(I just had a three hour bonus phone call from work caused by a lot of sheer idiocy)
September 5th 3050, Seduten
Kronwall wasn't sure how they managed to get it from the cargo bay of the Invictus over to a factory repair bay without anyone figuring out what they had, but he knew Bob and Vasi were known to pull off a few miracles in their day. He made it a note to give them a bonus out of the slush fund once they got their repairs and refits done.
It was decided that the astechs couldn't be trusted to do the work, so Marshall, Vasliveski and Bobrovosky, combined with Oduya and Kronwall did most of the repairs themselves. Nabakov and Calvert remained behind to supervise the astechs and pretend to be a half dozen senior techs at once, which somehow, also worked.
It was still in the mottled grey and blood red except in the areas where they had repaired the armor, and around the cockpit which it was in New Armor Primer(tm) - they hadn't had time to repaint it - nor the desire to since finding a spray booth large enough would be problematic for all parties involved. Kronwall was sitting in the cockpit, noting it was fairly cramped by most standards - he settled a salvaged neruohelmet onto his head - wondering just where it came from and preferring to not ask questions he'd rather not know the answer.
"It came together nearly perfectly?" Kronwall was incredulous at this - the technology difference was causing merry hell for the technicians during the project planning. At one point they nearly had their cover blown when the external speakers starting making falcon screeching noises.
The solution was to shoot out the speakers.
Kronwall could see Bobrovosky and Oduya having an animated conversation in Russian, and Erik waiting on the results to be filtered through to him.
"Erik, they say its ready to go - they think the spirit of Aaron Saultier guided their hand in the ease of repairs."
Erik sat thinking back at the colonel and could possibly see that. "What about that clanking and banging from the ankle where they lost a wrench?"
A momentary pause before a response "They also blame that on the late colonel"
Yeah that sounds about right
"Go ahead and start painting it as we had discussed"
15 Sept 3050.
Well crap.
The Falcons had found them again, and once again, it was time to make a stand. This time. Kronwall had hoped to show the Turkina off once the paint was finished, but there was no time. Only the legs and part of the torso had been finished. Knowing that Colonel Atayde may be less likely to flay him as an example to others right before he was needed, it was time to show the Turkina off.
"Lieutenant, this better be really important..
Kronwall gulped. "Colonel...we may have something that we didn't declare on the customs form.."
"...Go on."
"You remember that thing called a Turkina I placed a melon ball into the cockpit? Well, Its sitting about 4 blocks away...and its fully repaired and rearmored and ready to go."
"YOU DID WHAT?!!!?"
"I took a prize Kato. And somehow, despite all of the madness around this no one discovered it. And its up and running. I should probably show it to you."
A short walk later, where Kronwall was wondering if Atayde would beat him to death with a shoe during the entire trip, they reached the area where his lances assets were bivouaced. The brand new Highlander, two Awesomes, a Phoenix Hawk with an axe on its left arm, a Thug that was mostly intact after it was used to donate parts to the Awesomes and a retrofitted Zeus. And in the very back, was a Turkina.
Atayde inspected it, it was clearly only halfway painted, with only portions of the torso and one leg in the Rangers telltale blue and grey. On one side of the torso near the cockpit glass the words "Somerset hämnande uggla" Kronwall spoke up, his voice still in the tone indicating he was probably going to have a black eye soon. "It means Somerset Avenging Owl. Apparently there are several species of terran owl that hunt falcons. One of the techs thought it was appropriate." On the other side of the cockpit Atayde noticed some more writing. It was clearly in Kronwall and Oduyas handwriting.
Colonel Aaron Saultier, Sgt Natalie Boyle, Sgt Guimar Castro, Rafael Rodriguez
Douggie McDermott, Logano Madaleno, Nicole Viohorev, Elaine Sharpe, Stanislava Grebov
Michael O'Gorman, Elene Bianchette, Desire Daniels, Joanna Glauber, Judy Kawano
Mike Tebbuit, Lowell Metaxas, Guiomar Castro, Heather Armstrong
The roll of the dead from Somerset. Getting onto a gantry to see the rest of the..acquisition, the top of the broad torso was still mostly grey, with some blue paint splashed on the top that was clearly still wet - and the words "not birb no shoot" was there to inform allied air forces that it was working for them and not the Jade Falcons.
"Lieutenant...is it actually ready to go?"
"It is"
"Go use it. But we need to talk about this."
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Topic: 15 September, 3050 (Read 3565 times)