Budget Warriors: Your Equipment is built by the lowest builder
Writers Note/ Disclaimer: I dont own anything battletech related, except possibly a noxious green cloud, an old mattress and a unamused colony of spiders.
Keep reading and reviewing folks! makes me happy :D I know, so Selfish right?
Amity II, Amity System; February 28th
Reaching the Ore Refinery two days later, they immediately noticed one flaw with their plans to defend it; It was a very large facility. Large enough to warrant its own drop-ship landing hangar, noticing the massive bay doors and scorched landing pad Atun swore violently.
"Aaand there was a reason we couldn't land here?" Janos was suitable chaste when he responded.
"Well... Err... Um..." continuing on, he reached a bright conclusion "Kemps! Your our liaison with Quicksell, why couldn't we land here?"
The response was less then lackluster, the radio lapsed into silence for a few minutes as the small convey made its way towards the front gates, just before the slowed to a stop Kemps responded, with what they all assumed was a cheeky tone, never having heard her laugh before
"You never asked."
"Ah, wai you been doin dis to us boss lady?" Jacob cried out, his rear sore from sitting in the same seat more or less for two days, fortunately for him there was no response following suit behind Atun Jacob put his Urbanmech into a crouch, the stout little thirty tonner slowing to a stop and then kneeling slightly, hitting the release button on his cockpit hatch Jacob pulled himself over the side, sliding down the domed exterior until he reached the ladder down.
While Atun and Jacob were busy negotiating the treacherous climb down their respective mech's Janos had walked up to the guard house and waved over the guard
"Hey, Let us in!" banging on the glass window of the both, he peered inside
"Goddamfarkingmercenaries..." Janos stumbled back as the crusty voice of the hundred year old looking guard boomed out of the tinny speaker system mounted above his head, "Sorriest sack of mercenaries i've ever scene" The stream of profanities seemed endless although it did slow just slightly; Janos wondered if the old man breathed at all as he stepped back into his tank, the boom gate swinging upwards on hinges.
Even as they continued into the main compound the guards voice continued to rattle out behind them, Atun dryly commented as he climbed back into his mech
"Why do we need these ID cards anyway.." only to be cut off by the loudspeaker as it kicked up in volume another notch.
"Never know who might just shoot you up if you dont keep em on ya"
"Wait, Did he just threaten us?" The Torso of Atuns Urbanmech turned to the left, its PPC coming up and tracking the small guardhouse, before decided it was not worth the expenditure in energy, he turned away and throttled up to a run, catching up to the other two. They continued along for a good hundred meters before they came up to the large cement ramp which lead up into the loading bays, massive caterpillar treads lay on the far side with large slabs of ore rolling off onto waiting flatbed trucks, the sound of several hundred ton hammers audible in the background as they traveled into the heart of the massive facility. keeping a weary eye out, Atun whistled appreciatively at the massive grinding jaws that periodically came down from the ceiling to smash the waste rocks into smaller manageable chunks.
"Wow, talk about heavy machinery.. I feel small." shuddering slightly as a mech sized boulder was reduced to a field of pebbles.
"No kiddin man, dese here bein some big toys." Whistling appreciatively Jacob kept his mechs arms near to its body. Eventually the trio came to a large cleared out store room, they could tell it was recently 'cleared' out as the previous occupants, a broken husk of a large vehicle was crammed to one side. several quick sets of construction scaffolding had been erected as a form of temporary mech bay while large shipping contains stood to the side filled with miscellaneous iron scrap.
"Ahhhhhh Home sweet home eh?" Janos exclaimed, exiting from the side of the tank and giving the trailer a swift kick, the abused metal pin fell out of its socket without complaint, the trailer itself falling to the ground with a large thud moments later, "Well then, hurry up you lot the tents arnt going to unpack themselves."
Atun groaned, navigating his way down the scaffolding faster, but probably not safer in anyway. Jumping the last few feet he rolled forward as he impacted the ground, his shoes making a soft thapping sound as he finished his dive; Dusting himself off he turned to Janos
"You said we have wonderful accommodation, the works! Your exact wording." Huffing, he began to untie one side of the trailers cover. Meanwhile, Jacob stood with his head cocked to one side, body poised to climb down the mech looking back at Atun he wondered where he learn't to move as fluidly as that. Mindful of his much greater size, and most likely much lesser acrobatic talent Jacob slowly climbed down the treacherous mountain of metal before beginning to assist Atun with the trailer.
"Yer, you beena tellin us dat we be getingda full fiave star accommodations." he remarked casually, lifting out the first of the tent frames.
"Indeed, I did and I didn't lie, For Quicksell this is the works!" Janos laughed as he began to leave the storage room "I can tell you've never worked for em before, anyhow im off to chat with the chief of this place"
Atun sighed and continued to lift various supplies and equipment from the trailer, looking over he saw Jacob staring at him.
"What?"
"Ur Boss man, Ee been workin for quicksell?" The first of the tent frames slid into place with a large thunk
"I suppose so, I never really asked but it would explain where he got his technical skills from.." Atun mused, giving the cover a swift kick to remove the dirt. Working togethor they managed to hoist the grey coloured tarp over the frame, patting each other on the back and lower arm respectively, the mismatched pair proceeded to remove the sixty or so tonnes of supplies strapped to the Urbanmechs.
"Soo, If you dont mind me asking, why did you get discharged" Atun broached cautiously as he rolled out the bed mats in the tent.
"Ah no mind, I was garrisin my home planet with mah lance for da locaal planetary militia, when some of dem slavers from the federation be comin, Mah lance failed to pertect de guvenor's daughter, I was discharged as a result." Jacob lent back onto the longest of the unfurled rolls, yawning slightly he turned to face the much smaller man, "Where you be gettin em moves?"
Atun twiddled his thumbs and had the decency to look modest, responded quietly
"Oh here and there, no place special." flopping down onto the smallest of the bed rolls they both waited in silence for Janos to return.
One of the side doors to the storage room slide open, bright light splayed out into the dark cavernous room as Janos stepped in, navigating around the piles of junk he plonked himself down besides Jacob and warmed his hands up next to the fire.
"Good news and bad news folks." Atun couldn't quite place the look on his face, but he knew it was one he hadn't seen before, which meant it wasn't good.
"Err, What?" he mumbled passing a cup of warm coffee to Janos "Bad news?"
Janos waved him off and grabbed the coffee with both hands.
"Aaaah, good old traditional insta-caff. Anyhow, As I was saying" pausing only to take a big sip, he continued "Good news, We'll get a seven day warning if anything hostile jumps into the system, also we'll be getting a little added bonus, mainly because were going to be hooking up one of the Urbie's fusion plants to smelter number four and six in order to jump start em." Janos's trusty big grin had returned by the end of his statement, waving his arms in the general direction of the large boxy vehicle.
"Dat hunk o junk mun? You musta been crazy!" Jacobs voice echoed around the room, his deep bass tones reverberating outwards unlike Janos and Atuns more passive tones.
"Thats not a piece of junk my good man," Janos stood up and began to gesture wildly to emphasis his points "That my good man is a study fourty tonne frame capable of moving up to sixty four kilometers per hour and mounting a cannon big enough to tear a hole in assault mechs, that my dear compadre is a Hetzer, Small low profile and its ICE engine minimize battlefield detection, its large boxy frame lending easily to modification and repair, Mercenaries dream right there!" Finishing with a flourish he plonked himself back down.
"You sir are a madman, A bonafide, certified, ludicrously underpaid madman." Atun deadpanned. "Are you kidding us?" He continued " Hetzers are a tomb, a moving box of death for its occupants!" he proceeded to recount numerous stories of Hetzers and their demise Atun hoped Janos would get the point, "they dont even come with radio's and decent targeting equipment fer the dragons sake."
Janos just smiled and patted Atun on the head,
"Calm down lad, those hetzers were driven by idiots who couldn't handle a vehicle even if it came with a comprehensive users manual, plus those hetzers were built by standard Quicksell employees, you havnt seen one built by me yet." looking back at the wreck he sighed, "Shes not much at the moment, the frames there, so's the wheels and suspension but that's about it."ticking off his fingers he listed off what they needed "Basically, I'll place an order at the machinist shop in town and they can send us over a engine for the thing, not one of the stock standard Hetzer engines mind you, hunks of junk" standing up and moving towards the Hetzer he brought a small lamp with him "The usual Hetzer engine is woefully inefficient, due to Quicksells cheapness its larger then normal owing to the lower quality materials used in addition to having shit poor battery life." Giving the rear section a swift kick "Its 'frame' is basically welded armor plates, shaving off some rear plating and shifting the engine back in addition to replace it with a more efficient one solves the space and battery issue."
Moving to the front he put his hand inside the massive hole that was were the Autocannon usually layed, "With such a roomy bay for the Autocannon, we could simply put in any ballistic or missile weaponry we could think of, we can steal buy or salvage some command and control systems, and a targeting array course we'd have to re-do all the electrical's and re-wire the thing but it could work." By this point Janos had stepped into the inside of the hull pointing and gesturing to where everything we could go.
While Atun stared at the Hetzer, lost in his own little world dreaming of super tanks roaming about killing all his enemies, Jacob was more alert and looked Janos in the eye.
"And whats the bad news?" the seriousness of his voice and the lack of accent coming through caused Atun to stop and listen.
"You know how I Said we would have seven days warning?" he queried, stepping out of the husk and back towards the small fire "Well, two days before we touched down they detected a small number of pirate unions and seekers burning in towards the planet."
Atun was no means a excellent mathematician, but he was still capable of basic maths.
"HEY!" He shouted, poking Janos in the chest. "That leaves us with three days."
"Yup, so get some rest we got work to do." Janos chuckled sadly, well aware they may or may not have three days to live, climbing into his bed roll, the world faded to black and a loud snoring noise could be heard.
Looking to break the ice, and distract the rapidly panicking Atun, Jacob mentioned they only thing he could think of
"Ya know mun, ur boss seems to be quite knowledgeable about dat dem quicksell products."
"You dont say?" Was Atuns only response before he dejectedly crawled into his own bedroll, sobbing once or twice he too fell into the warm embrace of sleep.
Review Responses: Any problems with lack of details, or not enough specifics on some things please tell me so i can fix it :D
Nui: I love em for several reasons, my GM played a really serious way of battle-tech with many home rules, Modifying mechs included a lot more "Does the mech's arm LOOK like a AC/20 would fit?" rather then.. Hey.. Critical slots, among other things.. so boxy looking / easy to repair fluff mechs were my fav. Your comment made my day! The fact people are reading this surprised me, i was half expecting to be flamed off the site due to my terribleness.
Bailomega: Thanks! That means alot to me, as I've stated before English is a second language, so my grammars all to hell.. but, i'm surprised people read and like it so i'm doing something right :P I've also been reading fanfics on here for like 5 years, im a TV Troper..
Ulquiorra9000: Thanks for the advice and things to add, will work on that. :D
RougeBaron: The first game i ever played i rolled up a lance of Urbies. I've loved em ever since, How could anyone not? So cute. And quite deadly for a lil thirty tonner even in stock standard.