Riza wore the green and white research overalls that she usually did, as was assigned by Kythera. The blonde, medium length locs that covered the front third of her head with two locs that drooped down at either side of her face transitioned into a poofy brown afro that took up the remaining two thirds of the back of her head. The blonde was natural, the brow was dye.
“You should’ve known what the outcome was gonna be, boss.” Pilo grinned as the team rode the elevator down the oceanic mine shaft. “You’re always picking the losing bet.”
“You know the Captain,” Duncan grinned, “Always the outlier.”
“Team Veyn is next up, you all just don’t see it yet.” She sighed as the steel of the elevator grinded above her head.
“Third place is a step backwards if you ask me,” Duncan shrugged.
“Still second place in the overall championship, 6 points behind. We just need two wins and the ‘greatest pilot in the universe’ will fall off her high horse.”
“S-tier hater,” Pilo smiled.
The elevator whirred to a stop, and the doors that appeared centuries old slowly clanked apart to reveal the long, cave-like walkway to the mines. Damp and leaky, the muddy floors splashed with each step, and the steel ceiling dripped as a constant reminder of the immense ocean that was always prepared to crush them.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” Riza glanced at Violet.
“We need to check the gains of shafts B-four and H-three for any signs of abstract materials, and we need to make sure the shaft E-seven has been sealed after the breach expanded.”
“What's the order of affairs, Boss?”
“Well, it’s a lighter load than usual, so I don’t mind taking it slow. Duncan and I will check on the seal whilst you and Violet head to H-three. We’ll regroup at B-four and call it a day from there, yeah?”
“Copy that,” They confirmed in unison.
The KYTHERA mines of Prion-A were dedicated to the extraction of a particular mineral. Somewhat new to the field of geology, the companies valuation primarily came from the development of armour technologies. Kythera was a rather secretive corporation, even towards its employees, so the best that most of their staff could do was speculate what the Executives' intentions were with this new field of research.
The company was a publicly traded entity that had a large influence over the politics of various systems as a result of its increasing investment. The strange thing about Kythera was that it hadn’t sold a product or service to the public, and it never had the intention of doing so either. It had one of, if not the largest, investor profile in the galaxy, and it was hard to grasp why that was.
It spent a fortune acquiring the most talented scientists from all disciplines and systems. Paid miners from the inner rim a much higher fee than most other corporations and acquired all sorts of permits for various research operations in different star systems.
Prion-A wasn’t anything special as far as Riza was concerned, and their assignment here was indefinite, although unlikely to last longer than another 6 months. Kythera preferred rotating out supervision amongst projects, likely to preserve secrecy but also to maintain morale among the researchers- it treated its scientists well, and they were among the highest paid in the business. The only companies that could consider matching salaries would be MOTO Augmentations and ATUM Technologies, but having worked at Atum after graduation, Kythera was the best experience by a long shot.
At the moment, compact energy generation was the new frontier that all the major scientific organisations were racing towards. Anti-gravity tech has been one of the most impactful developments in the galaxy, but it stagnated hard over the past one hundred years because of the immense amounts of energy a single leap required. Any company that could achieve a compact system with a reduced energy demand would instantly dominate the multi-trillion unit industry– possibly becoming the first quadrillion unit corpo.
The affairs of corporations weren’t really Riza’s concern for the most part, she took the job because it paid well, and if she wanted to eventually uncover the secrets of the rift that bought her here, she’d need to fund her own research task. In the meantime, she could use their resources to conduct minor tests on occasion, but it was difficult to identify any temporal or spacial anomalies since, well, anomalies didn’t happen often. It almost felt like a pipe dream she constantly held onto, one that she’d contemplated giving up on many times throughout her life but could never shake.
“Do you want to do the honours, Captain?” Duncan turned to Riza as they arrived at the mine shaft E-seven.
“Sure, it’s been a while since I’ve plugged in.” She responded.
They both dropped the large backpacks and hard cases they’d been hauling to the ground before Duncan began opening each case, revealing two large drones that appeared to have a giant hole in the front of them.
“Lidar, or infrared?” Duncan asked.
“Lidar.”
“Copy that.”
Riza removed a hand-sized, disk-shaped element from one of the hard cases and placed it against her temple, where there were two small metal plates, each the size of a fingernails that connected to her Brain-Computer Interface. Everyone on the crew had one of these panels, in fact, most people in the galaxy had one whether they were upper or middle class- the majority of miners didnt, however, as residents of the inner rim often couldn’t afford high-spec augmentations and had to settle with crude technologies that were a couple of decades out of date.
_AUGMENTATION DETECTED_
_KYTHERA DRONE SC-14H
_INSTALLING DEPENDENCIES…
Riza could somewhat feel the subtle hum of the chip in her brain as it engaged with the technology, and the small lines of text appeared at the bottom of her vision. A shift in vibrations that was much too noticeable to be comfortable anytime she used External Augs. Her body had become more familiar with changes in its electromagnetic state since she began using the resequencer she developed.
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_DEPENDENCIES INSTALLED…
_ENGAGING…
“Seems like we’re online,” Duncan said as he watched the drone carefully. The large vehicle slowly began to hum as it rose on its four, claw-like legs.
Riza’s eyes glossed over, shifting to a white hue as though her pupils had suddenly vanished, and her vision shifted to a wireframe-esque perspective that allowed her to see the entire layout of the mines as if there were no walls to obstruct her view.
“Mmm,” She muttered as the frequencies rose. She did her best to subdue the subtle migraine that came anytime she’d connect to E-Augs. “All good,” She confirmed as she familiarised herself with the newfound perspective.
_CAMERA ONLINE
_MOTOR FUNCTIONS ONLINE
_CLAWS ONLINE
_LIDAR ONLINE
_BATTERY 98%
_DRONE SC-14H ONLINE_
External Augs were a bit of a trip to get familiarised with each time they connected, at least, it was for Riza. It felt as though an extension of the body had just been connected that she couldn’t quite feel, but could perceive- like people’s description of ghost limbs from the days before Augs. The sudden collapse of her usual vision and its replacement with the lidar view was a beautifully terrifying mesh of biology and tech.
She concentrated on the drone until she felt comfortable in her connection. The drone began moving towards the walls of the mine shaft at her desire to move there. Not quite a thought, but a subconscious intention equivalent to walking or talking.
“Heading to the site,” She confirmed as Duncan viewed the monitor in his hands closely.
The drone crawled its way up the walls of the mine shaft, each claw burying itself deep into the crystalline rock sediment before taking its next step. As it made its way to the roof of the mine, there was a large, nearly human-sized hole that Riza moved towards. It was the sight of repairs conducted by a series of repair drones over the last month.
The sight was the source of a large leak, seemingly an entrance from the ocean that slowly filled before the sedimentary rock could no longer contain the pressure from the sea above and began seeping down the walls of E-seven. The repairs took a few days, and the crew that managed it supposedly ran into a few snags along the way, but managed to do the best job they could.
“Entering the site,”
As the drone entered the repair site, Riza could see the various small tunnels dug by the drones so they could position themselves within the rock to undergo the repairs. Various tunnelways and ledges surrounded what seemed like a large cork relative to the rest of the site that seemed to literally ‘plug’ the issue.
From what she could see, it maintained the structural integrity of its surroundings rather well and held with no issues as far as she could tell with the lidar. No unfilled crevices or leaks remained, and it appeared to be holding stable.
“Everything seems good, let’s check the pressure.”
“Copy,”
_PRESSURE SENSOR ONLINE_
_INTERNAL READING: 653 kPa
_EXTERNAL READING: 61.6 MPa
Riza took a good look at the pressure readings whilst moving the drone around the repair site to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. By all accounts, the repair job looked great, and the repair team could be given the go-ahead to fill the site. That would solidify the structure and its surroundings, which would then mean the mine shaft could be reopened for crews to continue operations.
“Everything in order?” A third voice appeared beside Riza, although she couldn’t see him, she was familiar with the voice. It was Thabz, the Mine Overseer, who directed the leadership of all the mine shafts and their crew. “Please say it looks good.” He sighed, “I’ve had operations on my ass all week, and they really don’t want me to bring them bad news.”
“Operations has got a hand up all our asses.” Duncan chuckled, “We’ve been getting reminded about all the lawsuits that might be filed if this breach isn’t repaired properly.”
“No lawsuits on my watch,” Riza said as she did one last surveillance of the area, “Last thing I need is The Atlas coming in and doing their own bullshit checks.”
“The last thing any of us needs is The Atlas showing up.” Thabz sighed.
The Atlas was the governing federation of the entire galaxy. It is the most dominant force across every star system, both in its political influence and military strength, but with the dominant resources across all domains, such as legal, research and technology, as well as anything else one might imagine.
Corporations like Kythera are the most dominant in the industry, with valuations of hundreds of trillions of Units. But The Atlas wasn’t a corporation. Its valuation was incalculable with the sheer scale and control over the galaxy that it had- if The Atlas had the intention, it could shut down a mega-corporation like Kythera overnight. But that likely wouldn’t happen, not because of the resources required, but because the relationships between corporations and The Atlas were stronger than ever.
“No Atlas needed,” Riza said as she recalled the drone. “Everything is in order here, the repair team has my confirmation to seal the repair site.”
“Oh, thank god,” Thabz sighed in comfort, “When ya’ll first arrived and delayed the repairs twice, I was worried you was just a crew of troublemakers. But, I watched closely and saw you really wanted the job done right,”
“That’s Captain Riza for you,” Duncan said as he began packing away his monitor, “No shortcuts.”
The Drone made its way out of the repair site and crawled its way down the walls and back to its starting position.
“I appreciate that.” Thabz nodded, “Not many Supervisors give a shit about my miners since most of them be from the inner rim.”
_DISENGAGING…
“Probably because I’m from the inner rim,” Riza said as her sight returned and the drone slowly powered down.
_CAMERA OFFLINE
_MOTOR FUNCTIONS OFFLINE
_CLAWS OFFLINE
_LIDAR OFFLINE
_BATTERY 72%
_DRONE SC-14H OFFLINE_
_1 CHIP UPGRADE AVAILABLE
“Serious?” He exclaimed in shock. “I wouldn’t guess, I don’t hear accent at all.”
“I went to a rather fancy university.” She shrugged. “The accents faded away.”
“This might be weird to ask, but would you care coming down to camps and giving bit of talk to the children?” He scratched the back of his head.
“Me? Why?” She raised an eyebrow.
“I just think it could be good for them to see there’s hope… I guess. I doubt they ever seen one of us in supervising role.”
“Uhh,” Riza hesitated, unsure of why it made her uncomfortable. “Sure… Just, give me some time to let it settle.”
“Great!” A large grin peeled across Thabz’s face with more enthusiasm than she’d seen from him over the past six months.
“There was something else you mentioned to me the other day,” Duncan added to the conversation. “Something about payment?”
“Oh, that right,” He snapped his fingers, “I guess it’s just delay or banking issue, but my miners not received their months payment yet. It two days overdue, they say they not mind, but some be concerned.”
“I’ll get in touch with Operations as soon as we get back to the Skipper,”
“Thanks, Riza. I know I asked for lot, so sorry if I overstep.”
“Don’t worry about it,” She put a hand on his shoulder. “These are important, so I’ll treat them as such, yeah?”
Thabz nodded, smiling in return, before he seemed frazzled by another issue. “Crap! I need to head to B-five for meeting.” He immediately scurried towards the elevators, “Thanks again, Cap!”
Riza waved her goodbye as she packed the Drone claws into the hard case beside her feet and checked her surroundings one last time.
“That everything?” She asked Duncan.
“That’s that.”
“Alright, let’s get a move on.”
