Star Emperor

After a good few hours of sleep, Andrew woke up to see that his storage had eight tonnes of materials stored inside and some of them were quite valuable, like Titanium, gold, platinum, and even a bar of tungsten.

While eating he directed the drones to new targets, trying to get as many materials as possible before the merchants arrived, which could be at any moment.

It was already the fifth day and even if his food could easily last him another two weeks, then his water supply was running low.

He only ate one packet a day since it was enough to fill him up but he drank around two liters of water daily and without the water purification module, he was unable to get any more water even when he found a lot of ice on the asteroids.

The good news for him was that he started losing weight and slimming down a lot during this time.

This confirmed his suspicion that these bastards spiked his food or drinks with something to make him fat and since he was no longer getting it, the drug lost its effect and his body started returning to normal.

He hoped like hell that he could get enough credits from his materials to buy at least two or three modules and resupply his water, otherwise, the next five days would be truly hellish as he hadn't bathed in these five days and he stank to high heaven already, not to mention another five days without a shower or just a wet cloth to wipe himself with.

Thinking about it he might be able to get some things from the merchants if they sell any wares.

Right now he was ready to kill someone to get his hands on a bed and a few other comforts he took for granted before this whole debacle.

Since he could not do anything about it for now he focused on getting the materials he needed.

After sending the drones for a second run he remembered the contents of the alien chest and decided to take a look at it.

The metal jars contained a dark green liquid that stank as hell so he quickly sealed the container and decided not to open it ever again.

The packets of food surprised him however as they looked almost identical to his own and contained identical nutrient bars.

Andrew thought about trying one but decided against it since he had no idea if this food was the same or just looked alike but was different and the last thing he needed was poisoning himself.

He decided to sell these to the merchants if they would accept it and if not then he would just toss them out the airlock and be done with it.

A few hours later he saw something coming his way and almost pissed himself from fright, thinking that it might be a big asteroid coming his way.

Fortunately, it was a spaceship that docked with his station a few minutes later, to his surprise the being that entered turned out to be a droid very similar to C3PO, which made a lot of sense considering that not all species could breathe the same atmosphere.

-Welcome, Station Master.

The machine said in a synthetic voice.

-Do you have any materials for trade?

It asked not waiting for his greeting.

-Yes, I have, he said displaying the list of the materials in the storage.

After scanning the list the droid stopped for a moment.

-It will be 126 550 credits.

Do you agree to this price?

-Yes I do and also I have these.

Andrew showed the contents of the alien chest.

The bot raised one of its hands and scanned the items.

-That will be an additional 10 500 credits, do you agree?

-Yes.

Andrew said and the robot took the items.

-If you wish to purchase anything, the list of available items was downloaded into your console. 

The machine said and left for the ship, but stayed attached to his station.

Not wasting any time, Andrew got to the item list and saw that there was a countdown on it that had 20 minutes left.

The first items he ordered were food and water that would last him a month easily, the next one was a new oxygen bottle for his space suit.

After buying the essentials, he got two sets of clothing, some clothes, and a towel.

He of course didn't forget to get himself a bed.

Then he moved to the modules section of the list and found that he was more than wealthy enough to buy a few modules that he needed.

The first one he ordered was the sensor module, upgraded with a mining scanner that would allow him to see the composition of the asteroid before he targeted it for retrieval.

The second one was the water purification module followed by another solar panel module.

The last one he could afford right now was the sanitation module.

After he was done, his remaining balance was 5 100 credits and right now he didn't have anything he needed to buy so he decided to leave it for later.

The moment he pressed the payment icon, the airlock opened, and this time three droids entered, carrying his order and leaving it on the ground.

-Thank you for your patronage, the modules you ordered will arrive within one hour of Earth's time.

The droid said and left with its companions.

As soon as the countdown reached zero the ship detached itself and started gathering the materials from the storage before leaving.

Andrew was happy with this visit as he gained a lot from it.

Waiting for the arrival of the new modules he got himself busy stashing everything away and putting the bed together as it arrived in parts.

There were many more things that he wanted to buy but his small fortune didn't allow for it.

Knowing that it was just the beginning, he decided to be patient and make do with what he got.

Furthermore, he had an idea about getting more modules, if it worked and he got lucky he might have way more to trade with the next time the merchants arrived.

The new modules arrived less than half an hour after the ship's departure and just like before there was a sudden flash of light and they were there.

Using the drones to reposition and connect them it took around two hours to get them online.

The first thing he did once the work was done was to go to the sanitation module to take a shower and change his sweaty clothes.

The next thing on the list was to use the sensor module and map out the area.

It was easier to do than he thought and the interface was easy to understand.

The only requirement was for him to designate the distance of the sensor sweep and the rest was done automatically with the warning that the further away he wanted to scan the less accurate data he would receive.

To his surprise the distance was calibrated for a minimum of a light second away and a maximum of a light year away.

Not wanting to be too greedy he decided to scan the area within a light hour from his station.

As soon as he set the parameters and pressed the "Scan" icon, the monitor displayed a notification.

"Scan in progress, Time to completion 01:00:00"

Since he had to wait for it he decided to finish assembling his bed, which was easy if you read through the manual attached to it.

Just as he finished and the bed was ready to use, he heard a ping from the console.

"Scan complete"

The notification popped up the moment the timer ran out and his map was updated with everything that was within a light hour away from him.

To his surprise, other than asteroids and three other stations there was nothing more at this distance.

-Considering that It's not a long distance in space terms he was surprised that there even were other stations in this range.

On the other hand, the first one he found was right next to him considering the distance to the nearest one he just found.

Another matter altogether was the fact that this was the most basic sensor module and he only slightly upgraded it to allow him to look for materials, it also only scanned with the speed of light so the images he saw at the end of the map were already an hour old.

He reduced the range to ten light minutes for now and decided to use the geological scanner to see what kind of materials he had in the range of his drones.

This time he set the range for ten light seconds and again a timer showed up, this time displaying 00:10:00 and the scan started as soon as he confirmed it.

Not that his drones had that much range but it was better to know what was around.

Ten minutes later he saw the results and he was speechless.

Most of the small asteroids in his vicinity were comprised of mostly iron and nickel with some trace amounts of other elements, but the bigger ones in the asteroid belts had many precious resources in them.

The best ones in his range contained a lot of gold, platinum, some iridium, magnesium, and other resources but most of them were full of iron and nickel.

These two resources were not precious right now but in the future, he would need a lot of them.

The most useful resource for him at the moment was ice.

Thanks to the water purification module he didn't have to worry about a lack of water for a very long time.

Andrew sent four of his drones to get some asteroids containing the precious metals that were closest to his station, while the rest were assigned to continue clearing up space around the station.

After marking their targets he sat in his chair and thought about the next steps he had to take.