Raintree had just about anything you could want. The planet had been settled for well over two centuries. They had a 'Class A' space dock, with all the facilities that went with it. In other words, it was the perfect place for me to be. It had access to the Inter-Galactic stock exchange, which was also important. As a member in good standing in the League of Planets, Raintree had access to courts and awards institutions, of various governments.

My find was actually worth money. A LOT of money! Dynamic Labs not only informed me of my core samples' probable values, but they had taken the opportunity to inform a few development companies. I had gotten several tentative offers pending the onsite verification.

To make a long story short, I was rolling in money again. My find, which had been surveyed by an independent bonded company, was declared one of the richest finds in decades!

The odds of someone just starting out in this business making such a strike, were astronomical! Oh, there were stories from the past of others doing this. Most were stories of miners stumbling onto a find, after years of eking out a bare bones living. Here I come along, the gentleman explorer, and hit it big the first time I go out.

I had become news, right away. Local and galactic news services, asked for and received interviews. It was all exasperating, really. I decided I was going to go out again, but I wanted better speed, and a slightly bigger ship. I traded in my ship on a bigger and better model.

"Slightly", turned out to be a ship that could support a crew of up to ten. I went from the owner of a ship that was 120 meters long, to the owner of one that was 275 meters in length. It had the ability to stay out for 18 months, with a full crew of ten, if I so desired. It was also much faster at 2 light years per day, rather than 2 days per light year!

I had gotten very bored during my first trip out and back, so I decided I would hire at least two, possibly three crew members. In the meantime; I had the gravity compensators, the AI, and my security system transferred from my old Misty into the new one. Yup, I kept the name.

Unlike a navy ship, when you are going to be away from civilization for an extended period of time, you need to be sure you could get along with the people aboard the ship with you. So, finding people who were compatible was very important.

Things were getting tense between the Terran Federation, and the PU. Other governmental entities were getting involved, and sides seemed to be forming up. The League of Planets was still neutral, but how long that would last was anyone's guess.

It was ridiculous. Something as small as a planet with power metal deposits seemed to be leading the galaxy into war! I had evidence of the TF deliberately fomenting lies and hostilities, and it upset me. What was worse, was my government knew I knew! It was 'classified information', though, and I was not allowed to talk about it. Well, I guessed they would like me to keep quiet. It did make me wonder what other things my government was doing, under the 'classified secrets' umbrella.

In the meantime, my search for a crew was being done by a small company that spent a good deal of time having me fill out questionnaires, to judge my mentality. Hell! I was doing the hiring! Why concentrate so much on me? Well, come to think of it, it might be a good idea at that. Would you want to work for an asshole, winding up fighting each other, light years from anywhere?

I also contacted a very small but exclusive firm that did weapons installments for a fee. Ok, they were shady, but very honorable people. They were shady in that most governments frowned on their types of enterprises. Governments proclaimed them illegal, for the most part. Besides, they were hard to find unless you knew where to look. I had contacts. One contact led me to another. He put me in touch with an actual member of the group that would do the alterations to my ship, and install the weapon or weapons I wanted.

The price for this was astronomical! I almost canceled, but decided at the last moment, that weapons in this iffy time were a must! I paid for a highly illegal but also highly accurate targeting system. It was disguised with all my other sensors. Unless you KNEW it was there, and where you should look, you would never find it.

I paid for a type of missile that was known as a torpedo. They were very small, just 2' by 18'; but, they were extremely fast! I bought five of them, and one was nuclear tipped! That was all I could afford! I needed to have torpedo bays (tubes they called them) installed within an existing hull, without to many noticeable changes being done to my ship.

All in all it was worth it I thought. Normal scans revealed nothing of my torpedoes, nor the fact that I even had any! Two were placed to be fired astern, and the other three, including my nuke (a 5 kiloton warhead), were set to fire forward.

While the modifications were being done to my ship, I interviewed prospective shipmates. One thing about the type of people I was hiring, they were all intelligent, and were of like mind and temperament.

I had decided to hire only a few, but I wanted a good balance of skills. I hired three people for an extended cruise of one year's duration. One man and two women. Including myself, there would be a total of four people rattling around inside my ship for the next year.

I was actually surprised at the number of applicants I had. The hiring officer of the company I was using explained I now had a reputation. What was more important, was that I was lucky. Everyone who was in position too, wanted to ship with me! I shook my head over this when I was informed about it, but it made sense. As intelligent as people are, many were still very superstitious.

I studied the latest data from GCI. I bought everything they had on this sector of space. I saw that virtually everything ten light years around the station had been explored or was claimed. So I had at least a five day outbound trip to uncharted 'lands', so to speak. I looked at the star charts carefully, and made my plans.

We had come out of hyper 10 days later. We started mapping the system as we entered it. This system contained only two gas giants. They were impossible to develop. While the atmosphere on one was of a slightly unusual mix, there was nothing there to draw speculators.

So began our explorations. I sat in the common room, drinking coffee. I thought about my new crew members. We were all adjusting to one another, but everyone seemed to be getting along just fine.

The first person I had hired was Mara Bates. She was 32, and very qualified. She had a pilot's certificate, and had worked for two surveying companies in the past. She was of oriental descent, with a small compact 5' 2" frame, that was delightful.

Next was Jason Perch. He was 35 years of age. At 5' 9", he was dark skinned and could trace his ancestry back to Africa, on Earth. He, too, was trained in survey. He had two specialties above normal training. One was electronics, and the other was botany. They were two very divergent specialties, both of which I welcomed.

Finally there was Trish Adams. 30 years old, she was a last minute replacement for my first choice, who got sick. I was still wondering about that. It smacked of an intelligence operation, but for whom? Still, she brought qualifications that would be useful with her. She was a person who was filled with energy, and was always doing something. She specialized in ship's life support systems. All were also trained in normal survey functions, which was a load off my mind.

Trish was a dark haired beauty. At 5' 8" tall, she was long legged, and built like 'the proverbial brick shit house'! She could talk about any subject you could name, including my specialty, which was finance! The world of finance was a convoluted thing, but she traversed it with ease.

We had all settled into a routine that kept us busy, but still had time to socialize if we so desired. I had also made sure there was plenty of things to occupy everyone during our off duty time.

Days rolled into weeks, and everything was running smoothly. I had not told anyone of the internal security systems I had added to the already good one that had came with the ship. So far, both were reporting all systems normal.

My AI was developing a personality. As it was a class two AI, that was to be expected. I still called her Misty, and yes, she was developing a distinctly female personality.

So far we had mapped three systems. The next system was going to take a little time to get to, but it looked promising. I poured over the charts I had gotten from GCI and the add-on that we were creating. Everything looked good, so far.

I got up and poured another cup of coffee. I had just returned to my seat when Trish entered.

She nodded and poured herself a cup. She came over and sat with me. We looked at the paper charts I'd had the computer print out for me.

"I see you're a 'paper guy'. My last boss did everything on the computer, or a reader," Trish commented.

"I can work either way. But with paper charts, you can see where you have been, and feel it at the same time," I explained.

Sipping her coffee, Trish nodded. We talked about nothing for about 10 minutes. She made a meal, and demolished it quickly.

"Well, my shift for bridge watch," she said, as she rose and strode out of the common room.

I was technically off duty, but did not want to sit in my cabin, alone. Damn it! I hired people so I would not be lonely.

"All hands. Break-out from hyper in 1 minute. Standby for break-out, and man your survey stations," I announced.

This had been a particularly long hyper transition. 22 Days in hyper. A 44 light year distance had been traveled. But that was because of the gap. This gap was 44 light years between stars. Break-out occurred, and it had not been too bad. Everyone was up and manning stations. That was what we did for one-third of a shift. Then we broke up into teams. One shift worked 12 hours, and then was off 12. The first shift after break-out was 4 hours long.

4 hours was long enough to start the survey, and to start getting good information back.

"Scanners have identified a ship at..." what followed was its distance, attitude, and course. I ordered an in depth scan done. The readings we were getting back were telling us the ship was not powered, and was most likely in a decaying orbit around this sun.

"Second ship found orbiting the third planet. Unknown type and configuration. Second ship is 600 meters in length, and there is evidence of battle damage on its hull," Misty informed us.

We got quiet very fast. A warship? Out here? Who the hell could it be? Why couldn't my AI identify it? I had every known ship type and configuration loaded into its memory, and now two ships had were in this system which it could not identify.

"We are being scanned by the ship in orbit around the third planet. Scan corresponds with military band scanners," Misty told us.

Author's Note:

At this point, Misty and C-yborg will now become one story. I will do a separate Cyborg chapter to merge Misty into that story line.

Volentrin

Chapter 5

Continues in 'Longreach'