The ship’s lasers got to work right away, splitting apart the asteroid into manageable pieces, while Nico deftly used the Gravity Control to move them to the empty storage bays.
The Technicians were already hustling to get Materials Printers set up in the bays so that they could use them to process the raw ore into refined and usable raw materials for their Mecha and to create anything else that they needed.
The Materials Printer technology was a controlled Military Technology, far superior to the versions that were available on the Civilian markets, and capable of processing almost anything on a molecular level, as long as they had the base elements to work with. That gave them a huge advantage over other traders, in that they could directly refine the asteroid and not need to pay a mining facility with specialized tools to do it for them.
Cutting out even one level of middlemen in the processing stage doubled their profits immediately, and they were only two days out from the station that the General had recommended.
That wouldn’t be enough time to actually process the entire asteroid, but even if they sold off a few hundred or a thousand tons of high-grade materials to the station they could get anything that they needed.
Max wasn’t part of that process though, other than making sure his scheduled Battalion members showed up for their shifts, so he had a lot of time to kill. Most of the other Battalion Commanders were bogged down in logistics, keeping their units running, but Max had Major Miller for that, and he was so effective that even he seemed to have a large amount of free time to kill.
Even scheduling and discipline weren’t brought to him unless things went very wrong, since Nico had automated the schedule the very first week the Battalion was formed. Her algorithm even processed leave applications and kept track of earned days off and total combat effectiveness without any additional human input. If there was an issue, he would get a notification.
Capable subordinates really were a blessing.
So, Max was headed to a meeting with General Yaakov to work out what they were going to tell the station, and what they could ask for without seeming too suspicious.
They needed a number of materials for making more Thunder Gun ammunition. They had the casings covered after this asteroid, but the core elements of the explosives weren’t included in its composition.
They weren’t controlled substances, not at their most basic levels, so they could request them easily enough, but the Super Heavy Mecha went through an incredible amount of munitions in a sustained firefight against the Klem, and they were expecting to suffer such a fate again, even if it was because they volunteered this time.
“Good, you are right on time. The other Battalion leaders left this up to you and me, so we can work it out over coffee. There was a large supply of the good stuff left behind on the Pirate ships.” General Yaakov greeted Max when he reached the assigned meeting room, near the cargo bay where the Dutchman was stored.
“Well, that’s one way to save time. How much are you thinking we need to trade for?” Max asked.
“If the material prices haven’t changed much, and given our lack of reputation, I suspect that we will need at least five thousand tons of explosives per engagement. The raw materials are much less expensive than refined structural metals because only the military or specialized facilities can refine them from there.” General Yaakov explained, pulling up the munitions usage data from their last battle.
“So, if we get ten thousand tons to start we should be off to a good start. Can we even transfer that much without pulling out the Dutchman?” Max asked.
“For a small fee, they will send it directly to us by barge, but the Station might let us actually dock with them. They are Reaver friendly, to an extent, so we can try that approach.” Yaakov suggested.
“Just toss Nico out front as a shield and let her family name do the work. That’s a bit risky.” Max pointed out.
“Not out here it isn’t. In Kepler, they are an ancient and Noble family. Out here they are the Tarith Reavers, and even if you attacked a ship that wasn’t really theirs they would retaliate for the insult, and they have the power to back it up. Of course, we have enough firepower of our own that we shouldn’t lose an engagement, but that’s not the point. What I’m saying is that the chances of her being associated with herself are very slim.” The General explained.
“Okay, I will buy that. She has done an exemplary job of being our public relations face so far. But now that our course has changed, what will your own story be? Will you still be posing as a Noble writing a documentary or are you coming up with something new?” Max asked.
“The story can stand. A little work using a noble’s influence is common enough that it even has a defined value when bartering for passage. But we should see what we can trade off and what we need to reserve for our own usage.”
What followed was two solid hours of balancing their supplies against their materials usage rates and determining what they could trade. Most surprisingly, what they had a huge excess of were actually the heavy ores used for Reactor Cores. Each Mecha only needed a few hundred grams, but they had over a thousand tons of them.
A planet on the outskirts of civilization would love to get its hands on that. Not only could it help build their military without alerting international authorities, but it would also help power their industrial facilities.
The ores were very rare to find, even when asteroid mining and General Yaakov was more than satisfied that they could build a reputation off of just this find.
“So, one Tonne should buy us thousand tons of explosives?” Max verified.
“Yes. They are mostly Carbon-based, and that is easy to come by anywhere, so it is dirt cheap, literally. The rest is a bit more expensive, but not by much and we have the more expensive metallic components already.” General Yaakov agreed.
“Alright, I will have them prepare twelve tons of reactor ores to buy the explosives, and whatever personal effects that we might need.” Max agreed.
“Be sure to add a lot of random items to the list. Clothing, soaps, toiletries, fresh fruits, the sort of thing that reminds soldiers of home. It’s what every trading ship needs on top of their actual business dealings.”
With that General Yakkov ended their meeting and Max returned to the Engineering bay to look over the storage bay cameras and make sure they had enough material processed.