Interlude 1-M
Catachan, Unnamed System
Former Apollo Province, Unclaimed Territory
March 1st, 3010
His first thought after the Boss had told him to go ahead and modify the remaining primitive 'Mechs would more properly be categorized as a lack of thought. He'd just sort of stood there in shock as Alistair Weber Jr. had turned to walk away.
Then the panic had hit. Visions of irreplaceable equipment ruined and 'Mech chassis broken had danced in his head all the way back to where the crew was working on the Icarus II they were reactivating. Only the need to start shouting at that idiot Finn for forgetting to ground himself again had brought him out of it.
For the next several days, focusing on the intricacies of a new machine had kept him grounded and focused, the armor patching and structural changes where they'd removed the jump jets weren't something he'd seen before. Unfortunately, that was now out of the way. All the unique challenges of working with a new chassis were done, and they were down to finishing up with the XLFE, which was rapidly becoming routine. Since the Icarus II used a smaller 240, even that was less complicated than the 300s his crew had been working on recently.
It also meant he didn't have nearly as much to distract him from the Boss's casual, impossible request. So he'd buckled down and done some research, fully expecting to find that what the Boss wanted was impossible.
First was logistics. To an untrained eye, there had been a lot of stuff piled in that old warehouse, but Mace had been a Tech back when the Third Succession War was still a matter of campaigning, not raiding. A detailed inventory had been done of all the spares and assorted material stored with the Regiment as it was being transported to the new/old base.
As he'd expected, there was enough there to keep the whole regiment supplied with anything they could possibly need, up to and including replacement limbs for the 'Mechs. But the inventory was limited. More than they'd need for a few raids, but then who knew how long they'd have to keep the Regiment going on what was, effectively, a year's worth of spares?
With that knowledge in mind, he'd put down the noteputer and prepared to start coming up with ways to placate the Boss when he got back in a few months. "Thanks, Cindy," he said as he was getting ready to depart.
She looked up and seemed surprised, "You're done already?" she tilted her head to the side with the cutest confused expression. If he was a couple decades younger …
"Yeah, took a look through what they pulled out'a the cache. Around a year's worth of spares for a Regiment seeing heavy combat. Not enough for what the boss wanted me to do," he explained, prepared to depart.
"What about the stuff they found two days ago?" she asked, and Mace tried to pause mid-step and almost fell.
"What stuff?" he asked once he caught himself on a cabinet.
"Oh, they think they've finally found where the Rimmers were storing what was made in those underground factories," she replied, casually manipulating a noteputer.
That was news to Mace. Had he really been distracted enough to miss something like that?
"Here," Cindy handed him the notebook computer, a new list of inventory items-
He damn near dropped it. "They found how many ERPPCs?" he demanded incredulously.
"Oh, yes, that figure is correct. It seems like they had a year's production or a bit more ready for transport offworld when the rebellion against Amaris happened," the quartermaster's assistant answered. "That's probably what happened with that wrecked Warship in orbit. If the Rimmers logistics were as messed up as everything else by the Coup on Terra, then it was probably escorting a convoy. In fact-"
Mace nodded along, but he wasn't really paying attention anymore. His thoughts were rather more focused on the numbers on the display in front of him. There were enough spares in the collection to provide for decades of normal replacements, and even combat losses would take quite a while to go through the stockpile.
And, he realized, we're starting with 'Mechs in near-pristine condition. Everything on them is either new or refurbished with only a few dozen hours of wear before they packed them away. That changed the calculus too. He was far more accustomed to babying worn down 'Mechs with finicky, rebuilt systems kludged together with spares from different decades, or even manufacturers.
He was still worried about ruining valuable components, but if he could take a bit of extra time to familiarize his crew, he could probably keep even that idiot Finn from doing something unforgivably stupid.
Well, more than once at least.
Maybe they could at least take a shot at getting those 'Mechs upgraded after all.
XXXXX
March 5th, 3010
Mace regretted his initial surge of enthusiasm after discovering just how well-stocked the proverbial larder was. He'd finally made time to look at what exactly his crew would have to work with, and it hadn't looked good. The Thunderbolts, picked both because there were a lot of them and all of the Company's experienced Techs has worked on the ubiquitous 'Mech at one point or another in their careers, were ancient, primitive -1C models.
Literally primitive. They still had outmoded fusion engines, internal structure, everything. Nobody in the entire unit had ever worked with such ancient, outdated garbage. Even by the standards of the late Third Succession War, they could only be called junk.
But they were still the logical choice. The refit didn't involve messing with an XLFE or working around an Endosteel frame, but it was still going to be a harder job than upgrading something like a -5S would have been.
He was anticipating weeks worth of surveys, trying to figure out what would need to be pulled and what would need to be inserted in order to match up to the blueprin's specs.
Then he got a look at the file for the -5R. He'd seen the end result of the refit before. The final plans for the Thunderbolts that had been converted.
He hadn't seen the gigabytes of data that had gone into designing the refit.
Whoever had digitized all the information had digitized all the information. Under the Thunderbolt's main directory were dozens of files containing everything from preliminary concept sketches for what the innards would end up looking like to an entirely different end-product with a PPC instead of an LB-10X that was rejected at some point in the design phase.
Most of that wasn't terribly useful for a Tech, but buried in among the trivia were real gems. One file was nothing more than a version of the refit manual that some long-dead Master Technician had annotated.
Some comments were short notes like, 'Worn bolts. Use a drill,' while others included quick sketches with notes like, 'Pull this fucking brace, not the other one, Meathead!'
It was the sort of thing that manuals tried, but always failed to convey: all the little details that let you save time and effort while focusing on parts that always seemed to need maintenance. They were the sort of little tricks that separated a good Tech from an Astech. Things one usually only learned through experience.
Mace mentally lowered the odds of accidentally ruining a chassis from 1:8 to 1:30. Much, much more palatable.
Barring some unforeseeable disaster, he considered, I think we might actually be able to pull this off.
He resolved to keep Finn as far away from the damn things as he could manage.
XXXXX
March 25th, 3010
He was going to have to use Finn.
This damn planet was still making things difficult. Ossiah McCarthy had been carrying a part up to the scaffold they were using to pull the primitive Fusion Engine in the Thunderbolt when he took a misstep on the stairs. Then he took a tumble.
Fortunately, he'd only been five steps up. The good news was that he only broke an arm and not his skull when the brace he was carrying had landed on him when he hit the bottom. Back on Icar he would have had a bruise. Damn heavy gravity worlds, anyway.
The bad news was that he was out of action with all the medical staff watching him like an old mother cat with one kitten. Healing broken bones in heavy gravity environments was 'tricky' according to the docs. It was probably good that they were getting the breathlessness out of the way early, but that left him short of Astechs who were at least passingly familiar with Thunderbolts, and he couldn't afford to pull a full Tech off of the reactivations when every 'Mech they reactivated was needed at least two days before it was capable of walking off on patrol.
Which left Finn, who'd worked on one of the Guard's Thunderbolts a couple years back during a training exercise, as the last Astech with even half a clue.
Now if only his safety record wasn't utter garbage.
Now, that's not fair. Not quite.
Finn did good work, when he could be bothered to focus on his work. When he got distracted, he forgot things. Like grounding himself so he didn't accidentally discharge a capacitor and end up fried. He also ended up with extra parts after a job was done sometimes, which necessitated another teardown to find what parts were missing where.
Feeling nothing but existential dread, Mace made the call.
XXXXX
March 29th, 3010
It was unprecedented, and it was blowing Mace's mind. Finn hadn't just gone four days without a single incident. He wasn't just doing his job and keeping his head down, the kid was pulling more than his weight.
He'd even come to his supervising Tech to double-check before he started a structural cut to make sure he was going about it the right way and helped another Astech who was having a problem with his part of the refit without being ordered.
And even though this was only the second time he'd ever worked on a Thunderbolt, his work was as good as if he was working on a Wasp, a machine that he'd maintained hundreds of times.
In the face of his unexpected competence, Mace had called him into his office after the end of their shift.
For a wonder, Finn actually looked concerned instead of just bored with the proceedings as he had in the past.
"I wanted to talk to you about your performance the last few days," Mace began.
"Is something wrong?" The young man sitting across from him immediately asked. Compared to his usual stoicism or indifference, his behavior was like night and day.
"No," Mace responded, "in fact your work and attention to detail have been exemplary. If we weren't alone on this planet, I'd think that you had been kidnapped and replaced by a SAFE agent." He let the comment hang in the air, and while Finn fidgeted uncomfortably, he didn't respond.
"What's going on, kid? If the last four days had been my first interaction with you, I'd think you were on the fast track to testing for full Tech, not a chronic problem-child that's kept on because we're always shorthanded and because you do good work when you're zoned in."
For a long moment there was silence in the office, but Mace was determined to wait the kid out. Finally, the younger man spoke, "This, look, I've always wanted to go to college. Be an Engineer, but …" he trailed off, and hunched down into himself, looking much more like he usually did on the job.
Mace understood. Leutnant Roland Finn had been the officer in command of the Implacable's ASF squadron back in the day, and like all the Unit's ASF pilots, he'd died during their last disastrous raid into the Combine. It had meant that Mrs. Finn had worked two jobs just to make ends meet for her and her three children, one as a waitress in a Uniontown diner, and the other in the Unit's laundry.
Even that hadn't really sufficed until Finn, or rather James, her oldest son, had been taken on by Alistair as an Assistant Tech.
Mace mulled over the situation for a long moment. Thinking back, for several years James Finn had been a solid, even enthusiastic worker, hitting his milestones despite his age. When did that change? Mace wondered.
Out loud he prodded, "Except there wasn't any money to be had for that. Not on Icar, and not from the unit."
"Yeah," Finn confirmed, "and just … doing the same thing every day …" he trailed off and Mace wanted to hit him up alongside the head.
Friggin stupid teenagers. So he was bummed over not getting to be an engineer and bored by the repetitive drudgery of being an Astech. And instead of working to become a full Tech where he'd be able to earn a decent wage and also get better working conditions, he slacks the fuck off and throws a pity-party for himself? For at least the last two years.
"And now that you're doing something interesting, you're engaged again." Mace said, trying to rein in his annoyance and not quite succeeding. "Kid, did it ever occur to you that if we're gonna get this whole enterprise off the ground, that we're gonna have Engineers crawling all over these old factories? And there's no way we're ever gonna have enough of them, so while you might not get to go to college, they're gonna be looking all over the place for people they can teach the business to?"
Finn's expression revealed that, no, he had not considered that. "But they won't give an Astech your age the time of day. Sure and certainly not one who started at the age you did," Mace continued and Finn wilted in front of him. There was some self-pity there, but if he had to guess it was mostly self-condemnation for wasting time. And the kid was bright and he'd been willing to work hard when he first started. So …
"That means you've got until the Boss gets back to learn what you need to learn to pass your Journeyman test. More than that, you've got to prove to me that you're responsible enough to be a Tech and supervise Astechs. And four days of admittedly excellent work isn't enough to do that." Mace met the kid's eyes.
"You say you want to be an Engineer? Fine. As a Master Tech, I will do my damndest to make sure you've got the opportunity. God knows we'll need you if you can pull it off. But that means I'll be spending extra time and effort on you. Effort that I could be using to teach other Astechs or working on the Unit's BattleMechs, so you will, by God, keep up your end of the bargain."
Was that concern dawning in Finn's eyes? It certainly appeared to be. Good. "That means no more slacking on the job. If I pull you off of Refits to work on replacing a Wasp's myomer bundles, I want to see you putting in a hundred percent effort. No more of the half-hearted moping and shit you've been giving me for the last two years. If I tell you to have a manual read and memorized on a certain date, you will be ready to repeat it back to me verbatim.
"I want you fully engaged, because if you aren't fully engaged, then you are engaged in wasting my time!"
Mace gave that a moment so the young man across from him could process it before continuing, "And if I conclude that you're wasting my time, then I'll throw your ass out so hard and so fast, you will think you've been kicked by one of those Banshees in the hanger. Do you entirely comprehend me, Mr. Finn?"
The kid's jaw was clenched, but he had the good kind of stubborn look in his eyes. "Yes, Sir."
Mace nodded, then turned and pulled a book off of his office's bookshelf. "Then for next week, you will have the first five chapters of this read and studied to the point where you can explain the concepts discussed. You will also-"