Chapter 17
Rebecca woke up to something different in her cabin. It didn't feel like it usually did after she'd spent a week snowboarding. Normally, the fireplace had dimmed to nothing more than ashes and embers, the lights were dim, and there wasn't the scent of fresh coffee wafting in from the kitchen.
Then she smiled. It had a been a good night. Both of them had ended up passed out watching a movie, and she guessed that Edmund had relocated her to the bed at some point during the night.
Getting out of bed and stretching, Rebecca changed into a loose pair of sweats and headed out into the kitchen.
"You do things like this for every woman in your life? Or is it just for me?" She asked, arching one of her delicate brown eyebrows as she leaned against the doorway in between the kitchen and dining room.
"Well, it's breakfast time and I figured we'd both be hungry," Edmund had his attention on the stove and glanced up for a brief moment before turning his attention back to the bacon. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving. I forgot how much board sports take it out of you."
"They're a sport for a reason," Rebecca chuckled and stepped over to pour herself a cup of coffee. "If you're not careful, you can break bones and do some pretty big damage to yourself."
"Anyway, I wasn't sure what you wanted to do for the rest of the day, but I'm not expected back until the end of the week," Edmund plated the food and set it down in front of the two of them.
"Got to be back to work in a day or two," Rebecca replied in between bites of food and coffee.
"So, more time for the slopes then?" Edmund asked.
"Nah," the brunette shook her head. "You don't want to push yourself when you haven't done something like this in a while for a couple reasons. Altitude is one, muscle fatigue is another. Doing too much too soon is a recipe for getting hurt and taken to the hospital. However, slopes aren't the only thing that we can do around here."
"What did you have in mind?" Edmund asked, finishing off his breakfast and drinking the remainder of his glass of water.
"Well, we can get to know each other a bit more," Rebecca shrugged. "And while boarding might be off the table for now, there's still a lot to do in the mountains around here," Standing up from the table, she headed over to her living room and grabbed a map before bringing it over. "There's five parks in the mountains," She spread the map over her table. "Depending on what you're looking for, there's a lot of nature around here to look at."
"I'm not exactly the athletic or nature sort," Edmund gestured to his lanky figure. "That said, as long as you're not some sort of crazed serial killer, I'd be willing to go check out some of the sights."
"If I were going to kill you, I'd just call some of my old buddies from the mine," Rebecca snarked.
"So, you pissed off the wrong person and got fired?" Edmund asked, setting his dishes in the sink. "How'd you manage that?"
"I tried to requisition a new part for the 'mech I was driving," Rebecca finished her coffee and set the cup down. "The local manager was running a scheme to skim money from the maintenance budget. Unfortunately for both of us, I actually read the handouts we got given and knew something was up when I dind't get the part I needed. I tracked down the numbers, brought it to HR's attention."
"They were in on the take," Edmund shook his head.
"Ayup," Rebecca nodded. "Thankfully, I'd saved up a lot of my overtime, and I did get them arrested for embezzlement. Problem is, I was still out of a job. So, I went offworld to Stewart and got a degree in accounting. Came back here, started my own firm."
"So, not a secretary then," Edmund raised an eyebrow.
"Glorified secretary for big corporations," Rebecca countered. "I do the numbers that the bigwigs don't want to, and make sure their taxes are all in order. I'm just highly paid compared to most secretaries."
"And I don't really manage a factory," Edmund scratched the back of his head as nerves crept into his mind and body. "Edmund Blaze, Co-Owner and current CEO of Siler's Salvage and Assembly," He stuck his hand out. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Rebecca Wright."
"Just don't ask me to do your taxes and we're good," Rebecca stated, giving the extended hand a firm shake. "Now, there are a handful of views we can go out to see. Or, alternatively, we find some other pleasant views to look at…"
Date: July 13, 3027
A factory in the process of being built was an interesting thing. In many ways, it resembled a warehouse. You needed the same empty spaces, the ability to expand and store parts, raw materials, and anything else you could think of.
However, this wasn't any plain old factory, it was a factory for the hybrid Mackie they were working on, and eventually one for full-scale battlemechs. So, while most factories that produced things had high ceilings, this one had empty space reaching up to three or four stories of height.
Right now, there wasn't anything filling that space, but when everything was moved in it would have lifts, robot arms that were going to be manipulated by the people running the factory, and so much more.
Of course, that's one of the reasons that I was happy to be back and present, the attached office to the factory had a window that let me see all of the potential that lay within the factory. The visions of what was going to be was the sort of thing to make anyone happy. Which is why I found myself involuntarily grinning when I took a seat at my desk and waved for Billy to come in through the open door.
"So, did my eyes deceive me, or are we good to start setting up the armor and some other sections for full production?" I asked. It was my first day back from his little vacation, and I felt like a whole new man. I'd managed to quantify some of my abilities, had met a pretty woman, and had even had a great time and secured a phone number for a further potential rendezvous. Life was good!
"We are," Billy nodded, pulling up the chair and taking the seat across from the me. "I'm not sure what fire Andrew lit underneath the company's ass, but they're mostly done with the exterior factories and testing areas. We're just waiting on the furnishings."
"Awesome," I continued smiling. "That means we can start moving the noncritical lines into those areas and start spinning them up."
"I already drew up the plans for that," Billy replied. "And Eddy's got some sort of wild hair up his ass about improving medium lasers. He's got two of them taken apart in the prototyping section and has cobbled together some sort of frankenlaser. I don't have the heart to stop him because he's been wanting to tinker with things since before our Quikscell days."
"I'll take a look," I responded, adding the information to my ever present notebook. "Who knows, it might actually be something worth streamlining and adding to our regular production. Anyway, where's Sylvie?"
"She's in the workshop doing the repair contracts," Billy shrugged. "The factory stuff just don't appeal to her like it does to you and me."
"Everyone has the place where they feel most fulfilled," I nodded. "If she's happy there, then I won't try to bother her. She's got the manuals and the staff there know what they're doing."
With that, I stood up, slipped the small notebook back into my cargo pockets, and clapped my hands together. "Now, let's see what it is that Eddy's been cooking up in the experimentation room!"
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The 'experimentation' room was mostly just the area where they'd tested and built the first parts of each of the factory lines when testing their refits and reworks. However, given it wasn't going to be a main part of the factory complex when everything was completed, they'd turned it into an area where people could come and tinker with some of the 'defective' parts that had been produced.
I knew that it wasn't just the engineers that fixed and solved problems, that sometimes it was the regular people who just jury-rigged or figured out the solutions to problems that no one even knew existed. Or, in this case, decided to build a new contraption on nothing more than a whim.
"So, we all know that blazers never really made it out of the prototype stage," Eddy began. "Sure, there were a bunch of ones that were put together and sold when Kallon built the Viper. But they weren't really production models. As evidenced by how piecemeal they were."
"I don't know what the Viper is, so I'll take your word for it," I stroked my bare chin. "But continue with the explanation, please."
"Well, the problem is twofold," Eddy said, gesturing to different parts of the laser. "Power, focus, and the casing. The blazer's used in the Viper were inefficient, generating far more heat because they were trying to cram everything into as small a case as possible."
"So, what are you doing different with the mediums?" I asked.
"Well, for one thing, I'm expanding the casings to house more heat shielding," Eddy said, pointing the metal he was working on. "Instead of two 'barrels', I'm bringing it back down to one emitter. It'll weigh more than a medium laser, but with the guts ripped out, it's only a half-ton more. Heat is going to be worse, I can't avoid that when we're pumping more power into a laser. However, with the improvements I've made here, it should allow for an easier heat curve."
"The problem is, we're going to have to mount and test it," I figured out a minute or two later. "If you can get one fully put together, we can load it onto our test Mackie and see if it works. However, this is your project. When you get done with this, you have to figure out how to modify the factory to produce it," I didn't want to take away from the credit Eddy would be due. Because once he'd connected the power supply, my brain had filled in some of the gaps. So, unfortunately, he'd have to do the bulk of the hard work himself.
Medium Blazer (Prototype)
Manufacturer : N/A
Heat: 5
Damage: 8
Critical space: 3
Weight: 2 tons
I shook the information loose from my brain. It was going to work, but the increased damage output to a large laser's would fry the prototype after ten shots. It was just too much heat and light forced through the focusing lenses for it to be stable. Instead, Eddy was going to have to figure out how to get things working properly.
I might give him some advice here and there on it, but this was going to be his project. And if things worked out properly, it might allow me to make some tweaks to the Mackie we were going to build. After all, more damage wasn't something most mechwarriors were going to turn down.
"Alright, Eddy," I said after a few moments of watching him tinker. "Take what you need to get this built, and drag one of the engineers into the project. They'll help you figure out some of the things you haven't thought of. When you're ready to test it, we'll bring it over to the shop and mount it to the testbed. See how it really performs under stress."
"Thanks!" Eddy looked up before continuing his work. "I'll be here!"
"Make sure he remembers to actually eat and drink," I glanced at Billy. "If he's anything like the other people that do projects like this, he's not going to think about food until you remind him."
"He's my best friend," Billy reminded me. "I've got him handled."
"I'll leave you to it then," I turned and headed back towards the office. The paperwork had piled up in my week away, and I didn't want it to grow larger in my absence. Allowing it to pile up lay the way of madness, and I was anything but mad.