Grease Monkey Malone's Shop Talk Article One: Red Ant Safety By Ron Frye #879655

Yo! Patrick Malone here, better known as Grease Monkey Malone or Monk. I do the shop work on Sean Collin McFae's Mechas in the Ron Frye stables. Couple good guys, buddies of mine, they're members of the Brotherhood Merc' Mecha Battalion. Anyway, they asked me to do a series of articles for them about care, maintenance, safety, etc. for mecha pilots. So, I said, "What the hell. I ain't got nothin' better to do with my spare time, except drink and wench, and this is cheaper and healthier." To be perfectly honest, I was gettin' a bit tired of waking up with hangovers and medical issues that usually involved my more sensitive anatomy, if you get my drift. Well, guess I better stop rambling into this damn dicto-phone and actually say something about Mecha care!

Lets see. This time lets talk about Red Ant safety. Listen up you robot jockeys, I know you get used to stomping around in those BFM's, smashing up baby bots and sucking up rounds from those big ol' projectile weapons like they were gnats nipping on your ears! So, when you get assigned to drive a Red Ant, you kind of forget you aren't wrapped in 95 tons of battle ship armor anymore!

Well! Let me tell you, Red Ants may be fast, they may be fun, and they may be super responsive, but lads and lasses, the little buggers are SQUISHY!!! If you go head to head with Oggun in a Red Ant, unless you got that little bugger modified beyond all recognition, odds are you going to go Boom! Before you take that Mecha out of the hanger, make sure you know what mod's and updates are in it!

Now, a really jazzed up Red Ant that's been on the field for a long time and has tons of armor, weapon and gear upgrades installed in it can really own! But, if you go jumping into a fresh Red Ant straight off the assembly line with nothing in it but a factory issue set of lasers and some crap communication gear, you damn well better remember to use it as a scout Mecha and not a fracking battle bot! Besides, Red Ants are SUPPOSED to be scouts anyway!

So, I think I just about finished this sermon. Let me just sum up by saying, know your mecha before you drive it. A lazy driver who doesn't research his ride is cockpit burger in the making. Cheers!

Submitted by Ron Frye #879655