“Taking it in, Ms. Iksenslet?” asked a voice behind her.
Councilor Tang, of the Terra Azul Colony League. A short man with frizzy white hair and map-like wrinkles, prone to billowy robes with long blousey sleeves and a deep hood, which was, of course, blue. “We appreciate your…services, Ms. Iksenslet.”
“It’s Karen, Councilor. Just Karen. You’re paying good money for this, so let’s just understand that I’m not being altruistic. Mama needs a new mech, and they don’t pay for themselves.”
“Um. Yes, then. Karen. The Captain tells me that we’re two hours from the drop point. Have you been briefed, perhaps, on how that works?” he asked.
“I can’t say I’m comfortable with it,” she said, glaring at the Councilor. “The downcheck, the complete shutting down, and the cold restart takes hours. Does all the power have to be off?”
“It would seem so, Karen. The atmospheric electro-magnetic interference apparently doesn’t allow for high voltage equipment to pass through it and if something like your mech was to do so, the EM would burn out the power systems entirely. Something, I think, you’d like to avoid. But we’re providing the equipment to restart your mech. Now, you of course know what it is you’re contracted to do, yes?”
“Yeah. Kill a salamander. As if you can’t handle your own pest control, you call me to kill some sort of lizard, is it?”
“Yes. And a terrible lizard at that!” Tang answered. “Our Patron wants it dealt with cleanly and quickly. The Patron was very clear about that.”
“Grr, I despise lizards. Councilor Tang, at the LZ, will there be someone to pick me up?”
“Oh, yes! Most certainly!”
“Fine. I’ll be in the hold, turning off my mech.”
Shutting off a mech, even a relatively simple one like a Red Ant took time. All the actuator motors, the heat sinks, the coolant systems, the primary and secondary CPUs, the redundant systems, the weapon systems, life support, communications, and all the other little things that made a mech function was an exercise in patience. Patience was not a virtue that Karen possessed in any real meaningful way. After 45 excruciating minutes of having warning alarms shrieking at her, there was the manual lockdown, which meant crawling around with a power wrench and locking the motive systems in place, which was not an easy process.
“HEY! Excuse me! Hey, missy!” yelled a tech. “This thing yer’s?” He was carting a strange apparatus.
“Yes, I think. They said it was a ‘manual restart generator’.”
The apparatus in question was pedal/chain mechanism which appeared to have a control yolk and a saddle-like seat, in which the operator sat upon and used their legs to physically move a crank device that in turn pulled a chain that was connected to a small dynamo turbine which then generated a small electrical power flow. She’d never seen anything like it.
“Whatever. Cap says it goes with you in the drop pod. The instructions are all written down anyway.”
“Sorry, but I fell asleep during the briefing. How does the drop pod work? How’s this thing,” she gestured at the apparatus, “supposed to work?” she asked.
“Lady, I just load your shit.”
“Uhn,” she grunted. “Fine. You’ve been as helpful as you are vague.”
The technician scratched himself through his coveralls, grunted, and spat out a large amount of mucus. He was just looking at her mech, as though he’d seen it’s like before, and wasn’t terribly impressed.
“Hey, lady,” he started. She glared at him.
“Look, pal. I’m kind of busy here, so if you would be so kind as to either get a wrench and help me out, or go off and find something to keep you occupied while I do some real work.”
The tech grinned and spat. “Ya know, I like you mech drivers. Don’t get me wrong, but you’re all the same. Think you’re all hard and bad. Yup, you do kill some shit, and some of y’alls do good work, but you freelancers, yeah. All the same.”
Karen put the wrench down and mentally braced herself.
“But, as I was saying. See, yer problem is that for all you do, you got a real high opinion of yourself. You hear of ole Herc the Merc? Big guy, does heavy killing for the Consortium?”
She squinted and slightly nodded.
“Okay, so this one time, Herc was being all uppity, saying ‘Put this here’ or ‘Attach that there’ and just being real impolite, and I know ‘cause he wasn’t real nice to me about how his guns was. So. He was landing at this shithole world, like, I don’t remember, Nutsack Prime or some such. He was gonna kill some overlord that did something stupid there, and when he got to wherever the hell it was, well by golly gee. Seems like he forgot to really check to see if his ammo was loaded. What a shame that was, let me tell ya.”
“I see. Well, would you be good enough to please help me?” she asked, grudgingly.
“Heh. Nah, lady. I got something to keep me occupied.” He spat again and sauntered off.
“Dammit,” Karen cursed. “I need to join a clan…”
Five minutes shy of two hours later, and all of them involving split knuckles, Karen came to two realizations: 1. She needed to learn more about how mechs actually operate and; 2. She should’ve negotiated a better offer. She wasn’t completely clear on how “the appreciation of their Patron” translated to actual money, but a deal was a deal.
“*SsssSSSSHHHshhhcrackle* Would Associate Iksenslet please report to the loading bay. Again, Associate Iksenslet to the Loading Bay.” Hmm, she thought. Time to go.
The four flights of stairs, a cargo elevator, and nearly getting run over by a hauler tram operated by an apparently insane driver later, Karen huffed and puffed her way while sprinting to the drop pods. The drop pods were egg-shaped large cargo containers. Ceramic exterior plating, carbon composite interior hull, non-ferrous structure members. Nothing that could conduct magnetism or electrical fields. The primary function of the drop pod was to carry equipment or people and then stay intact long enough to make the drop. The pods came with parachutes that were automatically deployed using a clockwork timer mechanism. During free-fall, nothing electrically powered would work due to the electromagnetic waves that circulated in the atmosphere all the time. Karen wondered how anyone could survive, much less thrive, on such a weird planet. She looked to a grinning man waving at her to come over.
“Associate Iksenslet! So glad you’re here! I’m Load Master Claus. This is your drop pod. Your mech is loaded already.”
“Wait. How…I left the main hold before it did. How did it get here before me?”
“Did you not know that the elevator comes down here?” asked Claus.
“No, they told me…oh, nice. No. No, I did not. I’ll have to remember that next time.”
He blinked in confusion, then continued. “Well, you’re here and that’s what matters. Your mech has been checked and is good to go.”
She asked, “Are the weapon systems and ammo load set up in de-powered manual fire?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Of course. Why wouldn’t they be?” He looked vaguely hurt that she might have been questioning the professionalism of his loaders.
“Hey, it never hurts to check.”
“Fair enough,” Claus answered. “In the meantime,” he handed her a document folder, “here is a bit of light reading to keep you occupied while we wait for a storm to clear up.”
It had been years since Karen had actually seen paper, much less text printed on paper. The document was called “Terra Azul: A Brief Overview”. As she thumbed through it walking to the drop pod, Claus cheerily said, “We hope you enjoy your flight! A ride through the countryside in a wagon is always lovely!”
Karen screamed just as the pod closed, “WHAT? A wagon?!?”
The crane that lifted the pods to the launch area dropped down, picked up Karen’s pod and deposited in the launch catapult. With a hydraulic hiss and a loud bang, the catapult retracted and was ready for launch. Claus could see Karen staring daggers at him, and he quietly mused that it was better her than him.
Claus waved at the catapult operator and yelled, “Open the pod bay doors, Hal!”
Submitted by Karen Iskenslet #889315