Acetio | Blogma

The 5th Planet

Pt 1.

Jackson felt the warm squeeze on his wrist that meant a call was
coming in. It was from Jarvis, the managing dispatcher for Asmico Inc.

"Hi Jarvis, what's shaking?"

"Everything, man. Where are you?"

Jackson adjusted the cruise module in his rig. "Just drifting to the Moon."

"Ugh. Why are you wasting time with that bullshit? That doesn't pay nothing."

"Well, they're saving money on fuel and don't care when the stuff gets
there, and I don't care to be doing anything but playing videogames,
so it's a pretty square deal."

"Dude, drop your dick and listen. Did you hear?"

"What?"

"You know that one asteroid, in sector 12, 'Kleopatra'?"

"I don't know. I think so. One of the bigger ones, right?"

"One of the biggest. Well, the spectraprobe shows up to 91% iron, with
load of gold, titanium, and nickel to boot, man."

"Yeah, so what? Put some minerbots up there."

"Not good enough. Looks like the veins run deeper, or at weird angles,
or something. I don't know. Point is, they need some flesh and blood
up there. Some profs at Brown are putting together a team to get some
samples."

"That sounds expensive."

"Yeah, no doubt. But guess who they asked to do an initial survey?"

"Um..."

"Yep, after that job on Ceres, our reputation is solid, man!"

"I didn't really enjoy that, uh, adventure."

"You can enjoy anything if the green is thick enough, dude"

"How thick?"

"I'm not saying you can retire after this..."

"How much?"

"... Well, can't make any promises, but I bet we could swing double
the monthly plus a 2 million bonus. Let's call it 'hazard pay'"

"Two million isn't what it used to be."

"Come on, dude, I'm HANDING this to you. You want me to talk to
Franklin? He'll do it, I know. But you and I both know he's a
butthole, so I'm calling you first."

"..."

"You there? ... I know about your ex-wife and your daughter. You want
to be able to provide for her, right?"

"We're just separated."

"Hunh?"

"... Jarvis, you are such a jackass."

"Yeah, well, it got me where I am today didn't it? So are you in?"

"Yeah... Hell... Shit... Fuck... Why not?"

After hanging up, Jackson pushed in the throttle and got to the lunar
docking station in a few hours. He would have to pay for the extra
fuel out of his paycheck, but if Jarvis was right, the 2 million would
cover it and then some.

The next step was to get a lighter ship. And so, Jackson walked to a
kiosk and keyed out the info that told the rig rental place where he
left the ship. He got a small credit for returning it early, and he
used that toward a small cutter. The engines were small, but the
magnesium core meant reduced weight so it would be cheap to fly. And
it was just big enough for a pilot and a few samples.