“Should we continue with the story of the medal?” asked Rishi.
“Someday we will circle back to it, don’t worry. For now, just pick something.” Akira replied.
Wondering through the study, a small, golden, pickaxe head caught his eye. “Can it be this?”
“Sure. Great choice, Terese Maldoran, that is one I feel proud of, actually.” his grandfather replied, picking the small token in his hands, he sat down in his chair, and after a deep breath, the mystery unraveled. “So…”
***
A metallic voice announced, “Please secure your belongings, we will be landing shortly.”
“It’s about damn time. I’ll never get used to the boredom of space flight.” Terese said.
“My first time actually. Super excited to be in another world.” Toke replied.
“You wouldn’t strike me as a rookie. But then again we all have to start somewhere.”
“In mining, I’m not, but I’ve worked all my life in my home planet. My name is Toke, humble mining technician, at your service.”
Both left the shuttle and walked side by side into the ground transport.
“I’m Terese Maldoran. I’ve been all over, supervising mining operations and relocation efforts. I’m here to oversee the relocation of the only mining drill we could salvage from a planet that fell to the ECOS.”
“I see, well, my boss is venturing out for the first time like me. He had a small claim on our home planet but we both sold everything to buy a new, bigger claim. And even though, it is a small one when comparing to the ones I’m seeing around, we are hoping that this planet has rich enough deposits so that we may prosper.”
“I wish you all the luck. Venturing out is always hard but you better toughen up, hardly anyone will go out their way to help you around these parts. This is me, plot 42. Take care.”
“Wow, you work there? That’s a huge operation, and since you said you have been in lots of places, I can only assume, one of many. I know we are tiny but keep in mind that we come from a small planet where people still help each other, if you ever need help, please ask, I’ll be in plot 44.” Toke said while Terese left the transport.
***
“So, what are we gonna do about the new guy?” a Mierese man asked.
“What do you mean?” Terese asked.
“I mean, I went through the trouble of surveying the place and even bought the claim for it, I was just waiting for the date to come up.”
“Date?”
“Yes, my Guild’s leader’s birthday is coming up and I was going to present him with plot 44, south of mine, but some piece of shit took it. For god’s sake, they even unpacked the building prefabs themselves.”
***
“Terese?” Toke asked.
“Yeah?”
“Just wanted to say goodbye. We are leaving.” Toke said, sitting on the bar bench next to her.
“What happened? You just got here.”
“We have bitten more than we could chew. Our power plant had some issues and the spare parts we bought only made it worse, they must have been defective as they caused a cascade failure throughout the facility. All this means we will not be mining anything in the foreseeable future, taxes are due shortly and if we can’t pay them, we will never reach the regional meeting to request the aid of the regional DAO, even though they said they could help.” Toke explained, drinking what was left in his glass.
Immediately Terese knew it had been no accident and the thought of such petty tactics being used for the sake of a birthday gift was making her sick. The lives of two men and their whole families were at stake so that a selfish man could gain a bit of approval by making an already obscenely rich guy just that tiny bit extra rich. That tyranny had been going on for a long time and it was time to do something about it. She asked Toke to meet her at her plot.
The plan seemed simple, first, fake a malfunction in one of the mining drills, second, keep the power plant running at full power and divert the surplus all the way to Toke’s mining drill. This way he could keep mining until the tax date and he would be able to stay on the planet until the DAO meeting, after that, if they couldn’t fend for themselves, they shouldn’t be there at all but if they could, a friend was a very rare and pricey thing to have.
***
“Well, well, look who just got in, I didn’t expect them to still be here. Someone helped them for sure, probably the idiots up on plot 36 or even that fat bastard on plot 12.” the Mierese man said.
“Well, what did you expect with the way you treat all of them?” Terese asked.
“Bah, losers all of them. Listen, we have to stick together, our Polis combined is enough to keep them in check.”
“Not if they all joined against us.”
“Why do you think I treat some of them almost respectfully?”
“Illusions and convenient friendships has always been your style.”, Terese said, looking at Toke from across the room. “Fine, I’m going to propose an extra vote regarding expulsions, you in?”
“Now that is your style, right to the point. I was thinking of something more subtle but time is running out and I need that plot so yeah, I’m in.”
The meeting began but before the agenda could be initiated Terese raised her hand and asked to introduce a vote prior to all others with the justification that, being a vote that could change the number of available Polis for voting on other matters, this one should supersede all other affairs. The two major blocks voted to accept this new expulsion vote alongside several minor ones, all others abstained from voting.
“Ok then, the vote is simple, prohibit any ONI mining operations on the planet. All in favor?” Terese asked.
The room erupted in indistinguishable noise, the proposition would ban the second largest mining operation on the planet.
“Sure, I vote for that, I don’t care, he can’t come after us all if we vote him out. In fact, it’s about damn time!”, said the owner of plot 12. “And it’s hard to find a single person here who hasn’t been wronged in one way or another by him so, what are you all waiting for?”
One by one, all the plots started to vote in favor of the resolution apart from one, plot 44. Their Polis combined wasn’t enough to change the result but it was more than enough for Terese to rethink if she had made a huge mistake in putting everything on the line for that miner that was now voting against her.
***
“You know, there were bars much, much closer than this one.”, Toke said.
“Apparently it was still not far enough.”, Terese replied.
“You left that very afternoon. I’ve been tracking you ever since.”
“Well, no point in staying after losing my job because of you now is there?”
“Yes, I do apologize for that but…”
Toke was interrupted by Terese violently standing up and coming face to face with him.
“Why the fuck did you betray me like that? After all that I did for you?! I saved your god damned operation and your god damned families, why side with him? Forget about losing my job, I knew I was probably going to lose it after that little stunt, after all, with them leaving, a lot of services that made the planet profitable would be gone with them and the planet’s output would drop for everyone, I got the call in less than an hour. I was counting on staying and finding a job with any of the remaining operations but after you sided with him, how could I?”
“Again, I’m very sorry. I didn’t know the full story. It took me days to piece everything together. I only sided with him because apart from you, he had been the only one friendly enough to lend a hand. He even offered to buy the plot after the power plant incident, although he was asking for a discount, it seemed a good offer at the time.” Toke said.
“He was the one who did it, you idiot!”
“I know that now but I didn’t back then. All I can do now is try to fix things up. I was hoping you could forgive me and come back, we need help. The deposits are way too rich and dense for our expertise, we could use a pair of experienced hands.” Toke said, extending his hand with a necklace. “You know, I heard the ancient miners used tools, called pickaxes, and did the work with their own hands, only succeeding because they did it together. That is a pickaxe head made of the material we are currently extracting. A token of appreciation, I truly am sorry for what happened.”
“Are you serious? This is what was there?! The mineral right here? No wonder he wanted the plot.” Terese said, taking the necklace and putting it into her pocket, she had forgiven him but it would take time for that to be turned into trust and the necklace be worn with pride, and besides, there are a lot of places out there where you would be killed for carrying a tenth of the value of that necklace.
***
“I found that in 2836, in a Mierese museum no less. It had an inscription saying that it was a family heirloom from an empire that started on that exact planet and only disappeared when the ONI retook the system more than a century later. I guess they did ok for themselves.” Akira said.
“Fascinating. I wonder if I will ever get to visit that planet since it is off-limits right now.” Rishi said.
“I don’t see why not, time changes territorial borders more often than not.”