A Dung Beetles Dream 1

Since the exodus from Earth, humanity and its fate have been in the hands of corporations. These corporations, for better or worse, drove innovation and necessity for every piece of equipment that made it into orbit. One of those earliest corporations was a small mining and drilling company that had managed to come up with one of the greatest innovations to space travel: Omni Sphere Drives. These engines when powered by a stable fusion reaction provide for just about any change in course and direction, making them ideal for mining in the ever-changing conditions in space around asteroids.

The plans and patents were owned by this company for years, even though stable fusion reactions hadn't been invented. These engines took inspiration from the long-forgotten Tesla Turbine. Invented by Nikola Tesla in the early 1900s, and deemed impractical by a society that went another direction for power and energy production. The now famous inventor, Zachary Greenwich, expanded upon the two-dimensional Tesla Turbine and made it spherical in design. Teams of scientists throughout the world raced to stabilize fusion reaction. They found that even if the plasma from a stable fusion reaction was contained within a harmonic magnetic field, the wear and tear of the reactor was immense unless the shape of the reactor was perfect.

Millions of models were attempted in theoretical computer models until finally the answer was discovered: electron orbitals. If the reactor was modeled after electron orbitals, plasma seemed to become stable and maintainable. The Omni Sphere Drive (OSD) found its way into the light with this advancement in fusion energy. The OSD's natural shape when coupled with an intricate ventilation system made the traditional linear travel in space somewhat obsolete in nature. No longer was a spacecraft slave to rear thrusters pushing from behind. Now a spacecraft could be manipulated much like a drone or helicopter.

Naturally, the prevalence of this technology was bought and hidden by a much larger corporation. They monopolized the design and so its usefulness was mainly limited to spacecrafts being produced and used for mining. Now the volatile space around asteroids, moons, and any other potential valuable debris in the system could be navigated with relative ease compared to older space crafts. These crafts and their operators were known as Scarabs.

The Scarab space craft was modular in nature, sitting between usually a pair of OSDs was the standard fusion generator, command and control center, a small living quarters and two large storage containers for anything worth salvaging. Mining equipment itself had been mostly relegated to mechanical drones that identified, extracted and transported small harvests of minerals when operated by artificial intelligence programs. Though it was still common to find that miners that still had some forms of explosives, nets of Kevlar, and modular drill bit systems on one or both sides of the spaceship.

Corporations hired millions of people to leave the Earth and begin their new lives mining for raw materials. Many companies were known to give people loans to buy a mining craft, or leasing equipment with a path to ownership as long as quotas were met. Naturally as with other times in human history this led to a gold rush of sorts. Driven by a fever of greed and adventure that swept across the globe. Notably, it also helped that there was a growing concern of a certain plague that was rumored being beyond the manageability of the top doctors and scientists. Initially those were only rumors and anxiety driven thoughts that no one wanted to give credence to when the first rush occurred. Tens of thousands of these modular and completely customizable space craft, embarked in every direction of the solar system, each loaded with hopes and dreams of wealth and exploration. Humanity of all nations, tongues, and people flew to the asteroid belt, the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter, Eros, the Moon, the Hildas, and the twin moons of Mars. This era was deemed the Hopeful expansion, which was followed by the expansion of Sorrow.

The moderate success of the early families and miners was gradually ruined by the over saturation of the market. Not only were the new travelers more desperate to escape a dying world and make a living for themselves, but they were ill equipped and underprepared for the harsh realities and cruel lessons that the Hopefuls had painstakingly worked so hard to overcome. The fact of their being billions upon billions of possible harvestable candidates in our solar system seemed to somehow not be enough to slake the all-consuming greed of humanity. This greed was coupled with desperation making many behave foolish, irrational, and even dangerous. Each new craft darting from debris to asteroid, stripping it of all it's worth in a ravenous search of an elusive wealth. What was once a regulated and peaceful profession, was now waxing into a chaotic wild frontier of starved and violent people forced from their home planet. And to make matters worse, enforcement of justice or settling of disputes was left to the corporations.

A mining family or crew had a clear path of ever expanding their individual enterprise. Improving their spacecraft with better armor, more engines for hauling, better mining bits and drones to harvest deeper and quicker, better nets and of course fuel and food. If you had the means one could invest in better weapons to defend themselves from a less fortunate Sorrowful, or worse: the overpowered and greed consumed descendant of a Hopeful. Not many other career paths were given, unless you were lucky to have been hired by the Major Corporations or born into their wealthy lives on a rotating station with gravity. But even the ruling Corporation class had to deal with the perpetual skirmishes that flared up between installations and the struggle over profitable territory.

You could wake up one day and find a new contract waiting for you to sign and a new logo being painted on your door because a quick and violent decision was made by powers way above your pay grade. When this occurred, local mining families could find themselves suddenly renegotiating terms and often these new terms were now somehow even more unfavorable. This dispensation of Hope and Sorrow was drug out for decades until the doors from Earth were closed and a mandatory quarantine of Earth and Mars put in place. Every effort was made by the corporations to contain the plague so it could not spread into the stars and destroy the last remnants of Humanity. A species hellbent on consuming what they could to stay alive and cut out a profit.

50 Years before the Emergence of Ember

The Cacoethes was a simple mining craft, a basic version of most early mining crafts. Touting two standard OSDs and two storage bays, no one would look twice at it or think it special. On both its ventral and dorsal surfaces antennae ran down the long axis to provide a complete range of object identification. Linked into those identification arrays were six anti-collision cannons, capable of identifying a target traveling at almost any speed from up to one hundred kilometers away. These sensors and cannon arrays were several generational descendants of Patriot and Phalanx weapons systems of the early 21st century, now nearly perfected and tweaked for space debris. This system was essential in calculating the trajectory and launching of shaped concussive charges meant to explode in a way that made diverting incoming objects a bigger priority than destroying them. The rule of thumb was to never risk turning one speeding object into many. And even more impressive was the simple Artificial Intelligence program that learned with every encounter, so as time passed it was rare for any amount of dust to find its way within two or three meters of the Cacoethes hull.

The captain of this vessel was a young man named Cad, who had just turned 21 years old. His father, Skip, was the captain of the second craft in their mining company, the Antihalian. It was just the two of them now, Cad’s mother had passed away a few years ago, which had left Skip and Cad to work through their grief. But in a silver lining to their loss it had afforded them a second craft, and the ability to mine in pairs, tackling larger objects and trickier objectives that single craft would be suicidal to attempt. However, this also doubled their operating costs, meaning they needed to work more to stay ahead.

The Cacoethes was now circling a rock about one kilometer in diameter while the Antihalian provided cover. In their initial survey, they scanned the object checking to be sure it was more solid than amorphous in nature. Hoping for just one solid plate of iron near the surface, which would allow for a strong magnet to anchor themselves. Once joined together a small thrust could provide a spin to the pair of objects making artificial gravity a possibility. Luckily, this object had exactly the location they needed, and now they began the delicate dance of synchronization in the deep dark void of space.

An eruption of lights lit up the cockpit, suddenly surprising Cad as he maneuvered the Cacoethes. The Antihalian must have discovered incoming objects, or Skip was just testing out Cad’s piloting skills. The systems computer was usually pretty good about autopiloting into position around any object they deemed worthy of mining. But Skip had insisted that Cad gain the muscle memory and do it by hand.

“What happens if your computer goes out, or malfunctions? You need to be prepared to rely on yourself at a moment's notice.” Cad could hear the words echo in his mind, and Skip was right, but these maneuvers were dangerous at times. The lights popping into his view were enough to break his concentration for just a moment but not enough to ruin his final approach. A satisfying thud resonated throughout the Cacoethes, signaling to Cad that he needed to start the rotational burst. A mild roar let out for just a moment and then Cad could feel the slight pull of gravity on his body. Letting out a sigh of relief, Cad stood and lightly pushed his way back to the twin doors behind him. Each led to one of the storage containers- all lights were green, no hull breaches or decompression in either portion of the craft. Twisting his wrist twice, a display appeared in his eyes from his cerebral implant. He winked through the selection of four drones and activated them. Simultaneously the lights on the doors turned orange as oxygen was emptied back into storage tanks, then red as the storage bay doors opened without more than a quiet grind of gears. This was standard protocol to have eyes on the doors when this process began. If you accidentally opened the doors too early, you might find yourself in the fight of your life. Without the proper piloting skills, your last moments would be terror filled. Doomed to struggle in futility as your spacecraft, now attached to a huge space rock, suddenly was spiraling and spinning causing everything you know to be ripped apart by physics.

Cad blinked his eyes which changed the video feed from the Anti-collision cannons, watching the mining drones begin their assessment of their target. The drones would do the bulk of the work, analyzing the rock, choosing mining vectors, and collecting samples to be fed into the refineries in the back of the craft. A light chirp alerted Cad that he had an incoming transmission request. Tapping his ear, a connection was made and Skip’s voice was sounding through the cockpit.

“Well done landing the craft and safely starting up the drones. I know you’ve done it hundreds of times now, and it's really beginning to show. Keep up the great work son, and I'll keep watch on all the horizons.” Skip's tone was routine but laced with pride.

“Thanks dad... so those were real targets this time, not just a chance to keep me on my toes?” Cad asked wondering if Skip was just trigger happy, itching for a chance to shoot at nothing.

“Oh yeah there was at least one rock out here- and it looked at me funny. Won’t be doing that again. I can promise you that!” Skip chuckled and so did Cad.

Cad shook his head smiling and pulled up a hologram model of the Cacoethes to watch the drones begin their work, hollowing out their target. One by one the drones drilled in and harvested samples from the rock and flew back to the ship where a chute was waiting to be fed the samples. Within minutes the computer was pumping out results: iron oxide, niter, sulfur, carbon in various forms, ice, tungsten, gold, and a plethora of other minerals read out on the list. The main mineral they were after was iron oxide because the price for iron was decently stable. Between the two ships they could haul enough to make a decent pay out. They would bring along anything else they could find in decent quantity or purity, but their main object was the iron. Inside his optical display Cad highlighted a few of the minerals for harvest. Ice was always in high demand, but it often was used for themselves and their personal needs rather than selling it at auction.

Under the direction of the AI program a drill slowly began lowering from the Cacoethes and began to assist in the excavation. This part of the harvest was mind numbing and time consuming. Cad made himself busy working on a small drone he had been building himself from harvested parts and scrap. His hopes were that someday the drone would be able to survey other rocks if they found themselves in a cluster worth harvesting.

A light chirp sounded again; this one was more urgent. Sitting up Cad stowed the drone and tapped his ear.

“Heads up Cad. There's a craft about 100 clicks out. I didn’t see it on our scopes before. Could be trouble.” Skip sounded like he was on alert.

Cad strapped himself into his chair, flipped a switch for the Anti Collision cannons to warm up and display the targeting sphere in front of him, lightly touching the hologram and his temple, his optical display and targeting computer were all interlinked. It took some getting used to interpreting the data, but in front himself in the air was an overview of the entire situation. When Cad focused on his left eye he would see the overview, in his right eye was the line of sight view from the cannon that was most directly pointing at a target. Since they were in orbit this eye would switch between the three dorsal cannons. If he stayed in this view longer than an hour he would get a headache but he had been practicing this multitask view for instances just like this.

A loud radio crackle broke the tense silence, and a voice could be heard through the speakers.

“Miner 1 and Miner 2 come in. Miner 1 and Miner 2 please respond. This is the Sonder. Who-Dee-Who… Who-Dee-Who…Over.”

Cad relaxed and winked his ocular display closed. The Sonder was the local wandering caravan. The captain of the Sonder was a man named Frank. He was a wise old man, losing his hearing to the constant grind and stresses of mining. He always had a story to tell, historical significance of just about anything pertinent or related to the conversation, as well as coffee. In the belt real coffee was always hard to come by and yet Frank never disappointed. His call sign followed by the phrase “Who-dee-who” was the only sure way you could know it was really Frank.

“Miner 1 to Sonder. This is Skip, it’s good to see you Frank but you can’t sneak up on us like that. Over.”

Cad smiled to himself but had to agree with his dad, it was reckless not to send a message before hitting their early detection system. Too often now Skip and Cad have been known to shoot first and then ask questions, and really that was because Skip was getting paranoid. They were too close to closing out their debts and breaking into a profitable lifestyle, and they both had seen people get careless right around this time and get their ledger reset by a band of Sorrowfuls. Skip on more than one occasion had said he’d be damned if he got indebted right at the end of the tunnel. So, until that day came, they both had itchy trigger fingers, and a stockpile of munitions. With an added layer of superstition, they both refused to talk about the debt unless it was in person. Never over radio, and never around anyone else.

The Sonder would link with the Antihalian, it just made sense that they would link and barter rather than try and shuttle Cad over to the other two crafts. Too much could go wrong and even though Cad would have liked to see another friendly face, he knew there would be other times to be involved in a confab with Frank. Several hours passed and the drones reported less and less iron or copper to be found. And almost as if it was scripted a written message from Skip appeared in Cad’s ocular display.

**Have the drones gather ice and gold.**

Cad shrugged and reprogrammed the drones with their new priorities. Within a few more hours the Sonder departed in a new direction. Out of habit Cad pulled up the map of their sector and marked it as a place they had visited, one of the indicators on the map was the position of other mining vessels. Cad paused and studied it curiously for a few minutes and even played with the orientation of the whole field of view. Mentally, Cad noted an odd pattern he saw but continued on his work. The storage containers were mostly full at this point, so the work was pretty much done for the day.

One by one, the drones returned to their docking stations and began to recharge. That was the cue for Cad to do his final preparations to disembark. As the Cacoethes departed, Cad caught a glimpse of the hollowed-out rock that they had just harvested. It was literally a shell of its former self. Perhaps there might be some possible remaining things to harvest if someone was really desperate.

When the two craft were finally docked together and in a stable rotation, the two men finally got to sit and eat. Cad was curious about any news that Frank might’ve brought, as well as what the next leg of their journey would entail.

“Well, did you buy anything good off of Frank?” Cad was sitting in a makeshift mess hall in the Antihalian, really it was just an old broken display that had a blanket thrown over it. Tiny hydroponic gardens near the center of the ship grew the necessary vegetables to stave off scurvy. Powdered drinks mixed into sterilized water from harvested ice was usually the only beverage. Their staple consisted of rehydrated textured vegetable protein with the occasional freeze-dried carbohydrate of some kind.

Skip raised his eyebrows and pulled out an airtight sealed package labeled “Vienna Sausages” and immediately after that some instant bread rolls. Pressing a button on the side, the packaging for the bread rolls inflated and began to heat, within minutes a crude loaf of bread would be found inside the bag.

Cad’s mouth watered and his eyebrows rose so far that they were lost under his unkempt hair, he nearly stood up out of disbelief. Skip smiled and raised a hand to calm and keep his child in his chair, and with a quick move that same hand reached in his pocket and tossed a fist full of packets that slowly floated onto the table.

“Ketchup and Mustard!” How much did all of this cost?!” Cad was amazed at the bounty in front of them, saliva streamed into his mouth and he almost made a mess of himself talking.

“Frank had so much of this stuff he traded it to me for the ice that we had in my hold. Which is one of the best deals I have ever made in my life! We have enough to have this four more times whenever we would like.” Skip was beaming, and barely could get the words out fast enough. The two men laughed and began hurrying to prepare the food. In minutes it was ready, and in even less time, it was gone. Skip leaned back and sipped sealed thermos of coffee. Cad sighed and tried to remember the last time they had eaten so well.

Skip suddenly perked up and raised his eyebrows, holding up a finger. Reaching back towards the wall he opened a storage cabinet that released its magnetic hold with a thud. In the container he pulled out a small drone engine and tossed it to Cad.

“The final piece for my extra drone?” Cad looked at his dad confused and amazed. This couldn’t have been cheap either.

“I know I shouldn’t have, but it was only a kilo of gold wire that Frank charged me. He said he had been looking for it just for you. Said he wished he could have seen your face but knew the next time you met he would be just as satisfied. He also had some interesting speculation on the market.” Skip sipped from his thermos watching his son examine his loot.

“Only a Kilo of gold wire? Frank must be doing pretty well for himself. What were his speculations?” Cad didn’t look up from his component.

“Well that’s just it. Frank ran into a caravan coming from the Hildas. Frank had his suspicions about them but they seemed to love everything he had to offer. So he got a hold of more of his coffee and a whole bunch of these rations.” Skip stopped and pulled up a map of the system.

“What is Frank's paranoid suspicion this time?” Cad had stopped looking at his part and rolled his eyes as he turned to look at the display.

“Well he said that this caravan wasn’t a caravan at all. He felt that they were a scouting party for an incursion force from another corporation.” Skip stopped and looked Cad in the eye. His son shook his head and smirked, but that smirk quickly disappeared.

“You believe him?” Cad stared at his father’s face to make sure this wasn’t some ruse, but only seriousness and concern were seen in the lines of Skip’s face.

“I do... He said that they refused to say how many were with them, and they also had some advanced tech. Frank said they hailed him when they were a kilometer away from his craft. Never saw them coming. He thought he was going to die, but instead was met with trade and overly friendly young men that were too clean cut and orderly to be some caravan looking for new markets.”

Cad swallowed hard and felt his mouth get dry. So many of these details were concerning, but the one that burned into the forefront of his mind was the distance that they had gotten within Frank’s craft without him noticing. A deep sickening feeling bubbled up in Cad’s stomach, almost ruining the meal he had just enjoyed. That feeling went all the way back into his spine and rose up all the way to his neck, making the hairs stand up along the way. Calculations and possibilities ran through his mind all ending in very bad scenarios for anyone that might find themselves on the wrong end of these newcomers.

“A ship that can get in that close without being detected is extremely dangerous. We are talking seconds of response time if our systems could even sense them.” Cad’s eyes raced back and forth as he considered how many other people in the belt would be in danger if this was the new norm for violent negotiations. Skip broke into Cad’s internal dilemma.

“They were one kilometer away when they hailed Frank.” Skip emphasized the last four words. Cad stopped and looked up at his dad, a worse realization was setting in.

“Oh my god.”

As if the last three words were a prayer, a reverent silence fell over the small family. They sat there contemplating what the next few days or even weeks could look like in this sector of the belt. Skip stood and walked to the working central display and pulled up the solar system map, zooming in on their current location.

“Frank said he had his exchange on the leading edge of our Trojan rocks. And he made his way back to us here.” A line appeared between the two points.

“Now if they were a scouting party, we figure there are two most likely probabilities. First, they either continued scouting the leading edge of the Trojans and encountered other miners, which means they are now returning to their main group.” A triangular path appeared in blue indicating the hypothesized path they had made.

"The second scenario is more likely: they immediately returned to the main group after encountering Frank." A yellow line appeared with a hypothetical path backwards. Cad looked at both scenarios and then came up with a response,

“Or a third scenario: they aren’t interested in the miners and are just headed to the Stepping Stone trading point.” Cad said his hypothesis solemnly.

“Why would they do that?” Skip asked this part with a hint of defensiveness. Apparently this route hadn’t occurred to him.

“They made a show of force by hailing Frank, that wasn’t accidental. They were testing their own abilities against a common craft in the belt. They knew Frank would spread the word with anyone he traded with. And if they are an incursion force they would be hiding their numbers as long as possible. Not to mention you guys are thinking of paths in space too linearly.” Cad reached forward and turned the display on its side, so the Trojan Asteroids were now vertical. With a few inputs, Cad pulled up indicators for all other known mining vessels in the area. Most of the lights showed were located on the outer or highest point of the display and on the ‘underside’ of the belt or the left side of the display. Reaching up Cad drew a new line from the Hildas to roughly the midpoint of The Trojans. This was a rough guess of where the Stepping Stone station maintained orbit.

“They’re on a direct route, and they seemed to have timed their path to coincide with the fewest incidents with civilians. All the other miners are out of the way and farthest from the trading post. I saw this pattern when I marked our location that we just finished mining. I thought it was funny, but now it makes sense. Frank just was in the wrong place at the wrong time! And instead of destroying or disabling him, they went with trade and diplomacy. Not to mention the wanted to see how close they could get without being seen. The fact they weren't violent means that they want a good opinion of themselves being shared when the miners come in to sell. And they’re hoping to strike the station quickly, as to not disrupt the flow of trade.” Cad sat down and put both of his hands on the back of his head, looking at what made the most sense to him.

Skip looked at the display in silence for a few minutes, doing a mental calculation in silence. He weighed out what his son had said and looked at the three scenarios. Suddenly he spoke,

“Right! We need to leave now.” Skip quickly grabbed all of the remnants of their meal and opened the connecting door to the Cacoethes. Cad stood startled but understood he needed to react, even if he was confused. As Cad returned to his ship Skip shouted after Cad, “I’ll fill you in when we are enroute!”

Within minutes they were disconnected, the Cacoethes then fell in line behind the Antihalian, burning hard to match the velocity of the lead craft. Then the roar of the engines stopped, meaning they were accelerating at maximum stable speed. A chirp then rang out in the silence, followed by Skip's voice,

“Sorry, I had just finished a quick calculation in my head and realized we needed to get to the Stepping Stone as fast as possible. We just might make it in time to sell what we have and close our ledgers... I have been through a couple of these aggressive takeovers. Every time it's the miners that get screwed. Scarabs are left holding the bag, and getting shorted as the market price suddenly and inconveniently drops or changes. Frank said when he tried to sell them refined metal, they didn’t want anything to do with it. Instead, what they wanted was his ice and water, and he thinks that ice is going to be the new valuable item. If my calculations are correct, we are going to get to the station with maybe six hours to spare. I figure if we time it just right, we can offload our cargo at the current market value and leave before anything happens... I hope your guess is wrong and we have more time, but I don’t think you’re wrong. But like I have said before- I will be damned if I don’t get out of this debt now so close to the end.”

Cad listened and at the end responded with one word, "Understood."

The voyage to the station was days away but the looming severity of what might come weighed heavily on their minds. The rest of the voyage was silent.