Mining on Katanos VII (Cortosis Thread.)

[Break]

Break watched as the planet came into view of the monitor. The Cargo ship he had...Borrowed moved at its normal pace. Break didn't like the idea of catching the attention of any "Unsavory" visitors. The planet Katanos VII was typically somewhere Break might normally find himself but in this case it was special. He was lending the he was lending himself to a cause rather than their credits. He had brought around 30 DLN mining droids with the hopes of mining cortosis from what was left of this rock.

The ship cam into orbit after a short check of his Spacebook page. Break had his crew land the ship not too far from where they would be digging.
And now was the time to take inventory.
Slowly and surely he counted the mining droids and inspected them as he passed by. But that wasn't the only thing that he was looking at.
He brought along a team of 2 DLN-02 droids to be a small security team for himself. He had grown slightly attached to the droids as he had previously just had a witty "Backenforth" with with the two. He had decided to keep both named them Brutus and Alpha.

As the ship touched down Break would wait and prepare his droids for his associates to arrive.

Sul'ran was one of Breaks new contacts when it came to getting his hands on things he wanted and right now he wanted a Cortosis Blade.

 

[Break]

Sul'ran touched down about 80 meters from Breaks ship as he himself made it.
Everything about the old Trandoshan was slow and deliberate. Which Break respected but at times abhorred about the lizard man. He was ALWAYS late. Especially for these businesses meetings that the Trandoshan hated.
"I ssssee you're Ready to start the dig."
Sul'ran said in his slow hissing voice Break had come to know.

"Indeed I have... when can I start sending in the Droids?"
Break asked with an almost impatient tone.

"Don't worry shiny one. We'll start placing the charges at once."
The Trandoshan said before snapping his fingers as two young Trandoshan males went off carrying backpacks Break assumed were full of explosives.
"My son's have a talent for this kind of thing."
They weren't actually his sons but Sul'ran had picked them up on Nar ' Shaddaa for a fair price and had raised them like his own ever since...which still wasn't very good treatment but hey its better to be raised as family than a slave.
The two spent about 10 minutes placing explosives before finally coming back.
To which both simultaneously said.
"Done pap."
And quickly headed further away from the explosion. To which the old Trandoshan looked at Break
"Let'ssss do this."

 

[Break]

The explosion have a Shockwave even where the 4 were standing at currently some heat could be felt and small debris flew past them even hitting breaks ship....the Trandoshan would pay for that. Before long it was safe to move. And Break was eager to start. First he would send in his hydromining droids to take out the first layers of dirt and rock. He had the Trandoshan ship which was currently loaded with water connect to the hoses of the droids. Each setting out to create a large 500x500 meter field giving plenty of room to find the cortosis Break would need for his blade. The high powered Hoses blasted away layers of dirt that normally would have taken days to dig manually in only a matter of hours.
He prepared for the next phase of digging as some of his droids sifted through the dirt and quarry. Small shards of cortosis were found but nothing that would be substantial.

"Gog Karking DARNIT Sul'ran! I need that Ore! "
He said slightly irritated by the small amount of payoff after hours of work.

"Be calm shiny one. The empire was not built in a day and you shall have your blade soon enough."
Sul'ran said in a calming tone.
"The first part of mining will be over by the end of the day. "

------------------------Days later------------------------

The mine was coming along smoothly as each one of the ships would go drain water from somewhere on the planet and bring it back to the site while the other would pump to the droids. Each day the mine would become deeper and deeper. And each day nothing worth melting down would come to the surface. It was time to send in the seeker droids to find larger Ore deposits and speed up the process.

 

[Break]

DLN-03-R5T or "Rusty" as Break and the other Organics called him, was a mining droid among his brothers that well enjoyed his job taking clumps of rock and dirt to the top of the mine and dumping it into the sifter. He loved going down below the ground but he loved the open sky too! And he got to enjoy both every day! He liked to lug the heft rocks back and forth it wasn't an exciting job but it was HIS job and he was pleased with it. Today he had been working on the mine for 50 days. And today something was different...this rock was lighter than the rest...odd. and it gave off a strange energy field. He wasn't touching it directly but for some reason he could sense it. As it "tingled" his sensors. He noticed right then that a few of the other droids were following him...he wondered why but then went back to taking the rock to the sifter. A few minutes later he could hear alarms going off. And laughter coming from the mmasters.after that he was told to go shut down in the ship for some rest... He liked rest.

 

[Break]

After the celebration Break was the only one left standing the next day for obvious reasons. He made sure every droid was running at full capacity and Rusty was back on duty. All droids were at full charge and ready to go. Break released the night shift and sent in the day droids.
Droids 1-15 were brought up on the screen.
Each showing it's current task, power charge, and estimated payload of the day.
Break sat at the desk looking down the 70 meter deep pit and the large vein of cortosis at the bottom the droids with hydrologic drills were even having trouble breaking the rock and each of the carrier droids seemed loaded to the max with dirt and rock possibly filled with cortosis. He manned his station alone for about an hour before the rest of the crew were up and running.

 

[Break]

The Trandoshan named Shun'so laughed as he sat blasting the small creatures that inhabit the planets surface he was supposed to be on guard duty but he hadn't seen or heard anything other than pests and rodents around. He was told to blast them of course, they didn't want the droids being tampered or have them be malfunctioning in the morning. No no, that would be bad. He wondered when he and his family would be doing bounties again and wouldn't be around the short man anymore. His father still liked him which gave Shun a small amount of respect for the little guy but still he was bored. He looked at his timekeeper and noted that it was Tim to turn on the giant sifter again he got up and flipped the switch and watched as the large blades turned the dirt inside. Breaking the ores and rock away from each other before going through 10 grates of shrinking sizes until the dirt rock and ore were all separated.

 

[Break]

As Break noted that the pile of cortosis was getting larger. 70 days had been marked upon how long his crew had been there and while He himself wasn't there all the time he knew his men wanted to go home and his droids were in desperate need of full repairs rather than field repairs. His drills were becoming dull and water was becoming more expensive than the month before. He noted that this would be the last week before the company would leave. And while he knew he had lots of Ore that, in theory a 100 lb clump of Ore would make considerably less purified cortosis. He made note to start loading the Ore into the crates. He began retrofitting the droids to the carrier type and had them dump the ore into the crates.

 

[Break]

Rusty felt kind of disappointed as he was informed that the trip would soon be over and the sky would soon be gone and he didn't know for how long. He felt sad and would ask Break if he could be taken on trips like this whenever he made the effort to. But he was also happy with how long he was outside at the moment. He looked up at the sky and how big and expansive it was.
*CLUNK* As the dirt hit the container.
He headed back to the mound of rocky ore. He was happy once again with short attention span bliss.
*CLUNK* As another clod of rock hit the box.
This happened about 30 more times before the orders came in to re- load themselves upon Breaks ship. And in a neat single file line Rusty took his spot at the front and sat down for a long and well deserved rest.

 

[Break]

Finally all was done and Break was paying the Trandoshan team for their services. 7000 credits each. Not a bad for easy work and seeing as they never touched a shovel all the team seemed happy and shook hands trading well wishes and hopes to work again within the next few months or weeks. The Trandoshan men never said no to easy money and Break never said no to good company.
The contract was closed and all services rendered. Sul'ran finished what he promised and Break had what he came for.

Slowly but surely each of the ships took off towards Arcadia.
Break had only minor things to do within the coming hours.

 

[Break]

Break checked all of his droids, noting each repair one would need through a diagnostic program and visual inspection Each one in a moderately good condition. The operation had went smoothly and simply. Stopping for a short time in front of the Droid named Rusty he listened to its binary whistles and beeps asking to be able to come on more trips like this Break smiled and agreed rusty would be repainted a deep red color to note immediately that was the exact droid who wanted to accompany Break from now on.
Break would go to the back of the ship to measure the weight of the crates full of Ore he would then walk back to the front of the ship to hail himself back to Arcadia when the time had come he began to think of how to purify the cortosis in private without any issues.
He had a long trip and he was already thinking of ideas.
Ideas dealing with dragon fire and ways to reinforce the blade.