The Twelve Stones (58 page)

The mass driver he would use to launch the life-pod was mostly used to propel unprocessed ORI back to the Homeworld in enormous twenty ton containers measuring fifteen by forty meters long. Once a large container was filled, the mass driver would fire them towards Earth's Lagrange point where a large processing plant ran continuously, processing the ORI into usable material. The refined ORI was then used for building all sorts of things, including the sizable orbital cities where the rich and powerful lived far above the scorched ruins of Earth.

It was hard work, millions of kilometers away from home. But for these workers living, breathing and working in the hollowed out Asteroid known to them as Rosetta, it was their only shot for a prosperous life.

Rosetta was unlike any asteroid humanity had surveyed before. Sitting in a comfortable orbit within the Asteroid belt situated between Mars and Jupiter, it had begun its four and a half billion year old journey full of the elements Humanity used to build the ion drives and spacecraft that took them between the planets.

Measuring one hundred and eighty nine kilometers at its diameter and one hundred and nine kilometers at its height, it was one of the largest asteroids in the 'belt. Steven Breynard, a Consortium scientist, was the first to survey Rosetta. After a few samples were analyzed, he was certain the readings he was getting from his instruments had made some sort of mistake. According to his survey, the asteroid contained the single largest strike of verified and minable ORI in the entire solar system. It dwarfed anything found thus far by the Coalition on Mars.

The news spread quickly, and the Consortium, never one to waste an opportunity, recruited the CEO of Nebula Mining, Dimitri Koschei, to immediately set up shop. Huge self-sufficient drillers with crews of one hundred began to land on the harsh asteroid rock like dozens of tiny mosquitoes searching for blood. A mere six months later, the first permanent settlement was established within the rocky walls of Rosetta. Koschei moved to Rosetta and
touted the safety and luxury of his colony to encourage immigration, Rosetta needed workers, and lots of them.

Fortunately for Koschei, the depressed Homeworld economy made millions desperate for any job, even the ones you might never come home from. In fact, the more superstitious considered it bad luck to call Earth anything other than Homeworld outside the Van Allen Belts. Most of the miners who immigrated to Rosetta never returned to Earth.

At its core, Rosetta was a PR stunt, designed to give those without hope living within Consortium borders on Earth something to shoot for. Advertisements depicting the exciting life and unlimited possibilities awaiting settlers in deep space were often misleading and rarely depicted the terrible conditions workers found themselves in once they had immigrated. The slogan was repeated ad nauseum across all the poorest of countries: “Better Living through Space.” The campaign was designed to collect the cheapest labor available, and it worked. Oh, how it had worked.

The shattered economy on Earth ensured that millions signed up for even the chance to stand in line for the program. Riot police had to be stationed outside enormous “Job Fairs" which promised real opportunity and a chance to escape the hellhole their countries had become as a result of the Consortium's ironfisted rule. As a result, workers signed draconian contracts, heavily indebting themselves to Koschei and the Consortium. Even despite the whispers that conditions aboard Rosetta were barely above slave labor standards, that rarely discouraged anyone who hadn’t had a meal in a week, which happened all too often across the Homeworld.

The first few years of mining Rosetta were disastrous. Workers were routinely killed by micrometeorite storms which punctured the rebreather suits they wore mining the surface of the small protoplanetary world. If you were fortunate enough to survive the micrometeorites, you still had to deal with what the miners called “Heavy Rain," the tiny invisible cosmic rays which constantly struck the miner's bodies, mutating their cells and creating the worst kinds of cancer rotting the insides of anyone unfortunate enough to mine Rosetta's surface.

They had treatments for the cancers of course, but those were expensive, and many of the workers died before being able to save enough credits for their own care. Those who were able to scratch out a small profit immediately spent it on his medical care so that he might be able to get up and spend another day mining ORI, again exposing himself to the horrid conditions that led to the cancer in the first place. It was a vicious cycle, a matter that Consortium leaders routinely ignored. ORI was the only thing they cared about. So long as it was cheaper and in greater quantities than what the Coalition could offer, the Consortium allowed the CEO of Nebula Mining Dimitri Koschei to run things as he saw fit.

Things got marginally better for the miners once they dug the Pit deep enough to protect them from the cosmic radiation. Underneath a kilometer of solid rock, the miners built what would later be known as Downtown. There, a community complete with living quarters, a place for shopping, drinking and socializing, they spent whatever limited free time they had when they weren't mining for ORI deep within the Pit.

Bit by bit, life improved aboard the station, but luxuries like clean water and food beyond Sump (a synthetically grown meat product grown using recycled organic waste) were rare. Despite assurances that their food and water were perfectly safe and tested for quality, the meat routinely came to the workers rotten and their drinking water stank of sewage.

Sinjakama was sweating hard and he wiped his forehead as he checked the ArmBar attached to his forearm. During the night cycle, the dehumidifiers were taken offline to conserve power, and the air in the Pit became thick in his throat. Residual heat from the mining equipment used below combined with the water imprisoned within Rosetta's walls. During the night, the water would trickle out of the icy rock surrounding them and without the dehumidifiers constantly running, the air quickly became saturated.

Tonight, the heat felt especially oppressive to Sinjakama and he worked quickly to get the life-pod online and position the Mass Driver's trajectory. He triple checked his math - even the slightest miscalculation could send him millions of kilometers off course from Earth.

The large claw machine he used to insert the life-pod into the Mass Driver completed its task. He glanced at the readings, adjusting them one last time. If all went to plan, this would be the last time he'd be on Rosetta. He looked down into the pit where the Mass Driver was located, a bout of vertigo assaulting him. He stared over the edge of the pit, clinging to the railing next to an impossible flight of stairs. He swallowed. He hated heights, especially ones that looked into bottomless pits of despair.

Thousands of feet down in the pit, he could see the Mass Driver's bright white lights flashing towards the exit leading to deep space and five hundred million kilometers away from Rosetta, Earth. Suddenly overcome with dizziness at the sheer height below him, Sinjakama moved away from the railing. He leaned back against the safety of the wall behind him and sunk down, sitting as he tried to catch his breath. He pawed at the glowing PDA situated on his left arm. A glowing screen leaped out in front of him as Sinjakama clicked through various station interfaces. As a senior engineer, Sinjakama had access to nearly every system on Rosetta and he hoped to use those administrative rights to slow down Rincon's goons.

Calling up a live security feed, he watched as two of Rincon's security bypassed the bulkheads he had locked down and headed towards him in the Pit. Sinjakama had hoped it would take Rincon's team longer to break through the bulkheads, but, they had proved more resourceful than he expected. For now, he was stuck at the top of the ridge, looking down at a thousand feet of empty space between him and his deliverance. He needed to move, damn his fear of heights.

“There he is!” The shout came from behind him, and it kicked Sinjakama’s mind back into high gear.

The two security guards ran down the hallway towards the pit, the uneven gravity well making their clomping boots sound all the more ominous. Walking on Rosetta wasn’t a simple task like it was back on Earth or even Mars. Huge gravity well plates (or GWPs as they were known) installed through the station, allowed for near Earth norm gravity anywhere on the station. An unwelcome side effect with the uneven placement of the tiles, it could make you feel as if you were drunk or falling in a hole every other step. It was not dissimilar to what
sailors went through when they crossed the mighty oceans in their tiny boats hundreds of years ago. Instead of sea legs, a man had to earn his ‘droid legs in order to move comfortably about the hollowed out asteroid without vomiting in his sick bag.

Sinjakama looked down into the pit, and typed a few commands onto his ArmBar. Holding tight to a stabilizing bar anchored into the rock, he watched the security men behind him and typed one final command onto his PDA. Suddenly, the gravity plate for the Pit released, and the two security officers chasing him found themselves suddenly floating in midair, screaming and cursing at Sinjakama.

Taking a deep breath, he looked deep down into the Pit. His ticket off Rosetta was down there, waiting to take him back to Earth. Swallowing his fear, he pushed himself off the side of the ridge and began to slowly float his way down into the deep chasm.

Lights began to turn on as his body floated past the sensors, activating them. He waved his arm, using conservation of momentum to turn his body slightly and look up at the ridge behind him, to see if Rincon's goons were still chasing after him. The two security guards had regained their footing, and pushed themselves down into the pit, falling after Sinjakama at an impressive rate of speed. The bottom of the chasm yawned beneath him, Sinjakama knew at their pace, they would catch him before he could make it to the enormous Mass Driver on the ground below.

Judging the distance below, he flattened his body, and began typing on the PDA on his arm once more. Sinjakama began waving his arms in a swimming motion as he slowly began to move towards the tiny buckets lining the side of the Pit finally reaching one as he grasped it tight. Watching the security men float down towards him, Sinjakama pushed enter on his PDA.

Gravity reestablished itself within the Pit, and the two security guards screamed as they plummeted all the way to the ground below. Sinjakama closed his eyes tightly and ignored the sickening crunch of their bodies as they splattered on the equipment below.

Above him came another shout, and Sinjakama looked up. It was Omar Rodriguez, Koschei’s right hand man. There were rumors that Omar had killed a man on every settlement in the system and one look at the man convinced you that the scuttlebutt surrounding the six foot nine musclebound terror was likely based on fact. Why he was chasing after Sinjakama now, he had no idea. He decided it was best to stick with the plan. Men like Omar were known to sell their services to the highest bidder.

Omar quickly secured a portion of climbing wire to his belt and to the safety railing. He jumped over the railing and began rappelling quickly down the pit's walls. Omar was no idiot, and he would not be taken off-guard by Sinjakama as easily as Rincon's security had been.

Sinjakama quickly turned the gravity in the Pit off again and pushed himself down towards the bottom. Reaching the ground, Sinjakama considered kissing it, but he didn't have that kind of time. With a quick swipe of his finger, he re-engaged the Pit’s gravity and stood, moving quickly towards the life-pod he had installed into the Mass Driver's launcher moments before. Uncovering the hatch, he opened it and began to quickly activate the life pod's systems for the long trip home as he had been shown and practiced so many times in drills.

“You’re too late Dr. Sinjakama.” A voice called from the shadows. Even now, when Sinjakama thought it couldn't get any hotter in the pit, there was was a chill in the air.

Sinjakama screwed his eyes shut. Not him, anyone but him.

“Did you hear me Dr. Sinjakama?” The man emerged from the shadows holding a Rattler, a powerful small arms weapon favored by those in Downtown. Weapons not held by Koschei's security forces were considered illegal, but that did not stop a few enterprising individuals in Downtown from re-purposing the hand held laser coders they used to tag the ORI with into rather effective, if not crude, weapons.

Sinjakama swiped at his Armbar and frantically pushed the send message button several more times, but received no confirmation in return.

“That’s no use to you I’m afraid, as we've already shut down off-site communications when we suspected you might know of our...” the man’s face smiled a bit, “plans for Rosetta here.”

“You won't get away with this you know.” Even as Sinjakama said the words, he knew they rang as hollow as this asteroid had become. He slid the thumb drive into his pocket, and turned to face the man who would bring his death. If he was to die. He would do it on his feet and staring at the man who would be his doom.

The man smiled and glanced up at Omar Rodriguez who was still descending quickly into the Pit. He had just enough time.

“Perhaps not, but I think my chances are much greater than your own at this point.” Lazarus Rincon said as he lifted the heavy weapon in his hands firing it. Sinjakama felt the bolt of energy go through him, and then, he felt nothing at all.

Vicktoria followed Rincon out of the shadows. “Pity. I could have made so much more off that man.”

“Did he have any proof?” Rincon asked Vicktoria as she nudged the prostrate scientist on the ground.