<div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/08/Mrinka_Pirate_avatar.jpg)</div><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Character name:</strong></td><td>Harrin Ffrrit</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Location:</strong> </td><td>Walking back from the face</td></tr><tr><td><strong>With:</strong> </td><td>Two other shift leaders, the Imperial mining engineer (employee), two Imperial Marines and an Imperial Marine Sergeant (all NPCs)</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Doing:</strong> </td><td>Inspecting the new mine.</td></tr></tbody></table><br/><hr/><br/>There wasn't that much to see really. The lamps on the marine's helmets showed Harrin the pile of yellow crystals, looking for all the world like snow that had been pissed on by a human, that had been melted out of the ice as the starters swung the new tunnel onto the end of the Gelumium vein. It was a large, rich one too, by the looks. And Harrin was leader of second shift. She had been here near enough six years now, although she had lost count a long time ago. The cold no longer got to her, the embarrassment of wearing a transparent smartex body suit had faded long ago.<br/><br/>She was here for life, as was every convict on The Cooler. And to pay for their continued existence they were forced to mine the valuable crystals out of the depths of the ice. The Empire did their best to make conditions survivable, but only just. They were not in the least bit interested in making them comfortable, but the prisoners themselves had their own ways around that, as Harrin had found out on her first night on the planet.<br/><br/>Since then she had fought, bribed and bullied her way to the top of the shit-pile. And as her reward, she was being assigned a plumb job by the powers "upstairs" - the prison authority in the orbital space station. There were no guards on world, generally, as there wass no need for any, and the prisoners were left to themselves.<br/><br/>Harrin followed the engineer and the sergeant back down the brightly lit tunnel, stepping lightly on the sleepers between the rails. For a laugh she hopped onto one of the rails and walked along it, her tail held proudly out behind her for balance. The small group reached the elevator and stepped in, riding slowly up to the surface in silence.<br/><br/>The door opened and again she followed the two free people, past the pit office, her office for one third of the twenty one hour day, and out into the daylight (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=175039.msg8287029#msg8287029).