Treasure | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Treasure | Previous Challenge Entry
By Dennis Gallemore
04/19/23
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At 27, Jack O’Reilly was one of the youngest of the asteroid miners. Alone in his spacecraft, he studied the asteroid that he was approaching through the ship’s viewport. A quick scan with the ship’s sensors had picked up a large cache of natural diamonds just under the asteroid’s iron mantle. He whistled as he saw the computer’s estimate of the haul. “At least a ton of diamonds!”

He jockeyed the ship down toward the asteroid’s surface, carefully avoiding the upstretched fingers of iron that would spell certain doom.

The ship settling on the surface with a slight jar, he stabbed the lance controls. Razor sharp titanium steel shards shot out from all sides of the craft and tethered it to the asteroid’s low-gravity surface.

Smiling, Jack reached toward a hologram floating above the ship’s controls. “I made it, Baby Girl!” His hand gently touched the outer edge of the floating image of his wife, Danika, the holographic image highlighting her long blonde hair. “Thanks to God for leading me here to these diamonds; you and I will be as rich as old King Solomon!”

Putting the ship into standby mode, he donned his pressure suit, cycled through the outer lock, and stepped out onto the surface of the asteroid. Pressing a button on his arm, a door at the back of the ship spiraled open, a ramp descended, and a robotic ore excavator trundled out on metallic tracks. Pre-programmed, it crawled across the barren landscape to the location of the hidden diamonds.

Jack consulted the HUD, heads-up-display, inside his helmet. “We’re cutting it awfully close, Mr. Roboto. If we don’t get the diamonds out and back in the ship in three hours, we won’t be able to make it back through the asteroid belt in time to rendezvous with the carrier ship for the return trip to Earth. You know how the captain is of that ship; he won’t wait for us and we’ll be stranded out here. So, move your mechanical butt, Mr. Roboto!”

A door slid open in the robotic miner and an auger emerged. Two hours later, the top layer of metallic surface had been removed and the robot’s diamond extractor was engaged.

“Danika, we have liftoff!” Jack said with a smile. His smile vanished as a disruptive wave raced energetically beneath him. “Asteroid quake!” He yelled as he was vaulted forward. He fell, narrowly avoiding a rocky outcropping.

Scrambling back to his feet, he was dismayed to see that the robot had been tossed onto its side. He studied the now silent machine. “That’s so not good.”

Retrieving a cable from an external winch on the ship, he attached it to the mining machine. Slowly, he activated the winch and rolled the robot upright. Studying the damage, he shook his head in disgust. “The whole auger’s been twisted. It’ll take a day or two at least to put that back into shape.”

A sudden thought emerging in his mind, he swiveled back toward the ship. “I’ve got a few low-yield explosives that might blow a hole big enough for me to at least hand dig some diamonds out. Dangerous as all get-out, but it might work.”

Retrieving one of the explosive cannisters, he made his way back to the cache. Placing it near the hole that the robot had started, he ordered the machine back onto the ship. Retreating to the ship himself, he studied the scene before him.

“That’s a lot of explosives, even using the smallest cannister. I better move the ship a little farther away.” He looked at his HUD. “I’ve only got thirty minutes left before I have to launch off this rock. There’s no safety margin there. If something goes wrong, Mr. Roboto and I will never make the rendezvous.”

“I could try this and become one of the richest men in the solar system.” The image of his wife flashed in front of his eyes. “Or, if it all goes south, I would never get to see her again, at least not in this life.”

He trudged over and picked up the cannister. He sighed. “Well, the Good Book does say that a good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds.”

Forcing himself to smile, he entered the ship’s cockpit, and reached a hand toward Danika’s hologram. “Time to go back to my real treasure!”

A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds. (Prov. 31: 10 MSG)

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