3
“The Exocore Malthus II,” Mina said, the ship schematic Mr Gold had supplied rotating in the command core’s central holo display. “Self-contained, deep-belt ore processing vessel. She’s getting on a bit now, built by Exocore when the war started heating up. They were worried about future access to the orbital processing stations. Largely automated, as you’d expect, crew of twenty engineers plus ten security, on account of the precious metals I assume. She’s capable of processing a thousand m-type asteroids a year.”
“That’s a lot of metal,” Markov commented. He hung above the holo, hands and feet clamped onto the same perch, resembling a pale wingless bat.
“Estimated to produce five tons of precious metals per calendar year,” Mina confirmed. “No way to value it without knowing the comp
