Chapter 5

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.