006 Training Arc 6: Free Debris Recovery 1

Seventh of ten chapters posted.

Arriving from the administrative transfer port to the guild storage vault.

Entering the standby room labeled Storage Vault 10, changing into a pilot suit.

There, familiar as ever, stands Rental Ship 10. Standard mining configuration again today—two arms equipped.

Following procedure, I duck through the hatch, enter the CIC of Rental Ship 10, and settle into the pilot seat.

A jolt—my mind connects directly to the ship’s neural core. In an instant, I’ve mastered every system.

Today’s a free debris recovery quest.

I can collect debris with active salvage rights… or I can grab debris whose rights have expired… or even debris with no rights at all.

First, check out the combat-heavy sectors.

The ship’s neural core accesses the station’s database, filtering sectors based on combat logs.

Five locations, ranked by frequency of combat over the past month.

After a short wait, the candidate sectors narrowed down, and the virtual screen before me color-coded and numbered each sector.

Alright, let's head to the nearest four over here.

Tell the ship’s brain, it’ll coordinate with the control room and give the go-ahead to launch.

I launched rental ship ten into sector four.

Arriving at designated sector.

The ship's brain announces we've reached the target zone.

As we approached the sector, innumerable pinpricks of light flickered onto the holoscreen.

There were the mining ships working in that sector.

Everyone seems to be thinking the same thing.

"Sure, people always gather where there's the most debris—close by and easy to scavenge."

Didn’t have the guts to barge in here, so I’ll try somewhere else.

Select the farthest sector on the virtual screen. The cyberbrain transmits the course change to the control room—permission granted.

I redirected rental vessel 10 to sector three.

Fewer同业s here, probably because it’s farther out.

The virtual screen displayed each ship’s exclusive sector—territory, if you will.

Looks like it’s first-come, first-served, with the guild’s maximum allowable territory claimed by whoever gets there first.

The sector I worked yesterday? Also claimed by a guild quest.

The ship’s cyberbrain explains that operations are limited to one sector at a time.

Already-operated sectors are shaded gray—convenient.

I mark my own unused sector as claimed.

“Hey! You there, R10—this sector’s already reserved. Try somewhere else!”

A sudden comm burst. Nah, nah—I did check the guild’s rules. No such thing as sector reservations, dude.

Is this the famous new recruit Ibiri? Or is there some local rule I’m missing?

"R10 here. Sorry, I’m new—just know the guild’s rules. Is there some other rule I should be aware of?"

Better play nice. Wouldn’t want trouble.

"Ah, a newbie. We’re operating by moving straight along the X-axis. So we yield space along our path. You just come straight in from the open sector on the other side."

(Oh. So they’re optimizing operations on-site.)

Yeah, trying to work on intersecting routes would be a disaster.

Makes sense. Best just follow along. Good thing I played nice.

"Understood. Thank you for the guidance."

Looking closer, I see several gray rectangular prisms piercing through the sector.

I deactivate the previous exclusive assignment and reassign the starting point to an open position.

The center's already taken, so I'm heading for the edge.

"Alright, debris collection starts now."

I stop the ship at the starting point and activate broad-spectrum radar and sensor sweeps.

In this free collection run, useless debris gets left alone.

Cleaning up debris is only required within navigation lanes—and that's why there's a reward for it. Safety first.

So, no one's gonna go out of their way to destroy debris in open space like this, no reward, no motivation.

But if you shove debris into someone else's active work zone using your ship's hull, you’re gonna get yelled at. Naturally.

That kind of debris? That’s the kind we clean up.

Our ship has a handy Stasis Field barrier—keeps low-speed debris from bumping into us.

But 30-meter-class work vessels? They’ve got Stasis Fields too, just not very good ones.

If the relative speed exceeds the field’s capacity, well… the debris pushes right through.

Instruct the ship’s brain to color-code valuable debris and obstructions in the path, overlaying them on the real-time feed.

Grab the valuable debris. Vaporize the obstructions with the laser.

Keep an eye out—make sure no other ships are in the line of fire.

Work efficiently, keep moving straight—end of sector. Claim the next zone.

No debris left. Not even much of it.

"Let’s wrap this up quick and head toward the center."

We’ve reached the edge of the zone.

Waste of time. The good stuff’s already been taken. All that’s left are scraps of light armor.

And even those are sparse—probably already dispersed.

All that effort… for nothing.

"This’ll need a rethink starting tomorrow."

If this helped you out, and you found it even a little fun or want to see more, please consider bookmarking it or leaving a rating. Thanks.

The rating input button is located below the latest chapter.