Symposium

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Although, this level of solitude anywhere would yield the same effect. Extreme loneliness was one of the challenges that Sloan Ackerton was vetted and trained for. Training that was paying off more with each passing day.

The element of tedium did not make the job of a mining technician any easier. One might think that an extraction facility on an asteroid, orbiting ferociously around Earth would make for some excitement or foster unique, life-changing opportunities. However, few mining jobs planet-side could be safer and none of them could possibly be less exciting. The machines, robotics and automated systems had all the fun on this dark rock. Asteroid 776-Lethe.

For her part though, Sloan performed her duties as directed and to the letter. Chief among which was monitoring and responding to the EPSS system, which ran uninterrupted for as long as the facility was in operation.

EPSS: Extraction, Processing, Sorting, Storage. The computer program that would allow for the minimum amount of human involvement in the mining process. A lone worker would be able to oversee all of the automated mining operations in real time. If bore holes needed to be moved, they could be redirected. If a problem occurred, software patches or physical repair robots could be administered to fix most of the anticipated trouble.

This meant for a simple click of a few buttons whenever the system provided an alert.

It made fiscal sense for a mining company to not have to send more people into space than necessary. The jargon commonly used back home was “nothing can replace the human touch”. However, given the simplicity of the job itself, Sloan, perhaps cynically, believed that the presence of any human in a place like this was for insurance purposes. Nothing more.

The assignment of blame should the whole operation fail.

Her opinion of company bylaws aside, Sloan was staring down at a different screen while the EPSS ran diligently beside her. She was waiting for the inbox icon on her own computer to indicate an incoming message from Earth. They were overdue.

After a time of not receiving answers to her weekly progress correspondence, Sloan, as per protocol, was sending out daily response requests. These were simple, pre-written alerts sent to company satellites and planet-side computers to indicate that the technician has been trying to communicate during a long-term breakdown.

More tedium in the name of due diligence. Only to Sloan, this issue came with a looming sense of dread.

It wasn’t as though she could just reach out and send word to the other 3 mining operations sharing the asteroid. Strict protocols were at their most severe regarding firm-to-firm communication. Corporate espionage, information theft and cyber sabotage were all troublesome practices that each company feared though would not hesitate to utilize if the opportunity arose.

Sloan herself worked for Viceroy Extraction. One of several companies that got in early with the advent of asteroid mining. Before their ventures into the belt, they were primarily involved in Canadian oil sands. With outer-space mining, Viceroy sought to improve their company’s reputation by focusing mostly on asteroidal water extraction.

Another large firm was Paige & Partners. They stood as a constant bidding rival to Viceroy and only shared space on a celestial body when it was sizeable enough to satisfy shareholders on both sides.

The asteroid 776-Lethe was such a body and Paige & Partners’ operation would even be visible to Sloan if her living habitat had been outfitted with windows.

Also present was Deep Orbit Industry. They had been created specifically for asteroid mining when several smaller companies merged to have the capital and resources to compete with larger firms.

Lastly, there was Unite One. A globalized firm overseen by government officials of more than 14 different nations. The information surrounding their funds, resources and practices remained far more secretive than the others as terms like “national security” were thrown around to cloak many of the details of how they did business.

With their presence on 776-Lethe, each of these firms either utilized an EPSS interface or one similar. Through trial and error over the years, most firms worked in imitation of one another until standards of operation were more or less regulated by respective overseeing governments and the Aeronautic agencies that launched them all from Earth.

That commonality of standard operating procedures would be the only thing these firms would do in tandem, however. The heightened competition along with the temptations of espionage were a constant concern for everybody. With that, it stood to reason that publicly-traded mining corporations would become so paranoid that much of the operation designs and technician protocols were heavily focused on avoiding the competition.

The trouble was that Sloan couldn’t seem to get in touch with her own people. Not that there was never a reason for her to worry about it before. Given the distance and volatile environment of the belt, contact between Earth and any asteroid installation was delayed and frequently inconsistent. It was never perfect and dealing with that challenge on a technical and psychological level were part of the extensive training.

However, after 2 years, Sloan sat in her chair with a belly full of coffee and stared at an unresponsive inbox. She wondered when, if not now, would be the time to break protocol and reach out to her neighbors on 776-Lethe.