On the Question of Inhabitation

“Send the command to have the fleet enter the cosmic tunnel. We’ll meet up at the rendezvous point in 36 hours.”

Captain Liona glanced at the panel in front of her as they emerged from their own tunnel. It had been a smooth trip, and she watched as the distorted stars slipped into focus and their planetary destination emerged from the darkness.

“Sir, the debris field in orbit is far greater than the scout reports, probably a few million tons of metallic waste in multiple orbital layers.”

“Composition of orbital waste?”

“Mostly metallic, aluminum, titanium, steel, silicon”

She had read the reports and knew from previous experience that the scout ships rarely spent the time to measure the orbital debris accurately. They simply didn’t have the time, they would pop into a local system, launch a few hundred automated probes and a relay communicator before tunneling to the next system. The probes were designed to measure planetside composition, not orbital resources. She estimated ten percent of probes never reported information not because of a lack of resources or failed landing sequences, but because they were prevented from landing due to interference in orbit.

Still, there was a procedure in the regulations for unexpected orbital waste: she accessed the instructions, sent them off to her sub-commander. He would plot the orbital debris, identify whatever key pieces offered the most efficient clearance reaction and program the concussion drones to simply collide with and alter their orbits. The resulting chain reaction would take a few weeks, but the computer model estimated it would send 45% of orbital waste down to the planet to be harvested later. It was the minimum needed to clear the orbit so the mining ships could land safely. At least it was metals here, she’d been to planets with orbiting frozen clouds of waste product that required months of remediation before the mining ships could even land. A few weeks was well within her time cushion allowed in the contract.

“Captain, we have a problem.”

“What's wrong?”

“Our sensors detected a patterned beacon in the northern hemisphere.”

She swore under her breath. This was the sort of thing that ruined extractive expeditions. “Impossible, the scouts reported this planet uninhabited, and the radiation is at least 40 times the survival benchmarks. Show me.”

A pattern of beeps, repeating in groups of the first ten primes appeared. Impossible to be naturally occurring, damn. The Collusion had spent over a billion credits financing this expedition, they were expecting at least a 50 percent return. As was normal business practice they had interned her partner, without a profit, he would be forced to work back the debt. She would be sent on to the next project if she could provide more collateral, if not she’d be stripped of her captainship, transported to the closest business station, and left there. This far out in the galaxy she would never get another job, probably end up a low level administrator for the next few decades until she could pay off enough of the debt to qualify for another loan, and then she could work up the ranks to bring her closer to the Collusion worlds.

But rules were rules and strip mining an inhabited planet would violate the sentient-habitation act and would earn her and the entire crew a century on the comet mines.

“Open a channel on the same frequency, broadcast the general message.”

A few minutes later a staticky message came back, it took a bit for her processors to translate:

“Who is this? Can we come out now?”

She chewed on her lip and thought about what came next, this was a problem. A standard sentient-made rescue beacon could have been investigated and disregarded, but there were sentient-beings here, and their response had been recorded.

“No reply for now, I want to meet all senior officers in my ready room, now.”

There were twenty of them in the room. They were all worried, they would all share her fate of internment/exile and some may not even get jobs, just be stuck, homeless on the business station, scrubbing sewage off mining ships for simply some water to drink. Some had offered her collateral just to get a spot on the mission. But their collateral wouldn’t be enough to even approach paying for the trip. There were entire labor planets filled with crews and captains who lost money on just a single mission this large.

“As you all know, we entered this system a few hours ago and our standard scans identified sentient beings on the planet we are meant to strip.”

There were some sharp inbreaths as some of the officers obviously had not heard. The implications did not need to be communicated. “We have 36 hours until the mining convoy arrives, I need some suggestions.”

“We could pretend we didn’t notice them, begin mining at their location.” Fitzgerald. He had joined the crew late, a political favor she had accepted in exchange for a few basis points on her loans. The suggestion made her regret the decision immediately. Worse, she caught several officers subtly nodding in agreement.

“Impossible now, their signal has been logged and sent on to the relay station.” She glared at the junior officer, his suggestion, while it prioritized profit, it was a dangerous path to go down. Everyone eventually got caught, and the consequences would be draconian to say the least. That kind of suggestion may fly on a non-collusion authorized mission, but without the protection of the collusion navy, those missions would inevitably run into raiders and be killed, or worse be sold into slavery.

The room was silent, she could feel the panic, and she let the silence sit, like an osmium blanket over the group.

“Look for an alternative planet in this system?” She didn't remember the new astromappers name, but it was a by-the-book suggestion, for an astromapper it was a bit absurd that he would even suggest it. He should already know the system and their capabilities.

“Mostly gas giants or mostly non-metallic. No way it would be profitable, even if we mined all of them, plus we only have twelve months. Furthermore, we don’t have the tech to mine the gasses, it would take 6 months and who knows how many more credits to refit the haulers.”

She put her palm on her forehead, it was a nervous tic she’d tried to get rid of, but it always came back in stressful situations. This was her first tier 1b expedition. She had worked for decades to get to this tier, backwater hauling, water mining, she even spent a few years in a lending-house as an expedition credit analyst. And now everything was going to the crapper.

“Report that the scout did an incorrect analysis, mine one of the smaller planets and hope to at least break even in our next project?” She could always count on her second to offer plausible, but rarely creative solutions. She kept her around because they worked well together.

“Not a bad idea, I want your team to start laying the groundwork for a faulty probe analysis.” It wouldn’t be difficult since they wouldn't need to fabricate any groundwork, there was actual fault analysis, the orbital debris and the presence of sentience were already recorded and would tunnel back within the next few hours. Hell the log of this meeting would be beamed off to the communication tunnel as soon as she signed off on the meeting.

“Come on people, this isn’t a by-the-book problem. I brought you all on board because most of you—" she stole a quick glance at Fitzgerald "—are productive and already have profits to your names.”

Kaplan, her mission specialist, raised his hand. He was fresh out of the finance academy, but her old headmaster had strongly recommended him and she hadn’t been wrong yet.

“Kaplan, we do not need to raise our hands, this is a ship, not a lecture hall.”

There were some nervous laughs around the room before Kaplan cleared his throat and began.

“Ahem, We would need to do this immediately, but redirect the launched concussion drones to cause a chain reaction focused on greater orbital clearing rather than efficiency, wait a few months and then mine the orbital metals to help us reach our goal?”

She hadn't thought of that, orbital debris was rarely worth mining, mostly because it was so little and once the metals orbits decayed, a lot of them would burn up on reentry and just create a layer of ash that would foul up the mining machinery. Their plan would have to change, but at this point every additional kilo of metals would help.

“Good plan” She quickly entered the updated orders into her wrist console and waited for the computer to recalculate the trajectories of the concussion drones. After a few seconds of silence, the new estimate could clear 93% of the orbital debris but required several more drones. She sneered but made the decision and redirected and launched the additional drones with a swipe of her hand. The drones' costs were inconsequential and already fell within the depreciated machinery for the mission. She would need to add a short memo on what would appear to be an inefficient use of the drones, and their nonstandard depreciation schedules (the extra drones had been expected to depreciate over their expected lifespans, not be used immediately. The costs would change their expeditions balance sheet, and inevitably cost more in accounting in addition to hardware.)

The ship's counselor caught her eye. The ship's counselor was mostly there to help keep the workers focused and spent most of the projects passing out stims like candy. He held the rank of sub-commander so was included in the senior meetings. He signaled her discreetly with his communicator, asking for a private audience. He had never been much help before, but curious she adjourned the meeting and released the log automatically but asked him to stay. All meetings were recorded and data-mined for financial-perfidy. She quickly approved transmission and turned to the skinny man sitting ten seats down from her at the conference table.

“What is it Counselor?”

He hesitated before signaling to her that he was requesting an un-monitored conversation. He was one of the few individuals on board the ship that could request it, out of privacy of the individual workers. She temporarily put the relay connection into treatment mode and nodded.

“I have another idea, but I thought it best if we limited the, ahem, knowledge of the plan.”

The counselor had been with her for several missions, and she respected him, she’d even had a few sessions, mostly typical burnout and depression, nothing a few pharmaceuticals and a session or two couldn’t take care of.

“I’m listening”

“As you know, I have an advanced degree in business therapy, one of the central premises was the promotion of profits.”

“Get to the point, I am not a cadet in class.” She glanced down at her wrist, “I have 34 hours left.”

“I have been monitoring the communications of the inhabitants on the planet, they are extremely agitated and stressed.”

“Yes, I can tell from their messages.”

“There are only two inhabitants.”

“I am well aware of that but the inhabited planet reg is very clear, two or two trillion, we can’t strip mine it.”

“Yes, but what if in 36 hours there were no longer two inhabitants.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. This was the last person she needed asking her to bend her ethics.

“Counselor, we cannot kill them, we have already established connection with the relay, any actions are immediately transmitted to the Review Board. Even if a concussion drone were to accidentally damage them, we would be held liable” She double checked the concussion drones orbital decay and confirmed that it wouldn’t accidentally harm the estimated location of the sentient-inhabitants.

“Yes I am aware of that, but what if I were to use some of my expertise, have them, ahem, dis-inhabit the planet.”

“I do not follow counselor.”

“They are right now the only two remaining inhabitants on their planet. The radiation levels make their planet unsuitable for their class of life for at least the next ten thousand years. What if I were to do the opposite of what I learned at the academy? What if I were to un-motivate them? What if I used the truth of their situation to sap their will to inhabit this planet?”

“We are not allowed to take on passengers or decolonize planets.”

“Yes, I know. I was thinking more that they would simply choose to dis-continue living given the truth of their predicament. In fact our regulations limiting contact may work in our favor.”

She understood why the rest of the officers couldn’t hear this. This was dangerously close to an ethical violation. It was sure to earn at least a warning or flag on everyone's records. Plus beyond the rules, what was the difference between this and just bashing a hole in the inhabitants shelter, flooding them with radiation.

“You’re suggesting we convince them to, you know…” She trailed off and double checked that the meeting was still in treatment mode. She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. She took a deep breath.

“Yes, I know.” He used that phrase a lot, she wondered if it was taught in the psych courses to instill the counselors with an aura of confidence. A chime came from the door. She glanced quickly at the counselor, as if silently telling him to stay silent.

“Come in”

It was Kaplan, his cheeks were smooth and slightly flushed. She spotted a small bandage on his neck, he was so young, still learning to shave. She thought of her partner, they had discussed having children. She was well past her prime, but a surrogate could surely be afforded after this mission. She may even have enough to bring him along on the next one, actually spend some time together.

She looked at Kaplan, and he stood there, waiting to speak.

“Why did you come in here Kaplan?”

“Sir, ma’am, captain. I was just running the numbers with Miles, the astromapper, and the third moon further out, the scout missed a subsurface pocket of high-grade copper and lithium. If we reroute part of the convoy there, we may be able to pull enough tonnage to clear our baseline margins within three months, it’s tight, but we wouldn’t have to violate the habitation act. We could save the company's investment and report the colony for a standard relocation credit later.”

She could hear the panic and hope in his voice. A failure on this mission would result in a massive debt hanging over him for decades, he would never make captain, hell, he may even struggle to service the debt on his academy loans. She smiled at him.

“Yes, write me up a plan and we can discuss when I’m done here.” Kaplan nodded and the door closed behind him.

Liona shook her head. She had spent years as an expedition credit analyst; she knew how the income statements actually breathed. Three months of rerouting meant ninety days of compounding interest on their loans. A "relocation credit" took three fiscal quarters to clear the bureaucracy, and the Collusion didn't pause interest for paperwork. Kaplan's beautiful, heroic math was just a postponed bankruptcy. She looked at the closed door then turned to the counselor. He had been around, he knew the accounting didn’t work, but he stayed silent and matched her gaze.

“Counselor, give me a few minutes to think this over, don’t do anything for now, just check in with the crew, we’re going to need everyone operating at 100% to break even here.”

The treatment mode audibly clicked off as the counselor left and Liona shut her eyes. She’d heard of captains losing workers to industrial accidents, that was standard. Everyone signed the waivers when they joined, they knew the risks. But these inhabitants, people, they didn’t sign anything. They’d survived whatever had destroyed their planet. Or maybe they’d crashed here later, it didn't matter. They hadn't consented to whatever was going to happen to them. If she scrounged around the system, maybe they’d get lucky, find another valuable moon or comet the scout-probes had missed. Unlikely though. It would be like trying to find a single palladium hermit crab on an ocean planet. They just didn’t have the scanning resources and she was reluctant to order any additional equipment, margins were margins. She wasn’t optimistic, she knew that 12 months just wasn't enough time. She could ask for an extension, but that would increase the interest rates and just put them on a slippery slope, trying to claw back each and every credit. She took a deep breath and rubbed her palm across her forehead before keying in the counselor's private channel.

“Counselor, get started, pull whatever resources you need. I’ll draft a memo to the team.”

Thirty-three and a half hours later the mining convoy emerged from the tunnel and began mining the uninhabited planet.