The void of the Amber Zone was a silent thief, stealing both time and warmth. Vance had spent over thirty hours drifting in the labyrinth, his eyes bloodshot and his fingers stiff from the constant micro-adjustments required to keep his mining rig from becoming a permanent part of the belt's landscape.
The payoff? Three units of Low-Grade Energy Crystals.
To an outsider, the haul seemed pathetic. For thirty hours of life-threatening labor, Vance had only salvaged a few handfuls of glowing, translucent matter. He hadn't touched any other ore since the Ghost Titanium; every second spent mining common rock was a second wasted.
The Ore-Tyrant MK-II was many things, but a long-range cruiser was not one of them. Near-shore mining vessels were built for efficiency, not endurance. Their life-support systems were basic, and their fuel reserves were calculated to the drop to maximize cargo space. Staying out any longer would turn his ship into a floating coffin.
Energy Crystals were the ultimate anomaly of the cosmos. While common ores were measured in kilotons, crystals were measured in units. A single unit—rarely exceeding one kilogram—held more raw potential than a mountain of iron.
These three units hadn't come easy. Vance had detected them buried deep within a massive chunk of Austenite Copper. It had been a surgical operation, requiring him to cycle through the heavy, medium, and small-diameter drills to peel away the outer layers without shattering the fragile cores inside. The final extraction had to be done by hand in the cargo bay, using an alloy hammer to delicately chip away the last of the encasing rock.
The process took ten agonizing hours. When the final crystal was secured in a lead-lined container, Vance let out a long, shuddering breath, wiping a thick layer of grime and sweat from his forehead.
"Minimum objective reached," he rasped. His voice sounded like sandpaper against his throat.
The physical and mental exhaustion was setting in—a dangerous state for any pilot. Though the harvest was on the lower end of his expectations, Vance knew when to quit. In the void, greed was the fastest way to find a grave.
He navigated the exit with hyper-vigilance. He knew that fatigue bred complacency, and complacency in the belt was lethal. He throttled back, drifting into the safer currents of the outer rim to wait for the next Window.
The astronomical environment here was far more forgiving. The gravitational tides were predictable, and the debris was sparse. Vance allowed himself a few hours of fitful sleep, strapped into his seat, before the Forward Base signaled the clearing.
The return to the base was uneventful. Rhea was still on the comms, her voice a welcome tether to humanity.
"Vance! You're still alive. I was about to start a betting pool on which rock swallowed you," she teased.
Vance offered a tired chuckle. He discreetly asked about Silas. As it turned out, the old rat had retreated hours ago. Without Vance's intentional baiting, Silas had survived the belt, though he had returned empty-handed and humbled.
Good, Vance thought. One variable suppressed. He didn't need Silas dead; he just needed him quiet for the next ten days. After that, Silas would be a footnote in a history he wasn't invited to join.
The return trip to Planet KQ-03 was handled by the ship's autopilot, allowing Vance to collapse into a deep, dreamless slumber. He was awakened only once by the proximity alarm.
A patrol fleet was passing by.
Vance watched the three-ship formation through the viewport. Two Fire-Reconnaissance Frigates flanking a single Assault Corvette. Their hulls were scarred but sturdy, their railgun turrets tracking the horizon with mechanical indifference.
The younger Vance—the one from the previous timeline—would have stared at those ships with wide-eyed wonder. To a colony boy, those warships were the pinnacle of power, the ultimate expression of masculine romance. He used to believe they would be the vessels that finally activated his hidden system.
The reborn Vance felt nothing but cold assessment.
"Trash-tier fodder," he whispered.
Those mass-produced hulls were dead ends. They had no growth potential, no soul. They were rigid shells of steel that would never evolve. His Auxiliary System was a creature of high standards and ancient pride; it wouldn't bond with a common soldier's tool. It was a silent, demanding god that refused to "act cute" or offer easy rewards. It was a system built for a King, not a grunt.
The Ore-Tyrant settled into its docking cradle at the mining company's shipyard with a heavy mechanical thud.
The automated processing units immediately swarmed the ship. Suction tubes and sorting arms began the process of classifying, crushing, and refining the raw ore in the hold. Vance didn't need to stay for the tally; the entire process was recorded and encrypted, and the company's credit was—surprisingly—reliable.
It wasn't that the corporation had a conscience. It was simply a matter of math. The company already took the lion's share of the profit. Miners paid for the ship rental, the fuel, the processing fees, and the air they breathed. By the time the "Hardship Bonus" was calculated, most miners were lucky to have enough left over for a bottle of cheap synthetic whiskey.
Unless you found something like Ghost Titanium.
Vance walked through the grime-streaked streets of the KQ-03 living sector, his hand resting on the small, heavy case tucked into his flight suit.
The company's buy-back price for Energy Crystals was high, but Vance had no intention of selling. Keeping them was a technical violation of his contract, a breach of the "All Finds Must Be Reported" clause.
But it didn't matter. As long as he didn't try to move them on the black market, the company would never know. To a commoner, an Energy Crystal was a useless, glowing rock. To Vance, they were the spark that would ignite a revolution.
The countdown continued. Ten days left. And now, the furnace had its fuel.