The Space Mining Chronicles

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.”

“Yeah? Well, as inspiring as your statement is, let me add this: it is also true that no one will hear your bones crack once I finish you off.”

Mike Terranova adjusted his stance and launched himself towards his opponent with his fist clenched. Clarity of mind combined with speed and power delivered an almost perfect hit that would have satisfied his Jeet Kune Do instructor. The punch itself was called a straight lead. Its execution was as simple as its name, but its effect could be devastating especially coming from an experienced martial artist such as Mike Terranova.

And devastate he did.

Terranova’s mastery of fighting distance meant that his fist crashed into his adversary’s jaw with a two-inch penetration that was more than enough to deliver a knockout.

The attack took less than a quarter of a second. Had it taken more, Ryo Matsuda would have plunged his daggers into Terranova’s chest and ended the space miner’s life on Vesta, one of the largest asteroids of the solar system and a critical battle ground for resource supremacy in the second half of the 21st century.

Terranova retracted his fist and breathed deeply. It was not over. Matsuda was a professional killer and could quickly come back to his senses. Mike was on his own since the rest of the mining station’s crew were busy operating the drilling infrastructure and would not come back before at least two hours. Matsuda knew this but, for some reason, had forgotten than one crew member was always scheduled to stay behind to monitor the station’s life support systems.

“At least he’s not as heavy as he looks,” thought Mike as dragged the assassin into a secure chamber.

He removed Ryo’s weapons and took off his vest. The latter would certainly contain valuable information. Matsuda’s breathing was normal. He would wake up with a missing tooth and a swollen face but with no life-threatening injury. Terranova ran to the station’s main platform and came back with carbon coated bands. The technology associated with these bands meant that nothing, absolutely nothing, could tear or break them. It was one of those wonders that prevented miners from drifting into the emptiness of space and a wonder that was guaranteed to keep Matsuda from escaping.

Once the killer was firmly immobilised, Terranova stepped outside the chamber and locked it with a secure code. There was no time to treat his own injuries. Terranova’s fight with Matsuda had resulted in a damaged knuckle and several cuts on his forearms. That could wait. He needed to contact the crew immediately and check that there were no other intruders on the station. Mike was not too worried about this possibility. Evading the hugely sophisticated surveillance system was an exploit that could only be technically achieved by a lone operative.

“But he still managed to do it. I mean, it’s not even supposed to happen. And it’s not the first time either. Two miners were killed over the past five years because agents managed to slip through the cracks. These guys always seem to capitalise on weaknesses that we don’t even know exist.”

It dawned on Terranova that Matsuda must have had access to the station’s internal classified information for him to even consider breaking into the facility. And this was only possible if someone supplied him with the right information. Someone IN the station, right?

“Well shit…no. I can’t be pointing fingers at this stage. No one was killed. That’s the main thing. And I still don’t know what that psycho is doing here. During the six minutes that I spent with him, I saw him trying to access content in the primary database, but I need to determine what he was looking for. Lucky for me that he was not carrying guns. That would have sent me to the intergalactic graveyard. I can punch hard…but punching through a bullet is Shaolin Monk level and I’m not there yet.”

Terranova walked up to the main platform and looked at the huge glass through which he could see Vesta’s otherworldly landscape. The multiple mineral veins that characterised the asteroid shone with a bright blue light.

“They didn’t call you Blue Hell for nothing, eh?”

Blue Hell.

Whoever came up with that nickname for Asteroid Vespa probably did not predict how accurate it would become years after several space exploration missions determined that Vespa could help earth recover from its deadliest resource war. The latter erupted nearly ten years after the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, and it shook the world in ways that were never experienced before.

The resource conflict that came to be known as Prime War One was the first of its kind to oppose old powers to those previously known as the emerging ones. The United States coalesced with Canada, Europe, and Japan to fight against China, India, and Brazil. Russia stayed on the side-lines and waited patiently for Europe to grow weaker to effortlessly annex former soviet territories. A political analyst even joked that it was the geopolitical equivalent of Black Friday on Amazon. Sensing that its allies could not, or would not, help it bring the lost countries back to its club, Europe disengaged from the war. This infuriated the United States, but there was no time to argue in the face of the combined military machines of the new powers. The loss of Europe caused the conflict to last for much longer than was necessary. It is estimated that 130 million people across all continents, except Antarctica, died as a result.

Prime War One erupted for a very simple reason: Earth’s resources had dropped to levels that were too low to sustain the world’s population. Sharing these resources was no longer an option. They had to be acquired by force and any international organisation pleading for peace was politely given the middle finger.

It was during this war that asteroid mining went from being a mere possibility to an absolute necessity just to avoid earth being obliterated by ever more probable nuclear strikes. Prime War One had one benefit: it accelerated the development of space technology with the clear aim of creating alternatives to earth’s resources. New generations of artificial intelligence enabled this and on August 13, 2042, Japan succeeded in completing the first fully functional mining station on Vesta.

It was an extraordinary moment.

For the first time ever, the world was no longer strictly dependent on earth’s reserves of metals and minerals. It was estimated that Vesta contained more copper than South America and more lithium than every major mine present on the planet. The asteroid would be of little help regarding agricultural commodities but its value from a metal perspective was unquestionable. The world in 2042 had fully transitioned to electric vehicles and anything powered by fossil fuels was now a thing of the past. What were formerly oil supermajors were now energy companies in the most renewable sense of the term.

The Blue Hell nickname given to Vesta resulted from the bluish colour of the resource veins present on its surface. No proper explanation had been found regarding this colour phenomenon, but it was so prevalent that it simply became part of the asteroid’s identity. That was for the ‘Blue’ part. The ‘Hell’ part was linked to its inevitable fate: Vesta was doomed to become a target, a battleground, an obsession for every resource-obsessed power on earth.

Mike Terranova stepped on this battleground in 2048 when the United States caught up with Japan, China, and Brazil by completing the construction of New Atlas, its own space mining station. Despite being late to the party, New Atlas was a great success and shipped more resources back to earth thanks its impressive command of the entire production and logistics chains. The Americans watched closely as the competing stations worked to adapt to the immensely challenging space environment. It dawned on them that it was not access to the biggest resource veins that gave them a competitive advantage but the speed with which they refined and shipped the minerals. New Atlas was the only mining station with a refining unit. This essentially meant that it delivered resources that were ready for industrial use once they reached earth. Time saving which resulted from this allowed for greater flexibility in the negotiation of critical commercial contracts between the United States and its trading partners.

This could obviously not last.

China and Brazil were unable to set up similar refining units that could overcome major difficulties associated with the very unique space environment and resorted to hard tactics to discover the technical secrets of the American refinery.

Terranova was as much an engineer as he was a security expert. His primary missions were the maintenance of drilling equipment and the protection of the space mining’s crew. He had successfully fulfilled the first but was having a very hard time with the second. Despite the range of weapons at his disposal and his excellent physical capabilities, Mike was essentially on his own. He had requested help from the US government, but the recruitment of suitable agents had proved to be incredibly difficult. Security in space was a different game than security on earth. It required several rare skills which included the capacity to thrive within a space environment. Mike was among the very few to possess these skills. He was paid a fortune but that mattered less than keeping his comrades alive.

A red radio signal beeped on the main frame. Mike activated the call.

“Mike speaking.”

“This is Kyle. Are you ok? Sorry, we could not respond earlier.”

Kyle Brock was the station’s head of operations.

“That’s alright. There is an intruder in the station. I neutralised him.”

“What? Again? Who sent one this time?”

“Well, he looks Japanese, so…”

“Are you hurt?”

“Sort of. But it’s nothing that will prevent me from carrying out my daily duties.”

“Good to hear. What will you do with him?”

“If I can determine that he was only after classified information related to the station, I will hand him over to the US government. However, since he was armed and was quite prepared to kill me and possibly other members of the crew, I might decide a different fate for him.”

Kyle Brock was silent for a few seconds.

“Are you sure about this? Should you not just let the authorities handle this?”

Mike was annoyed.

“Kyle, I AM the authority on these matters. Remember: the moment you show mercy in space is the moment you’re dead. The intruder knew what he was getting himself into when he came here. Besides, I believe that my approach has saved your life a few times already.”

“I’m sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. It’s just that I have a hard time imagining myself killing anyone even when I’m clearly at risk of getting murdered.”

“Which is exactly why people like you need people like me to stay alive and people like me need people like you to survive. Do you understand the difference?”

“I think I do. I’ll be back with the crew as soon as I reasonably can.”

“Ok, the station will be safe when you are back.”

“Roger that. And Mike…”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for everything that you do. If it were me up there, I’d most likely be dead.”

“It’s all good Kyle. We live to see another day.”

Mike switched off the communication and thought deeply as he looked at the blue veins of Vesta.

Ryo Matsuda was probably just the beginning of a bigger assault to come. He had most certainly been sent to test the station’s surveillance systems and had been successful. New Atlas was fallible. That was all that the competitors needed to know. It was only a matter of time before other agents showed up and they would try to seize control of the refinery. If that happened, the shipments would be redirected to the aggressors’ bases on earth.

Could he stop that from happening?

Perhaps.

Would anyone punish the guilty?

No, because there was no law in space.

“There is no law in space. None. Zero.”

It was foolish to imagine that there ever would be. Vesta was just a first step in what was already the Ultimate Wild West.

Terranova remembered his life on earth. Despite all the flaws of his home planet and the most despicable things that humans could do, there was always a sense of order even when the sense in question was routinely beaten down. It always swung back to a certain equilibrium. There was no such thing in space. How do you define, much less impose, equilibrium in space? Like seriously?

Terranova wiped his forehead and nodded.

“Yep. I am truly just a bug in that void, and that other bug that's locked here with me must go.”

He went down to the floor under the main platform. This was where the station’s weapons chamber was located. Mike put his palm on the door to activate the fingerprint recognition. He stepped in and picked a handgun in the IDG section. IDG stood for ‘Internal Detonation Gun’. It was a weapon that produced lasers that destroyed internal organs without causing external damage. This model had been developed to enable killing without any bloodshed. In this way, bodies could be cleanly disposed of and even made to appear as if the deaths were caused by natural causes.

Mike checked that the gun was loaded and went back to see Ryo Matsuda.

“I see that you are awake. How’s that jaw of yours?”

Matsuda had unsuccessfully tried to break free from the bands that held him. Terranova saw that he was sweating. The intruder’s efforts had been intense but completely useless.

“You know how to punch. I’ll give you that,” said the intruder.

“Yeah? Do you want to know where I learned that from?”

“Don’t know, but why not? Your fist was vertical when it connected. I must admit that I was a bit surprised. I wonder if this feature gave you that split second advantage that explains my current condition.”

“It’s one of the signature fists of Jeet Kune Do.”

“Jeet Kune Do?”

Matsuda thought for a few seconds.

“That martial art was created by Bruce Lee, right?”

“Correct.”

The intruder laughed.

“How incredible is that? He died in 1973, nearly a century ago, and his fighting technique is now being used in space. In space! On an asteroid that’s 193 million kilometres away from earth!”

Terranova laughed in return.

“Yeah. I guess we’ll see Jeet Kune Do schools on distant planets one day.”

“Could be indeed. I watched a Bruce Lee interview once. He said: ‘Be shapeless, formless, like water’. Since space is absolute formlessness, I guess that Jeet Kune Do is eminently applicable here.”

“You have a point.”

Mike pointed the gun at him.

“But I will use a far more conventional method to get rid of you.”

“Wait! I can talk! I was sent to get information on your refinery. I can give you names. The Japanese are working with the Brazilians to seize this station.”

“When?”

“In six weeks. The final preparations are being made. They want to gain complete control of Vesta and force the United States to delay the construction of another mining station on Ceres, the other strategic asteroid. The USA have taken a head start in this and if they manage to start mining Ceres first, it will be very hard for the competition to catch up.”

“This makes total sense. And that’s all I needed to know really. By the way, the surveillance technology of this chamber has recorded this conversation. So, adios.”

Terranova fired.

A pale violet beam shot through the gun’s barrel.

Matsuda’s heart stopped. Three minutes later he was as dead as the rocks of Vesta.

Mike swung him on his shoulder and carried him to one of the station’s exit tunnels. There were two sets of doors. The second set could only be opened for access to Vesta’s grounds once the first set was closed. Mike entered codes in the control panel and waited for red lights to flash. They warned of the two-minute countdown before the doors opened.

Terranova pushed Matsuda’s body to the edge of the tunnel and returned safely behind the first set of doors.

He watched through the glass as the second set of doors opened and Matsuda’s body flew away in the emptiness of space.

“Well Matsuda, your soul will keep screaming in the vacuum of space for eternity. Who knows? Maybe someone out there might hear you.”

Ashley Boolell | www.ashleyboolell.com