="Draco Vereen"] was talking to the owners of the asteropid feild. "Draco right?" he asked knowing him by the description of the man. "Having any luck with getting those rights?" he hoped this talking wouldn't go on too much longer, His friend really needed the phrik so he wouldn't have to worry about his arm being sliced off again.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

I looked over the mandalorian man who walked up to me. He must be Verd’s friend cause he knew who I was, and what I was here for. “Yeah, I’ve just got to sell out my engineer for a bit to them. He ain’t gonna like it, but he’ll get paid so it won’t be too hard to convince him. These Verpine are all about squeezing me today though.” I had already paid out a large sum of credits trying to get the mining rights and I wasn’t entirely pleased with being given the run around. “What does Verd need this stuff for anyway? He didn’t say in his message.” I asked the man while the verpine were drawing up the proper contract. When they brought it over to me it was fairly lengthy and written in small print. “Just to clarify this gives me the rights to the whole rock for up to one year, in exchange for the credits to be paid in ten monthly installments, and the use of my engineer for a singular project. Correct?” I asked, knowing they would need another couple of minutes to revise it. It’s not that they weren’t trustworthy; it’s just that they wanted the most for their buck and I didn’t have that kind of cash.

[member="Braha Saca"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Alright, they brought back the partially revised contract, ready for me to sign. I would get the rights to Asteroid A207916, believed to contain the mineral Phrik and we could begin mining the rock as soon as we could get set up over there. Since the rock lacked atmosphere, droids would be forced to do most of the work, but me and the fellow here would be setting up a prefabricated Headquarters. Little more than two rooms, a refresher, and an airlock, that would provide us with some ability to work and oversee the droids during this run. Later down the road, I plan on expanding this into a proper workstation, but for now, that’s all we have got to do. The good thing about not having atmosphere in the shaft was that explosions wouldn’t be as much of a problem for the mining droids and their equipment.

“Alright, everything seems in order. Here you go.” I sign the contract and stand up, shaking both the verpines’ hands. “I look forward to meeting with you later about that project of yours.” I turned and walked out of the building with the man who had come to meet me. “Alright, well we have some work to do while the mining droids start looking for a phrik vein to work. First we got to do a composition scan of the rock though, so let’s get started. By the way, I never caught your name.”

[member="Braha Saca"] [member="Verd Skirata"]

 

[Braha Saca]

"The name's Braha Saca, sorry I zoned out there for a minute." He said collecting his thoughts. "Verd had gone hunting for a sith, probably because of the friendship we have." Braha paused before explaining. "Verd is one of the only people who know that the sith slaughtered all of my family in front of me. I was only five years old. That's when the Mando'ad came and saved me, made me one of their family again. Now more than ever I want to get revenge for what those bastards have done to me and my family." He explained to [member="Draco Vereen"] hoping the man would understand, then started walking with the man to get to work. "Verd wouldn't need this metal so bad if he hadn't taken on such a job, but leave it to him to be an efficient hunter and track down a full sith lord." Braha commented to nobody in particular. "Verd was ambushed by three sith lords, Three of them, I honestly don't see how he got out with his life." Braha paused to take in the man's expression. "The front of his armor was dented and shrapnel riddled and the back side of his armor was all but gone from his Jetpack blowing up." Braha saw the man's face go from shocked to astounded. "And to top it all off, his left arm was lost before he recieved the other injuries for the most part." He would let the man process all that he had just covered, and continued to walk with him aboard the ship that was built for mining, as his just wouldn't suffice.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Three Sith Lords, man. Verd was pretty good, maybe even good enough to occupy one, but three was a death sentence for sure. “Well, I’m happy to help. He’s a good man by my count, and it don’t bother me to do some work for him.” I lead him to my ship the Durasteel Dragon, and started the power up sequence. In the main hold of the old ship there were three mining droids and two construction droids sitting idle, awaiting orders. The very small prefabricated building would be towed via the tractor beam projector from the Nickel One. Once aboard it was only a short flight out to the small asteroid we would be mining on. The rock was small, and surrounded by significantly larger asteroids so it was a dangerous place to attempt to establish an exterior base for very long. “Is your suit hermetically sealed? A lot of our work will be outside, but there are things you could do inside if not. The building we are installing is prefabricated but it will need the atmosphere scrubbers, heating, and power turned on. The building won’t last long, but it will last long enough to collect the ore Verd needs. Once we get that done, we’ll check on the droids and see if they are getting along alright.” I was glad [member="Braha Saca"] was here, because this was a job that kind of required more than one person.

 

[Braha Saca]

Braha listened to the man, giving a "yes" When asked if his suit could handle some short term Eva. Most Mandalorian armor, If not all of it had a minimum two hours oxygen storage, not only that, but the suit had heat and cooling to regulate body temperature, and for this mission he had also managed to get his jetpack to run on liquid oxygen for space flight. not that he would need it, but it was a handy way to get around. He also understood basic electronics, and how to set them up by splicing cables and solving difficulties with them if the need arose. Nodding, he also felt that he had to put more info into the phrik necessity. "Verd needs the Phrik for his arm replacement, and will need it as fast as possible, so you tell me what needs doing, and you got it, so long as we get what we need fast as possible." He looked towards [member="Draco Vereen"], who was steering his ship expertly through the asteroid field. He couldn't stop himself from thinking about Verd's condition.

Verd was on Hapes, under the care of Armand, a close friend of his, who owned a medical clinic. If there was anyone who could stabilize his friend, it would be Armand. He just had to have faith and keep doing what he could for his brother figure, which right now meant getting this phriking phrik.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

So it was more of a, we need it right now gig, huh. I hadn't anticipated that when I planned this little venture, but I guess I could change up how things would work. "Alright then, change of plans. Screw setting up, well go in shifts of working with the droids. First we scan, then we use the laser cannons to blast away some of the rock and random materials, then we use all of the droids to excavate the area until we have all the phrik we need.” As we approached the asteroid I clicked on the active scan. It wouldn’t be precise, but it would give us a general location to start mining quickly. Once the scan had completed I pulled the ship in front of our planned excavation site and blasted away with the laser cannons. A few short minutes later there was a good size crater in the ferrite-titanium rock we were going to be mining. The problem with mining a solid chunk of metal and rock was that was long and arduous under normal circumstances. With the threat of smashing into another asteroid looming over our heads we needed to be in and out while leaving a big enough hole to comeback to later. Once I set the ship down on the asteroid I stood up, “Alright let’s get the droids and the heavy equipment. I think there is an E-Web we might want to use in the gun-case. Grab it and let’s get a move on." I said to [member="Braha Saca"] as I walked for the airlock.

 

[Braha Saca]

Braha liked this man's way of thinking, though it could be considered a little bit unorthodox. "You got it, He said grabbing the e-web cannon that [member="Draco Vereen"] had mentioned from the gun locker. The sizeable chunk that had already been blown out of the asteroid already got his hopes up. He could see why Verd had contacted the man about the operation. "I don't think those Verpine will be too thrilled about these mining techniques, but I gotta say, you are one awesome character!" Braha said enthusiastically. The reduced gravity of the asteroid was welcome especially when carrying the bulky E-Web. Following Draco, he set up the cannon when a proper location was pointed out to him. The man seemed to have an endless array of tricks up his sleeve. sending out a com transmition from his helmet's internal comlink, he asked the man "How exactly are we supposed to go about this?" He hoped the other had the same com setup that he did. He knew that there was Phrikite somewhere near the surface, but he hadn't seen enough of the scan that was performed by the sensors on his temporary partner's ship to know where the deposit would be. Looking at the man and his droids, he almost smiled at how much they seemed to care about his friend, and brother, ALMOST.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

My helm’s comm unit working fine I was able to hear the other man perfectly. “Well there’s Phrikite ore between fire and ten meters from the surface. The droids have mining lasers, but in my experience blaster cannons eat through metal a little easier. We are still going to be at it for a while, think five or six hours because we will have to move the ship at least once while we are here to avoid it being hit by rocks.” I punched the activation for the air lock and stepped onto the surface of the rock, the droids following behind me. “We’ll have the construction droids clear debris and large chunks while the mining droids drill straight down. We set up the e-web after they get a few meters down and use it to heat the metal in the asteroid. It will vaporize some, but the rest will be rapidly cooled and become brittle, and a lot easier to break up.” He did wonder what the verpine would think of him opening up laser cannons into one of their asteroids. I did own the mining rights, but that might be a violation. Oh well, they don’t have a lot of time to come reprimand me today.

The set up was exactly like he explained. The use of a blastercannon, and of course the mining droids laser cutter assisted drills made the mining go by significantly faster than it normally would have. The dense, mostly metal asteroid should have taken much longer to burrow through, but they had removed about three meters of metal and rock in a whole about five meters wide within the first three hours before the ship had to be moved and our air supplies renewed. “Alright we are almost done, I’m thinking we keep plugging away at this and we should be golden. What about yourself?” I asked [member="Braha Saca"]. He was good help and enthusiastic about the work being done. We wouldn’t be leaving with a whole lot of phrik, but it should be enough for the outer plating of a cybernetic arm.

 

[Braha Saca]

Braha had to go back to the ship every two hours to change his air storage tank for his mask, and they had made an immense amount of downward progress. The Phrik ore was definately in sight, and now all they had to do was uncover a little more of the ore and they would be done with the asteroid for the day. He couldn't believe it had taken this long, but knowing the strength of the lightweight metal made the trip and time spent worthwhile. He took a shift on the E-web and continued blasting away at the edges of the ore. when he saw about a square meter's worth of the metal, he stopped firing and let the droids go to work on the existing deposit of ore. This was the end of a long day's swork, and It was finally paying off. He answered the question with another, "Do you think we will have enough in a few minutes to make that arm extremely durable?" He shrugged, "If so, then We will be having a really nice day." He thought of Verd and how much pain the man must be in. The thought of all the injuries the Mandalorian had endured while getting away was incredible, and the fact that his friend had stolen a speeder, and managed to get back to his ship, was yet again another miracle. Verd had to be one of if not the luckiest of all people in the galaxy. He watched as the mining droids started to harvest the ore that was present, and for the first time in days, his body's tension was relinqueshed. He felt his muscles loosen up and knew Verd would be happy with what had been accomplished. "Verd isn't in much of a position to do much, but I'll make sure you get a thank you card and a nice transaction reflecting the cost of the Phrikite you are getting for him." Braha actually smiled this time after the combined efforts of the droids managed to culminate an almost acceptable amount of the ore.This was all thanks to [member="Draco Vereen"].