The Chronicles Of Bob The Meteor Miner

By Michael Bond

Being the adventures, accidents, discoveries and fortunes of Bob, a meteor miner, on the fringes of human civilization amidst the bounty of the Asteroid Belt!
Set in the near future as mankind's civilization begins its bold new adventures in Space and Beyond. Follow the exciting, thrilling, astounding and amazing adventures of Bob as he explores space beyond the Asteroid Belt, rises in fortune beyond the dreams of greed, falls into ruins at the hands of Evil before his life takes one stunning and surprising turn after another!!
Read about Bob as he takes on challenges beyond the imagination!!! Giant Talking Space Oysters, Beautiful Space Goddesses, Evil criminal conspiracies that could destroy the human race, and an urgent mission to break through barriers and rescue millions of Innocent Lives!!!

Bob, a Hero!
Bob, a Man of The Future!!
Bob, The Meteor Miner!!!

Seven Stunning Surprises!
Seven Science Fiction Stories!!
Seven Steps Into The Future!!!

Get the ebook today, share in Bob's adventures as he takes you on a Journey To Tomorrow!!

WARNING: Contains Bunnies!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Bond
• Release date: May 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463588864

Michael Bond

Welcome to Michael's world!An occasional writer of film scripts and short stories with a lifelong interest in Science Fiction (yes, he just about remembers watching the first episodes of Dr Who in the 1960s) Michael is a technology design innovator with a special interest in technology to improve the world.His eBook publications of short stories from 7,000 up to 35,000 introduce you to his thoughts on how we see the world and how science can solve the problems we face in the world around us. Some of his stories challenge conventions in science fiction about the future of our world and the choices we will face as we evolve and have been read and enjoyed by many people around the world long before they came into eBook format. Now you have the opportunity to share in his world.As you read and enjoy his stories you will see that some have the potential to be developed into film and TV shows in the future. Your purchase and enjoyment of them here gives you the advantage over everyone else - congratulations, you read them here first! Don't forget to tell all your friends and share your enjoyment with your social networks.Come and join Michael's world, enjoy his writings and see your purchases turned into programmes to improve the world.You can learn more at his personal web site or follow him through your social networks on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook.FREE SAMPLES are available for FREE via his personal web site, where you can read his FREE SAMPLE film script inspired by the famous "Predator" SciFi film series and his idea to reboot the series. Watch a FREE SAMPLE of his film-making with "How To Kill A Godzilla", a short animation. Read his other articles on subjects ranging from the "Terminator" films through to the future design of advanced interplanetary spacecraft in his Springship concept. If you enjoy his FREE writings then show your appreciation by investing in his stories here in your favourite eBook formats.(Michael tends to be a bit of a perfectionist and may occasionally tweak his stories with the occasional change in a word or two, an added illustration or other small changes. Come back from time to time for the latest updates to your reading experience.)

Book preview

The Chronicles of

Bob, the Meteor Miner

By

Michael Bond

Being the adventures, accidents, discoveries and fortunes of Bob, a meteor miner, on the fringes of human civilization amidst the bounty of the Asteroid Belt.

WARNING: Contains Bunnies!

Content

copyright 2020 Michael Bond

Smashwords Edition 2020

Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

This book is licenced for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table Of Contents & Goodies

Attack of the Giant Space Socialists!

Giant Talking Space Oyster

Giant Pooper-Scoopers Of Mars

Bunny Girls of Phobos

Lunatic Helium Miners of Luna

Stream of Death!!

Attack of The Micro-Vulture!

Epilogue I - A New Adventure Begins

Epilogue II - Foxes In The Den

Epilogue III - Fight Club!

About Michael Bond

The Author's Social Networks

Other eBooks from Michael

Bob, and the Attack of the Giant Space Socialists!

In which Our Hero's life takes a glorious and dramatically unexpected turn.

Gotcha, you beauty!

Bob grinned at the tiny dot on the head-up display. His eyes flickered over the cockpit's many other instruments.

Yeah, your mine, he chuckled.

His fingers tapped over the zoom controls of his ship's telescopes, but he was already at maximum zoon and it would be hours before he'd be able to see anything better. At least now he was closing in on his target.

His fingers squeezed a command on the joystick to flick over to the high definition radar display. It was a narrow beam that reflected, along with the survey lasers, back inside the huge foil dish a survey ship always deployed outside on long sweeps. No claim-jumpers could follow or intercept a good surveyor if he kept his signals tight on the dish.

Thank you Jupiter, Bob whispered as he gazed over the information readouts, spectrum scales and mapping results, for pulling this out of the Belt for me. His position data showed how far he and the small asteroid were from the Asteroid Belt around the solar system. Even now distant Jupiter was tugging at them in its slow patient grasp to snaggle them farther away from the Belt's stately orbit around the sun.

The trajectory analysis on the hemispherical display window, that wrapped around the upper half of his cockpit, showed his course and the asteroid's, their long arcs through the solar system well beyond most from the Belt. Bob's gamble, that for millions of years Jupiter would have been tugging some rocks away from the Belt, had paid off. He grinned at the wealth glowing from the cockpit's instruments as more and more information flowed in.

Millions and millions and millions, his grin widening. The instruments agreed, adding financial values to the results, based on the last commodities market update he'd made he left Altair 9 spring station five months ago.

Bob sighed and settled back in his command seat to savour the moment. His eyes glanced aside at the eight inch beige cube embedded in the wall. His evopoints had already increased, he watched as the simple glowing green strip changed again, seven thousand skipped up to eleven thousand within a few minutes.

Rich beyond the dreams of glory, he turned back to read the instruments. He knew there was much to do now after such a long, long search all these months.

Bob shuffled in his deeply padded seat, straightening himself as he set to work.

The radar painted one picture of the asteroid as the rock tumbled under his remote scrutiny. The multi-spectrum lasers, several to add three dimensional measurements, gave precise measurements of the distant surface. All this was assembled into visual layers and overlays on his window screen.

Another of his displays showed the motions of the asteroid as it rolled around its axis, a dark grey lumpy ball of valuable minerals. Or, as Bob was now thinking, a two mile diameter treasure island.

Eventually the surface mapping was complete, apart from a couple of small blind spots due to the position of Bob's ship. He pulled another command workspace up onscreen and shot three survey darts away at the asteroid. The tiny dart would complete the survey around the asteroid and one would land in a few hours.

Hours, plenty of time. Bob relaxed in his seat, letting the surroundings of the spacious cockpit, a fifteen foot ball with two command seats, his on the right and the never-used co-pilot seat on the left, and the transparent domed half that projected out the side of his ship's long hull. It was part cockpit, and part emergency ejection lifeboat if ever needed, hence the packed blocks of emergency equipment stacked around the back down to the hatch into the rest of the ship. His nose wrinkled in a sniff.

Stinky, he glanced down at his BodyStim suit worn under his SkinPants. I need a change, he'd been wearing the same clothes for weeks now. I can't work this skanky.

Carefully he unstuck himself from his seat and floated off, gripping the left-hand seat to manoeuvre, its original manufacturer's plastic wrapping and seals creaking as he pushed past it and floated down between the seats and through the hatch into the rest of his ship.

Bob's ship, The Monopole Attractor, was a refurbished deep space launch. In ancient terms she was a rocketship. She was three hundred foot long, with three swept wings at her stern mounting her nuclear engines set widely around a stern cargo-cum-habitat pod. Most of the Monopole's mid-ship was fuel and reactor mass, the stern pod was Bob's spacious accommodation and her nose had been adapted for survey work with all her sensors, dart launchers, tethers, grapples and other possibly-useful-in-very-imaginative-circumstances clutter any independent surveyor could strap, bolt, welt, glue or, at a stretch, tie onto it for any conceivable opportunity or emergency. Space racers and luxury yacht owners laughed as such an over-burdened, slow-moving accumulation of junk. Bob loved the Monopole for her robust practicality and now, at long last, she was earning her keep big time.

Like every true professional, Bob kept the Monopole in pristine condition, almost as-new. Any speck of dust, dirt, soil, fluff or bug could become a life-ending hazard when you've cast yourself adrift on trajectories that could take months to complete. Any fault or spark could end your life or force you into the emergency escape ejection of a command capsule, or the ejector seats themselves, and those miniature self-powers inflatable life rafts were your absolutely last resort until rescue, or not.

Bob floated carefully down from the cockpit through the access corridor and, eventually, down into the habitat pod. Its sixty foot armoured spherical shell was tough enough to withstand the fire of the engines just outside, making this the safest place in the ship. Around the equator of the sphere spun a small ring deck to give Bob a little gravity for his health and fitness. He twisted round and carefully lowered himself into the cramped deck.

He smiled at his own little private joke, a sign stuck to the wall Welcome To Fluff Containment. It was the only place on the ship where he could relax and change without worrying something would stray into critical machinery.

The deck's spin was small, but enough to feel as his bare feet touched down on the warm rubbery floor. The floor's tactile touch was enough for his feet to grip and walk on.

Food, he said cheerfully as he entered the small galley. According to some urban, and Belt, legends some long range solo pilots has starved to death after gorging on their food. A professional kept to a discipline and time-locked the larder to guarantee a safe ration. Today was an exception, time for a treat and Bob lightly tapped into his Bonus Larder.

Banana! He grinned as the larder spat out one large of perfectly-preserved banana, and clicked down one of his Remaining Stock counters. He only had a handful left and wouldn't be allowed another for three days.

He assembled the rest of his celebratory meal, a vitamin-rich drink, a vital daily vitamin and calcium dose along with the majority of the body's key minerals, a steaming steak pie, his banana and one after-meal chocolate mint.

Well, he said to the meal, you're going to ruin my diet, and wolfed it all down with grins and groans of pleasure while lounging back and watching stray crumbs float down and be drawn by the galley's air currents into the disposal filters. The room's display was set to watch the cockpit's forward view and the approaching asteroid. All the time his mind drifted over everything he could do and achieve with his new treasure, once he'd managed to anchor it and lay his official claim.

While he relaxed and hummed to himself after the meal, Bob plotted and rehearsed his next moves to capture the asteroid and stake his claim. It would take all his attention and care after so long in space. He had to consider everything from fuel consumption, his arrival and the effects on the rest of the Monopole. Was everything locked down and safe, how much strain would tax the ship and his own body?

His fingers idled over the BodyStim suit, which covered most of his from neck to wrists and ankles. Its small constant pressure and unfelt micro-electric stimulation to his skin and muscles helped fight some of the effects of free fall on his bones and flesh. The light gravity, mineral drinks and regular daily exercise helped, but he would still need weeks to regain his true strength before leaving the ship for any serious hard work. He was immensely conscious of the human body's fragility in space and vulnerability so far from help.

He straightened, carefully brushing remaining crumbs into the room's airstreams before he left through the protective curtain and headed to the bathroom and a thorough cleansing scrub-down. He needed to be shaved, refreshed, clean and comfortable for the next few hours of intense work.

After cleaning himself thoroughly he padded naked to his cabin and lay down on his spacious bunk. A flick a finger over one control woke the medical examiner above the bunk and embedded in its base. Scanners passed across the bed twice, studying everything in his body and projecting the resulting reports overhead as Bob lay back and read the key information. Hands, feet and skull were obviously weaker without full coverage of the BodyStim suit, but it was only a minor correctable issue. He'd already shaved his head for that.

Hm! Okay, good enough! Bob rolled lightly off the bunk and pulled a clean BodyStim suit, fingerless gloves and socks from a drawer. The suits always left the crotch exposed so he pulled clean SkinPants, snug leggings, on for comfort and headed out for