Credit Rush OutPost Krone Read Online Free Page A

his hands, he enlarged the corners of the screen to get a better view. Charlie tapped the button again and an image of a man appeared on the screen. He was dressed in a business suit, the corporate boss of Kromtic division—not just on Krone, but on other systems also.
    “I hope you are well, Charlie, and you received the message fine,” replied the voice on the screen.
    Charlie rested back with his arms stretching while watching the screen and listening to the message. He had heard all the corporate banter before and just wanted to get on with the job. After a couple of minutes of verbal junk echoing around the room, he skipped over to the last couple of minutes of the message as he always did.
    “The credit reward for this work is twenty thousand. We have sent scout machines across to the north-western part of the surface and are certain there is a good area of Kromtic there to be found,” concluded the corporate male with a smug smile as the message ended and the screen shut down.
    Charlie was not too impressed. The credit reward was lower than his last digging job, but he had to remain focused; he needed his reward.
    The two suns outside bore down onto the towers and sometimes it was too dangerous to even venture out of the complex at this time because of the extreme heat. Charlie sat down to eat his breakfast at the kitchen counter, flicking his fingers against a mini holographic screen. He was shifting through graphs of data to plan the density of the ground where he would be digging. An alert appeared in the right hand corner, it warned of extreme heat on the eastern side of the planet today and the cancer rate was at least eighty percent.
    “Damn I hate percentages, they’re getting higher every time,” he muttered between mouthfuls.
    “Well, they better work harder on those furnaces; this atmosphere must be thinning,” said Charlie as he emptied the remaining contents of his bowl into a nearby waste compactor.
    The android had awoken from his slumber and the electrodes wired into the back of his metal skull started to light up to send pulses into the android’s body.
    The half metal/half organic android, Richard, was chosen by Charlie when he first started digging as a full time occupation.
    Richard’s eyelids started to flicker then opened fully as his crystal blue eyes came to life while the data feed from Charlie's apartment came through the network interface.
    “Sir, thank you for considering me again this time round,” said Richard sitting upright in his chair at the controls.
    “Hello again, Richard; did you have a happy downtime?” replied Charlie flicking the comms switch.
    “As you know, sir, I hardly notice any difference apart from my wake up call. The battery re-charge appears to have gone fine this time,” Richard replied.
    “Nine months work this time my friend. The corporation has advised me there’s a fresh dig on the north-western side,” said Charlie.
    He was punching the last piece of the information through to his android via the data feed.
    Richard acknowledged this and pressed some buttons on top of the control panel.
    “That's it, the last of it coming through now,” said Charlie through the intercom. Before shutting off the audio switch, he finished with, “Careful you don't mess those plot coordinates up, there’s a bag of major credits riding on this one.”
     
    “Sir… Sir…?” said Richard after he had lost the signal for the apartment.
    “Charming; I take it we will see each other tomorrow.” Richard frowned as he slowly detached the data tubes from the back of his skull. Looking up towards the screen in front of him, the countdown had reached zero to indicate that the download was complete so he shut down Until Charlie would call on him again.
    Charlie was finished with what he needed to do in his apartment. All the data had been transferred so he still had a bit of time to sit around and do nothing until it was time to leave. Scratching his head, he