Star Force: Canderous (SF16) Page 3

  It took more than a month to get the camp organized and functional, with two mining sites, three factories, a foodstuff production facility, and a power generator constructed from the cargo crates they brought with them. Davis’s orders gave them permission to colonize the island but nothing beyond that, for the time being, but his choice of sites had been deliberate. Star Force had pulled an extensive survey of the island’s natural resources that told Jules that there were large deposits of valuable metals beneath the surface, along with a host of other compounds that would have been unusually rare back on Earth. He had to keep reminding himself that the rules here were different, and while all the convenient deposits on Earth had been exploited years ago Corneria was virgin, so access would and should be easier.

  The two mining sites he established were several kilometers away from base camp and required housing facilities of their own connected via several recently carved out dirt roads that were currently in the process of being paved. One was focusing on a rich iron deposit while the other was digging out a vein of gold that Jules intended to sell on the Corneria market to supplement his funding.

  The factories were just barely operational and using the first shipments of iron to begin constructing various alloys of steel to start the construction of permanent facilities. Most of the resources needed for the construction material he had to buy from Star Force on site, but the iron at least he could produce himself and as his mining infrastructure gradually increased he hoped to be able to add more and more materials to his colony’s production list, not only for the sake of self-sufficiency, but because he was worried about having to burn too much of his 100 billion on subsequent purchases…hoping to be able to have Corvati pocket as much of that initial funding as possible when all things were said and done.

  The foodstuff production facilities were, by necessity, farther along than the rest of the infrastructure. The fresh water producers had gone online within the first few days, drawing directly from the lake, then later augmented to feed the facility. The first few crops had already been harvested and converted into stored components, then combined with supplies to create the foodstuffs on Star Force’s brochure. Most of those other components were currently coming from reserve stockpiles and would eventually be replaced by local production as the facilities expanded.

  Corn and sugar cane were the first two crops focused on, with enough now being grown to accommodate the work crew Jules had brought along with him in the months ahead, but it wasn’t nearly enough for the colonists that would be arriving in the future. While his colony was quickly working its way towards foodstuff self-sufficiency, it still had a long way to go in that department before they could begin pulling in more people from Earth.

  The power generator was one of several they brought with them, but the only one with enough fuel to operate. It was the most basic, running off of hydrogen, which they had ample supply of thanks to the lake once the water was broken down into molecular hydrogen and oxygen. Basic solar, wind, and geothermal power stations had been constructed, with the current being generated used for instantaneous electrolysis on the lake water, creating the hydrogen reserves that could then be used by the generator whenever needed, combining with the oxygen already present in the atmosphere.

  The more advanced metallic hydrogen reactor was one they couldn’t operate yet, short of buying the core material from Star Force for an exuberant price. Jules wasn’t going to even think of doing that until the colony had an adequate revenue supply, and in the mean time he was going rely on the more primitive generators while assembling the newer model into the power grid at the outset.

  Two months into the setup everything was moving slowly, but smoothly for the Corvati operation, without so much as a single ship being see in all that time, underscoring how remote a local they’d been given to colonize and how much they were truly on their own in this endeavor.

  That changed one day when a pair of Star Force Skeet-class aircraft suddenly appeared over the colony and landed in the tiny city unannounced. Jules went out to the landing pad…now concrete rather than dirt…with a pair of security officers in tow. They’d had nothing at all to do since arrival, so he let them tag along unnecessary as they were.

  “Hello there,” Jules greeted the two men climbing out of the small single-seat fighters.

  “Hi,” Harrison replied, stretching his arms and back after having been confined to the motorcycle-like seat for several hours. “Didn’t figure you guys got many guests so we thought we’d officially welcome you to the planet now that it’s obvious that you’re going to be sticking around a while.” He walked up to Jules and offered him his hand. “Harrison-167.”

  “Eric-489,” the other man said, doing likewise.

  “Archons?” Jules asked, a bit surprised.

  “From Clan Saber,” Harrison explained. “We’re you’re neighbors from the east…about 4000 klicks or so.”

  “Puts a new definition to ‘neighbor,’” the Corvati CEO noted. “Jules Portman. I run this little shindig here. You really flew all this way in those?” he asked, pointing to the skeets.

  “They’re faster than they look,” Eric attested.

  “We were out on a training flight anyway, so we figured we might as well stop by,” Harrison said. “We had a few bets going on how long you’d last. Several people thought you’d have called for assistance by now.”

  “We’re getting by,” Jules said with a hint of pride. “How’s your Clan making out?”

  Harrison and Eric exchanged glances, surprised by the question. “We’re well established, with a controlled rate of growth.”

  “Controlled?”

  “Planning for the long term rather than building up a lot of cheap infrastructure,” Harrison explained, glancing at the security officers’ holstered weapons. “You guys having some trouble?”

  Jules noticed his line of sight. “No, no…just procedure. You’re the first visitors we’ve had since our arrival. If you’d like we can go inside and I can give you a rundown on our operations…if for no other reason than to foster more informed betting in the future.”

  Eric laughed, and Harrison was forced to break a smile.

  “Thank you, that would be most helpful,” he said, accepting the gesture with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Come with me,” Jules said, leading them back off the landing pad. “We may not be Star Force, but I think I can convince you with a short tour that Corvati is at least competent.”

  4

  August 30, 2260

  Epsilon Eridani System

  Corneria

  The first year of the Corvati colony, labeled ‘Outlook,’ was moderately successful and uneventful…yet surprisingly frustrating. No major hiccups had occurred, but the sheer number of replacement part orders Jules had been forced to put in worried him. He knew that wear and tear was normal and had brought a surplus of replacement parts with him in the initial transfer, but things were breaking that he’d never have guessed would break…a door handle here, the tread on a chair leg there. Such things weren’t critical, but they left a bad taste in his mouth as the colony got a worn down feel to it that was just the opposite of the image he wanted to create.

  The broken items were fixed, of course, but most was patchwork and not what Jules felt was up to Star Force standards of craftsmanship, which he hoped to replicate out of a measure of pride. He’d learned quickly enough that it wasn’t the predictable problems that were the problem out on the frontier, but rather the unpredictable ones that you couldn’t plan ahead for.

  Fortunately he still had the lifeline of the Star Force markets to work with, expensive as they were. The time delay, though, was annoying. Some material they kept on planet and could be requisitioned and purchases within a few days, the rest had to come from Sol and would take nearly 3 months to arrive. And usually something would break right after the last jumpship would come through, meaning that the 3 month resupply window would nearly double for the circuit of ships to make thei
r way around to place the order, then transit again to fulfill it.

  As soon as Jules got one batch of problems fixed another would pop up, leaving his colony functional but haggard. His people were doing good work, and over the first year they’d gotten the first permanent structure built…a residential complex that they were all now living out of. Most of the materials for it they had brought with them or purchased locally, but a bit of their mining spoils were included in the fabrication, making it feel like Corvati had a small claim to the colony rather than just being a Star Force transplant.

  The dirt roads had all been paved and small sections of the growing city had some landscaping put in around the residential complex, transplanted by seeds and seedlings from Earth. That one pinprick of civilization gave Jules hope, but as for the rest of the colony it still had a very rough feel to it and seemed to be decades away from accepting any type of civilian influx that was one of Corvati’s and Davis’s standing goals for the colony.

  Jules had wondered why the Archons would have been placing bets on how long they’d last, but after more than a year on the planet he thought he was finally beginning to understand. Building here wasn’t difficult in any normal fashion. The climate was agreeable and the terrain chosen was relatively flat. There was no wildlife to worry about, nor any close neighbors to pose security concerns. It was as peaceful a place as Jules had ever lived…but in that lay the problem. It was peaceful because there was nothing here.

  They were on their own, and without his careful foreplanning the colony would most likely have collapsed by now. This definitely wasn’t an ‘on the job’ training experience because there was no safety net. Yes, Star Force was on planet to pull them out of the fire if they needed evacuation, but as far as the colony surviving and prospering it was all on them. There were no backups, no contingencies. It was sink or swim…and if you sank you were going home in shame.

  Fortunately Outlook was swimming, even if it was just the dogpaddle.

  A month ago Jules had passed the halfway mark in his 100 billion credit allotment, a bad sign considering he’d hoped to at least be partially self-sufficient by this point. Outlook did have a tiny amount of exports running, in the form of a trickle of precious metals being mined and sold on the Star Force market, but those credits coming in didn’t compare with those still flowing out. It would take him a long time to burn through the second half of that 100 billion, but the clock was ticking down regardless and Jules wanted to stop its progress sooner rather than later.

  Still working out of the mobile command center, Jules watched as a new transport came down from the jumpship that had just arrived in orbit carrying his most recent purchase along with his first supplement of workers that would increase his meager population by 15%. His mining operations had expanded enough to require the industrial reinforcements, which the Corvati board had been pleased to supply. He’d just read their return message, transmitted down to the colony from the jumpship as soon as it made orbit.

  Their tone, disguised as it may have been, was optimistic and praiseworthy. They congratulated Jules on how much he’d accomplished in such little time…yet to him it seemed like an eternity since they’d first arrived. In retrospect that was probably due to the long work hours and shorter days, which seemed to make time blur together in one long, unending train, but at least his efforts had been fruitful enough in their eyes to avoid any bureaucratic recriminations.

  Then again, being so far away probably helped in that department.

  Regardless as to Corvati’s true feelings, his additional workers were arriving and the mining apparatus coming down with them would double Outlook’s current capabilities…as well as replace a few broken pieces of machinery that hadn’t been properly calibrated to the idiosyncrasies of the Cornerian bedrock. That was one of the first little hiccups that’d occurred, and something they’d quickly learned from and added to the Corvati corporate planetary log, which would be used as a guidebook for all future operations on the planet, assuming this colony was a success and they were permitted future expansions.

  “Jules, the dropship Captain wants to have a word with you,” Uriel said, walking up behind him and handing over a small earpiece transmitter, which he accepted and slid into place underneath his moderately long hair.

  “Portman here.”

  “This is Captain Dryson. I was wondering where exactly you’d like your boat deposited. We can offload it here, but if you like we can also put it down directly into the lake.”

  “You can?” Jules asked, surprised.

  “Takes a good pilot, but fortunately I’ve got one. I just need to know where you want it and have one of your people onboard when we set her down so she doesn’t go adrift.”

  “Wonderful,” Jules said, getting anxious. “I’ll be right over and show you the coordinates myself.”

  “Good,” Dryson said curtly. “See you in a bit.”

  Jules smiled and headed out of the control center, turning to Uriel as he passed her by. “Get the dock crew on station.”

  In the belly of the Dragon-class dropship remained the final piece of the Corvati shipment, now that all the other equipment and machinery had been offloaded…a double-hulled watercraft that would serve as a mobile command center on the lake. Jules stood on the bridge, a small circular room atop the building-sized boat with an array of windows allowing him to look out in any direction. Beside him stood one of the dropship’s crewers, feeding instructions directly to the pilot up on the bridge as the dropship skimmed over the lake to the point where Portman had instructed them to go.

  Held in place by an inertial dampening field and gravity plates, the outer cargo door remained wide open, giving Jules a flying view of the trip out and over the forest to the edge of the lake, then down along the surface of the gentle waves that they were now passing over. Before long a small building with a dock poked its way onto the horizon of the shoreline and the crewer gave the pilot additional instructions over the comm.

  The dropship slowed its flight and approached slowly, stopping a few hundred meters shy of the pier. Then to Jules surprise it began to drop down…with the lake water gushing up over the edge of the doorway and flooding into the bay!

  “Relax,” the crewer told Jules, placing a firm hand on his shoulder, “we know what we’re doing.”

  Jules didn’t offer any complaint, but had the unnerving feeling that the dropship was going to sink and pull his boat down with it, but the descent was smooth and bottomed out after the boat became buoyant and the crewer relayed that information up to the pilot while heading out the rear hatch and topside on Jules’ boat to disengage the mooring lines. He came back inside a few minutes later and powered up the engines, then very slowly maneuvered the boat across the now flooded bay towards the opening to the lake.

  It wasn’t as tight a squeeze as Jules had thought, but the crewer didn’t take any chances and kept the edges of the boat away from any hazards, hitting the opening perfectly and trolling the boat out into the lake. Once clear, the Dragon slowly rose up with a waterfall spilling back out that Jules and the crewer watched from the boat as it lazily drifted on the sparkling clear lake.

  “I believe that fulfills your order?” the crewer asked.

  “I believe it does,” Jules echoed, shaking the man’s hand. “That’s one impressive delivery.”

  “We aim to please,” he said as the Dragon finished emptying out and the crewer had another brief conversation with the pilot, prompting the dropship to start drifting their way overhead.

  “Nice place you’ve got here. Perfect for some skiing,” he said as the dropship eclipsed the sun and a ladder extended down from above. “Wish I could stick around a while and help you break her in.”

  “All work and no play, huh?” Jules joked as the man grabbed hold of the bottom rung as it drifted over the top deck.

  “We’re professionals, so we don’t mind too much,” he said, stepping up, “but we also hate to pass up a good thing.”

&n
bsp; “I understand. Consider yourself with a permanent invitation for the future, but you’ll have to bring your own ski gear, because we don’t have any.”

  “I may take you up on that,” he said, throwing a quick salute before climbing up the ladder. A hand reached out at the top and helped him inside, then the ladder retracted and the massive doors began to slide shut as the dropship gained altitude and headed off across the lake away from shore and up into the sky.

  “I really want one of those,” Jules said aloud, marveling at the dropship’s sheer size and design. Shaking his head in awe he turned around and stepped over into the bridge hub again, taking the helm and trolling the boat over to the pier where his people were waiting. With some help they got the boat moored and Jules lowered the cargo boarding ramp from the aft section that served as a landing pad/cargo platform as he traded places with the woman that would be serving as the boat’s pilot on a regular basis.

  “Sweet ride, Cap,” she said as Jules handed over possession of the helm and bridge.

  “That it is,” he said, going topside again and peering down over the observation platform’s aft rail as the first of several large buoys were being loaded onboard via forklifts driving out onto the pier and up the ramp onto the boat without too much visible give from the weight redistribution. The buoys had arrived in the dropship as well, and had been transported over land to the dock during the offloading.

  Each was a miniature hydrogen producing station, equipped with wind, solar, and wave energy collection equipment that would produce electric current instantaneously to power the electrolysis of the lake water. The buoys would then collect the resulting hydrogen into tanks that the boat and crew would periodically collect. Their hydrogen production on land had been inadequate so far, so Jules had decided to make the addition of lake buoys after getting approval from Duke Hightower since their boundaries had technically only extended to the edge of the water.