Life of a Miner (Privateer Tales Shorts Book 1)

  Life of a Miner

  Privateer Tales, Volume 9.1

  Jamie McFarlane

  Published by Fickle Dragon Publishing, 2016.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  LIFE OF A MINER

  First edition. May 15, 2016.

  Copyright © 2016 Jamie McFarlane.

  Written by Jamie McFarlane.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Descartes Bound

  Educator

  Safety Training

  Never Judge a Book

  Scuttled

  Will-O-Wisp

  Theft

  Weight of Dishonesty

  Demetria

  Trust is Earned

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Introduction

  Life of a miner is a short story I wrote that fits in somewhere after Cutpurse and before A Matter of Honor. There are no significant spoilers, although there is a future view of Liam Hoffen's parents – Silver and Big Pete. If you haven't yet read Rookie Privateer, you should know that Liam is the series hero and Priloe looks up to him. The orphan Priloe is twelve years old and his sister Milenette is several years younger.

  If you enjoy this story, I'm sure you enjoy my others which are:

  Witchy World Series

  1. Wizard in a Witchy World

  2. Wicked Folk

  Privateer Tales Series

  1. Rookie Privateer

  2. Fool Me Once

  3. Parley

  4. Big Pete

  5. Smuggler's Dilemma

  6. Cutpurse

  7. Out of the Tank

  8. Buccaneers

  9. A Matter of Honor

  10. Give No Quarter

  11. Blockade Runner (avail December, 2016)

  Young Adult Fantasy

  1. Lesser Prince

  Descartes Bound

  Priloe's heart hammered in his chest as he mounted the steps to the gleaming black spaceship.

  "Just put your hand on that panel," Jenny instructed from behind him. "It'll open the airlock."

  In response to his touch, the panel glowed bright green and the armored door slid aft into a hidden recess.

  Priloe ran his hand across the shiny skin of the ship, his suit's touch sensors communicating a high polish. He smiled – his dream was becoming a reality.

  "Up, little mouse." Milenette was ready for him to lift her into his arms.

  "You need to go, Priloe," Jenny said. "Captains don't like to be kept waiting."

  Priloe nodded and tried to swallow, his throat suddenly dry. He gave Jenny a final hug, squishing his sister between them. He turned and walked to the second, closed door in the airlock and palmed the door open.

  "I'm back here," a woman's voice called from inside.

  Milenette raised her arms and stiffened, signaling to be set down. Priloe obliged and watched her disappear around the corner of the brightly painted hallway.

  "Mill..." Priloe started after her as the airlock closed behind him. He pulled up as he rounded the same corner and saw Milenette already in the arms of a slender, gray-haired woman in a dark blue vac-suit.

  "Welcome aboard, Priloe," the woman said.

  "Thank you, Captain Hoffen," he replied. Jenny had given him specific instructions on how to address Liam's mother when onboard the ship.

  "And you, little one, you're adorable," she said, making Milenette giggle. Priloe inwardly rolled his eyes. If he was still on the grift, he could have made bank on how distracted women became when faced with his baby sister.

  "Riloe says we're going on a ride," Milenette said.

  "That we are. And Priloe, you only need to call me Captain when we're on the bridge. Either of you two need something to eat?"

  "We ate at Lena's," he replied.

  "Then let's get underway." Silver Hoffen handed a juice pouch from the reefer unit to Milenette and turned Priloe forward with her free hand. They walked to the end of the hallway where Silver palmed open the door to the bridge. "Jenny tells me you're both making good progress with your studies. Did she tell you that on top of being a ship's captain I'm also an educator?"

  "What's educator?" Milenette asked, struggling to pronounce the word.

  "I play games like your AI does," Silver responded, setting Milenette into the port seat at the front of the bridge. "For take-off, you'll need to be strapped in. Priloe, I think there's enough room for both of you."

  Priloe sat in the chair next to Milenette as Silver laced a strap across their laps.

  All hands, prepare for departure, Silver instructed the AI as she checked off items from a holographic display. "Looks like we're ready," Silver said. "Priloe, you may hold the flight sticks. They'll provide feedback, but don't worry, I have the controls."

  Priloe felt a thrill as the powerful engines of Sterra's Gift spooled up and gently lifted them from the landing pad. The sticks moving in his hands didn't make sense yet, but he pretended he was in control nonetheless.

  Silver orbited the floating city a single time then throttled up, accelerating toward the brilliant purple nebula that Priloe had seen so many times from his home on Lèger Nuage.

  "When do we go weightless?" Priloe asked.

  "The ship has a gravity generator and we'll maintain 1.0g for most of the trip," she said. "But you're right. The further from Grünholz we get, the less natural gravity we'll experience."

  Show gravitational field from planet Grünholz on forward holo. Overlay with effective gravity in ten percent bands, Silver requested.

  A holographic image sprang to life between them and responded to Priloe's hand gestures as he rotated, zoomed, and panned the image of the planet.

  "How long will it take to get to your home?" he asked, growing with the image.

  "Our burn plan is eight days," Silver answered. "And we've a lot of work to do before we get there. Big Pete wants you trained on driving sleds."

  Before he could ask, Silver replaced the holographic image between them with two vehicles: the first, a spindly-legged ore-sled designed to haul long containers of ore. The second, a grav-sled, wasn't much more than a seat sitting behind a thick scoop. The hologram showed how the two vehicles worked together to move material from the surface of an asteroid.

  "I'm going to sail one of those?" Priloe asked.

  "Good chance," Silver said. "We'll see how you do with the simulations. Liam was operating both when he was several years younger than you, but he also had the benefit of growing up around them."

  "What do I have to do?"

  Educator

  "You're getting better," Silver encouraged. "Big Pete is particular about his piles, though. Let the AI help you choose where to drop your loads."

  "But it's so much slower if I do that," Priloe retorted. He'd been virtually moving piles of rocks for over three days and felt his pile was good enough.

  "Ahh, but Big Pete has a reason for everything - not just because he likes to be in charge. Since you feel you've mastered piling it up, it's time to learn how to load the containers," she said, smiling indulgently.

  Priloe recognized the look but was so bored with moving virtual rocks he was willing to put up with whatever lesson she had in store for him. "Sweet. Am I going to fly the ore sled now?"

  "Not yet. We won't get to that until the last couple of days."

  Silver flicked a new scene onto the holographic screen at the engineering station at the back of the bridge. There were six rectangular shipping con
tainers lined up on the irregular surface of the simulated asteroid. Priloe recognized the grav-sled he'd been practicing with sitting next to them and a big pile of ore that he suspected resembled his last best effort.

  "Liam can load six containers in forty-two minutes with zero collateral," Silver explained. Priloe had learned that collateral damage meant running the grav-sled into something. The AI kept track of every tiny dent, ding and scratch and tallied it at the end of each session. The first day he'd caused more than fourteen thousand credits in collateral. Silver coached him to seek to cut that number by half each time he practiced. On the third day he'd reduced his collateral to under thirty credits and every once in a while, he even made it to zero.

  "That sounds hard," he admitted.

  "You'll need to use the sled to place the pre-sift machine in front of each container, then you load them from the bottom. The pre-sift has an inverted gravity generator and will pull the material from your scoop."

  "I just need to dump the material under the machine?" Priloe asked.

  "Yes. I'll give you a hint though. There's a trick Liam developed to get his time to where it is. I won't show it to you until tomorrow," she said.

  Priloe virtually jumped on the ore sled, picked up the pre-sift machine and tried sliding it into place. He overshot and the machine tumbled into the container. He rolled his eyes, watching as the collateral on the session jumped to a hundred fifty credits. Worse, by the time he finally recovered the machine from the container, that tally had exceeded five thousand, not to mention shutting down the session as the equipment became completely unusable.

  "I have to reset," he called over his shoulder to Silver who was playing a game with Milenette.

  "Go ahead, dear, it's harder than it sounds," she said.

  His second go-round wasn't nearly as bad, although the simulation stopped at ninety minutes. At least he'd only racked up a fifteen hundred credit collateral. For a second try, it didn't seem bad to him.

  "What do you think of my second session?" he asked as the three of them sat at the small mess table in the middle of the ship.

  "You've a lot of patience for the training, Priloe. Many young men such as yourself wouldn't put up with it," she said as she inspected details on a reading pad. "And that's not bad at all for a second try. I'd like you to put it aside for the afternoon. We need our exercise and I was thinking we might play podway."

  "Podway?"

  "Podball in a hallway. It hones our zero-g skills, gives us exercise, and it's fun. Milenette and I will be on the girls' team and you'll be on the boys,'" she said. "The rules are simple. The AI gives us paths we have to stay in. As we get better, the paths cross more often. Your HUD will display your path, but beware. Every time you touch the end of the hallway it will be a different path."

  "That sounds eeasy," Priloe said, stretching out the sound of the first syllable.

  "Contact with another player costs you points. Touching the end wall gives you points. We play for five minute periods. Ready?"

  "Do I get grav-boots like with podball?"

  "Nope."

  He grimaced. "That sounds hard."

  "It is." Silver took a breath and shouted, "Go!"

  Priloe's HUD showed a straight path from him to the door of the bridge just as the gravity shifted to zero-g. The entire hallway was bathed in a translucent blue light as he pushed off and cruised to the door, only bouncing between the ceiling and the deck twice along the way. Turing, he saw that the starboard side of the hallway had been removed from his path and that Silver and Milenette had reached the aft end of the hallway.

  He pushed off and watched in dismay as he drifted exactly in the direction of the wrong side of the hallway. Worse yet, he was on a collision course with Silver and Milenette. He made his decision quickly, choosing to lose points for contact with the wall instead of contact with another player. He pulled his knees into his chest and sprung outward, clipping the wall at what he believed was just the right moment. His points dropped from ten to nine as he cartwheeled around the girls and it took every bit of wriggling he possessed to zero out his sideways velocity as he contacted the portside bulkhead.

  Forty-five minutes later, Silver finally called it quits, restoring normal gravity and allowing the ship to re-enter hard-burn. The three of them sat at the table laughing as they recounted the events of the game.

  "That was fun," he said. "Is that why you like being an educator?"

  "If learning isn't fun, people don't remember their lessons very well," she said, smiling. "Now, showers for both of you and then off to bed. We've a big day tomorrow, I'm going to show you Liam's trick and you're going to see if you can get your load-time under an hour."

  "But I won't be able to, will I?"

  Silver smiled mischievously. "Why do you say that?"

  Priloe was a master at reading people and knew he was right. "Because I haven't stacked the ore correctly, and it won't work otherwise, will it?"

  "I guess you'll find out."

  "Maybe you could show me how to stack it better," he said with a sigh.

  She gave him a warm smile. "You're unusually perceptive for someone so young."

  "It used to be our lives depended on it," Priloe answered. "You'd be good on the grift, you know."

  "I'm not sure if that's a compliment."

  "It is. You're patient. You give hints along the way but it always seems like it's my idea."

  "Busted," Silver said. "So now you really know what it means to be an educator."

  Safety Training

  "I think you're ready for an ore-sled," Silver announced.

  Sterra's Gift had been decelerating on hard burn for forty hours, leaving two days before they arrived at the Descartes asteroid belt.

  "Really?" Priloe asked. He'd been ready for days, but knew better than to show impatience. Silver was implacable in her belief that skills needed to be honed before moving on to something new. She'd even used one of his more impatient moments to teach him the meaning of the word implacable.

  "Your speed with the grav-sled isn't perfect, but when you take your time, you neither waste material nor do you damage the equipment," she said. "For most, loading ore is like a three-legged stool..."

  Priloe laughed. It was an analogy Silver overused and her slight grin gave away the fact that she knew it. The basic idea was that you could only excel at two of the three qualities Big Pete wanted - speed, no-damage or no-waste. According to Silver, Liam was all about speed and no-waste but had become proficient at repairs due to his proclivity at damaging vehicles. Priloe made conscious decisions to go slower, keep his equipment pristine and waste at a minimum.

  Silver continued her lecture. "An ore-sled's main function is to move containers of ore. Initially, this seems an easy task and it is for the most part. Ultimately, however, the same problems we've run into with the grav-sled exist with an ore-sled. If you want to go fast, you'll likely cause damage. On a claim like we run on Descartes there are a multitude of uses for an ore-sled. For many stans, Liam used his as personal transportation as much as he did to move material."

  "He owned a sled?" Priloe asked.

  She smiled at him. "He did. Liam and his best friend, Nick, resurrected an old sled from the scrap heap and used some of the credits he'd earned to repair it. I should have recognized back then that he was no miner at heart. His ore-sled was faster by twice than just about any other in our mining colony."

  "What's first?" Priloe rubbed his hands together, itching to get going.

  "Safety training. Unlike grav-sleds, ore-sleds operate detached from the mining claim. That means if you mess it up, you could sail out into the deep-dark. Do you know what stops a sled that's run out of power and is sailing out into the deep-dark?"

  Priloe recognized that he was playing the straight-man for a joke, but couldn't see where she was going, so he played along. "No, what?"

  "Not a darn thing, Priloe. If you lose power you'll keep sailing on forever, or until you run into anot
her asteroid. You know what the biggest danger on a mining claim is?"

  "Sailing off into the deep dark?" Priloe guessed.

  "No. Running out of O2. Without oxygen you've only minutes to live. My point is, you're at a disadvantage not having grown up in a spacer community. From the moment a spacer child is born, safety is drilled into their heads. It is a way of life and you need to come up to speed so that you'll be safe."

  "You make it sound dangerous," he said.

  "Yes!" She looked at him as if he'd figured out the meaning of life. "Life on a mining colony is more dangerous than living planet-side. But, if you pay attention to common sense safety precautions, your life-expectancy goes up substantially. I've queued a series of safety simulations. Once you've passed, we'll get on to flying a sled."

  Priloe sighed. He'd known that flight training had been too much to hope for. There was always something between him and the ore-sled. He slumped in his chair and opened the first section titled "Mining Safety Training for Beginners."

  ***

  "So, what did you think of safety training?" Silver asked. They'd made a habit of eating their final meal of the day together in the narrow mess.

  Priloe had spent the entire day working on safety training. It hadn't all been bad. The simulator was mostly role-playing in an immersive environment. Each section of the training began with Priloe placed in a new environment - sometimes on a space station, sometimes in a ship, and other times deep in a mine. The trick to survival always seemed to be the same. Make sure you had O2 first, communication next, and if you didn't have one of those, find what you were missing became the task at hand.

  "I didn't know there were so many ways to die." Priloe felt depressed. He'd died in the simulations more often than he could count.

  "I'll tell you a secret," Silver said. "That's the lesson. Everyone who takes safety training dies. The AI sees to it. Whoever designed it wanted us to know that humans are fragile and space is inhospitable."

  "I almost miss Nannandry. At least there, I just needed to stay away from the things that wanted to eat me," Priloe said, staring at the meal bar he had little interest in.