Mining Facility 23

MIN-FAC23: the station is all I’ve known and, from the day I had the misfortune of being born on it, I’ve wanted nothing more than to leave. All my life I’ve been raised to be a miner, “Because that’s what you were born into.” my father said. That was before the accident. He dug right through one of the rock walls of the asteroid the station was built into and was sucked out into vacuum. He wasn’t even given a proper funeral since the cause of his death was “far too common to merit any credits to be allocated to a funeral”. B******s. I’ll never forgive them for that. 

What can I say about this decrepit old station that couldn’t also be said about a scrapyard? It’s rickety, rusty, and damp. I think the ancient Romans had better idea of pipe layout than the builders of this floating piece of space junk did. The days are long and the work is grueling. I’d be willing to bet that prisoners on slaveships have it better than I do… probably make more than I do too. All day long it’s the same story… smash some rocks for scientific progress. Lack of progress more like it; this station has been around since the beginning of time and we’re no closer to the stars that they all insisted were just within our reach. 

So we’re digging for Helium-3: some element that’s supposed to make travel time between here and the inner colonies much faster… fast enough that I might actually get off this rock someday. Nobody admits it, but I think that’s the only thing that keeps people working with so few incidents; the hope of leaving this place far behind them. The eggheads say they can use it as some sort of nuclear fuel for the fusion drives they’ve been working on for God-knows how many decades now. Their plan to “conquer the stars” has become more of a rescue effort than anything. 

About a generation or so ago, we started to look beyond earth and establish our first colonies on the Moon. Mars followed right after that. The eggheads said that establishing colonies on new worlds would be the catalyst for a golden age of scientific discovery. But, in reality, it turned out to be the most expensive failure in our history. Every day they spend trillions of credits putting people in stasis pods and flying them towards the outer colonies using slow, conventional engines. I takes anywhere from a few months to a few years for the supplies we need to reach us. It really does a number on your morale after a while… not knowing when the next supply of food or medicine is coming in. 

If all that weren't enough, there’s been an increasing amount of reports coming in from the outer colonies about pirates attacking freighters and stealing their cargo. It’s only a matter of time before one of ours is hit… then, I don’t know what we’ll do. 

It’s been over a month since our last shipment, which means one of two things: either it’s late, or it’s been hit. I fear the worst. It’s my hope that, if that shipment never makes it, someone will find this letter and give the guys upstairs this message: YOUR GREED IS KILLING US ALL! 

Miner 230243 - Jacob Pierson