*Chink* - *Chink* - *Chink*
The sound of mining robots filled the cavern, strange metals gleamed and shined on the walls and
great amounts of toxic smoke rose up into the air of the cave. There were at least two hundred small scale robots in this part of the cavern alone, all mining a massive ore vein to be sent to the surface for processing, and among these robots were humans, one of them was Ferrous.
He slammed the robots maintenance panel shut "There's nothing I can do, not with what I have down here at least" Ferrous sighed, this was the 12th robot this week to shut down due to faulty repairs. This time, the battery unit fried the internals. Some good for nothing mechanic decided duct-tape was enough to fix a crack in the battery, causing the crack to further spread during intense mining operations and eventually bursting, spraying highly corrosive industrial grade battery acid everywhere inside the robot. Ferrous would of lost his fingers had he not been wearing gloves at the time he opened the maintenance panel. A haggard looking man in dirty blackened clothes rubbed his hands together nervously by the side, he opened his mouth to speak "Come on now Ferrous, isn't there anything you can do?" He shuffled closer, looking at the closed panel "The branch manager said last week he wont be able to replace any mining robots this month" The man looked downcast, the higher ups barely gave enough funds to keep their own mining operation under works, not to mention paying the workers. All the men who worked here were at the bottom of the ladder and the money barely paid for food, the only reason they kept working this job was because they either had bills at home to pay, families to feed, or sick children needing medicine. There was also the chance to save up enough to leave the planet for greener pastures, although the amount to leave the planet was no small sum. Ferrous ordered a bot to take the destroyed mining robot to the surface for recycling, turning back to the man he replied "Whoever else is "fixing" these robots, fire them. This is the 12th robot that they've fucked up this week alone, and if I didn't know any better, I'd think that he's doing this on purpose" The man looked shocked but didn't talk on it, for he also knew that the man doing the shoddy repair work seemed to be doing it on purpose, yet he couldn't do anything about it, in reality the only person with clearance to discharge someone was the branch manager, and he never took the time to check the reports sent from the mines. Even though the mine made millions of dollars worth of credits weekly, the only time the branch manager would come to the mines was because the numbers in his bank account stopped ticking up, and in the rate that these robots are breaking down that's bound to happen soon.
An alarm sound three times, signalling the end of the day. Robots stopped their digging and emptied their loads of ore, before being loading up onto a carrier to be taken away for overnight "repairs". Ferrous removed his mining suit and slotted it into his locker before closing the door and heading outside, grey clouds loomed in the sky with little patches of light shining down in rays through gaps in the clouds... It would probably start raining tonight. As he was walking to the mines outer gates, a commotion broke out, armed guards were lining the exit and were holding up all the leaving miners to talk to them before they left, as he walked up, a guard stepped forward and addressed everyone "From today onward, everyone working at this mine will have to find work elsewhere" Everyone started to shout, but before they could start yelling the guard continued "Branch manager Elson Hellar has been convicted and found guilty of embezzlement and human trafficking and has therefore forfeited the role of branch manager from this mine. The government has forcefully taken control of this mine and all its assets" Everyone was quiet "You will also be paid for the work you have done this week as well as 150 extra credits. 400 credits should be enough to tide you over until you find work" Ferrous sighed and closed his eyes, the average nutrient pack could barely feed someone for a day, yet alone a hard working person like these miners. The extra money was enough for a weeks worth of food and water, coupled with the 350 spare credits from today's unexpected salary, Ferrous had enough credits to live for 2-3 weeks before he ran out of food and water. There was a decent amount of time to find work before then he figured, but the problem was... What work was there?
Rain fell hard against his metal roof, and a cold breeze blew into his shack through the small holes in the floor, the rain fell heavily tonight. Ferrous was on his couch, it was made from an old rubber tire from some giant machine used decades ago in the first original mining operation on this planet. His father used to tell him how his grandfather used to operate one of those machines back in the day, not that it mattered now anyways. Ferrous glanced sideways as he saw an old service robot he repaired making its way over to him holding a bowl filled with Hydrated bread and nutrient goop, as the robot got closer it handed Ferrous the bowl slowly and made a distorted screech, the robot wasn't hostile, its vocal speaker was broken so all he made was screeches or whines instead of actual words. It didn't disturb Ferrous, in fact he found it somewhat cute sometimes. "Thanks, Polo" The robot whined then climbed onto the couch to lay down with Ferrous, and when I say lay down it laid face down on the couch and sat still like a brick, making light whines every now and then. What a weird robot. Ferrous examined Polo, it stood 2-1/2 feet tall and a foot wide with thin, periscope like arms that extended to a meter long. Polo was dark gray with bronze highlights around the edges of his box-like body and his face was a monitor with two blue dots for "eyes" and and blue line for a "mouth" Ferrous was halfway through his meal when he finished observing Polo in his brick-like state, and he turned his attention to his AWCD. (Arm Worn Computing Device) A holographic screen appeared mid-air and showed various jobs available at the moment, and to his displeasure, the screen was blank, wait a second. Ferrous looked at the one job that was always able to be taken labelled "Scavenger", he frowned, the reason it was open all the time was because there where always people dying whilst scavenging wrecks, the wrecks were often unstable and could collapse on someone at any moment, this danger didn't apply to scavengers in space, because of the lack of gravity in space nothing can fall on you, and even if you did get trapped space scavengers always worked in teams, and had civilian mechs refitted for the purpose of scavenging. Beside all the dangers in working as a scavenger, it paid quite well depending on the parts you could find and there were a lot of parts to find on a fresh wreck. Ferrous scratched his chin before deciding to call up his friend, Kellan. The phone wrung for 5 seconds before it got answered, the sound of items falling on the floor crashed through the receiver "FERROUS! What's up~! It's been ages since you last called me!" His friend laughed "I called you 2 days ago Kellan" Ferrous replied, used to his friends eccentric behavior "Aie aie aie.... You know I get bored without you around" His friend paused "Ever since you started working in the mines after you left school you never had the time to hang out with me, your best friend of 7 years, might I remind you" His friend sounded like it truly hurt him to his core. Ferrous smiled, his friend joked about going to school, without having a high standing in society can someone go to school. Ferrous continued on "I called because the mining job got closed down" His friend was genuinely shocked this time "Really? Why, what happened?" Ferrous explained the whole ordeal, from the guards telling them they didn't work at the mines anymore, to the branch managers illegal activities. "Wow, who would of thought..." His friend went quite "So does that mean...?" Ferrous responded "Yeah, I'll probably have to start scavenging again..." Ferrous originally used to go scavenging with his father, until his father was killed during an accident in a major wreck. Some random scavenger was cutting a piece of beam out of his way to get to the electrics behind it, little did he know that by cutting that beam he destabilized the whole upper section his father and a few other scavengers were on. The floor caved in, then the roof and the whole wreck crumbled into itself like a pancake, because spaceship armor was extremely dense, it was also extremely heavy, and without proper support, can easily crumble under its own weight, that's why most spaceships were made in space. He went quiet for a moment before continuing on "I was thinking of scavenging together with you, if you don't mind of course" His friend couldn't contain his excitement "YES, wait, NO, I don't mind at all! When are you starting?" Ferrous thought for a moment "I was thinking after tomorrow, I have to check if my old gear still works after all" His friend laughed lightly through the phone "Great, because I found this old transport vessel buried under the sand in the Quadra Region, and I need some help to dig a way inside" He and his friend discussed what they would do for 30 minutes before they both went to get some sleep. He applied for a position as a scavenger, and it was immediately accepted, figures. He was required to list himself under a code-name in case he wanted to make parties with other scavengers, so that any profits made by selling parts were evenly distributed between the members of the party, Ferrous thought for a moment before deciding his code-name. He decided upon the name "Fracture" after glancing at his still face down service robot polo.
-(2 Days Later)-
Ferrous walked towards the meetup building used by scavengers planet-side. Looking out for his friend, he spotted Kellan waving next to an old cargo truck, Ferrous ran over and his friend walked forward to greet him "Is this your truck? Who'd you steal it from?" Ferrous asked acting concerned, his friend just snorted and motioned towards the truck "After a year of saving I had enough for this bad boy!" He proudly slapped the side of the truck, causing some miscellaneous metal parts to fall from the truck as he did so. "Do we need those parts?" Ferrous asked actually concerned this time "Relax, they aren't anything important!" stressed his friend, yet Ferrous could see the bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. An hour passed before they could start driving towards the location of his friends secret wreck but they had to make sure that nobody was following them before they headed there directly, scavengers often followed others to find and steal wrecks from them, a good wreck could go for a decent fortune after all. Thirty minutes later, they confirmed they weren't being trailed and headed towards the wreckage.
An old cargo truck pulled up to what seemed like a normal sand mound in the desert, but if you looked closely, you could see antenna sticking up from under the sand in certain places, hinting to the idea that a ship lay dormant under the sands. Ferrous and Kellan strode up to the mound and set up a sun shade to block the sun while they dig, they also covered the truck in sand colored camouflage so nobody could spot the truck easily. After everything was ready, they instantly started digging, although they were still a fair distance away from breaching the hull of the ship, they worked fervently as they were excited, Kellan especially, this was the first ship he ever found on his own that he alone, besides Ferrous, could have free reign on. They dug fast, and in thirty minutes, a sizable trench towards the hull of the ship had been dug, this was what they worked for. They set up laser cutter to cut a rectangular hole in the ship the size of two doorways and watched as it made quick work of the ships exterior plating, even though the batteries needed to power such a high intensity laser costed 1500 credits a pop, they could be reused many times due to them being rechargeable, and even if they did cost a small fortune, the money made from harvesting a wreckage more than made up for it in the end. Ferrous was watching as the laser cutter was about to finish while Kellan brought down two trolleys to dump scavenged parts into, as Kellan pulled up next to Ferrous, the cutter finally finished, and beeped to confirm it's job was done, the cutter moved the metal plating to the side slowly, like a massive bank safe opening its doors. The inside of the ship wreckage was pitch-black and a slow cold wind drifted out from the inside. Ferrous and Kellan turned on their torches and took a step inside.
This was it.