[Hanse Davion - First Prince of the Federated Suns]
[Corean Enterprises Headquarters - Head Science Officer's Personal Lab Complex]
[Avalon City, New Avalon; Federated Suns]
[December 10th, 3025]
It was rather amusing to Hanse that for all of the hundreds of millions of Pounds worth of highly specialized equipment here within this expansive personal laboratory... the true stars of this show, as far as he could tell, were all seated on flimsy plastic picnic tables with chintzy black drapes covering them. The current table they were standing in front of had two concealed lumps, one being very small, and the other the size of a large box, which notably had two rather thick power cables running from underneath the midnight drapery.
"Now, I have a great many things to show you, Hanse, but this right here is the true star of the show- this is the latchkey technological development that makes everything else I'm doing to display possible," Arthur reached down and grabbed onto and stripped it away with a flourish to reveal-!
There were three blocks on what looked to be a cheap paper plate, and at Hanse's arched eyebrow Arthur snorted and shrugged, "Aye, a Pence saved is a Pence earned, as they say. You don't keep healthy margins in the budgets by splurging unnecessarily."
Ardan looked as though he was about to blow a gasket, "Endosteel? You... you have Endosteel!? On a paper plate!? Have you gone daft!?"
Arthur crossed his arms over his chest, his expression challenging, "That is not Endosteel, my dear Champion. If you'd let me speak about it you'd know that-"
Hanse snapped his fingers, "I think I've had enough. Ardan. Arthur. Cut the sass. Explain. Now. If you would be so kind?"
The wind petered out in both of their sails, and the Chief Scientist of Corean Enterprise's shoulders slouched, "Of course, Hanse. This-"
He gestured to the three blocks of foamed metal, "Is not Endosteel. What it is, however, is something much better in my personal opinion. At least for conventional use in most military designs."
Arthur pulled the other drape away to reveal what appeared to be a heavily modified 3-dimensional printer, with rows of electromagnets surrounding a cradle that had a plate with holes bored strategically around the current foam block that was being printed. Beneath the plate was a large clear armor glass tank, and he knew it wasn't Ferroglass because it would likely be negatively affected by the electromagnets, and inside the tank was a light red, translucent suspension fluid of some kind.
"What you are looking at is the culmination of six years of research," Arthur smiled brilliantly, almost so bright that even with his eyes locked onto the printing head darting around the foam block a lightning speed Hanse felt like he was about to go blind, "I call it the Augusta Process- an entirely new industrial fabrication process, not one lost or even cribbed off of the notes of the Late Star League."
He pointed to a trio of laminated poster boards that had been revealed by one of the many scientists who had been- and still were- running about, the fumply old man with wispy white hair on his head; his bushy white mustache twitched as he smiled proudly. His name tag read: 'Doctor Anderson'.
"Its true name is the 'Partial Print/Free Particle Magnetic Alignment-Plasma Bonding' process, or the PPFPMAPB if you want an acronym, but since that is a mouthful we just call it the Augusta Process," Doctor Anderson adjusted his glasses as he played the part of the assistant, moving to the next board as Arthur spoke, "A micrometer-accurate print head dispenses a steel-aluminum alloy in teeny-tiny powder granules, one at a time, at key points in the structure, where it is held in place via a combination of weak magnetic fields and the viscosity of the suspension fluid after each dip in the tank. Once it is ready, the entire platform lowers into the fluid, which is filled with titanium dust, and that gives it its red color. Now, titanium is paramagnetic, but with the proper application of strength and precision via oscillating magnetic fields... the titanium granules are attracted to the proper points in the structure."
A few colored graphics showed the process in action on the board, and the assistant flipped to the next board.
"When it is ready, an extremely powerful electric current is run through the block, the plasma in the fluid getting as hot as the surface of the sun for a few tenths of a second, and this fuses the freshly grafted particles onto the foam block," Hanse felt his eyes widen as what appeared to be a bolt of lightning streaked from one conductive rod, through the fluid and into the foam block, and out toward the other rod; the suspension liquid bubbled slightly, but otherwise appeared to be just fine.
Arthur smiled smugly as the plate rose out of the fluid and a quartet of nozzles began blowing the fluid off for a few moments until only a slight sheen remained on the top surface. The printer head came down, tapped the corners of the block, made a few circuits around the outside edges, and then tapped a complex grid along the flat plane before it began darting out like mad- likely the next step in the printing process starting all over again.
The Chief scientist picked up one particular block off of the paper plate, which appeared to be cut cleanly in half, and handed both it and the first block over with a pair of magnification spectacles.
"The first block in your left hand, Hanse, is the typical result for a standard aluminum foam process. You'll find it looks much the same for steel alloys and even titanium. However, if you look at the results of the Augusta process... you'll see that the entire block is perfectly shaped and uniform. This leads to it having exceptional durability and strength for its weight, and even when bulked up to withstand rigorous abuse... it will take up half as much internal space as Endosteel."
Hanse felt his heart rate spike as he slowly stripped off the magnification spectacles and handed them to Ardan along with the two examples, "You said that this will take up half the amount of space of Star League Endosteel?"
"Yes," Arthur stated matter of factly, but he leaned forward to ensure that he had Hanse's attention, "Make no mistake, My Prince. This is not a replacement for Endosteel. It provides exceptional weight savings and durability, and because of how it is produced we can create open and close cell designs at will, but the alloys used to make this- while similar based on samples you so graciously provided me of Endosteel... there is something about the zero-gravity manufacturing process that gives it the rigidity and strength to resist the unique shearing and torsional forces that a walking Battlemech places upon it."
He regained his height, his hands on his hips- the smile returned, "However, for non-critical structural components in Aerospace fighters and Battlemechs? It can certainly save a great deal of weight over a standard steel construction... and for vehicles? Oh buddy, do I have something special for you."
The man spun on his heel and began advancing toward one of the larger cloth-draped objects further away, and Hanse and Yuri followed swiftly while Ardan fumbled with the foam blocks and spectacles, "The beauty of this technology is that is mechanically simple and robust. Once the printer and electromagnetic cradle are properly calibrated, they are self-correcting to a certain extent if they 'lose' zero. This means that you don't need someone in a white lab coat to service them. It also means that it is, theoretically, if you really, really, really want to, highly scaleable in size!"
Arthur grasped the drape and grinned like a loon at them, "I would have said 'infinitely scalable' but that would have been overly dramatic."
He yanked, the black fabric falling away to reveal another Augusta Process machine, but this one was much, much larger. To put it into perspective, the armor glass tank was large enough to fit what looked to be a mono-bodied frame of a light scout tank inside it!
A light blinked overhead, "Ah, everyone shut your eyes for a moment."
Hanse immediately did so, and even with his eyes closed he had to blink away the bright line of lightning from his vision.
The gentle whirr of hydraulics was heard, and when the Prince peeled back his eyelids he saw the scout tank chassis being lifted up into the air while pressurized nozzles blew the excess suspension fluid off the frame.
"Bloody hell!" Ardan hissed under his breath, and Arthur gave the man, who was furiously rubbing at his eyes, an unimpressed stare.
The Chief Scientist shrugged as if to say 'I told him to close his eyes', and Hanse shook his head before returning his attention to the Augusta Process machine, "I don't recognize the chassis of this particular armored vehicle."
"That's because it's something new we're developing. We haven't quite figured out what we're going to do with it yet other than making it a very fast Scout Tank. It's a twenty-tonner, and with the maths, we should be able to eke out a 0.75-ton frame... but to give us some breathing room, and to make it nice and even for building, we're going to likely beef it up to 1 standard metric ton," Arthur crossed his arms over his chest, his smirk deepening, "Which is just as good as Endosteel... but we can manufacture it on worlds with .7 to 1.3 gravities, don't require zero-g, and with the precision in the process there is little to no waste."
The scientist looked back up at the chassis being constructed and made a noise before pointing, "Ah! Look! Top left side, quick, quick! You see that waldo there? It detected a flaw. You can see that it has a precision laser head on the end, and it will cut away the misconstructed section. That way the machine can simply retry with that portion."
A small cubic chunk, a few millimeters by a few millimeters, but cut away before being lifted away by another arm with a small magnet on the end, "That will add another thirty minutes to the build time, at the very least."
There was a frown that Hanse heard, and the Prince looked to see that Arthur was indeed frowning.
"Just like a Battlemech has 'The Triangle' of Speed, Durability, and Firepower... every manufacturing process has its own. Those are Cost, Accuracy, and Speed," The CEO of Corean shook his head, "The system compared to even standard tank chassis construction equipment is affordable, and the materials even more so since there is very little waste- even that chunk will be ground back down into a powder with the aluminum, steel, and titanium to be separated. It is also exceptionally accurate and precise, with only a small handful of errors detected and in need of correction with each construction. Its primary drawback, however, is that it is not a speedy process... but it more than makes up for it in that it's low maintenance and requires very little oversight."
Hanse looked away from the mesmerizing sight and toward the rest of the beauties that were still hidden from his prying eyes.
"Good God above," The First Prince muttered, "With this alone? Armored vehicles with a foamed structure?"
Endosteel for vehicles was never attempted simply because the material ate up too much internal space for there to fit anything approaching reasonable in, but with this being half the size? That opened the door for possibilities that had never been thought of before simply because, before now, it couldn't be done.
Hanse's head snapped to Arthur, "How long does it take someone like Quikscell to manufacture a Scorpion Tank?"
The Scientist arched an eyebrow, "They can churn out a Scorpion from raw materials to a completed tank from their Layover facility in roughly 30 days, but their quality control is utter shit. You're liable to blow your A/C-5 through the back of the turret because they didn't secure the damn thing properly."
"And what about just the frame itself?"
"A week, maybe two," He shrugged, "I'm just spit-balling the numbers here, but that's my rough guess. We'll split it down the middle and call it ten days."
"And how quickly could one of these Augusta Process machines print this particular 20-ton frame?"
"Twenty-one days, give or take a day. It depends on how many defects it has to remove from the frame, but you can be 99.999% certain that what is pulled off of the plate is pristine Andian Foam alloy," He reached out and slapped the side of the glass tank, a rakish grin on his lips, "I dare anyone to try and find a shoddy weld on one of these bad boys."
"Can it go any faster?" Ardan chose that moment to interject, "And can the frame be repaired?"
"It could go faster, but we'd have to research more precise sensors, create a new raw material flow head and capture system since we're almost at the ragged edge of what we have now is capable of, and all of that good stuff. It's not impossible, mind you, if I devote significant time to the project I could likely speed up the final product by 15% within three years. The good news is that due to how the whole system is set up, when the new system comes out it should be plug-and-play; pull the old Printing System and Sensor Suites out of their housings and slot the new ones in."
Arthur looked at the tank, "As to if it can be repaired? No. It can be recycled, however. What we are looking at is possibly segmenting the frames in the future in as few pieces as necessary, so if a section of the frame is damaged you can pop it off and slot a new one in place. Standard steel frames can be welded as long as the damage is not too egregious, however, tanks that find themselves on the wrong end of a Battlemech rarely are in such good shape that a patch job can get it back up and running."
"And you said this can be scaled?" Hanse pulled Arthur's attention back to him.
"Yes. It can print 20 tons of materials in 21 days, give or take, so if you wanted something bigger? A bigger armor glass tank, more suspension fluid, and a bigger build plate. A 40-ton machine frame could be constructed in 42 days, a 60-ton machine frame in 63 days, an 80-ton machine frame in 84 days, and a 100-ton machine frame in 105 days," He held up a hand, "And I know that sounds like a lot. Very slow. It is, but think about how small this footprint is- you could cram 150 of these things inside of a standard 100-meter by 100-meter warehouse and power it all with a single Fusion engine! Have 150 frames printing at the same time, where most of the manpower will be just... filling up the raw material hoppers every month and conducting the required maintenance."
Arthur Corean strode back and forth, his white coat swishing behind him, "Frame construction with virtually zero defects. Essentially Endosteel frames, for vehicles, being printed by the hundreds or even thousands! This is only one critical step in the manufacturing process to be sure, but I've spent my entire life studying the Star League-era automated factory for the Valkyries, Hanse, and I think that I've almost got it all figured out!"
The floor squeaked under his heel as he turned to fix the Prince with a fierce, excited gaze, "This Sunchaser Light Scout Tank will be the test bed, My Prince. We will build the new factory here on New Avalon, within the safety of Corean Enterprises, and I will use everything I've learned to try and make the construction process of these relatively simple tanks automated from start to finish, with people only handling the small fiddly bits. Even the automated waldos aren't articulate enough to connect the communications, targeting, and computer systems together."
"And if it proves to be a success then you can try to do it with other things," Hanse felt his jaw drop a touch, "My, my, my. Arthur, you are just full of surprises. I mean, I knew you were destined for great things but this?"
The First Prince of the Federated Suns swept his arm toward the Augusta Process Machine, "This is beyond my wildest expectations."
Arthur Corean smiled warmly, though it was sort of ruined by the way he awkwardly rubbed at this neck, "Oh. Uh. Wow. I mean, shit, I like being recognized for my hard work but... I guess, when it comes from you it actually feels like it means something. So thanks for that."
"So, does it have a name? I know there is usually a nickname as well as a scientific one," Hanse interlaced his fingers in front of him.
"We're calling it Andian Foam Steel, Recipe 4DBG," That was when Yuri interjected, the young man smiling softly with no small hint of melancholy as he watched the printer head move about to start the next layer in the process, "Arthur asked me to help him, and... I wanted to honor my brother in a more widespread fashion; Andrew deserved that at least, but this? This isn't just a Corean achievement. It's a Federated Suns achievement, so I decided to give it a name that should be honored properly- it's the 'Andrew Corean/Ian Davion Foam Steel, Recipe: 4th Davion Brigade of Guards', or Andian Foam, 4DGB. I reckon that everyone will start calling it 'Andosteel' or something like that, but the science and engineering types? They'll still call it 'Andian Foam Steel, Recipe: 4DGB'."
Arthur nodded, his expression thoughtful, "So even when it eventually gets reverse-engineered by our foes, they'll still unwittingly be honoring our First Prince and our brother, as well as the 4th Davion Guards."
However, the Chief Scientist of Corean's expression melted away into something particularly nasty, "Our low-level literature obscures the true manufacturing process, hinting that it still requires specific pressures and gravities. It's a printed structure, but because of its nature as a foam anyone who attempts to make it for themselves? Occam's Razor will work in our favor here because the most likely and reasonable assertion would be that the product is manufactured similarly to Endosteel... and that it is manufactured like any other metallic foam by injecting inert gasses into a metalized foam substance."
"Yet- yet they'll be clawing their eyes out trying to figure out how we're getting such purity and uniformity in the structures of each cell! Kuukuukuu~!" Arthur's laugh was as unsettling as it was villainous, his eyes narrowed with a sick, twisted sense of joy, "Oh to be a fly on the wall in those reverse-engineering meetings! Their tears will be something that will sustain me for centuries to come!"
"You are a very deranged individual, Arthur Corean," Ardan began, and Hanse fixed him with a look, causing his Champion to quickly change tracks, "But I am happy to say that I am glad that you're on our side, Arthur."
Arthur blinked a few times before he replied with a cat-like smile, "Oh, Ardan. That is probably the nicest thing you've ever said to me. I will cherish this moment forever! But! But we're wasting too much time here, so let's be on about this little tour, shall we?"
The Chief Scientist of Corean once more began walking away, and like good little ducklings the trio followed on behind him, and they stopped at a trio of large blocky, items covered in drapes. As they approached a pair of scientists quickly flitted about, pulling them away to reveal two boxes that had a hexagonal, cellular structure, and the third was much larger, looking like a simple rectangular box but big enough that it could fill up a side torso of a Battlemech.
"Yes, this is CASE, or Cellular Ammunition Storage Equipment, however, I will preface this by saying that it is not complete yet," Arthur walked up and slapped the front of one of them, "Though I have the electronics, pressure sensors, latch mechanism, and other small components figured out, I am lacking the Ferro Fibrous armor that the Star League used to make these things worth carrying around. So until I get that, these will remain prototypes for testing and evaluation purposes."
"The first uses standard steel construction throughout with standard armor plating, but it weighs two tons. It is functional, but I'd rather spend two tons on additional armor for the side torsos to protect that ammunition than this," The scientist walked over from the first CASE and toward the second, which looked a touch bulkier but nothing that would take up an extra internal slot in a 'Mech, "The second uses Andian foam construction and standard armor plating, but weighs just one ton; still too heavy for my taste. The Star League-era CASE system weighed a half-ton, and once we get Ferro Fibrous armor I am certain that if we combined Andian foam and the Ferro Fibrous then we can have CASE for a measly quarter-ton."
"And that big boy over there?" Arthur placed his hands on his hips and jerked his head over to the largest of the three displays, "That's my prototype for integrated CASE in a Battlemech. The center, left, right, torsos, and legs of every 'Mech that Corean Enterprises will produce in the future will have these, though that is at least five to ten years off- sooner if we can get Ferro Fibrous armor off of the ground."
Hanse felt his mouth go dry.
The Federated Suns had a love affair with Autocannons and Missile systems, and why wouldn't they? They were (mostly) reliable, had excellent range, had good effects on target, and when it came to heat management ballistic and missile weaponry were very low on the heat scale. Even a 'Mech equipped with the ten standard single heatsinks could fire their whole complement of weaponry without running into the problems that came with overheating the machine. It also helped that the Federated Suns had a plethora of manufacturers to choose from who all produced Autocannons and Missile systems.
One of the biggest drawbacks of a 'Mech or combat vehicle equipped with this weaponry, outside of being limited to shorter engagements due to the limited amount of ammunition that could be carried on board, was the inevitability of ammunition explosions. Combat naturally wore down a 'Mech's armor plating, and as the 'Mech's torso was the largest target, it was the area most aimed for; and it was consequentially where most 'Mechs stored the ammunition for their weapon systems. Sometimes a lucky shot, affectionately known to Mechwarriors and vehicle crewmen as a 'Golden BB', would penetrate the plating and strike something critical even if the armor was in good condition.
Hanse still had nightmares from the simulators during his training days based on scenarios such as that!
Even if the training pods couldn't fully simulate the experience of being inside the cockpit of a 'Mech as its ammunition stores cooked off beneath his ass... the loud 'snaps' and 'pops' accompanied by the bone-shaking vibrations were horrifying to experience. If you were lucky the ammunition cooked off sequentially, which gave you a few precious seconds to jettison the remainder of your ammunition, but if you weren't? Well, if you didn't eject in time then you were a dead man.
There was a reason why the 'Dump Ammo' buttons in the cockpit of 'Dana', Hanse's Battlemaster-1Gc, were all enlarged and painted frustratingly obnoxious colors. If an ammunition explosion was detected, and he'd feel it, then he wanted to be able to slap the love of God out of them; his 'Mech had three tons of ammunition for his SRMs and machineguns, and that was a lot of combustible ordnance to be sitting on top of.
So the thought of one day having CASE in all of the appropriate machines in the Federated Suns that needed it, of which there were many, just warmed Hanse Davion's heart.
Even if the inclusion didn't directly enhance the durability of the machine, the chances of successfully salvaging a 'Mech with CASE were more than 300% higher for the AFFS than those without it. Keeping the Metal intact was paramount for any military organization, and the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns was no different.
"Annnnndddd we're moving right along!" Arthur darted away again, and Hanse followed in his wake, his mind spinning.
"Ardan?"
"Yes, My Prince?"
"Cancel the rest of my meetings today. We're going to be eating dinner here tonight because I think I'm going to need more time to digest everything that Arthur here is dumping onto my plate."
"And this is the newest method we've created to make a new armor glass for vehicles and 'Mechs," Arthur Corean allowed Yuri to step forward and tell Hanse and Ardan about this new advancement, "It's called the Henan Crystal Growth process... named for our Father and Mother, Henry and Anabelle Corean. Father wanted to create a newer, stronger armor glass so that our mother could better enjoy her favorite pastime- star gazing from orbit."
The young man went silent, and his elder brother rested a comforting hand on Yuri's shoulder before taking over.
"Instead of laminating the layers of crystal and ferrous materials together, we're growing them as one contiguous piece. Really, what inspired me was one of those 'Grow Your Own Crystal' science kits that my elder sister got me for my birthday when I was like five. The concept enamored me, so while it is still in prototyping, the results are promising! 25% more durable for the same weight, which should ameliorate some of the largest problems certain 'Mechs like the Battlemaster have with their enlarged glass cockpits. It means we can grow the cockpit glass into the shape that's needed by altering the electrical and magnetic currents in the suspension fluid."
"Because we can control the growth to an incredibly fine degree, we can make use of the auto-polarizing crystals made by Lordran Chemicals here on New Avalon. This allows us to reduce bright lights without the need for an active controller, so infantry equipped with strobe lights and dazzlers can't disorient a pilot."
Arthur displayed this by picking up a powerful hand-held strobe light and pointing it at a display piece of the glass, which sat next to a sheet of a competitor's Ferroglass; something to note was that the competition's sheet was connected to a small box with leads running between them.
Both panes of armored glass darkened, but while the Henan glass only darkened where the bright light was focused, the entire sheet of the competition darkened. Once the light was switched off, the Henan glass immediately began to lose its opacity while the other glass took a few moments to once more become clear.
"If they somehow manage to figure out that it auto-polarizes and bring a powerful enough spotlight to try and black out a pilot's cockpit entirely? Well, apply a little bit of current and you can control the polarization manually with a little nob. However, I doubt that will happen, but it only costs us a hundred or so Pounds to have some hair-thin wires grown into the glass, and the electronics can be picked up from a hobbyist store in the city, so it isn't like it costs us an arm and a leg!"
"I'm sure you know what these are, correct?" Arthur looked as smug as any man could be as he patted the armor casings of a quartet of weapons placed on mobile heavy equipment dollies.
Despite seeing that they were all not connected to any power source Hanse made sure to stand well clear of the business ends of the weapons.
"They're a PPC, an 8cm, 5cm, and 3cm laser," Ardan replied drolly, though it was more out of exhaustion than anything else, "Respectively."
"Indeed you are correct! The PPC is based on the license we have with Rand, the Large Laser is from IWW, the Medium is from Martel, and the Small is a Magna model," The Scientist grinned as Yuri giggled in a fashion that was unbecoming of a young man, but despite being a weary soul Hanse couldn't help but smile along with him, "However, the true magic with these weapons, among many others which aren't on display, lies 'beneath the hood', so to speak."
He cracked open the casing on the Rand Corp. PPC, the latches clacking as they fell back and smacked against the armored shell of the weapon.
Hanse and Ardan immediately stepped forward and began to examine the internals.
"This looks custom," His Champion noted with a keen eye, though that was to be expected because most Mechwarriors of his caliber were known to be intimately familiar with their 'Mechs, "Certainly not a standard layout from Rand at all. It appears to be missing some of the internal cooling heatsinks, and the particle collection capacitors look to be thicker..."
"That is because this custom PPC is made using Andosteel for most of its structural components. It not only lightens the design by a considerable degree, but since we can make closed-cell and open-cell structures on demand in the same contiguous piece? It means that we can turn the entire frame of the weapon into a heatsink. Open-cell foam metals are exceptional at dispersing waste heat, and with a directional structure of closed-cell foam, we can essentially pump coolant through the foam, like a channel! The heat from the closed-cell foam and coolant is conducted to the open-cell, which then is radiated in a more controlled fashion through the armor shell, thereby reducing the propensity of damage to the weapon from heat spikes."
Arthur was practically bouncing on his toes.
"This also more evenly spreads out the heat load across the entire weapon versus select components, which should reduce heat warping, reduce stresses on the cooling components within the weapon, and improve the overall efficiency of the system. I was able to tune the weapon to maintain greater coherency of the particle packets over range, improving their effect on target, while only increasing the heat by a proportional amount!"
Arthur handed Hanse a flimsy paper note card, with messily written words that could barely be considered legible by any Star League English teacher, "Sorry about Albert's handwriting. It sucks, I know."
Ardan looked over Hanse's shoulder as they read.
Rand PPC:
- Weight: 7 tons
- DMG: 10
- Heat: 10
- Range: 540 - 1080 meters
- Cost: 200,000 C-Bills
Corean 'Tempest' Enhanced PPC:
- Weight: 5 Tons
- DMG: 12
- Heat: 12
- Range: 620 - 1240 meters
- Cost: 300,000 C-Bills
"My teams and I did all of that while making it two tons lighter," The Chief Scientist puffed up, and behind him Hanse could hear several other people slapping each other on the backs, "It made me wonder why they never tried to make weapons with Endosteel, but seeing how it ate up space inside of the weapon made me understand. However, because the Andosteel foam can replace a large portion of the internal cooling equipment, the space eaten up by the slightly larger foam steel is saved in the end."
Hanse took a deep breath as he flicked the edge of the notecard against his palm, "And... I take it that you've done the same with the 8, 5, and 3-centimeter lasers?"
"Along with some prototypes of LRM and SRM packs... and every flavor of Autocannon under the sun," Arthur rubbed at his nose with a finger, smug exuding from every pore on his body, "The Federated Suns has a well-known love of Acks and Missiles, so let it never be said that Arthur Corean doesn't know his customers."
The First Prince of the Federated Suns felt a hand press against his forehead as a rueful chuckle escaped his lips, "So... what's next?"
Hanse felt some of his sanity return as they moved on to the next display.
Though his sanity had returned, it appeared as though poor Ardan had taken leave of his senses.
"It's a cooling suit, Hanse!" The Prince's Champion and consummate AFFS Mechwarrior was hunched over a flimsy, white plastic table, the man running his hands over a one-piece fabric jumpsuit like a blind man trying to read braille, "Arthur, I take back every negative thing I've ever said about you."
"It's a cooling suit system, you oaf!" Arthur hissed as he pointed out the rest of the items on the table, "It is not merely a cooling suit! There are other parts and pieces that go into it- it's a homogenous ecosystem!"
A particularly studly-looking Mechwarrior with blonde hair and brown eyes stood stiff-backed at the position of attention as Hanse inspected him; he certainly looked the part of an AFFS poster boy to be sure. Medium-sized with impressive musculature, and the tapered gold bar with a thick white stripe at the bottom denoted him as a Major-equivalent of the Corean Enterprises' facility guard.
Funnily enough, his thick mustache was still within AFFS regulations, as was his haircut.
"How long have you been out, Major Wilkerson?" Hanse asked idly as he walked around and put his hands on the equipment, tugging and yanking to test for fit.
"Two and a half years, My Prince."
It was a set of body armor with integrated loops for the modular positioning of pouches, and underneath the foam padding he could feel a thin steel plate that had been tapered in what would normally be called a 'Mechwarrior's Cut'. Most Mechwarriors rarely wore armor inside the cockpit due to space, and the fact that one couldn't wear armor over the bulky cooling vest that was a requirement for operating a 'Mech in combat.
"Oh? And you still keep your hair in regulation? Most Mechwarriors I know are glad to be able to grow everything out once they leave the service."
The bottom of the plate felt slightly curved up at the edges so that it wouldn't rest on the legs while seated, and while this cut down on some of the protection for the bowels the tradeoff for comfort was something most Mechwarriors chose regardless. After all, Mechwarriors were invincible inside of their Battlemechs, weren't they? Why would they need to care about protection outside of their cockpits?
"The AFFS imparted a new lifestyle to me during my service, My Prince. One that I rather like. My wife also doesn't like me with long hair, facial or otherwise."
Hanse smiled as he admired the neat stitching on the seams before his eyes slid over to a laminated board one of the scientists in the background was holding up. "So it is a Star League-era cooling suit, just one updated..."
The Cooling Suits of the SLDF had a particular three-layer ballistic weave set-up, with a thin mesh 'inner sock' that could be pulled out and washed.
However, knowing Arthur and his subscription to the maxim 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' then it should be no surprise that for something like this even bringing it back into the AFFS would be more than enough.
"Arthur, look. I know that you and I have our differences... but what do I have to do to let you let me take this Cooling Suit with me today? It's practically my size already- with just a few alterations at the tailor's I could have this on me in my 'Mech-"
The smile slipped right off of Hanse's face.
"It's a communications block and a targeting and tracking system," Ardan's disappointed voice was drab, the man sounding as though all of the colors of the world had suddenly been stripped away from him by Arthur's refusal.
"Created by my staff, and coded by yours truly," Arthur, however, sounded far too chipper for a man who essentially murdered the Champion's dog by not allowing him to take the experimental Cooling Suit home with him, "It is utilizing the brand new lenses from the Henan crystal growth process as before, which will offer its visual systems unparalleled clarity, a much higher base magnification for the optics without a need for digital enhancement and the pixelation and distortion it brings!"
"These two beauties will be the real stars of the show for the Sunchaser Light Scout Tank. It's not a replacement for an Active Probe but-"
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