Sirius was a hive, opening numerous entrances. Among them, large and small automaton like bee swarms swarm. Machines that have the ability to fly take off directly to Aoyama are loaded by load-bearing ground effect aircraft. The entire engineering team relied on the large transport ship carrying the mecha, and used the air flow disturbed by several shuttles to reduce wind resistance, and flew quickly at low altitude.

Relying on its own powerful communication function and the signal transmission of orbiting satellites, the main engine closely links the entire flight formation, and uses the main engine of the transport shuttle as the secondary hub of the formation for real-time data processing, so as to avoid the hard problem of signal transmission delay.

This time, the target was about 30 km southwest of the main peak of Aoyama, and the distance from Sirius was nearly 600 km in a straight line, and the formation flew for about 2 hours and finally arrived at the destination.

It was a rocky area, with rocks of all sizes scattered on the surface, and a dormant volcano as far as the eye could see. It seems that the target gold may be the surface brought by geological activity some time ago.

Su Zhao landed first. Let the probes find the exact location of the prime file. I was manipulating the mecha to run towards some exposed gold nuggets on the surface that had been scanned in the air.

Reaching out and pinching a piece of irregularly shaped natural gold of 20cm square, he judged that the purity of this piece of gold was about 90% or more with his rich experience in mineral identification since childhood, and the purity of natural gold was already very good, and the overall appearance was a bright yellow, perhaps as long as it was simply smelted, it could be used as fuel for the ionic engine of the spacecraft.

In Su Zhao's hometown of Arcturus, the star system itself has become an important colonial star region because of its high abundance of various minerals.

There are not a few such scattered gold on the planetaris, and basically every household will pick up a little bit when they go out to make some tables, chairs, benches, jewelry pendants and so on. And Su Zhao has disliked gold jewelry since he was a child, and Huang Bula's ones are not good-looking at all, so he never brings these things rarely.

In the star system, there is a planet basically composed of heavy metals represented by gold, and the mining industry with the planet as the core provides a steady stream of engine fuel for the starship, which may be an important reason for the flourishing trade culture in the star area, and Arcturus has also become a well-known trade planet in the Federation.

Su Zhao let the transport shuttle land nearby, and handed over the loose gold he had picked up to the shuttle to be transported to the shuttle warehouse by an automatic machine. Gradually, we came to the rock face where the large natural gold was located.

"It's several meters deep, how can you dig this thing out?" Su Zhao, who heard the good news before leaving, didn't have time to think too much, he only knew that there was a piece of natural gold weighing several tons, and when he really arrived at the place, he found that he seemed to have nothing to do with this several meters of rock.

The Sirius is, after all, a cargo ship, which means that it does not have any active offensive weapons. There is not even the simplest electromagnetic acceleration kinetic energy cannon, otherwise a few meters of stone in this cannon will solve everything.

Unfortunately, the Sirius came out of the dock of the Federation Starship in the Supreme Military Control Zone, and took off directly on its way after being watched at the port of berth. Not to mention the cannon, I didn't even get a small pistol and came here.

Su Zhao, who sighed with admiration, recalled the days on the Trident, although it was only the template of a small cargo spaceship, but Qingshan, who was well-connected, could always get some heavy weapons that he called "self-defense", and then handed them over to the natural foot-picking technician to modify them on the spaceship.

But the natural work is still quite fine, and those long guns and short cannons can't be seen from the outside at all. Aoyama also obtained special access privileges from his uncle and grandfather, so that every Trident could land safely in the Arcturus trading port area. If it had been modified like this by other transport ships, I am afraid that it would have been beaten into a sieve by the planetary guardian fleet and the automatic defense fire of the port.

After thinking about it for a long time, I couldn't come up with a clue, so I relied on the small impact drill of the automatic machine to open such a deep rock, and I didn't know that it would take the year of the monkey to go to the month of the horse.

Su Zhao even doubted whether the drill bit could be chiseled out of a meter after it was worn out, because after the rock sample test, the rocks in this area were all metal-rich ores with extremely high hardness.

"Forget it, this rash coming is my brother and other brothers' unfavorable planning and ill-consideration, resulting in the failure of mining. I'll go back and recruit troops, and I'll get some equipment and then return to this place, and I'll wait for you!" ”

After saying that, the task instructions for the engineering team that were collecting gold were changed, so that only the surface metal that was easy to obtain was collected barely, and not the tools were consumed in such a non-meaningful activity.

The farther you go to the volcano, the Geiger counter that detects the concentration of neutron radiation begins to rise, and when Su Zhao reaches the foot of the volcano, the neutron radiation alarm is triggered.

"It seems that there is a rich reserve of radioactive metal in the area of this volcano, which is the raw material for the supply of neutron cannons. The main engine displays the volcanic radiation data that has been detected by the orbiting satellite. ”

Su Zhao read the report, which showed that there is a natural fission reactor of considerable scale in the volcanic area, with rich reserves of uranium, plutonium and other radioactive heavy metals, and as long as there is corresponding mining equipment and storage methods, a large amount of fission raw materials can be obtained.

However, these are all projects that cannot be realized in the short term, and Su Zhao can only look at the mountains and sigh, and begin to explore this area and collect some good-looking ores.

After two hours of searching, the entire engineering team collected about 3 tons of scattered gold and some ore that can be smelted to extract the corresponding metals, and loaded them all onto the transportation shuttle. These ores can be replenished with some spaceship metal material reserves after automatic processing and neutral refining, and the drill bit consumables consumed by the previous pipeline laying project can also be effectively replenished.

The daylight at the site is close to noon, the strong sunlight is heating the rocky surface, the temperature index is approaching 80 °C, and the heat dissipation system of many automatic machines is in a state of high-power operation, quickly consuming the power of high-energy batteries.

Su Zhao thought that if he continued to consume like this, the power of some machinery might not be enough to return to the road, so he decisively ordered all the staff to return.

It was like a wind, a mountain of lightning, and within a few minutes all the machinery on the entire construction site disappeared without a trace, only some large or small potholes in the ground proved that there was really something here. Then a dead silence was restored.

However, after a long time, a dull sound broke the silent environment, and the ground even shook. The stones made a crisp sound of colliding. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and I saw that a huge gap suddenly opened on the south side of the volcano that Su Zhao was thinking about because of the earthquake.

The rocks of 100,000 tons collided with the surface of the mountain, like a shocking thunder, and the shock wave swept to the entire surface, and for a time the sand and rocks were flying, covering the sky and the sun, and the radius of more than ten kilometers was shrouded in the dust clouds that took off from the sky.

The huge mountain crack swallowed the light with darkness, as if it were reaching into an indescribable abyss, and was finally buried by the sand and dust, never to be seen again.

……

"What? A shallow earthquake occurred in that gold mine just now, with a magnitude of 7.3? Host, are you kidding me? Su Zhao, who had just completed the ore unloading and transportation, returned to the bridge, and he heard such exciting news before he even had time to drink.

Satellite data showed that just ten minutes ago, there was a shallow earthquake with a high magnitude at the site of the mine's volcano, and by the time the optical lens turned to the location, it was already covered in a cloud of dust, and it was unknown what had happened. The earthquake was short-lived, and the host judged that it might have been just a stress release from the volcanic channel structure, and that Sirius was located in a safe area that was not affected by the earthquake.

After listening to the report, Su Zhao felt a little scared at this time.

"Fortunately, I had the foresight to collect only shallow gold and left, if I hadn't gone to catch the earthquake...... I don't think it's a big problem to survive by escaping with a shuttle, but I don't know how many automatons are going to be buried there. "If there is a massive loss of automatons, the progress of future industrial targets may be greatly delayed.

After repeatedly confirming with the host that the geological structure of the landing site was very stable, and there was indeed no hidden danger of earthquakes for a long time, Su Zhao let go of his hanging heart. Sirius carries all its life, and if it is damaged by an earthquake, everything will be over, and my life will be over.

"Forget it, host, calculate how much of the engine fuel reserves can be replenished with the minerals collected this time."

"It has been calculated that the extracted metal feedstock can increase the ionic fuel reserves by 3.11%. A warning: the raw material is less pure than normal, and the impurities carried by this fuel may cause blockages in the transmission pipeline. Please upgrade the purification program to provide high-purity raw materials. ”

"Where can I get the proposed technology for you, now it's a simple smelting and purification, now the spacecraft lacks nothing but electricity, and you will eat it alive, Uncle Engine, and you should improve the taste."

After complaining, Su Zhao calmed down, thought about it carefully, and decided to store the gold brought back this time after ore smelting and purification as a backup resource. Wait until the industrial technology comes up in the future, and then find a way to deal with it.

If you really use this fuel for the engine to cause Sirius to lie down, then you really can't move, and you may be trapped on this planet for the rest of your life.

If later civilizations come to Straw and discover Sirius, they will also find a ridiculous result that the commander provided to the ship's ion engine caused it to protest and strike, and finally trapped the planet, wouldn't it be a shame to be thrown into the stars?

Thinking of the possibility that his reputation might be ruined, Su Zhao couldn't help but shudder.

"Don't worry, Uncle Engine, I think about it, but whenever I have a breath, I will give you the purest gold!"

"I, the first interstellar gold miner from Arcturus, don't believe it, I can't do this!"