《Golden Sands》


 1. An unexpected ending.

    In a metal box drifting through space, there slept a man. It was not a large box, not much bigger than a coffin. A resting place for the dead was not the purpose the box was advertised for, but it was usually the resulting function. It was a Rynolx industries lifepod+. One of 300 that had once belonged to the starship Farseer.


    At one time the box was coated with gleaming white Cerami-tanium. On top of the polished and sparkling surface, were safety instructions for recovering the pod and hopefully its inhabitant. In much larger print was the logo of Rynolx Industries: a large red stylized "R". Below that sat the text "lifepod+ the safest place to be in any emergency".


    The box was still in that condition on the day it was jettisoned from the Farseer. It and two hundred ninty nine others like it, were pushed into space twenty minutes before the ship core exploded.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    The box was pushed away by that explosion, far from all the other boxes. It fell through space on a course that left it battered by the surprising amount of dust, rocks and ice that can be found in what is supposed to be nothing.


    Six hundred three years after its expulsion from the ship, the box had entered a decaying orbit around a red dwarf star. In twenty days the box would end its long journey in a fire blaze of glory.


    The man inside the box knew none of this.


    As the box got closer to the star, a song, that was old long before men launched the first rockets into space, began to intrude on the black nothing of medical stasis. Inside the mans head, instruments played and a woman''s voice sang "Somewhere..."

 2. Fortune, Soup and Greeg

    Around the same red star, a ship whos name translates as "The Special The Soup" is scanning the asteroid belt for minerals.


    The ship could be described as being shaped like a fortune cookie broken in half the wrong way. It would be a somewhat accurate description, although very oversimplified. The top of the ship is smooth, tan and  tented just like the cookie.  The bottom of the ship is a flat plain interrupted by a large bent ribbon thruster and equipment hanging down.


    Upon finding a mineral deposit to its liking, dozens of long mechanical telescoping arms reach out from the belly of the ship. The arms swarm the large floating rock. Light flashes in staccato pulses as arc torches break open and dig through the mass of stone and carbon. Occasionally some of the arms will  pull small boulders of ore into a glowing maw near the front of the ship.  The visual effect not dissimilar to the claws of a crustacean pulling apart a fish and delivering it to the crushing jaws in a frantic pace.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.Two hours later and the house sized asteroid is reduced to a cloud of dust and floating debris.


    Inside the ship, specialist Greeg looks over the active scanner nervously. Many mining ships have been overtaken by opportunists just after a large haul. Greeg''s last contract had to be towed back to a dock after an ambush.


    Greeg likes this ship. The "Si rou si lala" is an odd name for a ship, but the captain named it after a tattoo he recieved as a young man on a far off planet.


    The captain is nice. He pays well, treats the crew with respect, and always has a good smell for profit. This latest haul is good. Too good for Greeg. Too much valuble ore means this ship may end up like his last.


    A feeling in his joints says everything is about to go wrong.


    The scanner pinged.  The scanner that Greeg was desperately watching and willing not to ping, pinged.


    Something had entered the system.

 3. Blades Edgelord.

    Krellsul loved farming miner ships. The idiots do all the work. He gets all the ore. The despair on their faces when he shows up within minutes of their big haul. It makes his gleebs tremble.


    His ship the Murderedge Bladefury, is a welded patchwork of junkyard ships. A one man fighter with cargo hauler bays welded to the undercarriage, and the plasma driver of a Kri destroyer between them. The scrapped destroyer''s power plant and main thrusters make the ship fast enough to tear itself apart.


    The Murderedge Bladefury was likely to have done so on the rapid trip into the system. A skilled pilot or a reasonably advanced pilot assist AI can ensure a safe flight. It is in fact true that Krellsul Jendarm is a decent pilot. (It is also true that the AI he purchased from Jendarm parts and used ships, prevented 3 catastrophic ship failures and 7 navigation errors.)


    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    Krellsul''s stepfather had sold him the AI, but more importantly he had also sold most of the mining ships their sensor arrays. A small dial home command board installed in the sensor unit


    Let Krellsul know when any valuable ore is scanned.


    The Murderedge Bladefury set a course to appear between the star and the mining ship. They might see a blip on their sensors if they were paying attention to anything other than the ore they were mining for him.


    It was just too easy.

 4. Luck

    Captain Andov looked up from the mineral composition reports when Greeg screamed a warning. He immediately pressed the button to retract the harvesting arms and activate the shields.


    A green bolt of supercharged plasma hit seconds after the shields came online. The impact shook the frame of the ship causing several innatentive crew members to stumble.


    "Crew to battlestations, Veeky give me ship status!" said Captain Andov as he sat down in his command chair.


    Veeky was on the floor. A shattered mug that had once read "Universe''s best mom" lied in a pool of liquid next to her. She cursed under her breath as she pushed herself up and read the monitor at her workstation. "Shields holding sir at 7-9. Slip drive emergency startup available on your order. "


    Ten feet away, Grou, a large round old man with catfish like whiskers braided into his beard looked down at the shattered mug and fought between reactions to sneer at such poor craftsmanship or commiserate the loss of an item that he knew had great sentiment to his co worker. He chose neither, because both were a distraction from the data on his screen. Data that in the moment he looked away had not miraculously changed for the better.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation."We are too heavy to make port." Said Grou. " If we activate emergency slip we will be stranded in the void."


    "Noted. Give me a charged scan of whatever hit us, and maneuver us to point our shell at it." Andov sat


    "Sir spike and emp missles are now ready to fire. We have 15 spike shells on standby. Target data is....Gone!" Veeky said.


    "We are blind! All the sensors just entered a diagnostic check! Targeting, navigation, all of them!"


    Greeg shouted.


    Captain Andov rolled up his sleeve to expose the GreGre tattoo he had gotten as a young man in the navy. It was against Navy regulations to expose, but everytime things became hairy the tattoo''s luck kept him safe. ''Come on Special Soup do your thing.'' Andov said inside his head while posturing a brave face for the crew. He needed a miracle.


    "Captain incoming hail." said Greeg.


    Andov smiled.