章節 52: Koros-1
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***
We left for the return trip already prepared for the long autonomous flight. Supplies, water, fuel, everything was in abundance.
The only thing that worried me was the problems of double travelling. The barca didn't fit in the hangar, and I'm only one, and I can only drive one ship. In this case, as it turned out, there is a trick - the control of the ships could be linked and the barca could automatically follow the yacht. It took a few hours to set up the automatics, good thing our crew was prepared and up to the task. It wasn't as easy as it looked at first glance. The barque was piloted by a droid with lots of instructions about following us.
I returned to my quarters when I was satisfied that the barque was following us obediently.
Shi'ai spent the morning to mid-afternoon with Maekoi, a nanny and teacher in one person. At first, on the first day on Corellia, he was capricious, so I had to order him to behave like a man, not like a little child. It worked - he calmed down, but not for long. Trouble with him, he's too active, so I had to rely on Makoe.
But now I was calm and could work without distractions. My work was reduced to studying historical references on the centre of the galaxy and experiments with Force replication of various material objects. Ju, as soon as he saw such a device, almost fainted, immediately catching fire with the idea - he began to offer options to earn money on it, but I had to stop him - to fill a crystal with force it is necessary to keep a legion of forsusers. And that's not how you get power in the middle of space. Annoyed, he hung his head, but I still cheered him up by saying that we'll save money on expensive equipment when the duplicator will be of higher quality and ready for mass production. But that's all toys. The main thing is the galactic nucleus, everything else is secondary.
The flight to the core was via the Coruscant system, where the yacht left in a few hours. I put aside the details of the new duplicator and went up to the bridge, where the owners of my yacht were - the captain, a Mandalorian named Cal, and his retinue.
- What have we here? - I walked over to my chair, where all manoeuvre control was tied to.
- We're in the Coruscant system," the captain said, "We're fine.
- I'll drive from here, - I switched on all the instruments and checked the control and looked towards the navigator, - switch on the hyperdrive and write the route.
- But we don't have coordinates, - the navigator tried to indignant.
- Switch off the navicomputer, - I grinned in response, - I will drive further.
Though the crew looked at me as if I were suicidal, they did not disobey the order - the navicomputer was switched off, and the hyperdrive was getting ready to jump again. Once the hyperdrive was activated again, I had to concentrate on flying. About twenty minutes after entering hyperspace, the situation changed drastically - there was danger in almost every direction. It was only through sheer strength that I was able to keep moving. Still, I should try to fly on a lower-class hyperdrive - at least longer, but safer.
The flight lasted an hour and a half. Not far, very far, a couple of steps on a galactic scale. We were travelling towards the planet Koros. All the time in hyperspace the crew was very tense - in this sector of the galaxy the navigational instruments showed that we were out of the navigation zone. Finally, we came out, almost hitting an asteroid field.
The Koros system was about as the guidebooks described it. Four planets, two of which were inhabited Coruscant-type planets, Koros Major and Koros Minor. We were on course for Koros Major, the former capital of a former empire that had existed before the core went into another destabilisation cycle and navigation in the core became impossible.
- Cal, we're going to that planet. Koros.
- Koros? - the captain was surprised, "No way. It's...
- Abandoned. Long and secure. We're going to Koros. Sit down wherever you see fit.
The captain nodded and began to command the crew, and I went to my quarters. I had to get ready to go into the system.
Julian was already waiting for me in my quarters, jumping up impatiently as soon as I entered:
- Well? What's up? What's up?
- Hey, take it easy," I grinned, "not all at once, okay?
- Where are we? - Ju cooled down.
- We're near the planet Koros. We'll be landing soon. Get ready.
Julian nodded and ran off to his quarters, and I went to my quarters as well. Erdva was in my quarters, but he didn't have to explain, as he always had a connection with the ship.
- Am I going with you? - The droid squeaked questioningly.
- Of course you are," I looked around my quarters. There was a lot of space, so everything I needed was in my quarters - equipment cabinets, terminals, and all my stuff. It was inconvenient to use all the space - it took too long to walk around, but everything was at my fingertips. And the rest of the space was ruled by Shi'ai, and he was too curious - he might unscrew something from my spacesuit and say goodbye, Skywalker....
The landing on Koros went smoothly. I put on a light spacesuit and took my blaster and sword, just in case, and went down to the hangar. There was already waiting for me there, along with the whole company - Shiai with Makoi, technicians, captain, XO. The ship has landed.
- Well, ready for inspection? - I smiled and was the first to get into the speeder. I was driving, of course. Shiai was offended that I hadn't brought him along, but Makoi quickly calmed him down and got him out of the way.
Julian climbed into the speeder next to me, and Erdva docked outside, thankful the speeders had adequate space for a droid.
- Shall we fly? - Erdva asked.
- Open the hatch, - I confirmed and the hangar opened its doors....
Koros was an urbanised planet. Although such a title is probably premature - not the whole planet was built up, but only ten per cent, but it was already a lot. During the battles the planet was bombed many times, and also was a bridgehead, which the Sith wanted to capture - it was too easy to get from here to Coruscant - it was the closest planet to the capital. Nature put an end to all these intrigues, in the form of the galactic core. It is not always stable, and once in several hundred thousand years it can arrange an armageddetz. Not on a global scale, of course, but it can create some level of hyperspace instability. Hyperspace at one point stopped being an even and smooth layer of subspace and suddenly, suddenly for the whole galaxy, became unstable. And in unstable hyperspace it is impossible to make a static route - the coordinates that led a week ago to a neighbouring planet can lead to the galactic space, although this is if you are lucky - to crash into a star in such a stormy hyperspace - a piece of cake. At one point, the Koros supersector, the Koros Empire, which sprawled across nearly half of the galactic core, was crossed off all navigational charts. Coruscant was lucky - it was only a thousand light years from the border of the "exclusion zone".
For three thousand years, no human or non-human had set foot on the surface of Koros. No one had a chance to survive - the planet could no longer provide itself with sustenance, much less supply itself with everything it needed - according to experts, civilisation on Koros had probably declined sharply, descending almost to the Stone Age. And that was only those who were in protected buildings and bunkers at the moment of destabilisation - people on the street had no chance to survive.
As they approached the surface of the planet, the belief that it was dead grew stronger - the entire surface was covered with a thick layer of ruins, and among them, sometimes, there were large buildings that had stood the test of time. No skyscrapers were preserved - only pieces of piles and rebar sticking up. Down below, the ruined buildings were almost swallowed up by nature - the surface of the ruins was covered with earth, on which grass and bushes grew.
- Erdva, how's the atmosphere?
- Breathable. No harmful impurities detected.
Julian's comments were less than censorious, but he was impressed. Actually, I was impressed as well, but I couldn't find the words.
- Erdva, activate bioform scanners. We're looking for intelligent life.
- Aye... no intelligent life within range.
We circled the ruins of the city for a while before heading back to the yacht. Julian was already there, impatient to get out of the speeder, and asked me:
- Interesting, of course, but why do we need Koros? There aren't any serious fossils on it....
- Just for the sake of interest, - I grinned, - now let's go on. Go and get ready for the geoscanner. Tomorrow we leave Koros for the other planets. I think we've seen all the former planets of the former Empire - if Koros, the furthest from the core and the most protected, didn't survive, the others didn't stand a chance. Alas, they did. Julian ran off to prepare the equipment, and I returned to my quarters, where I began preparing for future endeavours. Namely, I meditated that tomorrow the force would guide me exactly where I wanted to go, wherever that might be.
Shiai was bursting with curiosity, but I deliberately didn't tell him the details - firstly, the Force alone knows how it all ends, and secondly, he could tell someone because of his childishness. Of course, it would not be critical from the point of view of the law, but then the whole conspiracy would go down the drain. But what conspiracy is there - no one can fly after me or follow the ship anyway. Peculiarities of the sector.
In the morning, having had a good sleep and breakfast, I quickly went to the bridge. The captain was already waiting for me.
- Good morning, Mr Skywalker.
- You too, Kal. Ready for a new challenge?
- That's for you to ask," the captain grinned, "I didn't think we'd actually be coming to Koros.
- That's just for history's sake. I'm not really interested in anything on Koros. The main thing we came for is the local ores and riches. According to my calculations, the closer to the centre, the higher the chance of finding certain ores and minerals, so... today we'll go looking for them.
- Aye! - The captain's at arms length.
- At ease. Now, I'll take the helm, activate the backup hyperdrive. The main one's too fast, it's too hard to fly.
- Aye! - repeated the captain and began to give instructions to the others on the bridge.
It was easier to fly on the backup, it was our sixth class, that is, quite slow. And the slower we went, the more time I had to react. Bypassing the most inconvenient parts of the path became much easier, although if from Coruscant to Koros we walked for an hour and a half, then here we still had to fly and fly. I couldn't see where I was going, but I could feel the right route. And what I was looking for was nothing less than a planet rich in fossils.
As we progressed, the excitement on the bridge began to subside - the navigator calmed down, the XO left the bridge, the captain took his chair and brought a cup of tea from somewhere and sipped it.
The hyperspace flight was over in nine hours. After such a long flight, I had a hard time getting out of my chair and dragging myself to the bath, after which I pounced on the food. The cook was good, he cooked well. He was assisted by four droid cooks. After giving me some meat pies, he calmed down and I went to the bridge. The pies were just right - the captain was just pouring himself a new batch of tea. Already refreshed and not so chuffed, I returned to the crew.
- Where are we? - I asked a question, but the captain just waved his hands:
- "I have no idea. That's for you to ask.
- Okay, - I put the tray with pies next to the droid-waiter and got into my chair, - navigator, scan the system, all data on my and the main monitors.
- Aye!" he replied and in five minutes my terminal displayed information that was duplicated on the main, large monitor.
Unknown system, except for a couple of asteroid fields, two planets, one dwarf and the other normal. No atmosphere on the first, the second is carbon dioxide, with almost no impurities.
- Let's fly to this... what's its name, which is Coruscant-type," I poked a pie at the image of the planet. The captain immediately started giving instructions and the yacht headed towards the planet. We flew for about forty minutes. I didn't wait and went to our number one ore miner. Julian was in his quarters, lying on his bed, reading something on his datapad.
- Wake up," I entered, knocking only for the sake of propriety, "the pipe is calling.
- What pipe? - Ju was surprised.
- Just a figure of speech. We've arrived. I can't say what planet it is - we don't have maps. But it must be what we've been looking for.
- That's good news," Ju stood up and, adjusting his clothes, came closer, "can I start work?
- Absolutely. Take as many of the crew as you need on the barge.
- Aren't you coming? - Julian wondered, "You're the one who started all this.
- I'm coming," I reassured him, "but not for long, because I don't know how long I'll be on that barge.
Julian scratched his nose thoughtfully, then nodded and said, "I'll be in the hangar in an hour.
- Great," I nodded, "I'll go pack.
I had to take care of the crew of the barge. I didn't need much, but if I had people, why not take a couple of technicians with me? It's no good stopping work, and it's lazy to sit on duty.
Julian went out to the hangar an hour later. A shuttle with supplies has already flown to the barque on my order and loaded it with everything necessary.
- You ready? - I asked him, - have you got everything? We'll be back either now or not for a while. That's if the Force has guided me right.
- Ready, of course," Julian sighed, "where to go?
There was only one Kappa shuttle in the hangar. It wasn't old, but since it had so much room for modernisation... in short, Kappa was almost a household name, a small but good transport ship with its own hyperdrive, and a floor design in the main compartment that allowed the shuttle to be quickly converted from cargo to passenger and vice versa. Shuttles differed from ships by lack of developed life support system - it has no cabins, only one main cargo-passenger compartment.
That's the shuttle we climbed into. Two forklift droids with some crates followed me. There were no markings on them, but from the looks of it, they contained fuel for the barge's reactors. Erdva, who always accompanied me, flew in after them. Shiai also looked into the hangar, but found nothing of interest and left.
The pilot looked out of his compartment and seeing Julian and me, asked:
- "Shall we take off?
- Yeah. We're going to the barque, docking.
- Roger, - the pilot disappeared in his cabin and the shuttle went up into the air, closing the cargo ramp.
The barque was a highly specialised ship. Its equipment was first class - scanners, geo-scanners, micro-labs for testing extracted materials, and so on and so forth. There were also powerful lasers that could cut through terrain to get to mineral deposits faster. Julian was getting the hang of operating and using the barque, but I had no idea how to use this wunderwaffle. My only hope was Erdwah, who could help with the controls of any ship.
The shuttle docked with the barque and we headed out. I grabbed the crates and, as soon as I got out through the airlock, I turned to the shuttle pilot:
- Tell the captain, let him hang in orbit for now, if we do not return in twelve hours, then let him land the yacht next to our barque.
- Aye!" the pilot called out and the airlock closed.
* * *
Scanning the area was relatively interesting. With the force I could see large deposits for several kilometres, about the same as the barque's equipment could. Julian sat at the controls, letting Erdwah operate the barque while he scanned the terrain. His work was duplicated by me, using the Force. We flew over the surface of the planet. The surface was jagged, and it looked like there had once been seas and oceans, but they had long since dried up after the planet had lost its atmosphere. It wasn't uncommon for a powerful stellar burst to blow the atmosphere off a planet. And given the sector we were in... the captain hadn't turned off the deflectors at all, and the barque was shielded from the powerful stellar radiation.
It was quite cramped inside - the main space was occupied by the hold, equipment, and the space for the crew was minimal. The barque resembled a submarine in its utilitarianism and simplicity, which was not far from the truth.
Actually, I trusted the force, and I was not wrong - after an hour's flight over the planet we came across a large accumulation of metal below us. There had been iron ores before, but we had missed them on the grounds of uselessness. This metal was different, much more valuable. From what I could sense, it certainly didn't fit the category of ferrous metal. Julian ran out to me and shook me by the shoulder:
- "Ani! Found it! Found it!
- Shh. I know, I can feel it. We're over large deposits of some kind of metal.
- Big? The scanners show deposits all along the horizon. There's a whole sea of it!
- I see, - I yawned and looked at my friend, - let's see what kind of fish got into our nets....
- What fish? - Ju didn't understand.
- Yeah, never mind. Switch on the equipment.
The barge hovered five metres above the surface. Julian went to the operator's station of our mining equipment, and spent half an hour switching on everything he needed. As soon as it was time, the emitters of the tractor beam projector started working and began to lift up what was below the barge. The process of the mining barque itself consisted of pulling ore from the planet's surface with a directed grav beam and melting it into raw materials in a molecular furnace. Since the rate of pulling was much greater than the rate of smelting, efficiency was limited by the molecular furnace. It was not enough to extract the ore, the metals had to be carefully separated from the slag and then smelted and stockpiled.
The first extracted samples went to the lab. Dirty grey stones the size of a fist, lighter than a normal stone. I took the ore, scanning it with my power. The stone was a mixture of metal and slag, not forged by force. Julian came up behind me:
- Give it to me.
- Her or the metal? It's not hard for me to smelt...
- No," Julian grinned, "we'll melt it in the furnace. We need to see the characteristics...
What characteristics he wanted to see, I found out immediately, having transferred the ore into the scanner. On the holomonitor, with which Julian was working, the numbers and the image of the inside of the ore appeared - approximately the same as it was felt in the force - dust particles of metal mixed with slag. Only there were more dust specks than slag.
- The metal content is sixty-eight per cent...," Ju muttered.
- Is that good or bad?
- Good, of course," he said as a matter of course, "the ore is rich, but it's probably only the top layer, the most saturated. There's another one beneath it, barely fifty per cent... so.....
- What kind of metal is that? I couldn't recognise it, it's too destructured in the ore...
- Now, not all at once," Julian sat down in front of the monitor.
I walked around the lab while waiting for the results - the space was really small, tighter than on the Barlos. Seven or eight square metres of free space, bordered by equipment - a molecular oven cabinet, a scanner that looked like a microwave, a few other devices that remotely resembled a microscope, a laser scalpel, and so on and so forth. And it was all crammed into a small room that was too small to turn round.
The scanner, the one that looked like a microwave, finished its work and Julian stared at the monitors.
For the next three minutes he was out of life, judging by his keen study of the contents.
- What is it? - I couldn't stand it when Ju was completely absorbed in studying the indicators.
- There's-" he looked excited, "-there's something here!
- What is it? - I asked irritably, "what is it?"
- You're not gonna believe this! You wouldn't believe what we've stumbled upon.
- It's not beskar or neuranium," I waved my hand, "it doesn't look like gold either, it's heavy.
- No, look," Julian turned the monitor projector towards me, "it's singing steel! It's a valuable metal!
- Oh," I grinned, "by the way, yes... there's just one problem... it's very hard to melt, so it can take years to mine....
- Don't you get it? - Julian was surprised, - it's almost seventy per cent in the ore! And smelting it in a molecular furnace is quick. It was the beskar you had to fiddle with, because your partners melted it down straight into an alloy. If we don't have to process the metal and just use a molecular furnace to sinter the ore, it'll be a lot faster.
- Well..." I scratched my ear, "are you sure?
- More than sure, my friend, more than sure! Shall we start mining?
- Let's get started," I nodded, and Julian flew off to work.
I stayed in the lab and opened the calculator on the datapad and quickly calculated the profits and losses. The barque could carry three thousand tonnes, the price of one kilogram of singing steel was in the region of two and a half thousand credits ... and this is raw steel, products from the steel itself were worth an order of magnitude more - just the metal is very strong and refractory, so the creation of anything from singing steel was very hard work, and required special equipment, from high-temperature furnaces and equipment capable of working at high temperatures, until the metal has not cooled.
The value is also clear - on average, of the army's equipment, weapons cost around one or two thousand credits, armour from five thousand for a light armoured suit of duraplast and ballistic fabric, to fifty thousand for full durasteel armour. Mandalorian carless armour kit, from fifty to one hundred, and singing steel armour from one hundred to three hundred thousand for light and heavy armour suit respectively. The average armoured suit, containing about ten kilograms of valuable metal, went for one hundred and fifty thousand, that is, a kilogram of metal, being used for business went at a price of fifteen thousand credits. The markup is also understandable, and it's a rare metal, not enough for everyone, even if you learn to make mass products ... And no one will invent such a method - firstly, it is unprofitable, and secondly, pointless. Metal is not enough.
The refractoriness, of course, gives the ability to resist blaster fire, in the case of singing steel, it can even withstand lightsaber blows. That's quite something.
The other thing is the numbers. I took the datapad and went to the mining control panel, a narrow corridor leading from the cockpit and lab to the tail of the ship. That's where I found Julian.
- Ju, we've got a problem looming...
- What kind of problem? - The ex-smuggler's got his hands full.
- Look at this. This is the price of the metal we're going to get.
- Wow," Ju's eyes widened, "that's....
- Big trouble," I finished for him and, seeing the incomprehensible look in his eyes, explained:
- It's illegal, and there are people who are very interested in finding out where we found such deposits... and that's only half the trouble. The other half is that there will always be people who are very interested in who suddenly got rich here....
- Sith, Anakin, are you scared?
- No, not at all. I'm just being realistic. You see, my friend, money doesn't just fall out of the sky. If you got that kind of money from somewhere, somebody's gonna be interested. And besides, where are we going to put that kind of money? For us and our grandchildren, let's say, we've earned a good old age....
- You're right about that... - Ju bit his lip and rubbed his neck thoughtfully, - I'm sorry, I snapped. I made a vow to myself when I was smuggling contraband not to get involved with dodgy dealings.... Greed, it's what drove a lot of people to stab themselves in the back.
- All right, that's taken care of. If it was a million or two million, we could realise such sums quickly and without much trouble. It's certainly a lot, but it's not fabulous wealth. But this much.
- Any suggestions? - Julian asked.
- We're not changing our plans for now. I've already got contacts with the KMC, when I pushed the beskar to them. I think they can keep the seller's name a secret. As for the money... it's too much. Take as much as you want, there's enough for everyone.
- No, Anakin," Julian disagreed, "you're right. It's better to have more just in case than to go for the maximum amount. Ten per cent is enough for me, and that would be a lot of money.
- Well..." I shrugged, "I agree with that. It's something to think about. This planet isn't the only one in the core, far from it.....
With the last word, I left the cabin and went to my quarters. Also very cramped, but I'm not used to it.
There really was so much money, I wouldn't be surprised if mining companies were interested in me as a future competitor. The core is an ideal mining site in that respect - only I can come here, no one else. The area is completely isolated from the entire galaxy, so there's nothing to fear. But we can't just mine in the black like this, we're breaking the laws of the Republic. Last time, with Beskar, I was the full owner of the land, and although I didn't have the right to mine, I leased my land, and the KMC had all the necessary documents for mining... Now we are operating illegally on both counts - permission and possession.
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