Escaping My Shadows

Sweet Child of Mind

Dave carefully checks the signals coming from several distant jump gate beacons. Since Kyrilles' sensors are as good as if not better than those the Chitoxan had, Dave can use the relative signal strengths to find the right position in hyperspace before dropping into normal space. Well before reaching this point Dave had done a full sensor sweep to be sure no one had followed them to try to discover the location for Dave's pot of gold.

After being found and rescued by sentient Kyrilles, Dave knew that if the shadows were ever defeated, he would need some way to earn a living. He wanted to stay as far from Earth Gov, Earth Fleet, and Psy Corps as he could since someone in one or more of those organizations had sold him out and would continue to view him as a threat. About the only job he could think of that could earn a decent living and keep him away from the clutches of those Earth organizations was to find an isolated system that contained enough metal or high-grade ore to mine. With the end of the war, the demand to rebuild and expand was great. The demand for refined and engineered metals to meet these rebuilding and expanding needs was even greater.

With Kyrilles' help, he had looked through captured shadow databases as well as what knowledge Kyrilles had to find promising systems. With millions of stars in the galaxy there were plenty to choose from. Using relatively advanced search engines potential prospects were identified and cross-referenced against the systems occupied or claimed by the various races. There were still many systems, for one reason or another, that had never been mapped or explored by Earth or any other known race.

Dave and Kyrilles are about to drop into one of those systems. After one last position check and one final sensor sweep Dillon has Kyrilles use its jump engines to move from hyperspace to normal space. Once in normal space Dave can see the system's dim star in the distance. Though the shadows had given it a name Dave decided to call it Potaóir, which basically is 'pot of gold' in Irish. Given what he and Kyrilles found it definitely was the pot of gold at the end of his rainbow.

Kyrilles moves toward the system while Dave keeps an eye on the part of space they had just left. He isn't paranoid, but he wants to be sure no one drops out of hyperspace to follow them in.

"Claim beacons still operating, Dave."

"Thanks, Kyrilles. Anything else popping up on your sensors?"

"No, nothing out of the ordinary."

"How long before we reach the asteroid belt?" Dave asks.

"Two hours on our current vector."

"Take your time.  I'm in no hurry."

Dave leans back in the seat and thinks about the best way to work that rich seam of metal.

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At one time as many as seven planets had orbited Potaóir. A few hundred thousand years ago something big had entered the solar system and smacked one or two of the planets. The smacked planets as well as the smacker, broke up into many millions of fragments, some as large as a few kilometers across. The tremendous energy released by the smacking generated incredible heat and pressures. The heat and pressures in turn created a gold mine of heavy and compressed metals as well as precious and semi-precious stones.

Some of the fragments slammed into the nearby planets, the aftereffects easily visible thanks to the highly visible scars of multiple meteor strikes. Other fragments began a long journey toward the star, a number of them slamming into the two inner planets along the way. After a long period of time many of the planetary fragments settled into a wide asteroid belt where the one or two planets had previously orbited.

Before Dave had even begun prospecting, he had Kyrilles do a high-level sweep of the system, especially the asteroid belt. The sweep found no signs of civilization, though it is possible that the planetary-level destruction might have wiped out any sentient life. The sweep could find no evidence of anyone having visited the system for several hundred years. This meant that no one had any outstanding claims on anything within the system. Once they were sure no previous claims existed, Dave identified several asteroids that appeared to have good potential. Using one of Kyrilles' secondary weapons Dave had cut a small sample of what he thought was compressed metal. He extracted several more samples from nearby asteroids. Then they made a trip to the Amia system to have them assayed. The assayers could barely contain their excitement at the few samples Dave showed them. They almost shoved him out the door to get him on his way to bring an actual shipment back. Before he left he registered his claim with the Federated Mining Conglomerate. By registering the asteroids he would be able to sell whatever he could extract without anyone challenging his ownership. Though he had to provide a lot of details about what he had found in the system, he didn't have to tell anyone how to find it.