10 The True Beginning

Its Dark. I bet you get tired of reading that but its true. My memories tell me that my name is Ed'D'ie its got a bit of a stutter step in it. But that's for more formal occasions. For the most part I am called Ed or Eddie depending on how familiar people are being. The ship I am currently on called Mega-Miner the shuttle was called Minor-Miner my parents ha fun giving me a pick and hard hat placing me on the Minor-Miner just to take my picture. It's a Minor Miner on the Minor-Miner in the Mega-Miner. All I could ask my self is why.

Moving on. The Mega-Miner can be best described as a Blocky Blue Whale in shape. With a length of 1000 Meters. The mouth actually opens up to allow the Minor-Miner to tow asteroid inside. Its ability to open its mouth to fit an asteroid that is 100 Meters across. So this is how it works. The Minor-Miner is launched from the belly Hanger. It finds a good asteroid wether it be blowing a big one in to smaller bits or just finding a small asteroid. The Minor-Miner locks on the tractor beam and tows the asteroid to the mouth. Once the asteroid is within 10 KM the Mega-Miner can lock on with its own tractor beam (it has 6 located around the mouth and two in the shuttle bay) dragging the asteroid in to its mouth. Once inside shields are placed around the asteroid and it is then bombarded with seismic disputer cannons breaking up the asteroid in to a rough sandy material. That material then falls to the back of the mouth where it enters pre processing. The material gets scanned and divided. Valuable materials (Gold, Chromium, Palladium...) Go to be processed separately. Less valuable materials (silicon, iron, aluminum...) Go to a different area where every thing is blasted with a molecular destabilizer and then swept in to a centrifuge which runs loads evert 10 minuets consisting of about 50 tons worth of material. Once separated the materials are then placed in vats of like molten material and poured out in to 1 ton Bars. This all takes place in a vacuum which deters things like corrosion from happening although the gases released from the molecular destabilizer have to vacuumed out at a consistent basis. Thanks to atmospheric shielding the whole bay doesn't need to be depressurized over and over. The ingots are stored internally along the spine until a trader shows up to buy from u. if we get too full we leave a beacon and warp to places like Mandalor, Corelia, NalHutta, and other independent principalities. This happens about once every 3 months. It also allows us to get out and do some shopping. Now the more valuable materials are rare due to there naturally occurring configuration. Bescar steel is one of those. If you make this stuff from scratch by combining the different ingredients melting it down and reforming it about 2 in five batches formed wrong and needs to be done again. Now if you have a molecular destabilizer that's very simple just grind it down and blast it then re-smelt it. If you don't... well you just wasted lot of time and money. Gold on the other hand can buy you stuff, we just mint our own coins with our ship emblazoned on one side and our system we mine out of on the other.

Yeah I know in one form or another Im a prince of a solar system. But remember it has not one inhabitable planet. Its 3 gas giants with supper rings and the rest is 18 asteroid belts the sun, well we got two. We have two g type stars that are in an orbit of one another there orbit lasts about 100 years and every 10 years a solar flare bridges the gap between the two of them. It last for about a year. The formation of the bridge takes about 3 days where its deterioration takes 6 months. Dad says I was born when the last bridge formed. Its one of those things that brings in a lot of tourists to the only space habitat in the system. Mom says I can't go as it's a tourist trap. They leave it alone because of the income it generates in taxes and fees.

On NalHutta and several other systems our coins trade for about 2000 republic credits or 50 Peggats. On an industrial worlds it was valued less and on mandalor every trade included a 1 troy oz ingot of bescar steel with the ship logo stamped in it as part of the trade. On NalHutta you made an appointment with the grand consul and offer a gift(read Bribe) to not kidnap any one during the visit. Lets just say we were only held up once. And everything was returned ten minuets latter including the heads of every one involved. Usually its still attached to a body.

Back to the ship. Now you know where our wealth comes from. How we get around. The main control center is located in about the same place as the brain. It centrally located and has visual access to all the processes going on below you just have to look out a window. Off of the main control you have the living area its about 2000 square feet of living space. 8 rooms, 1 small theater, dining room, kitchen, multi sectioned hobby area. To each side you had a multi level hydroponics bay. On one side you had fruits and the other was grains. Just before the farming bays there were two turbo lifts that lead to the manufacturing observation level and to the main shuttle bay.

The tail section and the two fins held the articulated sub-light engines the fins could rotate a full 360 and angle 90 degrees out allowing the ship to move sideways. The tail section is divided in to two section that could independently maneuver they have a movement arc of 330 degrees and could angle out to the side up to 50 degrees.

The dorsal fin was where the main communications and cargo transfer port were located. We had a secondary communications gear set up but it was all lower quality as it was harder to get at. The ships shields were set up as three shield sets. You had the main shield which was just a large bubble around the ship. Great at stopping weapons fire but tends to over heat quickly due to its size. Then you had the navigation shields which were always on. It stops or deflects the dirt in space. Anything with an engine can get through as can most mounted blasters. The 3rd shield set is local shielding these take a lot of power and when they are active the mining and smelting process comes to a complete halt which means a few weeks of cleaning up the entirety of the process before we can begin again. Its happened a few times. This shield set is made up of about 800 individual shield nodes that can be adjusted individually without adversely affecting the whole.

Now with all that you probably think we are rich. But were not. Paying off the ship takes about 30% of our income another 20% goes to local gang bosses for 'protection' another 30% goes in too upkeep and miscellaneous expenses the last 20% is what we live on which is still quite a bit. Especially for a two person and kid operation.

Now don't go thinking that's all the contact I got. I have met a great deal of beings mostly traders, a few smuggler, and three bounty hunters and that's all in the last year. The bounty hunters were each picking up a load of Beskar on the down low. Its not illegal to buy or sell but it is tracked if it gets to an open market. The smugglers just show up on occasion with random stuff to show to my mom. She is a bit of a collector. Sometimes they want a new hull plate which we can fabricate in just about any size and thickness. That's the only service we offer. Hull plate replacement and fabrication.

For only 2 persons and a kid you probably think we are way too busy. Well your wrong we have about 800 droids of various types. I still think the funniest thing was the mouse droid races that dad sets up every year. One day only, 5 races, each race goes the length of the ship with a great deal of twist and turns. Last years corse was 18 KM long and lasted 29 Minuets each go. That was fun. There were like 100 people here socializing, showing off new products, betting on the races. Overall being it was great. No one left dissatisfied.

Back to me. The reason I am remembering all this is that I have turned 3 and my memories are synching together. I still have all of the emotional bonds from this life, so I still think of my parents here as Mom and Dad. I still know who My parents were in my past life... well actually I don't. I was adopted so this is going to be a nice change.

What do I know? Language, it seems I can communicate in basic, Bocce, Durese, Olys Corellisi. I understand Binary and Tarc although I can't speak them. Apparently my parents were trying to get me ready for universal travel and to be able to work with just about any one in space. although I must admit that I am not a grand master. I am at a point in each language that I can fluidly communicate my ideas across but I can still get there with a lot of clarification. Hey Im 3 what do you want?

Crew yeah lets go over that. There is Mom she is the Navigator/Pilot/Acquisitions expert/ and First Officer. Dad is the Captain/ Weapons Expert/ Engineer/ and Diplomat. Then me I'm the grip. In example, see the following

'Here Eddie hold this for mommy.'

or maybe

'Eddie want to see something cool?'

I nod my head

' OK when I say 'Now' pull this lever.'

'NOW!'

I pull the lever.

An asteroid near by detonates in a cloud of pyrotechnics that make the shape of a giant heart with a large capital 'I' above and a 'U' below. Lets just say when mom saw that dad was grounded. Mom was soo embarrassed. It was an 'I Heart U that was 97 miles tall with a bit of photovoltaic compound to make it glitter in the sun light and blink in the shadow. You can see it from across the system.

Every one else is a droid. We have 83 astromechs made by Industrial Automation in the R2 series. Dad says the R1 series was there prototype and full of bugs. The R2 series was there master work and every R# series after that was them trying to compromise. We tried a few BB units once. They were too quirky and were unable to handle surprises. They had to plan out there routs so there tool bays were in the right spot to be of use. We gave them back to Industrial Automation, with a book of Mom and Dads thoughts on there use. My comments were only 3 pages of notes. And most of those were pictures of the droid failing in funny ways. Like when BB183 hit a bump and its head hopped in a zero G environment and just kept going it was amusing to see the replay. CC sent R2-385 with its impulse drive to go and fetch it.

Now one of the things I always wondered is why the Droids only speak in binary. Dad informed me. "Its because they work in space. Sounds don't travel through a vacuum, but when a droid has a solid connection to a craft, they are able to send their 'voice' through the hull of the ship to other droids, the ship, and to the beings inside." this lead to two cups and 400 feet and dad and I talking quietly across the hanger using our primitive comm unit.

We also have 25 Mouse droids to lead Guests around to different location onboard the MEGA-MINER. It also allows Mom to spy on our guests and Dad... something about Dad with no shirt in a hot environment... yeah not going there.

For general labor we have 24 B1 battle droids that are hooked up to the central computer that is controlled by Mom. Now I know what you are thinking. But they don't have weapons they have tool kits. It's a lot of fun to take them off the network and play a game with them. There response time goes up by ten but there intelligence goes way down.

We also have 20 pit droids for gopher tasks in the hanger. When not in use they are folded up and in a storage rack by the main door.

Net we have 5 protocol and translation droids. We don't use them much. We had to upgrade them a lot for better social skills.

And then we have 3 medical droids. They have been lightly used and have only had to reatach an arm once. Don't worry, it was a guest with a faulty atmospheric hatch. Now he has an arm thats an inch shorter than the other.

Lets see. I have gon over the ships. Where we have been. The crew/people on the ship. What I know which is not much. I guess the last thing is what I plan to do now.

For my short term goal I plan to find Bastille and free her on my 4th birthday so we are the same physical age. After that we will spend the next few years working on board the ship, with trips every 3-4 months. We will also work on our ship. Of all of the ships I have seen there have not been many that I have liked to look of. So far I am thinking of something like the J-Type star skiff crossed with the SR2. Not sure how yet but they both have concepts and ideas that I like...

Yeah if I go with the SR2 as a base im going to need a bigger crew if I go with the J-type as a base im not going to have as much fighting power... I'll get back to you latter.

I guess im still a bit sleepy so im going back to sleep.

Good night