Work Text:
The morning sun illuminated the DropShips towering over the encampment and Sigrid was making her way ‘home’. The mess tent was disappearing behind her and the sounds of the camp faded along with it to be replaced by the din of people working around the towering vessels.
She boarded, finding herself in the small human-sized corridors that made the ship feel almost cramped. The feeling didn’t last as she soon found herself face to face with the cavern that was the MechLab. It looked big from up in the overlook, where she could see the entire area, but from here on ground level she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it.
Every single Bay was lit up and most had ‘Techs working on repairing the damaged machines inside. Despite this, one of them seemed cloaked in shadow. No light reflected onto the walkway in front, and from where she just entered she couldn’t see into the Bay.
The moment she could though, it all made sense.
Sigrid blinked.
Siggy opened her eyes and bounced to the mirror. In it she saw a girl with a great big mop of unruly red hair. She sat down and brushed and brushed and brushed, and then started braiding, just like Mom had showed her. Each strand meticulously on display.
Behind her on the wall hung her dream. On the left of the twin posters an impressive looking ‘Mech stepped out of a blazing inferno. Legs bending backwards, striding resolutely forward with two arms and great big rocket pods on its shoulders.
Beside it was a much more sedate but much more interesting dream. The same ‘Mech, now laid out in excruciating detail in an exploded technical view. Sometimes when she couldn’t sleep, she looked over the poster to read all the things she read a thousand times. Where the actuators were, where the sensors were, every single line on the diagram committed to memory, familiar and comforting.
And then she blinked again.
In front of her, black as a moonless night, stood her dream. A towering and proud machine, dormant but steadfast. Almost… alive.
The engineering on the foot in front of her was masterful, if she looked close enough she could see every piece of articulation, not a rivet out of place despite the well-worn look. Her eyes drifted from the trifold feet to the massive calf actuators and then further up. To the upper legs, the sleek torso and the arm actuators ending in dual hardpoints.
She couldn’t see the missile banks, but she knew them. She could see every familiar component, every single caption from her posters on Utrecht.
It didn’t just live up to her expectations, this machine exceeded it.
Blink. Work to do.
Sigrid synced her tablet with the docket and looked over her assigned tasks.
MechTech: Sigrid Guntran
Initial assignment: Timber Wolf ‘Death Knell’
Bay: 8
Work order:
right torso; replace armor plating
right torso; general maintenance
Full systems check
Notes:
Sigrid, sorry to put this on ya last minute, but I know you can do it! I’m trying to keep low so the MedTechs don’t get me. -Karrie
She looked down at her tablet, and then up at her dream. Part of her wondered if this was real, and another part supplied that she was currently working on an SLDF DropShip, deep in the Rimward periphery, on a hostile planet, under the command of a beautiful avian woman so old that the show she was on with the other Clan totem warriors – who were also here – was considered a historical record.
Working on an actual Timber Wolf didn’t seem so odd anymore.
She climbed up to the catwalk and found the Bay controls. From up here she could see the majesty that was the Timber Wolf from its rear angles, a dark void contrasted against the bright industrial lighting of the MechLab. She knew every angle, every single curve of the machine’s panelling by heart.
As the platform on the ‘Mech’s right side was lowering into position, she moved around to follow it. Panning down from the side she could see where the torso armor had taken the hits. Large chunks were warped or missing, open wounds showing the delicate internals that thankfully seemed to be in good shape. How good a shape she would have to find out later. Right now, the armor needed to come off.
She knew the automated arms could be more efficient, but they weren’t as accurate as handheld power tools. A machine of this caliber deserved those. She let the winch above her come down. Before connecting the straps onto the armor she placed a hand on the wounded ‘Mech.
“We’ll get you fixed up, don’t you worry.”
She hooked the straps to the attachment points in the armor and tensioned the lines. Bit by bit she carefully detached the panel until only the tension from above held them in place. Then it was just a light pull until it started moving.
She slowly guided the crane to move the panel out of the way and safely to the floor level of the Bay, out of the way of the walkway. A tap or two on her tablet flagged it for repairs. A forklift would be along soon.
With the panel out of the way she could see the underlying internals, sleek steel pipes contrasting harshly and beautifully against the black of the surrounding panels. And she knew them.
She knew the coolant from the lubricant from the hydraulics from the electronics at a glance, the labels only confirming what she already knew. Every conduit flowed like a symphony around the frame.
Around the places the armour had been gauged, she looked a little closer. Signs of damage would be hard to spot among the labyrinth of angles, but a visual inspection was part of the troubleshooting process. Her eyes danced over each line, following them from one end of the panel gap to where they snaked back into the ‘Mech’s interior.
All looked clear and secure, Clan engineering ensuring that even in the event of armor breach, the primary systems would not be easy to take out. Let alone the secondary and tertiary.
The systems looked undamaged, so she let the platform carry her down, just in time to see the panel being driven to the manufacturing wing. She followed along, not minding that she couldn’t keep up with the forklift. It’d give them some time to offload before she showed up. The difference in time between walking and driving was significant when dealing with this much space. Sigrid enjoyed the walks though, the Bay in operation was a soothing cacophony of all the different tools interacting with every material under the sun.
The armor repair itself was repetition more than anything. Identify a damaged subpanel. Remove the damaged subpanel. Find a suitable sized replacement. Shape the replacement. Attach the replacement. Repeat.
The capstone was the painting. It needed to match the existing color scheme, and match it well. Fresh paint also looked different from worn paint, but that was nothing they couldn’t handle. In the brochure it had never said that being an artist was part of being a MechTech, but the surprise had been a pleasant one.
The paint fresh but no longer wet, she followed the forklift back to Bay 8. It was already hoisted up and ready to be placed. She considered the automated tools, but for installation the accuracy was even more important than for removal, and handheld tools were king.
The work was honestly calming to Sigrid, alone up on the platform, grafting new skin onto the wounded ‘Mech in front of her. Bit by bit she circled around the edge of the panel until everything looked like she never touched it at all.
She climbed back onto the catwalk where her equipment was stored. She took out her neurohelmet and opened the compartment on her toolkit where she kept her soft tools. She knew them by heart, but looking through them helped remind her which ones she had available should the need arise.
The hop from the catwalk to the top of the Timber Wolf was not a big one. The matte black paint on the armor made it a little harder to judge. What made it really hard to make the jump though, was that Sigrid knew what she was about to do.
She was about to hop on top of a Timber Wolf. She was about to open the latch and lower herself inside. She already knew what it would look like, she knew the view from the cockpit, she knew the exact dimensions of the enclosure.
And that made it all the more daunting.
Gathering her will in her mind and her grip on her neurohelmet, she took the hop.
She was standing on top of a Timber Wolf. She was working on it, it was her work. It was her dream. She unlocked the hatch and allowed herself to slip inside.
Inside the ‘Mech it was quiet. No hum from the reactor, no sound arrived from the outside. There was just Sigrid, trying to calm her breathing, and the terrifying, loving embrace of a dream.
Her mind knew the startup sequence of a ‘Mech. Her fingers danced this dance before. And yet she couldn’t stop trembling as she toggled the first switch.
Bay power to auxiliary generator.
The high-pitched whine of the generator filled the cockpit. It was reassuring, it was terrifying, it was exhilarating.
Flick.
Auxiliary power to emergency lighting.
The lights around her came online. Dim compared to the view through the cockpit, but plenty bright enough to see by.
Auxiliary power to diagnostic systems.
Screens flickered to life. White text flew over a black background as the ‘Mech rose from slumber. Not awake yet, but no longer asleep. Sigrid listened to the whine and the soft clicks performing a symphony of self-tests. The ‘Mech checked its pressures, checked every single one of its connections in a lightning-fast choreography of every system it could access.
The text scrolled by faster than she could read, but she wasn’t looking for text. She was looking for colors. She was looking for the orange that signified a warning, the angry red that signified a fault. Her heartbeat punctuated the soundscape as seconds ticked past.
And then nothing.
No more text flying by, nothing more to focus her attention on. Just a single phrase that was both the best thing she could have read and the most disappointing.
Self-test: 100%
Warnings: 0
Errors: 0
System status: OK
No need to diagnose further, it would not be time well spent. It would be time spent with her dream, but that didn’t matter.
She powered down the ‘Mech, returning it to cold and dark status. Ready for when it would be needed again. She picked her neurohelmet from where she set it down and held it in her hands. She stared at the visor.
Reflected in it she could see a woman with red hair in a tight bun, sitting inside the cockpit of a Timber Wolf. Her dream.
She sighed and rotated the helmet around. With trembling hands she placed it on her head.
She wasn’t plugged in.
The ‘Mech was powered down.
She had better things to do.
Siggy closed her eyes. It didn’t matter.
She had her helmet on
Made from an old football helmet, Utrecht Kodiaks logo covered with silver tape
She could see the canopy in front of her
Made from a laundry basket, tipped on its side
She knew exactly where the missile pods were
Two cardboard boxes, placed on the sofa behind her
She was in the cockpit of a Timber Wolf.
She was in the cockpit of a Timber Wolf.
The beat of her heart and the sound of her breath were the only things accompanying her for this moment in time, etching itself into her memory as her visor slowly fogged up without the air circulation connected.
She took off her helmet and held it in her hands, staring into the condensed visor one last time. There was work to be done.
She extracted herself from the cockpit and closed the hatch beneath her.
The hop from the ‘Mech onto the catwalk was both easier and harder than the other way. She landed with a soft impact of her work boots.
She placed her helmet with her toolkit and sat down on the upper catwalk, out of sight of anyone working, staring at her dream.
She raised her tablet. Four taps was all it took.
Work order complete