Ch.1

On the surface of an icy dwarf planet, the huge engineering ship slowly landed.

The landing struts hit the ice, and then the fastening claws worked quickly to drill a deep crater in the ice, holding the ship firmly in place.

The shattered ice flew in the sky, mapping the light from the distant star onto the light green hull.

The logo in the middle of the ship also became shiny, it is a salvage ship operating in the starry sky background.

The engineering ship stretched out its flexible multifunctional mechanical arm, taking out one by one the metal cubes in the storage compartment, which are modular and simple living compartments.

Several space engineering technicians wearing yellow protective suits came out of the cabin, with the mechanical arm to place them in the right place.

After this, they need to drill holes in the ice to install fixed piles.

They can use the laser drill to easily penetrate the ice, but the high temperature of the laser rays will make the ice around the target area melt, and the melted liquid will quickly freeze in the moment the laser disappears.

The refrozen liquid gives the hole an uneven surface, making it very irregular inside.

It is therefore necessary to use a mechanical drill to trim the deep hole into a smooth round hole after the laser drills through the hard ice.

Once this is done, another technician will follow them and place the stake into the deep hole.

Immediately after the top of the stake hits the bottom, barbed hooks are ejected around it to keep it firmly embedded in the ice.

The mechanics were very experienced and the work went smoothly.

Mechanical arm will continue to take out the remaining modules, each with a "foundation" habitation module is fixed to complete, on top of the establishment of a high building.

These living modules are installed in each layer, the technicians will be several diameter of more than ten centimeters of huge bolts into the two layers of the room between the partition, in order to play a fixed role.

In the process of construction, a technician suddenly noticed a large shadow obscured the nearby area.

When he looked up, he saw that the robot arm carrying the simple living cabin was moving in an unnatural trajectory.

The end of the arm's trajectory was a technician who was lying on his back installing bolts on the third floor of the habitation module, and he did not notice any danger coming.

He immediately shouted in the communication channel, and other people's voices also sounded instantly.

The operator of the arm on the ship shouted in panic, but could not stop the movement of the arm in any way.

Seeing that the arm was about to hit the guy, he leapt up with all his might in a hurry and arrived before the arm smashed the guy flat.

He pulled one of the man's arms with all his might and threw it hard to the other side.

The reaction force at the same time pushed his body to the back side.

Immediately after, the huge mechanical arm brushed his helmet of protective clothing and hit the four-storey high habitation module hard.

In the vacuum, as if there was a muffled sound.

The thin layer of metal partition of the housing module was hit by the dent, four layers and three layers have not been completed between the fixed, only a bolt between the two layers fixed.

Under the powerful impact, the bolt was overwhelmed and broke. The dented deformation of the fourth layer of the habitation module then flew up.

The power clamp at the front of the arm was also dislodged in the impact, and the other habitation module caught continued to move along a skewed trajectory, smashing straight into his position.

He was floating in mid-air, and the suit's auto-propulsion pack was constantly adjusting his posture to keep him from being thrown off.

If he could have continued to slide backwards for some distance with his previous inertia, the growing habitation pod in front of him would never have hit him.

But the auto-correction of the propulsion pack was beyond his control.

He could only watch as the propulsion pack offset the force of his backward movement, and watched the huge metal object smash into him.

Bump.

The power spread from the impact to the full body suit, and his body flew backwards again.

His body slammed downward, hitting another technician with a laser drill.

The technician was so surprised by the series of events that he forgot to turn off the drill.

The propulsion pack should have been running at that moment, but the sensors caught the companion behind him and automatically shut down the pack's spout.

The two bodies collide and the drill is instantly dislodged.

The high-temperature light made a fatal half-arc.

There are thousands of degrees of heat, even the high-density rock layer can also be melted for the light grazed his hands.

In just an instant, along with the protective suit and the flesh inside it all melted, the air inside the suit leaked and was briefly ignited by the high temperature rays.

His body's trajectory was also slightly deflected by the gas leak, avoiding the deadly rays that sliced through his scalp.

The radio became a cacophony of noise, and he could no longer hear it.

When he woke up again, he found himself in the hospital's intensive care unit.

The loss of pressure and cold from the broken suit had taken a heavy toll on his body, but more damaging was the fact that his hands and part of his forearm had been completely destroyed by the laser and were beyond repair.

The pain was overwhelming, but soon something even more devastating happened to him.

At the time of the accident, the laser bore is said to have melted part of the armor on the left side of the engineering ship.

The airtightness and life support systems of some of the compartments were damaged, the temperature and gases inside the ship leaked, and the severe hypothermia damaged some of the delicate electronics.

This caused the entire engineering ship to require major repairs.

At the same time, the accident delayed the construction of a temporary settlement at the outpost and severely delayed subsequent mineral extraction operations.

During his coma, company executives held his team accountable, and his superiors and peers unanimously placed all the blame on him as the unconscious man.

The company paid for the initial cost of his surgery, but saddled him with a settlement that was several times more expensive.

Unable to accept the outcome, he chose to sue the company.

He soon lost his case and was fired from the company.

Because of the disciplinary action, he did not receive even half a penny of severance pay.

The only fortunate thing was that with his dismissal, the company reduced a portion of the compensation he was required to pay.

I'm sure those deductions went to his former co-workers.

He also made some contacts at work and got himself a custom-made arm prosthesis from an acquaintance.

This, in turn, was the beginning of his bad luck.

The poor quality prosthesis could not be operated with high precision, but it was enough for a space technician who could only do menial work.

He got used to his new hands and found a new job quickly, working hard every day to pay off his debts.

But it wasn't long before he noticed some symptoms of nano-erosion on his body.

In those days, nano-erosion was like the radiation sickness after a nuclear war, and everyone had caught a little bit of it.

The mild erosion symptoms did not bother him too much, and even if he wanted to care, his financial situation did not allow him to go to the hospital for treatment.

Moreover, at that time, there were hardly any cases of nano-erosion that had been cured.

His life was dark, but hardly different than before.

Until one day, a group of officials claiming to help poor people like him cure nano-erosion showed up at his doorstep.

The armed men took him, semi-forcibly, to a transport ship registered as Cicada Wings.