After that excitement Krn and Mrk approached me. “Do you think it is a good idea to make enemies of the Red Moon Group?” Mrk asked.

“No. Actually I am sure it is a terrible idea. However, the other options are just as terrible. Handing over half of our credits every week to them is just as terrible. If I know my bullies, they will be okay with that for a few weeks and then the rate will go up until they squeeze us as hard as they can and we basically only work for them. And honestly, I am not here to become a slave to these guys.”

“But what can we do? What will we do when they come back?” he continued questioning. He was scared and kept glazing over at his wife who had a comforting hand on his arm.

“Well, there are some things that we can potentially do. None of them are long term solutions but they should buy us some time.”

“Time for what? We came here to make a living, to build something. I have a wife and I don’t want her to be in more danger, just because you decide to piss them off.”

I sighed. He had a point. I did not want to put any of them into danger either but I was also not going to apologize for protecting my interests and not giving in to pseudo-space-pirates and their ‘assurances’.

“Listen, Mrk, I understand what you are saying. But I told you back on the station that the Red Moon had already come knocking. You knew about that and still signed on, no?”

“Yes, but not to fight for our lives.” he retorted angrily.

“Mrk, easy. You know that this is not a good situation and that Malcolm is right. If we pay, they keep asking for more and more. We will never get any profit out of this. We did good for the first few days and actually managed a decent haul even though we have some low skill members. And apart from us, everybody else seems committed to stand up to these guys. I don’t think that will keep us safe but it is the first claim that we are on that is not rolling over. Remember, that was exactly the reason why we decided to go with them.” As opposed to the usual dropping off the common channel to talk to each other, Krn addressed her husband live on air. I was surprised by the passion in her voice and the concern for him that came through in her tone.

“I know.” he nodded. “It’s just hard seeing ships flying in to threaten us and our turrets shooting back. I am scared for you and for me.” he added meekly.

“I know my love. But we have a chance now and I want to see what we can actually do. And the rest of this crew seems set to not take a beating but rather give it. It is scary but it is also exciting. Imagine if we can actually stand up to them. This would set an example to other claims out there."

I groaned. Shit. She was right. But that would make our position that much harder. Of course. I should have thought about that myself. If we kicked those guys in the teeth and got away with it, then others would try to follow our example. Which meant, it would take very little for them to consider going all in because if we got away with it, it would impact their bottom line much more than just one claim not paying up.

“Here is how I see it. First and foremost is working faster and maximizing profits. That will help you guys get some money together and the claim will be profitable for you that much faster. That also means getting that broker on retainer and hash out a good deal with them. Then we need more information on these Red Moon clowns so we know what we are actually dealing with.” I couldn’t believe that I didn’t look into them before, stupid. ‘Know thy enemy’ is such a base concept.

“Then, once we know more, we see how we can or need to beef up security to make sure that nothing happens. And finally I owe you guys an apology. I did not actually come out here to become a space miner. I have another motive for staking a claim in this asteroid.”

Now I had the attention of everybody including Ralgau who slowly shook his head. Yeah, I understood him perfectly. I did not know these people enough to not run the risk that one of them would sell the information about the ship to make a quick payday. And from what Ralgau had told me, we were talking about roughly a million that people would be willing to pay to learn about the ship. Especially as it didn’t conform to any known ship types and seemed functional. That was something like the holy grail. And considering that a cruiser ran anywhere from two million for a simple transport to twenty million for a combat ship, that kind of ‘finders-fee’ wasn’t even that far-fetched. On top of that I had a feeling, don’t ask me why or where it came from, that this ship was no standard variant of anything.

I took a deep breath and started talking before I could think better of it. These people had staked the claim with us and tied their lives to ours. And while I had no intentions of sharing the ship I think it was necessary to be a little transparent with them so they knew why I was adamantly against anybody interfering in our operation.

“You might have wondered why I decided to stake the claim here considering that there are other asteroids with higher ore concentrations.” I started and got nods all around. “The reason is that this asteroid is special. In a cave halfway around this rock, I found a ship, roughly cruiser size and seemingly still working. As you might be aware, creating a salvage claim in any settled system is extremely hard and expensive. So Ralgau and I came up with a plan.”

“You staked a claim and rely on the ‘everything in and on’ rule of claims” Krn interrupted with a chuckle. “Smart! Although I wish we would have had that information before to decide if we were signing up for this venture.”

“Yeah, I know but I did not know who I could trust with this information. To be fair, I still don’t, other than Ralgau and even him I have not known for long.”

“We are strong together. Common goal makes us stronger!”

“True,” Brelic interjected, “But the ship is no common goal. If I read the signs right, then our intrepid leader and Ralgau are planning to claim the ship and then run off while we keep sitting on the claim,” he added with acid in his voice.

“Well, you signed on for the claim. If we get the ship, we will pay off our share of the claim cost and you guys can run it as you see fit.”

“Wait, what do you mean roughly cruiser size? Did you not run a database check on the model?” Mrk asked.

“Yes, we did, but it isn’t in any of the databases that we have access to. So either it is not listed or unknown.”

Ygglog made a chittering noise that did not translate. Not sure what that meant.

“And you said it still works? What exactly does that mean?” Krn asked.

“Well, there is a deflective shield that is still powered. So right now we can’t even get in until we figure out how to get past that. Ralgau was telling me that if there is tech still powered, the chances are good that we have a functioning ship.”

“Let’s table that for the moment.” Ralgau threw in as the voice of reason. “We need to figure out our next steps.”

“Right. So I suggest that Krn will get in touch with a broker as soon as possible and we sell the first load. The less money we have sitting on the top of the rock, the less appealing we are for any people that want to take what is not theirs.

“Additionally I will take each one of you over to the cave so you can have a look for yourself and maybe come up with ideas on how to get into the ship and get it out of the rock.

“And finally one of us needs to do some research on the Red Moon, so we figure out what their strengths are and how they normally respond to people unwilling to pay what they are demanding.”