From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars

The miners' decision ultimately did not surprise Amber.

After their brief discussion, a total of 108 mining technical workers present chose to 'jump' to Atlas Mining Company.

The addition of these people allowed Atlas Mining Company, which originally only had one Gyrator-class mining barge and no professional workers, to enter a mature mining stage in an instant.

Because among these 108 people, in addition to the largest number of mining classes, there are also asteroid exploration technicians, professional blasting technicians, mining ship pilots and operators, etc.

Basically, all the personnel needed to mine an asteroid are available.

What's more, a complete asteroid operations base and three small mining ships were harvested.

Moreover, there are 25 complete mining mules in the operation base Gnaku.

This is an autonomous mining robot. Its main job is to cooperate with the mining team to carry out detailed operations deep into the interior of super-large asteroids.

In emergency situations, it can also cover the evacuation of personnel.

After all, it is impossible for these asteroids with a mass of hundreds of millions of tons to contain only one type of heavy metal.

Rather than just letting the Gyrator-class brutally crush the asteroid, and then cooperate with the other three frigates to collect ore.

It is more efficient to partition the distribution of mineral veins on the entire asteroid through the process of exploration, excavation, and blasting, and then mine according to priority.

Soon, the workers without any objections boarded the Hermes docked next to the operations base.

They will carry sleeping bags and other basic daily necessities in a temporarily modified large crew cabin with dual-channel shielding capabilities for internal and external signals.

After Amber went to the black market to find a doctor to perform an operation to remove the 'slave chip', these miners would be able to move freely.

After the personnel are loaded, the next step is to pack up the entire operating base and take it away.

When Timler Mining Company deployed this operating base before, 80% of it used professional industrial ships to fix the operating base on the asteroid through a large number of mechanical arms like centipedes.

But Amber and the others obviously don't have this condition now, but fortunately they still have two HCPs.

This kind of weapon, which was formerly an industrial robot, is now doing the same business as its ancestors.

In order to be arranged on the rugged asteroid, the operational base is not a whole, but is divided into four components: the ore refining area, the parking area, the main control room and the personnel rest cabin.

Each component is connected through flexible channels.

After Amber and the others evacuated all personnel and cut off the functions of the functional area, they 'removed' the four components from the asteroid one after another, and then fixed them to the standard slide in the middle section of the side of the destroyer Hermes through a standard interface. on track.

This process can only involve Amber and Murat running the HCP.

"Unit 2, don't be nervous and control your speed."

Listening to Amber's calm voice on the communication channel, Murat in Unit 2 was still a little nervous.

He is now working with Amber, dragging a huge ore refining component towards the side of the Hermes.

"Hermes, prepare to deploy the guidance robotic arm."

"The Hermes has received it and has completed deployment."

The external armor plate at the front end of the side rails was opened, and a pair of yellow and black mechanical arms slowly unfolded.

The laser guidance device at the front end of the robotic arm quickly connected to the receiver on the ore refining component, and the automatic docking program began to operate on its own.

"Okay. Machine No. 2, start to slow down and let the robotic arm complete the docking."

"receive!"

The vector nozzles of the two HCPs are spraying at high frequency. This method is used to fine-tune the position.

Ultimately, the easy-going ‘Click! ’ twice, the auxiliary robotic arm completed the docking of the ore refining component, and dragged and installed it on the slide rail.

"Done~Next one!"

Amber sat in the cockpit and temporarily disconnected the head control operation, then moved her somewhat stiff neck, and finally twisted her body and floated towards the next component.

"Unit 2, don't think it's boring or dangerous. This is a training to cultivate your fine operation ability."

"Yes, sir!"

An hour and a half later, the ‘packing and taking away’ work at the operations base was over.

The larger ore refining assembly and docking area were secured to the Hermes' skid rails.

The relatively smaller personnel rest cabin and main control room are respectively fixed on the interfaces of the first two components through the stacking method.

On the other side of Hermes' ship, three small mining ships were also arranged horizontally and fixed on the slide rails here.

Now, the Dragoon-class destroyer, which originally looked elegant and slender in appearance, looked like it had tumors on its left and right sides.

However, this mounting method is still very common on civilian armed merchant ships.

Anyway, there is no air resistance in outer space. As long as it does not affect the torque of the spacecraft, the captains will try their best to load more cargo.

In this way, the profit of a single trip can be increased.

After some operations by Amber and the others, the only man-made products left near the asteroid were the two pirates' armed merchant ships.

One of them has been completely shattered into a pile of wreckage due to the explosion of the subcritical reactor, and has basically lost its recyclability value.

The other ship, under Amber's intensive work, only damaged the bridge, deflection field generator, external weapons, observation equipment, antenna arrays and other fragments.

Most valuable components, including the most valuable subcritical reactors and jump drives on civilian ships, were not damaged.

So if you say Amber doesn't covet these things, that's impossible.

But now it is indeed impossible to take away this armed merchant ship for a while.

Although the Hermes can eject the carbon fiber rope to tow it, this can only support normal navigation and cannot drag the ship into a jump state.

"What? Can't bear to part with this ship?"

On the bridge of the Hermes, Isabel looked at Amber, who had been standing by the porthole of the armed merchant ship since returning to the ship, and couldn't help but jokingly approached her.

"It's not that I can't bear to part with this boat, I just can't bear to part with the valuable components on it."

Amber was a little frustrated because he didn't know how to 'break a ship'.

If he knew anything, he would dismantle the subcritical reactor and jump drive and take them away.

Unfortunately, the disassembly of these two things is still relatively complicated and requires professional ship-breaking engineers to operate it.

"Forget it, let's retreat first."

Amber turned her head and kissed Isabel on the cheek, then drifted towards the captain's seat amidst the latter's shyness.

"Lilith, mark the coordinates. When the time comes, go anonymously to a ship-breaking company online and sell the coordinates to them."

"As you command, Master!"