Chapter 19: Elmyra Zin
Elmyra Zin has been running for too long, and she doesn't want to run any longer. Everything changed for her ever since that fateful day two weeks ago, and yet nothing has changed, really.
The plant that was once big enough for her to complete vanish from within its rural communities as a new comer and language teacher now felt like an empty room with no where to hide. When she woke up today, she saw a ship descend from the sky and landing in the fields about 2 kilometers outside of the village of the now terraformed planet.
The supplies comes on a Monday, and traders comes on a Tuesday. Nothing is supposed to happen today.
Elmyra has been in this town for 2 weeks, and from talking to all the villagers who are either here for a few months or even grew up here, the routine on this side of the planet has always been the same. Nothing really happens here, and the almost self sustaining village is really a place to retire or just somewhere to relax in. Some families raise kids here, or grandparents taking care of the younglings while the parents work in the central regions closer towards the galactic capital.
She has been chased for a really long time, and after what has happened two weeks ago, she had a distinct feeling that someone is now onto her, and she needed to make a run for it. When her condition has settled down after two days, she started packing immediately, putting all of her belongings in a mobile cargo box and only taking what she needs one item at a time out of there. And when this unaccounted for ship dropped from the sky, she hopped on the car she has bought cheaply from the locals and have been fixing up for a little while now and immediately left for the mountains.
Despite having prepared for this escape, she still couldn't shake the annoyed feeling in her mind about all of this. She was just able to barely settle down for a little while, and now someone is on her heel once again. She looked down at the strange marking on her index finger of her right hand before focusing on the planes ahead, there is nothing truly spectacular in the endless flats of Venus, nothing compared to the mining moon in the He Bo system where she grew up, or the weird ocean planets near Aquarian space. There is nothing exciting about endless sand and stones.
Despite her content for the terrain, the last thing she wanted in life right now is anything 'exciting'. Ever since she obtained the strange mark on her from the accident two weeks ago, things around her has been shaping rather strangely.
She was supposed to be dead, but somehow, she changed her fate with a swipe of her finger, and deep down she knew that this strange mark has something to do with it.
She tried to not think about the accident, but the memories haunts her every time she closes her eyes.
The darkness of the mines that she was just working in exactly two weeks and a day ago.
As far as mines go, those ones are not exactly in the best shape. However, if she is going be adept in any environment ever since she was small, it would have to be the mines. She grew up in a mining company, right near the fully automated mining business is absolutely thriving all across the galaxies and they built an entire mansion on a mining planet so big that an entire school's kids can fit in there without any problem. Elmyra Zin grew up like a princess, but she was never content with it.
Despite the nature of their business, her parents were not exactly keen when Elmyra demonstrated her interests in the variety of mining equipment and droids, as every time a new supplier comes to the mansion to demonstrate a new prototype, she would be the first one to get her hands on the machine and the blueprints. Of course, they didn't think of much when they handed over the physical copies thinking a kid is merely curious.
Consequently, their faces were a little less relaxed when she pointed out some key technical inefficiencies that has been left out of the sales pitch, and they simply had to roll up the pitches, pick up the presents and leave the mansion with the help from a good old guidance droid.
Her mom has given out talking her out of joining the Galactic Institute of Science and Technology, and her dad didn't even want to think about that. Finally, they have decided to let Elmyra carve her own path. That was when the first major change in her life happened.
She applied and were accepted into the Galactic Institute of Science and Technology. She left the gigantic mansion for the first time in years, and marched onward towards her own destiny. That's when she heard about the accident.
A series of mining equipment in a outer system planet failed catastrophically and lead to the collapse of the planet surface colonies. Thousands were killed in the freak accident before they had a chance to evacuate. The drills encountered something not seen before in the depths of the planet Nox 5 and the high energy and pressure release caused a gigantic explosive that almost splits the planets into a million pieces. Thankfully, the well maintained infrastructure held the planet together with a lot of help from the planetary gravitational field and the orbiting colonies were safely towed away.
The company was hit financially and in reputation, but otherwise everything seemed to be working just as anyone would expect. Elmyra Zin made sure to check in with her parents and asked for the digital blueprints of the mining systems that were part of the causes of the accidents. Perhaps the engineers they have hired weren't exactly smart enough to identify any key weaknesses of the systems now that she is away learning about god damn geology of exoplanets and playing space balls.
The actual taking of the blueprints took some convincing, but eventually her parents nodded her head, and she switched on the night lights in her bedroom and started cracking through it.
Surprisingly, it was a remarkably well-designed system. After making sure that it wasn't her rust by going through a few runs with the simulations and models, she had to admit that perhaps something outside of her control is happening.
The remembrance ceremony was scheduled to be five months after the date of the accident when even more structures have been added to the planet and ensuring the stability of the planet's core. All mining activity ceased as teams of surveyors, engineers and droids were busy remodeling and remeasuring the geographical formations of the planet post the cataclysm, and her parents were scheduled to appear at the ceremony alongside the families of those who were affected, all though sadly many of the families were indeed on the planet's surface when the explosion occurred.
Elmyra took a leave of absence from the dreadfully boring artificial intelligence teachers and its non-stop babbling and poorly formed explanations and went to Nox 5 to partially reunite with her parents and partially see the actual accident and its potential damage itself. The planet's atmosphere was only slightly modified to pressure match human physiology, and a simply respiratory membrane implant is all that is required to move around on Nox 5 without much problems. Elmyra grew up on mining planets, and her body has already adapted to the kind of environments on Nox 5.
As she descended from the skies with a ship-ful of passengers, she can visibly see the canyon that were formed by the accident and the crater that were once a blooming habitat from higher atmosphere, and even though it is a little difficult to truly judge the scope of the damage from such heights visually, Elmyra quickly calculated the amount of energy released just from the size of the crater alone and the number wasn't pretty.
If that explosion has went off right now, all of the ships within the atmosphere will probably be heavily damaged if not blown out of the sky, as only a few has shielding capacities and generators on board.
Elmyra lets out a long breath, as she checked in with her parents once more using her personal interface, that's when she heard gasps from the other passengers on this shuttle before she was yanked right back into her seat.
The shuttle is rapidly pulling up, and Elmyra struggled for breath as the impacted pinned her back into her seat. With gritted teeth, she looked out of the window and saw hell. Nox 5 is literally falling apart. The peaceful looking but scarred planet from a moment ago was no more as lava spewed out from underneath the planet's surface like blood coming out of a fresh wound before the flesh of the planet peeled inside out as storms of lightning from underground appeared in a strange phenomenon that is either physically impossible or something she hasn't learned about in class yet.
Elmyra opened her mouth, but no voice came out as she was thrown into the back of her seat again as the shuttle burst into the upper atmospheric and the frantic voice of the pilot came through the shuttle audio system, but she failed to piece together the segmented sentences he was saying.
However, she won't need a pre-written announcement to know what is happening. The planet is exploding once more from right underneath her eyes, and the magnitude of energy released from that instant swallowed everything on the ground immediately. There were no time to scream.
As the shuttle rocked away through the atmosphere right before the rocks and sands shot into the air like anti-air missiles and bullets, Elmyra simply held tightly onto the seat handles by her side and bit deep into her lips. Just like that, she has lost everything. However, as she will come to learn, she hasn't lost everything. Not yet.
Elmyra Zin isn't one to mourn in silence, instead, the very accident that killed everyone on that planet and gave everyone on the orbital habitats a scare was what motivated her to look for more clues and information about what has happened. Hundreds of thousands of people may be dead in an instant, but on a galactic scale this is nothing but an insignificant fraction of a meaningless number. The galactic media companies merely covered the news for a few more standard days before moving on to the next shiny topic.
However, for those affect, they may never be able to move on. That was it for her company's mining company, and the other company that supplied the mining equipment to them. The extensive coverage by the galactic media delivered nothing but message about the tragedy of Nox 5 and about the failures of the company that lead to its founder's death. Millions of workers and employers from this giant cooperation left in a few days and sought alternative employments and the once mining colonies that were booming with business is now deserted and desolated.
The thousands of mining sites are now left alone, as those people migrate away. The company has collapsed, and Elmyra is actually now the legal owner of the company, alongside the butler Charles that has been taking care of her family since she was little. He is family.
Returning to the empty mansion having been analysing every single piece of information about the tragedy of Nox 5 and looking at every different footage available, Charles was the only one to welcome her home.
They embraced one another in silence before he brought her in and made a warm meal for her. It's all her childhood favourites , and yet everything tasted bitter.
'...I do not think it was an accident.' Elmyra shook her head repetitively, finally breaking the silence after finishing her bowl of warm pumpkin soup, 'I have checked the mining system's blueprints many times, too many of the safeguards and critical points would have to fail on multiple levels in order for that to happen.'
'Elmie...' Charles called her by her childhood nickname as he reached out to comfort her, 'we can talk about this later.....'
'This is all that I can think of right now.' Elmyra admitted, her chest rising and falling as she took in a deep breath and tried to sound normal despite the shaky voice, 'this is all I think about now...'
The butler didn't say anything and the two simply ate in silence.
After the meal, Elmyra is at least feeling a little better physically. As Charles brought her all of the files and paperwork for the company, she now regretted skipping the lectures for company finance and management for a match of space balls.
'So in essence, we are now merely the owner of many mining colonies, and take into considerations for all the compensations we are about to pay in regards to our own cash reserves...' Charles continued to talk about the things he has discovered in a calm tone, but Elmyra was listening to none of it. She is now sitting in her mother's seat. She was always the one that was making all the big calls and her father was the one in charge of the technical side of the company. Charles was trained by them too, but he mostly watches on from the side out of interest.
'What's our next step, Charles?' Elmyra isn't exactly interested in the barrage of bad news. She just wanted some shining light in the endless pitch black she is in right now.
'Our options are extremely limited, but it is not like there is no hope left.' Charles said steadily, then he brought up a map of all of the mining colonies the company has built over the years all throughout the galaxy, 'most of our mining colonies has been functioning for years well before the accident, and there is no reason why they wouldn't be at least as valuable now. We can very easily sell a fraction of those and cover the cost here.'
'Hmm?' That wasn't exactly what Elmyra's expecting, 'then why don't we just do that?'
'It would be that simple if everything simply operates in monetary value, but in reality there is more.' Charles said and looked up the other mining companies in the galaxy, the once competitors of her parent's company, 'the other companies has been using this opportunity to drive down the values of mining companies once owned by us through media coverage and propaganda, that way they will be able to get hold of more mining colonies with less cost.
'That would be the case if we only sell to the giant firms, surely there are smaller companies looking to go into the market.' Elmyra finally said, and what she said made sense. Charles nodded with a surprised look on his face and admitted that it would work.
In that case, the meetings with various startups and organizations began.
She is now the acting president of the company, and Charles is her second in command, advising her on every move and all of the necessary information. Charles is good at piecing information together and compiling them, while Elmyra uses her instincts and categorizes the various colonies by their nature and value.
With literally no employees they need to take care of, Elmyra and Charles have both decided to sell everything. Every day she spent in the office simply reminded her of what she has lost, and Charles is now at an age when he would simply like to retire and enjoy his years on a tourist planet under the warm sun.
'The Galactic Institute of Science and Technology is sorry about the tragedy of Nox 5 and all the people that it affected.' The representative from her old school said, 'and we would actually like to purchase the three mining colonies nearest to the system for research and development purposes.'
'The Star Cabal would like to purchase one hundred colonies in the Hercules system.' Another representative said, 'though amid safety concerns, we could only offer sixty per cent of the proposed price.'
'Fuck off.' Elmyra shook her head and booted them out of the building.
'We are Infinity, and we are interested in purchasing two hundred of the mining colonies in the core region. However, due to concerns with safety...'
'Stop.' Elmyra said, 'most of them has been functioning for ten years with no change in the systems and structures. Don't bullshit me.'
'Well, the management capacities demonstrated by in the tragedy of Nox 5 showed that perhaps there is indeed risk.'
'Well maybe you need to hire better analysts.' Elmyra said with a middle finger towards the representative to one of the biggest tech companies in the galaxy, 'Fuck off.'
'Elmie.....' Charles tried to persuade her otherwise, but she is having none of it.
She may be the one to get rid of all of the colonies her parents have built up over all these years, and she may be the one that want to leave them all behind. However, she will not be the one to let other companies trample with the amount of value they have created and put their heart and souls into. She will not sell them for what it was not worth, in that case, she would prefer to not sell them at all. Is it irrational? Sure, she knows it. But the legacy of her company needed to be treated with respect, this is a properties transfer, not a fucking farmer's market.
However, the universe rarely moves in a way that follows her wishes. After a few meetings, the requests have become few and far between, and she had her first argument with Charles about the future of the company. The butler was obvious thinking it's better to sell cheap then not sell at all.
And finally, Elmyra has had enough. The shear amount of disrespect coming from the other companies has reached a boiling point, and she shut all doors to the mansion.
She wanted to run away from the cooperate wars and competition, she just wanted to be alone and play with her machines. She wasn't born for this, and she hated every second. The sinking ship of her company is dragging her down into the abyss. However, she could not hide forever, and soon the galactic court will call her in, and she will have to pay the compensations.
She knew it, and all her competitors knew it. Now that she has no one to lean on, she will have to reach out to them again, and this time she will have to sell all her colonies for an even lower price.
'Charles...' finally, she has had enough of all of this, 'if I give the company to you, what would you do?'
'I would make the best choices for it and for this family.' Charles said sternly. And with that, Elmyra knew what to do.
And with that, her life of running began.