Down Time Chores by Carlos Hicks Player ID 905078

Captain Carlos was back at headquarters with his newly assigned Dragon Clan. Currently he was running a load bot transferring massive amounts of weapons from transport to transport.

One of the higher up muckity-mucks (most likely that FJ guy that’s always hanging out with Commander Abbott) figured out that when Cogworks hold a Clearance Sale on Fury Lasers, you can buy them in bulk, then ship them off to the outskirt worlds who will pay for them in trade for freshly mined crystals, ferrite, and bioptic gear. Long story short, you can up your raw resources for the cost of a few crystal making the gathering and upkeep of mecha much easier. Great book keeping idea! Save on time looting and pillaging by having all the raw material needed just for playing middleman in a sales transaction. Geat.

What this meant to Carlos is he now found himself working triple shifts in his refitted Namtar moving crat upon crate of blasted lasers from ship to ship. For the last freaking cycle. Non-stop. Prophet’s nethers, I hope someone either relieves me or at least tells me when the sale is over, this is getting ridiculous.

Off in the distance he saw mounds upon mounds of raw ferrite, and pile upon pile of bioptic junk building up. He heard the whirr-clank of a mech gear so opened up a channel. “HEY! Who’s over there unloading the raw goods?”
“WHAT?”
“I SAID! WHO IS OVER THERE UNLOADING THE RAW GOODS, I HAVEN’T SEEN ANYONE IN SEVEN BLASTED DAYS!”
“MIKE! MIKE MOREAU! WHO’S THAT OVER THERE?”
“MIKE! STAY THERE, I’M GOING TO FIND YOU!”

Carlos started winding through the maze of crates. Jeebus there’s still a lot here! Nope, don’t care. Done. Caring… It’s time to take a break. After a half hour, Carlos found the edge of the field holding the raw material supply storage.

“MIKE! Get a signal off my Namtar and close. I’m over at the bivouac site between fields, I gotta take a break!”
“OKAY, GIVE ME A BIT AND I’LL BE RIGHT THERE!”

In the distance, a flare shoot up as Michael Moreau marked his position for Carlos to see.
“I see your marker, your about 7 clicks South by Southwest, see you in half an hour”
Carlos reached into his personal cargo carrier, pulled out 6 bottles of something murky that had the picture of a leering Snavrum curled around the label, green drops dripping from it’s maw. Next to it, he set out a giant chunk of jerked meat, a slab of cheese, a K-bar knife, and two mugs which he promptly started to fill.

After forty-five minutes, Mike entered the clearing in his refitted Orester. Techs had removed the arm units and re-equipped it  with giant scoops in the armatures and a load bin on the back in the former ammo bin. It had truly been remade into an Ore-Ster.
“Hey Carlos, where you…oh”
Mike, after opening the cockpit noticed a table set up over by the tent. Old music blared off of a junky radio lying on the ground as Carlos half sat, half sprawled on the table. Three empty bottles lay on the ground while another dozen were stacked up ready to be consumed. A chunk of cheese lay on the table with a big knife stuck into it as Carlos chewed absently on a piece of something indescribable hanging out of the corner of his slack mouth.

“Heyyyy Mikey, cop a squat, open a bottle and join me. Here, have a mug and something to nosh on, it might be a long one.”
“What by the Prophet’s third eye are you up to Carlos, you know we’re behind on our orders!”
“Well, about that. This was an order created by a book keeper, not a mech pilot. And as a mech pilot I have needs. I need to be out of my cockpit enjoying normal libations at least once in a fricking while for starters.”
“Yeah, you’ve got that right I guess. There’s been no stops to these deliveries.”
“I know! And I started before you even! So the way I figure it, the blasted sale should be over soon. Then this stupid shell game will have a finite ending. And THAT dear sir, is when I will get back to work. If there’s no room to put goods, then they gotta stop. And if they can’t start again because their profit margin is gone, then you and I will have a goal to aim for as opposed to just going non-stop.”

Mike blinked a couple of times and stared at Carlos. Carlos had this look of triumph on his face along with a slight sheen of grimy sweat and a glazed look to his eyes. He could find no fault with Carlos’s logic. Sitting down, he picked up a bottle of Snavrum Venom and cracked the top with a practiced movement.

“Well sir, when you’re right, you’re right. Hand me another chunk of that smoked meat and let’s wait for the call that they’re done buying this crud.”
Carlos smiled, reached down and came up with another haunch of jerky. Finally, it was going to be a relaxing afternoon.