This is the 4th time I’ve awoken from a long nap. During my periods of long inactivity, the universe around me changes a lot faster than you would expect. I’ve seen empires rise during my times awake and be in full power by the time I rest; when I awake next, they are but a memory, a story for the new generations of those regions.
Sadly, I was part of one such empire during my last period of activity, One that had risen to great capacity in the local constellation. I was Second in command to someone named Gendrath Valkson, who I would come to call a true friend and one I would pledge my time to.
We started off as a couple of miners munching on astroids in the belts of Simela. Gendrath ran a general corporation, nothing big he said, just something small to make it easier among those of us that are always working together. He had thrown the money together to get it started and wasn’t too creative when it came to names so as such it was known as, Valkson, that’s it. Not Valkson Inc. or Valkson Corp. or anything of the sort. Nope he had named it Valkson.
Over the course of my last cycle we grew to a fleet of 9 members, I was flying the Industrial Command ship known as the Orca, Beautiful beast of a ship, it allowed my fleet members to mine faster, and further, while also providing a place for them to dump their ore. We had a chick named Zaphire that managed our hauling so the only time my ore hold got used was when she was jumping back to station for unloading. 1 Command ship, 1 Freighter, 3 Mining Barges, 4 Exhumers, was our ending fleet make up. In a days worth of work we 9 could eat entire belts worth of asteroids and turn in a load of ore worth up to a billion or more isk.
By the time I went to sleep we had worked up to owning 15 moon mining stations that pulled and fractured every 48 hours. An Engineering complex that we used to manufacture our own ships and other products to sell. It was a very profitable venture and time to be awake, but I had grown tired and needed to rest.
When I woke up this time though I knew I had been personally effected from the churn, for my ships AI system had detected the station come under attack while I slept. It beamed me aboard and did an automated safety warp. I awoke to a screen full of warnings and notifications of a burned empire, while drifting through space.
Over the first few days of being awake again I took the time to catch up on recent changes in tech and the market, where my assets and ships had been transported to by concord during the attack. I also took some time to reach out to Gendrath and the old fleet mates to see where they were in their cycles, and if they were awake or not. Gendrath and Zaphire were, we chatted about our burned out empire for a bit before talking about what to do next. Gendrath wants to start getting into combat a little more heavily, and Zaphire doesn’t have anything dedicated yet from the sounds of it.
While looking through new tech and research, it would seem that the moons have been over mined while I have been away. They are no longer producing any high grade ore and only the base moon ore that we would get as scrap off of the previous chunks. Todays miners are trying to make profit on the material that we would throw away and let drift off into the abyss.
This got me thinking though, I’m sure that there is going to be plenty of people, corporations, and alliances, pulling their old moon mining structures down because of the new conditions. This would be a way that I/We could make a lot of money. Each Refinery could be sold for more than three quarters of a billion ISK, or saved for another cycle in the future when it is profitable to mine again.
I decided to fit up an industrial hauler; The Iteron Mk V, and go do some structure scouting in the local area. Simela didn’t have any unanchoring but its just one system so I kept going. Bherdaspot, next system over, had one unanchoring. I made a note and kept going, Malma next. In Malma while jumping to the second planet I noticed an blank Athanor on my Directional Scanner. After entering in the coordinates on my warp drive and initiating it, I took a closer look at it. There was no info packets being broadcast off of it, nothing to say that the station was on and accepting guests.
Upon leaving my warp tunnel and landing on grid with the Athanor, it hits me. My instincts were correct. They had just led me to an abandoned refinery floating in space, ready to be claimed. For when a structure is unanchored it is made available for anyone to pick up and take ownership of. I call this reclaiming them, some people call it stealing.
Another quick check of the grid around me showed that there was no one else with me, that I could see, so I made my choice and initiated the command to scoop the compressed structure into my cargo hold. After the cargo is confirmed to be in my hold, my ship starts lighting up, turns out that there is an ownership tag on these things, and the automated system had sent out a criminal action broadcast and declared me a suspect that anyone can fire upon.
Without a second thought I choose a nearby station and hit the automated docking commands that will both warp me as close to it as I need to be and initiate the docking procedure with the station. My heart is racing as my ship is aligning with the stolen structure in my hold. If I can make it to and dock in the station I’ll be free and clear to wait out the suspect timer, and be a refinery richer.
I exit warp and my systems chime “Docking Request Accepted”
Made it, without incident too. Tomorrow I will have to get in touch with Gendrath and Zaphire and see if this is something that they want to do together and make a profit on.
I got together with Gendrath and Zaphire for lunch at the Sisters station in Simela, and we went over my idea and feelings about the future and where things are going. I also showed them my current Cargo Hold Manifest at the Sisters of Eve (SoE) Station; A shiny new Athanor. They couldn’t believe that I’d found it yesterday just floating not 2 systems away from where we were eating lunch now. They were hooked, and more than excited to start our new venture
I will be keeping a journal during this cycle to record the adventures that it entails. With our old stock of ships and the new funds from the abandoned Athanor we should have plenty of starting capital to make this adventure last for some time, and if anything we can have a backup of our once great empire if things go well.
End of Prologue.