Jethro Goes to War (Wandering Engineer Jethro's tale) (43 page)

“
Well, if you
want your suit to suddenly cut out on you yeah, I'd call it bad.”

“
Oh. Yeah,
that's bad,” Jethro nodded.

“
MAM is the
way to go, but the antimatter's a bitch to come by. I'd say this is
the right compromise. They lose half the power but they won’t
run out of fuel in the field like they did with the MAM. From what I
gather in Firefly's archives, that happened a couple times.”

“
Ah. Yeah,
that'd suck.”

“
Yup,”
Riley shook his head. “That it would. Hand me that laparoscope.
No the other one.” He pointed. Sergei picked up the hair thin
snake like cable and handed it over.

“
Unfortunately
the electronics are fried. Literally. Cooked. So I've got to come up
with another rig. Fortunately I've got the basics on file. I've left
plenty of extra CPU and storage space for future upgrades.”

“
Cool,”
Jethro nodded. He smiled to Sergei. “You know the best part?”

“
No but I
think you’re about to tell me.”

“
This suckers
got armor, dampeners, cloak AND a shield.”

“
Oh hell. I
want one. I sooo want one,” Sergei moaned.

“
Sorry, only
one to a customer. The other suits are all gen 2 armor. The big one
is raider armor though. Best you’re going to get is one of
those. Though we might be able to get you a dampener. I'm not sure.
Maybe a shuttle dampener might work,” Riley said and then put a
tool in his mouth.

“
That would be
a good thing,” Ox said with a nod. He put a part down on a cart
and then lumbered back into the back room.

Riley looked up from
the scope at the Tauren. He took the tool out to make small
adjustments. “For you it's probably a necessity. You running
around in armor on a station...” He shook his head.

“
What?”
Jethro asked.

“
Well, it
depends on the area he's at I guess. But if it's an old station he'd
go right through the deck.”

“
Oh.”

“
So that's
what it does? I thought it dampens something?” Sergei asked.

“
Read the
manual again. Supplemental section,” Riley said curtly. “Field
upgrades and refits.”

“
All right,
it's not like I've got anything better to do right now,” Sergei
grumped, sitting on a stool. His eyes went vacant. “Inertial..
oh.. okay. So it can take away some impact force like a shield... no,
that's not right... but it... hmmm.”

“
It'll smooth
out acceleration. From anything hitting you or you're moving around
fast. It'll also cancel out some of your weight. But that sucks up
juice. A lot. It'll also send out a signal like a flare.”

“
Ah.”

“
Subtle was
never his strong suit to begin with Sergeant,” Hurranna teased.

“
Zip it.”

“
With his size
I can believe it. This reactor's a bit different than the others.
It's got vents on top and bottom.”

“
Heat,”
Jethro grunted. He turned his head slightly to see the armorer. “To
hide the heat and energy signature.”

“
Oh. Yeah,
could be,” Riley nodded. “See, that's another drawback of
the fusion packs. You got them your sending out neutrinos. With the
right scanner package you might as well be tossing out here I am
signs.”

“
Ah,”
Chirby nodded. “That would be bad.”

“
Yeah.”

“
But there is
a fix?” Chirby asked. His second set of arms moved, pulling
parts apart and putting them back together.

“
Only one I
know is to minimize the problem. Keep power usage down and use the
best fuels. Which means helium 3 and deuterium.”

“
Oh. Didn't I
read that the basic suits use a field expedited micro reactor in a
recharging station?” Ox asked.

“
Yeah,”
Riley nodded. “Trouble is where to find one. I'd whip one up
but we can't make a reactor.”

“
What about
parts for one?”

“
Not going to
happen. Oh a few things maybe. Cables, shit like that. But the
injectors and chamber no. Replicator lock out. Same for the
dampeners. Though I might have a work around by using a shuttle one
like I said before. Cobble it together sort of. I dunno. Gotta see
about its size and power demands.”

“
Oh.”

“
We'll see.”

“
What about
the other bits?” Hurranna asked. “Maybe we can help a
little? Check each out and see what's missing?”

“
I already did
that,” Riley said waving his arm. “Ox is in there working
on a suit now.” He waved to the side room. Hurranna went to the
corner and peeked. The giant Tauren was hunkered down next to a suit
laid out on a table. Parts and bits were everywhere.

“
Having fun?”
she asked.

“
Loads,”
he answered, fiddling with a clamp. Hydraulic fluid gushed out. He
grimaced. “You're distracting me.”

“
Sorry,”
she mumbled. There was a loud hiss behind her and she turned.

“
Wasn't me.
Honest,” Sergei said holding his hands up.

“
It... damn.
Pressure hose popped. Pin hole.” Riley sighed looking at the
hose on the side of Jethro's suit. “That's bad. I'm glad I did
a pressure test with air now. I think to be safe I want to swap all
the hoses. These are old anyway. Seals too.”

“
Great,”
Jethro sighed. Back to square one again. He could just imagine how
long that would take.

“
Baby steps
son. Remember that.”

“
Yeah.”

...*...*...*...*...

Jethro grunted as he
used a hole punch and brass swedge to tap the retaining ring out. He
pulled the piece out, took a look at it, then reached in and fished
out the o rings inside the chamber walls. He grimaced as his hand
came out covered in grease and grimy bits of black plastic.

“
You were
right. Rings are gone.”

“
Kinda
figured. Get as much as you can out then we'll clean it up, run a rag
over it, blow it out with compressed air, then put new ones in. Rings
I've got,” Riley said waving to the draws of parts. “Rings
I've got a plenty.”

“
Right,”
Jethro nodded.

“
Take your
time and do it right the first time. It'd suck having to tear it all
apart to fix something simple.”

“
Yeah,”
Jethro breathed. “That it would.”

“
So do it
right the first time kid.”

...*...*...*...*...

Jethro stood and
walked slowly across the room then back. He smiled a closed lipped
smile as he managed to make it back in one piece.

“
Progress I
see,” the Major said from the doorway. Everyone in the room
looked up startled and came to attention. Jethro moved faster than he
intended and nearly toppled before he caught himself.

“
Easy there.
At ease everyone,” the Major said waving his hands for them to
sit back down. “Go back to what you’re doing. I'm just
stopping by.” He came over to Riley and sat on a stool. “How
are things shaping up?”

“
Fair to
middlin. We've mirrored the parts that we didn't have in the left leg
from the right and it's taking a little more breaking in than I'd
like. In fact a little breaking than breaking in to be honest,”
he grimaced. “Some of the plastics are damn old and brittle. To
be expected after a couple of centuries. I've got that suit at ten
percent like the others but it's still damn powerful.”

“
Hmm. I wonder
if we should replace the other suits with the same actuators then?”
the Major asked watching Ox working on Sergei's suit.

“
No way. The
mounts wouldn't hold. Besides, these suckers are power hogs. You'd
cut battery life down to a couple of hours. Now we know why they
needed a MAM reactor. Wish we had one now. They must have been tiny.
Real tiny. The grafted reactor pod tends to throw them off balance.
Which makes them twitchy and of course sucking energy constantly.”

Sergei grimaced and
his tail lashed as he tried to stand. His tail thrashed for balance
again as his legs flexed. It went straight out and up after a moment.
He abruptly sat, crushing the stool under him. The Major winced as he
went backwards then tried to roll to a sitting position and failed.
Ox lent him a hand to pull the torso upright.

“
Heavy,”
Sergei grunted. He rubbed one bare arm with the other. “Even
with just the skeleton.” He took his tail in his hands and
combed it. “Bruised my tail.”

“
Yeah. I'd
say,” Riley said dryly, looking at the mess of his stool. He
shook his head. “Their suits should be only magnifying ten
percent of their strength, but that's still a hell of a lot more than
I'd like. Maybe it's the lack of armor,” he said, suddenly
getting a faraway look.

“
Maybe,”
the Major said nodding. He watched as Jethro got up and walked again.
Carefully placing one foot in front of the other. The panther's suit
was bare, just the raw skeleton wrapped around the skin suit. There
were bits he didn't recognize. A few looked like micro launchers. One
pod on his right hip was a storage compartment, but the opposite
side  had some sort of launcher. There were bits on his hips and
calves he didn't recognize at all.

“
Firefly
called in a programming expert to help with the suit software. We've
created a better adaptive system based on the old suits and an
adaptive AI to run it all.”

“
AI?”
the Major asked startled.

“
Not like
Sprite or Firefly. More of a smart bot really. It can adapt to the
user and interface with their implants. It plugs into the diagnostic
system to make changes on the run. At least that's what the
centaurian Veber and that other kid that's working on the software
said they are doing. That's the plan anyway.” He winced as
Jethro froze.

“
Um, a little
help here?” the Major asked when Jethro didn't start moving
again.

“
What
happened?” Riley said coming over.

“
Stuck. Left
leg and back froze again.”

“
Crap.”

“
See that's
the other problem. The system tends to freeze and lock parts up if it
runs into a problem it can't solve. Or it will have the entire system
lag if it's got an issue. Or it'll lock up entirely.”

“
Ah. So it's a
work in progress,” the Major said with a laugh.

“
You could say
that,” Riley snorted. “A lot of work. And a lot more
work. And only so much progress to show for it.” He jacked in
and frowned. “Hell. Yup, system locked out the C6 spinal
vertebra actuator and the left knee and ankle. Buffer over run... I'm
resetting them now.” He cocked his head. “Okay try it
again. I'll shoot Bobby an e-mail to reset the buggers threshold.”

He turned back to
the Major and shook his head. “That's another issue. Sometimes
the system gets one thing right, or it won’t and it will keep
trying different settings until it does. That can mess up other
things downstream which makes it reset them and start over. It can
get out of control and cascade if you're not watching it. Bobby just
fixed that last night in the latest compiled version. Or at least
said he did.”

“
Not fully,”
Ox sighed. “This suit just did a full reset to default.”

“
Oh shit,”
Sergei growled. “Did I land too hard?” he asked cradling
his limp tail.

“
Unlike you
the suit's computer isn't in its ass,” Riley said with a snort.
Hurranna giggled at that.

The Major smiled and
then nodded. “Um, I was wondering...”

“
No, not a
week. Maybe next week.”

“
Wasn't my
question, though that answered the next. I was actually wondering if
I could check out my suit.”

“
Oh?”
Riley said turning to the Major. “Something up?”

“
Another
recruiting drive sir?” Jethro asked looking up.

“
How'd you...”
Riley asked amused.

“
It's in the
family archive. Show up all spiffy in armor. Impress the hell out of
the locals. Get their attention and you've got them eating out of
your hand.”