The Boring Life Of A Miner In Eve

This article is an entry into the Jen Loo Mining Tale Contest

Falek hesitated at the end of the corridor, torn between cycling through the hangar hatch to his Orca-class ship, *Stone Cold Shaft*, and turning around and heading back to bed. The deep space miner hated to admit it, but yesterday's holobriefing didn't fill him with a whole lot of confidence.

The petite briefing officer complied with all the legal niceties of explaining fleet organization to him and the other miners. She showed remote repping battleships, a handful of cruisers, a Scorpion, and the usual assortment of salvagers, scouts, and hackers. She even let slip some of the cruisers would be T3s. She purred about the wealth of Fullerite gas, Arkonor, Bistot, Mercoxit, and Crokite just floating around ripe for the taking. All just a few jumps away. "A piece of cake," she pronounced with a smile.

Give fleet credit, Falek mused, they dangled the carrot well, but they always tried to hide the stick.

And the sticking point was a new Class 4 wormhole, somewhere at the end of a Class 3 wormhole. "Deep in the bunny hole and a long way from Aldrat," he mumbled to himself.

Months ago, Falek would not have thought twice about being a part of the expedition. He had little to lose back then flying an Osprey, but now he was older and wiser. This string of jumps in low sec space smelled like high trouble. Like pirates on your tail trouble. Like suicidal Goon trouble.

He pinged for the officer's attention. She responded with a finger point and a live public connection.

"So, where exactly does this Class 4 wormhole lead to?" Falek asked.

In a voice full of optimism she replied, "To wealth."

The other holominers chuckled and grinned. Falek didn't buy it. "I meant the system location."

She switched tactics, but retained her good cheer. "To dangerous unknown space, where all adventurers go."

Oh boy, Falek groaned to himself. Figures. We're just another bunch of rock jocks to her. Another try. "Is that why ordnance teams are loading up with T2/Faction weapons and ammo?"

Her smile froze. Her eyes narrowed. Frost coated her words. "We'll protect you. Just crush big rocks into small rocks and collect the ores." She recovered in an instant, warmth oozing back into her tone. "I mean, it is a Class 4. You have to expect some problems if you want to..." She paused, waiting to wring every shred of attention from the collected miners. They leaned forward to hear. She dropped her voice down an octave. Husky. Sexy. "...earn four times the reward!"

Damned if all those hard-core miners didn't melt there and then, clamoring to join the expedition. She never took her eyes off Falek. It was less a battle of wills than an admission that at least one miner in the group thought ahead. A thin slit of a smile ghosted across her face, vanishing as she collected final approvals from the miners and dispensed flight op plans and assignments. Falek was last to sign his approval, but he made sure he had the night to reconsider. Then came morning and the walk to the hangar.

Standing in front of the hatch, he remained unsure. He could still bail and pay the penalty. It'd cost him some isk and some status. He worked hard to progress from Retriever to Hulk to Orca. Level V certifications for Leadership, Cybernetics, Drones, Mining Foreman, and Mining Director made him a certifiable mining geek. That would not change no matter the outcome.

He laughed. The BattleBoyz slinging their warships around the stars considered mining way too boring. Every miner always replied with the old joke, "Boring is our business!" With all the wars around, crunching rock was an excellent business.

Pity she doesn't know the skill needed to pull Mercoxit from a spinning rock a thousand times your mass. I may not be able to hit a battleship outside my viewport, Falek argued, but she'll never rejoice in landing a tasty seam of Crokite into the cargo bay, or feel the joy of a full hold of Bistot.

True, it was a dangerous life at times. One slip of the laser into a fault line and all the ore and rock could cartwheel in a million different directions. Or puncture a gas pocket the wrong way and that asteroid explodes in your face, taking you and anyone else nearby along for the ride -- if it doesn't kill you first. That thought sobered him up. Enough asteroids contained memorial tags to mark the resting place of an atomized corpse.

He pulled his security card from his pocket. His hand hovered above the pad as conflicting thoughts warred within him. Being an immortal capsuleer eliminated the fear of death. It did not eliminate the fear of losing an expensive ship like the Orca.

No, the reason he hesitated was as impossible to define as it was simple: he had a bad feeling about this mission. He would hate to lose an Orca while betting on long odds. Class 4 odds to be precise. Well, better jump into one of his expendable pre-paid clones to preserve his expensive implants. Just in case things go bad.

His other concern was the wormhole. Mass calculations had to be balanced just right and this one was too new for him to call, he fretted. Falek had a suspicion the discovery was by “Ms. Sneaky” of Division Six, if that shadowy organization existed. He was smart enough and experienced enough to sift most facts from rumors. But Division Six just baffled him, and who knew where the wormhole really led?

Maybe that cutie of an officer had it right after all, Falek thought. It's an adventure. We all started out that way -- just looking for a little bit of adventure. Mining was the fast way to see how much adventure a man could stand. Some took to the solitude of the mining life for a time and moved onto big ships with big guns. Others joined expeditions like these to share the danger and the bounty.

Falek slid his card through the lock and leaned forward while the retinal scanner and DNA sniffer worked their magic. The hatch to the hangar bay hissed open and he stepped onto a balcony and into the din of preparations.

Before him ranged the expedition's ships, from the battleships through the cruisers all the way down to the converted destroyers modified to be scavengers. He couldn't miss the pair of Hulks going along and was glad he didn't have to pay for them. In the last few weeks, Hulk pricing almost doubled from 100 million isk to 190 million isk. Soros, that rogue, was probably playing market games again.

Actually, Falek considered, to see most of the ships in one place was impressive. He snickered, "A motley collection of unhanged rogues if ever there was. And I'm one of them."

With a lighter heart, he rode the anti-grav lift down to the floor and strode to the *Shaft*. He put a little extra swagger into his walk. It never hurt for the others to see confidence. Thanks to well-honed skills and some off-site negotiation, he obtained command of Squad Two. It wasn't much of a squad firepower wise, but he came to mine, not battle, and his expertise would spread the bonuses among his team.

He pulled his comp from his pocket and locked into the AI of the *Shaft*. Falek recited the arcane passwords and punched in the hexadecimal code to unlock the ship and begin power up. He swung up the ladder and into the ship, sealing the hatch behind him. By the time he settled in the pod and plugged in, the Orca was humming and ready to go.

The trip from high to low sec space proved uneventful, and the jump through the Class 3 wormhole proceeded without incident. The Class 4 jump took some extra time, but the fleet warped in. Scouts fed safe coordinates to Falek and he executed a squad jump to an innocuous fringe of the battlefield as the warships blasted the sleepers clean from the Gravimetric site.

As the salvagers swept the debris clean, Falek led the squad into the asteroids to start mining. "Look at 'em go!" he shouted to himself in the cockpit as the Hulks chewed through the rocks and spit out ore-filled jet cans that the Orca gulped into its cargo bays. He watched the cargo readings soar ever upward. He kept a light hand on the controls, allowing the AI to pace the Orca with the Hulk.

So intent was his concentration on the displays that he hardly noticed that the warships vanished to destroy the additional Radar, Magnetometric, and Cosmic Anomalies found by the scouts. Then the scavengers left to sweep up after the warships, leaving the miners to pummel rock by themselves.

Falek felt anxiety wash over him as the miners faced all of space alone and virtually unarmed. It was always like this, he complained. The warships raced outward to extend the defensive perimeter and the miners did what they did best. You had to trust the warship commanders, he reasoned, that they wouldn't bug out. Miners hated being left to the tender mercies of thugs, and this particular strain of abysmal sec space must contain many. As the saying went, "Smart miners keep one eye on the lasers, one eye on the cargo bay, and one eye on the long-range sensors."

So far, so good, went the plan, Falek observed, but he reminded the Hulk operators to stay alert while they were busy sipping the Starbucks mocha cappuccinos he bought them. "Keep an eye on directional scans and watch for probes," he advised. "We have no Local in wormhole space. Watch your readings on that POS. The scouts claim they have it under observation, but you never know how its owners will react. I don't need to tell you that Hulk drivers who fell asleep at the helm are dead drivers. Stay alert."

Falek cut the comm. "Easier said than done," he grumbled to himself. Mining takes time. Lots of time. Falek couldn't really fault miners for falling into a thousand klick stare during extensive operations, but he made sure those under his command didn't.

Time dragged on as he tractored one can after another into the Orca. Personally, he enjoyed the sight of Hulks shredding asteroids while droids and drones buzzed the field in maximum efficiency. Well, he corrected himself, as efficient as he could be in ordering Industrials to haul ore here and there. As for him, he took the precaution of aligning the Orca towards the wormhole. Past experience taught him that the difference between warping out whole and erupting into a billion pieces could be the seconds saved by shoving the throttle to full without having to turn around.

He stared out the window, then checked and rechecked the holo displays. Peaceful. Serene. All's well in the galaxy. "It really is a piece of cake," he mused as the computers tallied the ore.

That's when the proximity alerts blared to life in the *Shaft*. Directional scan displays showed five enemy Sisters of Eve combat probes in space while the POS scout yelled at least six battleships have come to life. "How did the scout miss a probe ship?" Falek yelled at the display. He shoved the throttle to full. An Orca may not pirouette through the vacuum, but he made sure it waddled to the warp point.

Fleet Channel screamed "Bug Out! Bug Out! Bug Out!"

It was every ship for itself. So much for the plan. "I knew we needed the battleships closer!" Falek raved, urging the ship towards the magic three-quarters speed level. Mass, thrust, and time flickered through his head as he calculated the intersection point of the *Shaft*, the warp point, and enemy fire.

"It's looking ugly!" he concluded, and ransacked his memory for some trick to spin up the speed. The Hulks, for all their size, disappeared in half the time it took the Orca to get in gear.

The klaxon grated on his nerves and he shut the howling off. The holo display glowed red as three enemy battleships attempted weapons lock. He watched the speed indicator crawl upward. He stabbed the control as the digits passed the magic level. The ship lurched into warp with not a second to spare.

Thoughts as black as deep space rifled through this mind at the idea that the warships ran without covering him. So much for all the ordnance and firepower. They left him hanging as Tail-End Charlie, risking his hard-earned Orca while they saved their hulls. "I am NOT getting a big enough cut out of this!" he declared. Deep down though, he knew if the fleet came to him, they’d all be waking up in a clone vat back in high sec.

He commed Fleet. Commander Bug Out told him to jump on contact. Falek acknowledged over the comm, but inside his head he shook his fist at the holo screens. No kidding! Warp before a trio of battleships fried me? "Ya think?" he roared.

With crossed fingers for luck, Falek shook through the warp with all those wonderful fleet battleships orbiting two klicks away from the wormhole. Brave boys in their battleships, he sneered. At least one commander was smart enough to pop a warp disruption bubble to slow down enemy pursuit. Once through, the battleships pulled in their drones, stopped remote repping and jumped in after Falek.

As the jumps brought the expedition closer to home, Falek calmed down. Scouts reported the way clear. The last jump into high sec space pleased him to no end, for it meant docking, unloading, and payday. He tallied the ore, checked current prices, and totaled up a rough estimate. The accountant would help him figure out what should be refined and what should be sold off. It looked to be a very nice figure after everyone got their cut. Word was the salvagers did well indeed finding lots of melted nano ribbons, which Falek knew would translate into a nice cut for him as well.

Later, sitting in the bar with his squad, Falek contemplated the mission. "Touch and go there for a while," he drawled. "Thought Commander Bug Out and the BattleBoyz left me behind."

They jostled him and shouted obscene suggestions, but each also bought him a drink for getting the *Cold Stone Shaft* back in one piece.

Falek tapped his glass to command attention, and they fell silent around the table. He slurred the words a bit, but each miner heard him. "You can boldly go into low sec space with a battleship, but you haven't lived an adventure until you stare down three enemy battleships with a mining ship," Falek boasted, then shouted, "Here's to us miners who make the Galaxy go 'round! We're boring!"

And each of his companions yelled, "Boring is our business!"