“Good
morning everyone” Commander Dickerson began “We are starting the mining
operation on asteroid AX194-2525. We
will be on station in approximately 3 hours.
The mining rights have been worked out and the boundaries will be
strictly enforced. There will be no
chasing veins across boundary lines like last time.”
The
holographic display in the center of the table showed the asteroid with the
mining rights boundaries and, locations of detected deposits color coded by
mineral and recommended base locations.
“What will
the scheduling for material transports look like this time?” George Calvin of the African Alliance asked
from the far end of the table “I had to stop mining operations because we
couldn’t get a transport too many times on the last couple of operations.”
“Your
complaints have been duly noted, cataloged, indexed, cross referenced, and
given their own filing system, George”
Most present
in the room chuckle.
“But
seriously, as soon as you start reporting mining mineral deposits we will start
a circuit of transports in a traffic flow around the asteroid. This one is unusually uniform, and the rights
regions are equally uniform, so we should be able to have a stream of
transports that are less than 30 minutes from any extraction point.”
“Are you
going to prioritize by mineral content?”
Chen Zhou of the Chinese Consortium asked.
“We will not
transport any iron or phosphorus on this operation.”
“But our
consortium is in need of iron and phosphorous, and we will pay for transport.”
“Your region
shows several deposits of uranium, platinum, cobalt and yttrium. Those should prove to be much more profitable
than iron or phosphorous or even bauxite.”
“We don’t
have to process iron or phosphorous through Luna Station and that saves us a
lot of money.”
“There is a
market glut on those minerals right now so WE don’t make any money on
them. Don’t forget we have to be able to
operate this station for you to be able to use it.”
“What about
these uranium deposits?” Mikhail Leonov
of the Ukrainian Company asked “They seem unusually uniform, almost as if they were
deliberately placed.”
“We thought
about that, which is why we want you to report anything unusual, odd or just
plain weird. I’ll be honest about the
fact that we suspect that this asteroid might not be natural. So keep your eyes open and if you see
anything that doesn’t feel right, stop and call it in.” Commander Dickerson looks directly in the
eyes of every person around the table “I’m serious. If this is not natural then somebody might be
looking for it or monitoring it or it might be a trap of some sort. So don’t take any chances.”
Mumbling
around the room.
“If there
are no further questions, you will find all of the information you need at your
docking stations. You will be updated
with all additional survey information as we get it and the first launches will
be available at 1430. Dismissed.”
Everyone
stands and starts to leave except Commander Dickerson.
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