Star Emperor

The next day Lanarine found Andrew already in the command center and working on updating the drone target list.

Now that he had some mining drones he could finally get the bigger asteroids which were the richest in the materials he was interested in.

-Good morning.

He said seeing her enter.

-Good morning, do you have any tasks for me right now?

She asked, remembering her new status as his slave.

-I would like you to run a full geological scan of the nearby asteroids, thanks to the mining scanner, I know where everything is but I need to know how much of the materials are in each of them and their layout.

He said then remembered something.

-Did you assemble your bed and the second chest yesterday?

This question surprised her.

-Why the hell would be interested in that?

She thought to herself.

-No I didn't.

She answered truthfully.

-Then that's your first task for today, go assemble them and sort out your things, then come back and do the scan.

He said, cursing himself inside for overlooking this.

Lan didn't say anything just nodded and left to perform her task, still trying to figure out why did he care about that?

The answer was simple, he was not planning on mistreating her and instead wanted her to live to the same standard as he did.

The main reason for that was his trauma after being bullied for years and there was no way that he would submit anyone else to the same treatment as that would make him the same as the bastards that had done it to him, which was the last thing he wanted.

But of course, Lanarine had no idea about his past and what he was thinking about.

She was proud of herself, for managing not to call him master no matter how much the chip urged her to do so.

It was a minor victory for her, but her dignity and pride would not allow her to call him that.

She got to work on her bed, and it took her only around an hour to assemble it and just a few minutes to make the chest.

When she returned, to the command center it was empty, Andrew was nowhere in sight, for which she was grateful as she didn't want to have another mental battle with the slavery chip.

Not wasting any time she got to work on performing the geological scan he wanted.

It took way longer than a mining scan, but it was also much more accurate.

Reveling not only which resources was the asteroid comprised of, but also their exact layout and quantity.

Lan was happy to perform this task as astrogeology has always been her passion.

The only downside as she saw it was that she was doing it for the benefit of a human instead of her people.

-Well, It's my fault for setting such an imprecise condition.

She thought to herself.

She would set it specifically for her species if she could go back in time.

Lanarine pushed these thoughts out of her mind and focused on her work.

Pondering about what could have been, would do her no good, at least this human was not interested in tormenting her, which was already the best outcome she could have dreamt of by becoming a slave to a member of another species.

The work progressed slowly, but the results so far were promising.

Within two hours, she managed to scan four asteroids and the readings showed that there were rich deposits of materials inside two of them.

While the other two were mostly made of ice, iron, and nickel with little in the way of other materials.

Andrew didn't specify which asteroids she should scan and only told her to scan the nearby ones so she went about it by choosing the asteroids that were over ten meters in diameter.

-Did you find something interesting?

Suddenly she heard a voice from behind her which made her jump in fright.

She was so focused on her work that she didn't even notice that he came back and was looking at the readouts of the scan over her shoulder.

It took her a moment to compose herself and calm down, while sterling daggers at an amused human.

-Don't scare me like that!

She yelled at him.

-Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.

Andrew said apologetically, while her skin color went much lighter when she realized what she had just done.

In other words, she went pale, realizing she just scolded him.

If he was offended then he might punish her for it, but his apology made her realize that he would not and she calmed down once more.

Luckily for her, this being didn't seem to be easily offended and he even apologized which was a bit baffling to her.

If their roles were reversed, then she was almost sure that she would at least scold him for yelling at her if not outright punishing him for it.

She was not a fan of making others suffer but if her subordinate failed to respect her then she was not lenient with the punishment.

-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled.

She also apologized, hoping that he would overlook this incident.

-No problem.

He answered seeing how nervous she was.

-Did she expect to be punished for something like that?

He thought while Lan relaxed slightly after hearing his words.

-So did you find anything interesting?

He asked again deciding to treat the incident like it never happened.

-I scanned four asteroids, two of which contain deposits of valuable materials while the other two are mostly made of Iron and nickel.

She showed him her findings and he was impressed with her work.

-Good work, keep at it.

He said, before walking to the drone control station and adding the two asteroids to the list of targets and setting them as priority targets.

Lanarine was surprised by being praised for her efforts.

This little gesture made her a bit happy, as her superiors in the military were never happy with her work.

The main reason was that she worked slowly, and even if her scans were much more detailed and her calculations about the amount of resources available were always spot on, she could barely scan two asteroids while the rest of her team could scan three or four at the same time.

From her perspective, the higher-ups had always prioritized quantity over quality.

-Well it seems that this human prioritizes quality over quantity.

She thought looking at him, while he was focused on his work at another station.

Soon she turned her focus back to her work.

Andrew could use the main command station to have all the data and do all the work from it but he preferred using the other consoles to do it, it was not as efficient, but it was his preference.

-Lan, can you find me two small asteroids with no resources in these sectors?

He suddenly broke the silence and sent the data to her console.

She was a bit surprised at the request, but complied and a few minutes later she found what he needed and sent him the coordinates.

Andrew moved to the weapons control console and armed the two-point defense cannons he bought the previous day targeting the asteroids she just found.

-I will be test-firing the weapons.

He warned her as it might surprise her if he fired without a word.

After that, he simply pressed the fire button and both cannons let out a short stream of bullets.

The ammunition was kinetic so it took a while for it to reach the target but the moment it did there were a series of explosions on the surface of the asteroids.

The forty-millimeter armor-piercing and high explosive rounds shattered both asteroids into pieces within a few seconds.

Andrew was impressed with the firepower, while Lanarine was terrified of the effect if these weapons were ever unleashed on an actual ship or any other target with a living being inside of it.

-Why do you need these weapons?

She couldn't help but ask.

-To be sure that no one will destroy this station.

-But there is no one here but us, and the next station is around two light minutes away so they don't pose any threat.

She argued.

Andrew then explained to her about the drone attack on his station and how he retaliated.

-I won't risk this station and our lives, just because the next station is a bit far.

He said after finishing his story.

-Besides, this whole thing is supposedly set up exactly like it was in the game.

If that is true then we can expect some pirates to show up sooner or later and I don't feel like dying, being robbed, or becoming a slave.

He explained.

-Actually, while we are on this topic, why did you become a slave?

Everything he said surprised her a bit but she could not argue that security was important and she also didn't wish to die.

However, the last question took her by surprise.

Deep down she knew that he would ask about it sooner or later but this was way sooner than she anticipated.

However, since he asked she would tell him, not like it was a secret or something.