Chapter 27
MarkWarrior
Occasionally decent writer
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Chapter 27
Date: December 5, 3028
Location: Kalidasa, Free Worlds League
One of the benefits to having been a tech guy and starting out in that industry before founding my own business was that I'd done my best to stick to my roots and remember where I'd started out from. No, the computers here weren't the 'modern' computers I was used to, but they were just as good in their own way, and when I'd learned to interface them with the operating system I'd created, we were able to narrow down what had caused the issue with the large laser line.
The problem was, just because we knew what was wrong with it, didn't mean we had an easy way to fix it. Even with the ability to tell what was wrong with it didn't magically make me a wizard at this.
In fact, the problem was specifically that one of our guys who regularly worked the line noticed something off with some of our ratios. He'd fixed that. But just like coding, fixing something that was working broke half a dozen other things. So, Susannah and I'd spent the last month and change running around fixing one problem or another.
"I think that was the last fix," Susannah appeared from a nearby hole where she'd been working on one of the latest machines, grease covered her face, gloved hands, and coveralls. It looked like something had gone majorly wrong before she fixed it. But she'd stuck it out with me and I appreciated it.
"Is everything put back together?" I asked. I didn't want to turn this on and have to fix it again.
"Yes," She sighed exhaustedly. "I'm glad we're documenting all of this, because I might murder someone if we have to do this again."
"As long as it's not me, feel free," I felt much the same, and I turned to the panel that would start the process and manufacture a handful of Large Lasers so we could check to make sure everything worked. "Ready to start it up?"
"Everyone ready for a line test?" Susannah asked into her radio. A series of confirmations answered her and she just nodded at me. "Start it up, boss."
Turning to the massively overbuilt control panel, I turned the key and powered it on, waiting for it to go through it's startup procedures one at a time. For someone who had become used to the speed and advances of the 21st century, it felt like it crawled on for a long time. In reality, five minutes wasn't a long time for a machine like this to finish its checks.
When the light on the panel winked green, I flipped the lever that started the factory line. Now it was time for Susannah and I to step back and let the people who mained this line do their job while we waited to see if everything worked out or not.
"I'm buying breakfast," I nudged Susannah out of her weird state. "What do you want?"
"Waffle house," Susannah instantly replied, wiping the grease off her hands and face with the shop towels we had outside of the locker rooms. "I'll meet you upstairs."
"Sounds good," I nodded, and we split up to our respective locker rooms to get cleaned up and changed. We'd spent most of the night finishing the repairs, and while neither of us were off the clock yet, we did need to take a break and get some food and caffeine into us.
The locker room looked exactly like it sounded. We knew that employees might get gross while working for us, so we'd had coveralls and locker rooms put in place so that people could go home clean.
Taking a quick shower, I pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that didn't smell too bad. When you'd spent the last month living at a factory, your sense of smell was a bit jacked up.
Then I took the elevator up to the lobby and nodded as I saw Susannah, she had the desk phone to her ear and held up a finger over her mouth as she finished speaking.
"Yeah, we're going to be at Waffle House. Love you, bye!" she hung up the phone with a sharp 'click'. "Sorry, I was letting my fiance know where I was going to be and who I was with."
"Understandable," I replied, looking at the time. I hadn't realized it was the evening shift instead of the morning shift that we'd handed the line over to. "Anyway, I'm starving."
"Me too," Susannah said, and we headed out towards the parking lot for my beater truck. "I still don't know why you drive this old thing, you make enough that you could have something newer."
"It works," I replied, rolling down the windows because the AC didn't work. "Besides, I'm at work or at home, where would I drive to in said fancy car?"
"To Rebecca's place," Susannah offered. "She and I do talk, you know."
"My truck goes to her place just fine," I retorted, pulling out of the lot and onto the road. The Waffle House was a few miles away. It was actually one of the most shocking things I'd discovered about living in the world of Mechwarrior V. Coca Cola, Pepsi, and a handful of soft drinks had made it into the far future. But McDonalds, Wendy's, a bunch of the big chains hadn't made it, or were still only on Terra. Waffle House, on the other hand, with their eye toward every restaurant being prepared for anything had dominated the marketing and there was probably at least one in every big city across the Inner Sphere and Periphery.
The buildings were still built the same as they always were back on Earth, but now they were made with materials that could withstand a nuclear blast. Inside, it still felt like a 1950s diner, a small Fusion engine powered the place, and a well directly underneath meant that each Waffle House on every world would endure beyond anything else.
Just like back home, the fights were exaggerated too. Unless you were at a Waffle House at four in the morning, you never saw anything other than people wanting breakfast. At four in the morning, you definitely could see some crazy characters, though.
Sitting down, the waitress took our orders and we waited for the carbs, grease, caffeine, and sugar to be brought to our table.
"So, do you think we finally got it?" Susannah asked, sipping at her cup of black coffee.
"I certainly hope so," I sighed, rubbing my eyes as I felt the last twelve hours catch up to me. "I was hoping to stockpile more lasers for the Phoenix. But now it looks like we're going to be scrambling just to keep up with our contracted buyers."
One of the things that we and pretty much every other weapons manufacturer did in the Inner Sphere was offer up spare weapons capacity for sale as a separate thing. What we didn't need for our internal production was very quickly sold on the markets to mercs, the militia, and the Federal Military. At a little over a hundred thousand C-Bills per laser, we'd been raking in the extra and using it to fund the expansion projects like the Phoenix and the Mercury we were working on with Skobel.
Without that line working, we'd had to sell our stockpile to fulfil our contractual obligations while also keeping some in reserve to finish out the Mackies that we were selling. Now we might have to buy some external lasers to fill in the gaps while getting everything squared away for our production needs.
"We should build a second line," Susannah said after finishing her cup and gesturing for a refill. "It'll take a while, but we've documented everything enough after taking the whole thing apart that we could make another one. It'd just take time."
"Where would we put it?" I asked and then thanked the waitress as she set down our plates of food. "We're almost maxed out on the space we built out as it is."
"Add it to a part of the Mercury factory," She shrugged. "It's not like they've added the buildings yet, they're still working on the underground part. If we get started soon enough, we might have the parts for a new large laser line built out by the time Skobel's ready to bring in their experts."
"Do a writeup for it," I cut a bite off of my waffle and savored the carbs and sugar. "I'll review it with Billy, Sylvie, and Eddie once the latter two get back with our industrialmech lines. If it makes sense, I'll make you manager of it and you can head up the entire project."
I'm sure if we werent' so tired, Susannah would have been smiling, but the more she dug into her food, the more tired she seemed to get.
"Finish up," I told her. "I'll call your fiance to come get you. I think you're done for the day."
She just nodded, finishing her food and pushing her plate away from her face before resting her head on her arms.
I took a little bit longer to finish eating, but when I did, I didn't have the heart to wake up Susannah, instead, I asked if I could use Waffle House's phone.
They let me, and I retook my seat after paying the bill and waited for Susannah's fiance to come pick her up and take her home. She'd worked hard enough, she deserved a break.
After Roger had picked her up in his arms and carried her to his car, I waved and headed for my truck. It was time to see if there were any problems with our fixed Large Laser line…
Date: December 24, 3028
Location: Dropship Big Bertha, Kalidasa spaceport
"Look," the Free Worlds League official sighed. "I'd like to approve and wave you on through to offload this equipment, but I'm required to hold anything that was used for agricultural purposes until it's been gone over and inspected for any invasive species that might cause harm to our local ecosystem."
"We're in the middle of the desert!" Sylvie facepalmed. "What local ecosystem are you even talking about? I could understand if we were one of the coastal cities, or even the mountains, but we're transporting industrialmech factory parts that haven't made a new Logging mech in years!"
"The rules are the rules, and the laws don't change just because you're working for the militia," The man crossed his arms across his chest. "You can follow them, or I can impound the dropship and you can wait until a court hearing."
"Fine," Sylvie crossed her arms in return. "How long do we have to wait for an inspection?"
"Given it's the holidays, you'll not be allowed to offload anything from the dropship until sometime in January. Now, I can't tell you when one of our agents will be free. Most of them are on vacation at this point in time."
"Can't you do the inspection and let us go about our business?" Eddie asked, stepping in between the angry Sylvia and the agent of red tape.
"No, I'm not properly certified for it," The man shrugged and handed them a card. "Because you're being cooperative, we'll allow you to relocate the equipment to a warehouse at the spaceport, but it's not allowed to leave the spaceport until an agricultural inspection has been done. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
He then walked over to the next dropship, his clipboard and tie perfectly cementing exactly what he was.
"One day, someone will let me hit one of these self-important idiots," Sylvie grumbled. "On that day, no one will try this sort of shit again."
"You're more likely going to go to jail if you do that," Eddie pointed out. "It's easier to just deal with it if you're not willing to bribe them."
"Bribes work?" Sylvie asked.
"Yes," Eddie nodded. "That's what this man was aiming to receive. A bribe to look past the requirements. Unfortunately, the opportunity has passed and now we must live with the consequences."
"Fuck," Sylvie swore.
"Indeed," Eddie nodded. "We have set back the schedule by several weeks. But we did make it in time for Christmas. So, I will see you later, Miss Sylvie. Enjoy your holidays."
"You too," Sylvie sighed. "You too."
Date: December 5, 3028
Location: Kalidasa, Free Worlds League
One of the benefits to having been a tech guy and starting out in that industry before founding my own business was that I'd done my best to stick to my roots and remember where I'd started out from. No, the computers here weren't the 'modern' computers I was used to, but they were just as good in their own way, and when I'd learned to interface them with the operating system I'd created, we were able to narrow down what had caused the issue with the large laser line.
The problem was, just because we knew what was wrong with it, didn't mean we had an easy way to fix it. Even with the ability to tell what was wrong with it didn't magically make me a wizard at this.
In fact, the problem was specifically that one of our guys who regularly worked the line noticed something off with some of our ratios. He'd fixed that. But just like coding, fixing something that was working broke half a dozen other things. So, Susannah and I'd spent the last month and change running around fixing one problem or another.
"I think that was the last fix," Susannah appeared from a nearby hole where she'd been working on one of the latest machines, grease covered her face, gloved hands, and coveralls. It looked like something had gone majorly wrong before she fixed it. But she'd stuck it out with me and I appreciated it.
"Is everything put back together?" I asked. I didn't want to turn this on and have to fix it again.
"Yes," She sighed exhaustedly. "I'm glad we're documenting all of this, because I might murder someone if we have to do this again."
"As long as it's not me, feel free," I felt much the same, and I turned to the panel that would start the process and manufacture a handful of Large Lasers so we could check to make sure everything worked. "Ready to start it up?"
"Everyone ready for a line test?" Susannah asked into her radio. A series of confirmations answered her and she just nodded at me. "Start it up, boss."
Turning to the massively overbuilt control panel, I turned the key and powered it on, waiting for it to go through it's startup procedures one at a time. For someone who had become used to the speed and advances of the 21st century, it felt like it crawled on for a long time. In reality, five minutes wasn't a long time for a machine like this to finish its checks.
When the light on the panel winked green, I flipped the lever that started the factory line. Now it was time for Susannah and I to step back and let the people who mained this line do their job while we waited to see if everything worked out or not.
"I'm buying breakfast," I nudged Susannah out of her weird state. "What do you want?"
"Waffle house," Susannah instantly replied, wiping the grease off her hands and face with the shop towels we had outside of the locker rooms. "I'll meet you upstairs."
"Sounds good," I nodded, and we split up to our respective locker rooms to get cleaned up and changed. We'd spent most of the night finishing the repairs, and while neither of us were off the clock yet, we did need to take a break and get some food and caffeine into us.
The locker room looked exactly like it sounded. We knew that employees might get gross while working for us, so we'd had coveralls and locker rooms put in place so that people could go home clean.
Taking a quick shower, I pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that didn't smell too bad. When you'd spent the last month living at a factory, your sense of smell was a bit jacked up.
Then I took the elevator up to the lobby and nodded as I saw Susannah, she had the desk phone to her ear and held up a finger over her mouth as she finished speaking.
"Yeah, we're going to be at Waffle House. Love you, bye!" she hung up the phone with a sharp 'click'. "Sorry, I was letting my fiance know where I was going to be and who I was with."
"Understandable," I replied, looking at the time. I hadn't realized it was the evening shift instead of the morning shift that we'd handed the line over to. "Anyway, I'm starving."
"Me too," Susannah said, and we headed out towards the parking lot for my beater truck. "I still don't know why you drive this old thing, you make enough that you could have something newer."
"It works," I replied, rolling down the windows because the AC didn't work. "Besides, I'm at work or at home, where would I drive to in said fancy car?"
"To Rebecca's place," Susannah offered. "She and I do talk, you know."
"My truck goes to her place just fine," I retorted, pulling out of the lot and onto the road. The Waffle House was a few miles away. It was actually one of the most shocking things I'd discovered about living in the world of Mechwarrior V. Coca Cola, Pepsi, and a handful of soft drinks had made it into the far future. But McDonalds, Wendy's, a bunch of the big chains hadn't made it, or were still only on Terra. Waffle House, on the other hand, with their eye toward every restaurant being prepared for anything had dominated the marketing and there was probably at least one in every big city across the Inner Sphere and Periphery.
The buildings were still built the same as they always were back on Earth, but now they were made with materials that could withstand a nuclear blast. Inside, it still felt like a 1950s diner, a small Fusion engine powered the place, and a well directly underneath meant that each Waffle House on every world would endure beyond anything else.
Just like back home, the fights were exaggerated too. Unless you were at a Waffle House at four in the morning, you never saw anything other than people wanting breakfast. At four in the morning, you definitely could see some crazy characters, though.
Sitting down, the waitress took our orders and we waited for the carbs, grease, caffeine, and sugar to be brought to our table.
"So, do you think we finally got it?" Susannah asked, sipping at her cup of black coffee.
"I certainly hope so," I sighed, rubbing my eyes as I felt the last twelve hours catch up to me. "I was hoping to stockpile more lasers for the Phoenix. But now it looks like we're going to be scrambling just to keep up with our contracted buyers."
One of the things that we and pretty much every other weapons manufacturer did in the Inner Sphere was offer up spare weapons capacity for sale as a separate thing. What we didn't need for our internal production was very quickly sold on the markets to mercs, the militia, and the Federal Military. At a little over a hundred thousand C-Bills per laser, we'd been raking in the extra and using it to fund the expansion projects like the Phoenix and the Mercury we were working on with Skobel.
Without that line working, we'd had to sell our stockpile to fulfil our contractual obligations while also keeping some in reserve to finish out the Mackies that we were selling. Now we might have to buy some external lasers to fill in the gaps while getting everything squared away for our production needs.
"We should build a second line," Susannah said after finishing her cup and gesturing for a refill. "It'll take a while, but we've documented everything enough after taking the whole thing apart that we could make another one. It'd just take time."
"Where would we put it?" I asked and then thanked the waitress as she set down our plates of food. "We're almost maxed out on the space we built out as it is."
"Add it to a part of the Mercury factory," She shrugged. "It's not like they've added the buildings yet, they're still working on the underground part. If we get started soon enough, we might have the parts for a new large laser line built out by the time Skobel's ready to bring in their experts."
"Do a writeup for it," I cut a bite off of my waffle and savored the carbs and sugar. "I'll review it with Billy, Sylvie, and Eddie once the latter two get back with our industrialmech lines. If it makes sense, I'll make you manager of it and you can head up the entire project."
I'm sure if we werent' so tired, Susannah would have been smiling, but the more she dug into her food, the more tired she seemed to get.
"Finish up," I told her. "I'll call your fiance to come get you. I think you're done for the day."
She just nodded, finishing her food and pushing her plate away from her face before resting her head on her arms.
I took a little bit longer to finish eating, but when I did, I didn't have the heart to wake up Susannah, instead, I asked if I could use Waffle House's phone.
They let me, and I retook my seat after paying the bill and waited for Susannah's fiance to come pick her up and take her home. She'd worked hard enough, she deserved a break.
After Roger had picked her up in his arms and carried her to his car, I waved and headed for my truck. It was time to see if there were any problems with our fixed Large Laser line…
Date: December 24, 3028
Location: Dropship Big Bertha, Kalidasa spaceport
"Look," the Free Worlds League official sighed. "I'd like to approve and wave you on through to offload this equipment, but I'm required to hold anything that was used for agricultural purposes until it's been gone over and inspected for any invasive species that might cause harm to our local ecosystem."
"We're in the middle of the desert!" Sylvie facepalmed. "What local ecosystem are you even talking about? I could understand if we were one of the coastal cities, or even the mountains, but we're transporting industrialmech factory parts that haven't made a new Logging mech in years!"
"The rules are the rules, and the laws don't change just because you're working for the militia," The man crossed his arms across his chest. "You can follow them, or I can impound the dropship and you can wait until a court hearing."
"Fine," Sylvie crossed her arms in return. "How long do we have to wait for an inspection?"
"Given it's the holidays, you'll not be allowed to offload anything from the dropship until sometime in January. Now, I can't tell you when one of our agents will be free. Most of them are on vacation at this point in time."
"Can't you do the inspection and let us go about our business?" Eddie asked, stepping in between the angry Sylvia and the agent of red tape.
"No, I'm not properly certified for it," The man shrugged and handed them a card. "Because you're being cooperative, we'll allow you to relocate the equipment to a warehouse at the spaceport, but it's not allowed to leave the spaceport until an agricultural inspection has been done. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
He then walked over to the next dropship, his clipboard and tie perfectly cementing exactly what he was.
"One day, someone will let me hit one of these self-important idiots," Sylvie grumbled. "On that day, no one will try this sort of shit again."
"You're more likely going to go to jail if you do that," Eddie pointed out. "It's easier to just deal with it if you're not willing to bribe them."
"Bribes work?" Sylvie asked.
"Yes," Eddie nodded. "That's what this man was aiming to receive. A bribe to look past the requirements. Unfortunately, the opportunity has passed and now we must live with the consequences."
"Fuck," Sylvie swore.
"Indeed," Eddie nodded. "We have set back the schedule by several weeks. But we did make it in time for Christmas. So, I will see you later, Miss Sylvie. Enjoy your holidays."
"You too," Sylvie sighed. "You too."
