Archive of Our Own ^beta

Most mechs were hard to function, even with experienced pilots.

They didn’t move like people do, the mechanics don’t really allow for that. You have to know the engineering intimately to clearly envision how the thing was going to react to your direction. Most pilots spend months learning their piece before going into the field. There were simulators, and for a while the board argued for mechs to be built in a uniform manner for faster learning.

But technology went a bit too fast for that. And the things were way too expensive to mass produce.

Grandma Katersfield knew this well. It was her life’s work.

I mean she wasn’t my grandma. But she kinda was. She was everyone’s grandma, in a way. Most mechs these days still have her work in them, even if there were scraps rebuild around it. Some people called it practical. Pilots called it good luck. The engineers called it “Finally someone who knows what they’re fucking doing.”

When she passed away, in her garage (had she ever existed anywhere else?), the military held a funeral. Most of the planets held a funeral. The board, somewhere in their core-planet bunkers, held a meeting.

The war wasn’t over, and we weren’t winning. And we’d just lost our best engineer. It was a big fucking hit for morale. There were losses everywhere.

Presumably after sending a swarm of government drones through the property, the board very quickly touted “Katersfield’s Final Work”, and “The culmination of everything she’s ever done”. Some people pointed out the public images that showed how the thing was half-done. But enough people wanted hope that everyone gradually bought into the idea.

The board appointed Katersfield’s daughter to lead the finalization of the thing. Ann wasn’t exactly an engineer, but they knew how the public would read it. They gave her a team of their best to work with.

When construction was nearly done, the board officially announced that Katersfield’s son-in-law would be piloting it. Everyone expected it; he was the only striped pilot in the family. But it hit the top of everyone’s news anyways.

The public test run was expected to be simple, and broadcasted live as far as the outer-space colonies.

It… didn’t go so well.

Okay, it went very badly.

I mean.

Bad.

What followed was a lot of media confusion. The board hastily tried to put the blame on over-eagerness. People were fired. We lost four moons while our squadrons re-evaluated their lives.

Mark and his husband, Will Katersfield, had a very public divorce. Some people argue it was the media pressure. Some people suspect that the board forced them apart. I think it was a long time coming.

For a while the board pushed forward other candidates. They ran competitions for new mech designers and engineers and electricians. Offered an absurd amount of money and resources. A lot of cool stuff came out of it, but nothing really compares to Katersfield’s work.

It was three years after that when media went into a frenzy over a low-grade video of the mech doing cartwheels over the family farm. Fucking cartwheels, man. I can’t even do those in my own body most days.

Every news ship went down there as quick as they could. A bunch of civilians, too. Granny says a board member actually showed up in person.

Everyone was immediately on Ann about it. She was the only one that really stayed on the farm. She knew the machinery well enough. And maybe she’d inherited the pilot skills of one of Katersfield’s late spouses.

To the dismay of the board, Ann insisted that the pilot was Thoma, one of Will’s children. The media went ballistic. Kids weren’t even supposed to be piloting mechs in the first place.

Thoma gave an interview to their school teacher and described the sensation of piloting upside down as “even better than going all the way around the bar on a swing and then having Grandma’s cookies with two scoops of ice cream!” Their wide grin with missing teeth was eventually made into metal-cards for soldiers to attach under their breast plates and remind them of home.

At some point, Ann made the mistake of admitting that she’d taken it out for a test-run while she was tuning up some joints (she hadn’t been an engineer when this started. But things change).

The board came down hard. They publicly announced that Ann was the cartwheeling pilot, and further that she’d accepted a high raking military title with absurd honors and enough pay to buy a moon. They posted a date with a public countdown clock for her departure to the front lines.

Now the way Granny tells it; Ann didn’t know about any of this until her neighbor came by with the milk and a congratulations. Granny would probably piss on the board if she still could. Don’t let her try it.

Ann did go. She didn’t have many options, really. Her bio-logs phrase the situation as “the board made a decision. I complied.”

We pushed back the front by two whole planets. Ann wasn’t much of a pilot; she spent too much time thinking, but the war pushed around her. Most of the time it only took a three second clip of her unnaturally smooth landing and quick gravity adjustment to a new planet. My old mech would take two minutes to land and readjust. A lot can happen in two minutes.

The official report says Ann died on Mitas 9. The board will probably censor this whole damn thing if I try to explain what happened, but just remember that official reports are. Well. Official.

The mech was commandeered immediately. They cleaned it up, threw on a new coat of paint, and put their highest ranking pilot in the hotseat.

Everyone was in a hurry to get back to it and have a plan ready before Ann’s death was publicly announced. Yeru knew the schematics by heart and spent one month living with the mech every hour of every day to make up for lost time. The board went as far as making them legally exempt from standard reports. Yeru’s bios were never made public, but you can pull them from the military archives in Section B. They clearly knew their way around a mech, and honestly seemed to be a good person as far as I can tell.

The board had seemingly learned from prior incidents. The Generals hosted a secluded military showing of the first test-run. Those archives are probably deleted, but all you really need to know is that Yeru never made it off the ground.

For a few months, the military looked into sabotage. Yeru’s bio-post about the joints being “just plain creaky no matter how much I oil the thing” convinced a bunch of higher-ups that the mech had been swapped out or something.

I know. Creating a whole fake mech to replace it with? Somehow managing to swap the thing out with as much board, military, and media surveillance as it has? Absurd.

Also I’m sure you’re well aware that plenty of good mechs have creaky joints. I hear you ran Sacrifice 2 for a while there. Lt. Jen complained about how loud that thing was for months after he shared a hangar with it near Osylus. Not sure if that was your time or not. I’m going to tell him it was, so he’ll have something to complain to you about. When he does, ask him about the wardrobe cloning incident. I’m sure he’ll know what you’re talking about.

Anyways.

The news about Ann went public, and the board pushed it down the feeds with reports about a new Stealth Carrier that would move faster than a pilot-ship. It did. Everyone loved it. I’m sure it’s shit compared to the last carrier you were on.

Thoma, meanwhile, had grown up and gotten their way through military school. It might seem strange to you now, but Thoma actually didn’t touch a mech the first decade of their service. They had a few friends and plenty worshipers, but still hadn’t officially earned enough stripes to be a pilot. The Generals wanted to make sure Thoma was knocked down enough to keep from getting big-headed about it. But Thoma didn’t really care.

Thoma fought hard and studied harder. They proved themselves again and again. You can look up the public records of their medal-acceptance speeches. Every damn time they would say “This is a great honor. Can I trade it in for a mech?”

Pissed a lot of people off, but it was fucking hilarious if you ask me.

Eventually Thoma led a fairly large squadron and took a half a continent in a week. When I asked them about it, they said they had sent a text message to the Generals saying “I could’ve gotten all of it, if I had my own mech :,(”. I know them well enough to know they probably actually sent a frowny-face emoji to the Generals. Don’t do that. It’s hilarious. But, Don’t.

Probably.

For now, anyways.

The board reluctantly let Thoma break the mech out of some museum somewhere as a reward for their service. They weren’t intending for Thoma to actually run as a pilot since Thoma had already gotten to be in charge of things. It would be a media mess, at best, a military loss at worst.

Thoma did a fucking backflip over live media.

Anyways the board and the Generals argued about it for a week, but eventually did the only thing they could do. They made Thoma a pilot. There were lots of assurances that Thoma would still be holding their responsibilities as Planetary Sergeant. No one cared. Thoma had done a fucking backflip; the Katersfields were at it again.

I’m told that week of debate consisted of at least fifteen other pilots trying the mech out and reporting up failures of various kinds. Don’t worry about that, you’ll do fine.

I’m sure you know most of the story from there. Thoma took Belet 5 through Belet 11, and some other smaller planets along the way. Majestic. War hero. Idol. Etc etc.

The board immediately pushed Thoma’s son, Madene, into the military and straight into pilot’s school. They make a lot of dumb decisions, but even the board could see the pattern here.

You might not have read this about me, but I used to be an electrician. I worked on Thoma’s team for a while. The Generals gave Madene special permission to visit us sometimes so he could learn the mech hands-on. He’d always wanted to be an artist or a planetary refurbisher. That was clear from the first day we met.

I’ll tell you this now, it’s not part of public record: Madene ran the mech just fine when it was just us around. Thoma would give some long drawn-out speech about minding your manners and being careful with her. It was their Grandmother’s soul in that machine, after all. Madene didn’t really listen, but the mech ran just fine anyways.

When Madene was nearing graduation, the Generals sent their scouts around to see how things were going. The mech ran straight into their drones and fell convulsing onto the ground.

It was a hard time for a while, Thoma was upset with Madene and Madene was embarrassed. There were lots of arguments, and the Generals tried to pretend Madene just didn’t have enough experience as a pilot. The idea that Madene did it on purpose didn’t get recorded, but it’s what a lot of people assumed. I don’t think that’s what happened, anyways.

Madene tried really hard after that. He pushed himself in school, and as a result they let him try out a bunch of other mechs. He proved he could handle it just as well as some of our better pilots. He took Entrapment marching around the school-system planet four times.

Thoma tore their knee in a pretty brutal fight, and since they were nearing retirement anyways the board arranged for a public hand-off of the mech.

I used to talk to her when I worked. My old pilot - the one I worked electricity for before Thoma - had always been superstitious about this sort’ve thing. She used to spend a good half-hour reassuring it before she’s let me do any work on it. I guess I’d picked up the habit. You might want to pick it up, too, if you haven’t already.

I’d asked her to help Madene out. He’d worked so hard and I could tell Thoma was slowing down.

You might have seen the media of that. Afterward Madene was particularly… verbal. Even if you didn’t see that, I’m sure you heard about what happened to him after. Don’t be too harsh on him, it’s really not his fault. We were all too hard on him.

All the media says the Generals did a lot of research and realized I was better suited as a pilot and they shifted me over. How that actually happened was… well. A little boring.

One of their scouts had caught me helping her move over so I could get a better angle at the spinal wiring.

Blah blah blah. I’m sure you know the highlights from there.

So here’s where we get to the advice that was the whole point of this message:

1. I admit the public eye is a little difficult to get used to. Honestly I recommend you just ignore it. They’ll say shit no matter what you do.
2. Don’t call her by the name the board gave her. I know that’s what you learned in school and in training. Don’t do it.
3. Don’t piss her off.
4. Be patient - her memory isn’t what it used to be.
5. Don’t tell her what to do. I read your file, you have a lot of experience. I know this will be the hard part.
1. If the mediacom switches to one of those awful family gameshows. Just. Let it happen. No, they do not get less annoying to listen to. Yes, she knows they’re all the same.
2. The internal heating will be On when you’re on any below-regulation temperature planet. I know you’re from the outer colonies. I know that will be too warm for you. Get over it and try not to dress down too much; she’s easier to maneuver when you’re in layers.
6. The one exception to the above is her tune-ups and maintenance. She doesn’t like it. She never does. We have four crews to make it easier and I still do it myself sometimes to help her get over it. You’re going to have to get good at negotiating.
7. If you leave a battle with a sudden craving in your neurons for hot and hearty soup, go get some hot and hearty soup. She’ll get stubborn with you next time if you don’t.

Granny will take care of you from there.

-Captain Layfar