Sirius Mining Company

The Dog Star

  The Captain steps back and waves to the small docking craft on the ground behind him, it was a small craft designed merely to ferry people onto their respective ships. Cargo docking crafts tended to be much larger, and seeing as how he was preparing to board a mining ship; there was probably a cargo sized docking craft around somewhere. Mining ships tended to be very large crafts due to the amount of equipment contained within them. They had to have many different types of mining equipment depending on the world, or asteroid they were working on. There was even old fashioned mining picks and hammers for world that would not permit heavy machinery.

We board the ship and it only has six seats within it. Which would be about right for a mining operation, there might be six members on the whole ship; counting the captain. "You're a lucky human,' says the Captain as he closed the hatch on the ship with a gentle tug. "We normally only hire Siriusan's, but your friend there convinced me to look into you when we had a man prematurely retire." I shudder at that, it was a polite way to state that someone died while out on a job. Hopefully it won't happen to him.

The Captain sits in his chair and starts the lift off process, "we're due to set out on a long mining run. We found a 'lost' planet near a close by star that no one has any records for it," I nod my head knowing that 'lost' worlds happen. With so many worlds in the galactic civilization, sometimes when something catastrophic occurs to a solar system and people avoid it for a period of time it then becomes lost. Around the time the Sol system had been 'lost' we had entered a portion of the universe that had much more traveling bodies than normal and many systems became 'lost'. I guess that is the issue with using jump gates for standard space travel. If the 'gate' was damaged beyond repair you couldn't get there and people forgot the system existed, leaving any survivors on those worlds to their own devices until they are found again.

"The system has five planets of any noticeable size, the first and closest tot he sun is a small heavy pressure world with no life; however we could set up an acid cloud miner there while we work on the second world. That one is the habitable world with water and plant life as well as animal life from the scans done off world." I noticed how the Captain worded that, "off world scans Captain?"

The Captain looks back at me a moment, "there was some disturbing results with the original scans. They detected human life forms there, yet there was not the standard destruction associated with humans on other worlds."

I think about that a moment, "so what is the statement from the USA?" I ask wondering if we would have to 'cleanse' the world. The Captain not turning back at us answers, "The Species Alliance wishes for us to keep an eye out for them and evaluate if they are a danger to the eco system of the planet or not. They wish for us to acquire blood samples if at all possible to see if it maybe a divergent branch of your species." To me that sounded like a tall order for just a mining company to be doing.

I sit in the seat as the Captain lifts off, Canis already sat down as soon as we had entered the ship, "are we able to do that on a mining ship?" A voice come out over the intercom, "of course we can silly human. Our vessel has a full science department as well as an expert, though amateur; on human sciences." The Captain chuckles, "easy there Tersan. Tersan is our xenobiologist and he is an expert on human sciences, he was very excited to find out you would be joining our team. He probably knows more about your species than you do Johnathan." It wouldn't surprise me a whole lot seeing as how I grew up in an orphanage on the Sirius home world, all I knew of my species was what everyone else learned growing up.

The Captain looks back at me for a moment, "now don't let him drive you cray following you around to watch your every move. You are the first human he has met, so he is very excited and will probably have a thousand questions for you." I gulp, just what I needed someone lavishing attention on my because I might make a nice subject of study.