Lantham, a tall man who’d been forcibly recruited, was operating the cutter. “Seam is angling up and toward left-axis again.” The built-in communications system in her exosuit made it sound like he was standing right next to her instead of several meters away in a room full of noisy machinery.
He’d been an indie trader before being caught about a hundred days ago, and was a filer, with a minder talent for remembering everything he ever heard, saw, or experienced. Julke knew from personal experience that it was a two-edged forceblade. Some memories she’d trade anything to forget.
Sutrio, a mid-height woman who’d been caught by a similar trap, sat in the cab of the rolling jig that collected and separated the chofi from the worthless rock. “Spiral seams are bad.”
She’d been a prisoner almost as long as Julke, but lately wasn’t doing well. Sooner or later, the mine got to everyone. On her good days, she was an animal affinity, with the ability to exchange thoughts and emotions with animals. Thanks to her, most of the prisoners knew how to care for griffins, even the orphaned and injured.
Sutrio’s full jig trundled slowly away from Lantham and to the hopper.
That left Julke to load the valuable chofi ore into the hopper, keep the waste out of everyone’s way, and monitor the finicky enviro unit that generated air and humidity in the sealed work area. She could handle the extraction machines, but like most of the Volksstam, she was shorter and smaller than the two indie traders.
Her fourth job was to operate the scanner. “Lantham, move so I can update the materials map.”
Lantham swung the cutter to the side and stepped back.
Julke pulled the scanner out of its pack and lugged it to where Lantham stood. She set it down, aimed it, and waited until it beeped the completion sequence. Like most of the mine’s equipment, it was old and spent a lot of time with the repair techs. It was supposed to send the data to the mine’s hypercube immediately, but sometimes the techs had to do it manually once it got back to the habitable area. The central AI analyzed the twisting seam’s adjacent morphology and, if needed, directed the tunneling machines to install a new set of gravity plates and light pillars during their sleep shift.
On her way back with the scanner, she checked the temporary airlock again to make sure the inner seal was tight against the tunnel walls. As she did, she saw through the transparent doorway that neither mech-suited guard was stationed outside like they should have been.
Julke waved to get Sutrio’s attention, then pointed toward the temporary airlock, made the sign for guards, then the signs that meant they weren’t there.
Their absence was good and bad. Good, because some guards were assholes who made the shift miserable. Dajoya was the worst, but she had competition. Bad in case of trouble with the equipment or with the valuable but volatile materials they were extracting. And prisoners couldn’t get back to the cells without an escort.
The guards were spread too thin. Especially after the big blowout about sixty days before that had killed twenty prisoners and nine guards.
She’d heard the mine was upping the pay and benefits to attract more candidates. The job would be a tough sell. Guards had to have mining experience, be minder shielders, and agree to stay one standard galactic year. And according to believable rumors, candidates also had to agree to let a minder cleaner erase key memories so they couldn’t betray the existence of the rogue asteroid.
They’d just completed two more jig loads when they were interrupted by an announcement from Security Operations Control.
“Workgroup 17-C. Pause operations and stand by for inspection. Acknowledge and report individually.”She pegged the mid-range voice as belonging to the regular Admin tech for their shift, rather than one of the security staff or equipment techs.
“Acknowledged,” responded Lantham. “Cycling rock cutter’s power off.” He hit the switch, then laid the heavy cutter aside, careful to avoid the hot wand that could burn a foot off in a nanosecond.
Sutrio set the jig to idle and announced her action. The mine had long ago given up using visual feeds to monitor prisoners. No camera survived more than a few hours in an active excavation area.
Julke turned the humidifier down, then hurried over to the hopper. She scooped up the griffin and its nest and looked for a place to hide them.
Sutrio climbed out of the jig’s cab, then opened the built-in tool box on the side and pointed. Julke tried to send soothing apologies to the griffin for the rough handling as she crammed the nest into the tight space. Sutrio closed the door, then stood in front of it.
Julke ran to the hopper and powered it down. “Hopper offline.”
The comms systems in their suits let everyone talk to each other without shouting. But it also let the guards and staff overhear every word of every conversation. Prisoners had developed sign language for conveying private information.
Lantham gave the sign forwhat the hell?
It had been a while since the last inspection, maybe before Lantham arrived. Inspections usually meant equipment was missing. Julke gave the signs forprobably nothingandtrim your jets.
Moments later, the airlock doorway opened. Two guards stepped in, each wearing the light and flexible state-of-the-art mech suits that all the tunnel guards had.
Lhap Cho and Dajoya were escorting a prisoner she didn’t recognize. Or more accurately, an exosuit suit she didn’t recognize and a face she couldn’t see.
Lhap Cho stepped aside and pointed toward the prisoner. “This is Lunaso 3006. He went through full orientation a couple of hours ago. We added him to your workgroup’s comms net.” The guard’s accent spoke of a Mandarin heritage.
Lhap Cho pointed to Julke. “Defayensdytr 1351 is your trainer.” He turned to give her a pointed look. “He’s all yours.”
Julke nodded once, hiding her dismay. The last thing she needed was to be stuck with abeschaafdnoob from the Concordance’s part of the galaxy, and be held responsible for his actions. At best, their workgroup would take a quota hit and be forced to work extra to make up for it. At worst, he’d be a bumblingklojowho’d get her punished or get them all killed.
The other guard, Dajoya, stepped forward. “Line up for inspection.”
