Nobody said Rock Hauling would be easy. Throughout settled space, terraforming is the fuel that drives the interstellar economy. For some worlds, this is easy. For others, lacking resources, or on the periphery, this is an unattainable dream. Throug...
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TOMAS III
It took the EVA teams, as Carcosa had promised, three days to get their tethers set up. It only took seven more days for the rest. Ten days, it had taken. With four to spare, they fired up their engines, and kicked the rock out of it's orbit.
Tomas watched the spectacle with a mixture of melancholy and awe. They'd lost one man already. He'd known that this adventure would cost uncountable sums of money, manpower, blood, and tears. But he hadn't let himself think about the blood. It was no game anymore. This was real. And there were consequences.
Shortly before firing up the engines, they had brought the command staff together to discuss reprisals.
"Your helmet cam outed you, kid," said Colemon. They had been gathered in what passed for the brig of the Caroline. She was no military ship. There was no holding cell. Instead, they'd bound the man -a demolitions engineer named Braden- hand and foot and strapped him down into an acceleration chair in one of the cargo lockers.
"I couldn't know that someone already mined the rock," argued the young man. Tomas studied him. His body language was clear. Hunched in his seat, trying to look pathetic and un-threatening, eyes flickering between the four command staff whose responsibility it was to mete out judgement. "I didn't think it'd be important."
"You didn't think it would be important." Carcosa's voice was flat, almost drained of emotion. "You had one job, and you didn't think doing it was worth your time? Amanda almost died. Jacks almost died. Weldo did die."
"I mean, chief, I told you that I didn't like using that gear-"
Carcosa kicked off of the floor and slowly drifted his way over to the man. "And so you figured you would rather not use it. I bet Weldo would agree it was worth it. To pander to your sensibilities." He looked down. "But Weldo's not here, is he? Oh yeah, he's in cold storage, because you fucking killed him, you idiot."
Tomas wasn't entirely sure why he was being brought along. Perhaps because he'd been there when Braden's laziness had doomed poor Weldo. Perhaps it was because he was technically the director of the operation. He stood in front of the man, mag-locked to the floor, and wondered what would happen to him. The young demolitionist turned his head away from Carcosa, and met his gaze.
