NIH Chpt 6

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==Not Invented HereChapter 6 - Negotiations==
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Large organizations have typically not been tolerant of anyone with outsize influence, outspoken opinions or great ability remaining in that position. Either they are suborned into the structure through promotion, or they are brought down. Rare is the company leadership that permits such 'neighborhood giants' to exist, as they warp its very structure. Yet, when just starting a company, and the structure has not been established, it is important to nurture such people. Even if you'd rather not."SuperBoost Your Startups", Chapter 3: "Ego Management - Theirs and Yours", Wonderprint c. 2988
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===Part 1===
Outskirts of Turnville, Wynn's Roost - Outworlds Wastes
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The phone book, upon inspection, didn't have a convenient supplier.
 
Devolo didn't know of anyone who had fuel cells either.
 
Brenda, when she came back, recalled the name of a tractor manufacturer that had been a famous supplier of AgroMechs. Ferguson, mentally kicking himself, immediately dived through the book for the number. The receptionist, after an agonizingly long wait, faxed over a list of their old models. They were all powered by internal combustion.
 
This might take more work than he thought.
 
Once that excitement was over, the inevitable question came: "Whut's th' big deal about fuel-cells?"
 
"I wanted to make my own, uh, 'ride' - when I get one - into something that does not belch fumes." He smiled winningly.
 
"I heard better lies frum me children. Try again."
 
The old saying about three people only keeping a secret if two were dead was practically ComStar SOP, but it was not his. While it was far, far too early, this business's owner had the expertise they would need. Best to come out with it.
 
"I dodged because you would have laughed us out of the room. You're probably aware of my boss' idea for taking on Mackenzie."
 
"I know thu rough details: sell the new tech to Mackenzie, make a fuss about the equipment, then use thu money to refine it for export and restart trade. Right, Francis?"
 
"Aye, ye got it about right."
 
"So! My plan is to ignore them completely, and do everything we can in-house to make a whole new tank. It depends upon the presence of eight or nine moving parts, of which fuel-cells are pivotal. Complete honesty: if we can't find a producer, a tech or even a blueprint for any one of them, this plan is already looking pretty sickly. We don't even have the money."
 
He continued, warming to the subject. "But if we do, if we are lucky and very committed, not only will we see the back of all those crappy Scorpion knockoffs Mackenzie calls tanks, and kick the behinds of any pirate that dares to show up, we'll export the parts, restart trade, and make an obscene amount of C-bills."
 
"Yu don't lack ambition, I tell yu." She seriously considered it, but eventually shook her head. "Not yet. I 'pprciate thu initiative, god knows thuy could do with the competition, but yur right about thur being too many variables. If yu do find thu fuel cells yu're looking fur, give me a call."
 
Ferguson nodded, noting the "not yet". "Understood. Although... Could you ask around your workers if there's a reliable second-hand car I can buy, and say that a techie wants to modify it for fuel-cells? It would be a step up if they knew a shadetree supplier we hadn't heard about." He smiled lopsidedly. "I would certainly like a transport that didn't run on hydrocarbons."
 
"Aye, well, some o' us have to make do." sniped Devolo.
 
Ferguson's eyebrow twitched, but as he opened his mouth to fire back, Devolo continued: "Ferguson, could ye go fetch Diego?"
 
Going to talk about him them. Well, as long as they also talked about his plan, he could cope with the dismissal.
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===Part 2===
Refinery, Outskirts of Turnerville - Wynn's Roost, Outworlds Wastes
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As soon as the door closed and they were sure he was away, Brenda just looked over at Devolo. "Yur not normally this grumpy."
"Ahm grumpy 'cause he's been an arrogant, high-handed fuck frae day one. So used te workin' wi the smartest ones in th' room, he don' think he needs te be mannered, jes' right. Hoh, he fuckin' loves bein' right." He rubbed his face wearily. "Fer a week, inbetween teaching Diego maths, he wus poppin' up every time ah tacked a weld t' show me th' "correct" way t' build an ammo cell till ah asked him to stop. Trying to help, even, bu' he don't realise he's bein' condescending; he jes' sits there, pleased he threw the Periphery barbarians a bone an' waitin' fer the applause. Ah've had about enough o' it."
 
Brenda smiled wrly. "Don't hold back, tell me how yu really feel."
 
"An' if you can't keep up wi' him, he'll jus' carry on an' do it himself because he doesn't need you as much as you need him. Oh, if ye do ask him to stop an' explain, he will, bu' it's fuckin' drippin' wi' th' same condescension! Ahm feelin' like an apprentice in me own company."
 
His old commander had her problem-solving face on. It said, 'Shit is going to be sorted, or else,' Hell.
 
"Can' be havin' that. Yu have a much more competent employee, an' yur jealousy is getting in the way. Am I right?"
 
He hesitated, but nodded.
 
"Well then, use the other superpower: communication. Tell him what yu tol' me an' tell him why he's bein' such an arse. He's your employee, make him act like it."
 
"Ye don' think ah haven't?!"
 
"I do think yu've been hiding what yu really think. He thinks he's too smart to be wrong. He's a man, not the devil nor God Almighty, and neither of yu see it by this point; sit him down like a leader, figure out whur he's coming from, then talk like reasonable people. If there's a disconnect, hash it out. Act, don't react."
 
"Ah shoulda never ha' gi'en that wee girl those management books," said Devolo, but his mood was lifting. "We Alliance barbarians mi' as well play te our diplomatic strengths, eh?"
 
She clapped him on the shoulder. "Francis, it's all we got sometimes." A pause. "And if anyone is listening at the door, you can come in now," she called.
 
There was no reply.
 
"Absolutely thought he wus the type. Ah well."
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===Part 3===
Refinery, Outskirts of Turnerville - Wynn's Roost, Outworlds Wastes
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Ferguson clicked off the modified hearing-aid and slipped it into his pocket. They did say that eavesdroppers never heard anything good about themselves. He would reply that no-one told him everything, so he needed to to have an accurate picture.
 
Once again, he had ignored the human element in his enthusiasm. He was well aware that he was... lacking in a few areas that others seemed to excel in. Too smart to be wrong? More like not whole enough. He could model people, he could predict their actions by making a game of it, read all the books on human behavior and values he could find, even come up with his own set of ethics, but his imperfection in sensing unspoken rules rankled. Those rare moments he was on the same wavelength with the engineers and astechs in Lycomb-Davion were treasured memories.
 
In a way, it was ironic. ComStar had assurance that they were part of humanity's resurgence, because, thanks be to Blake, they were smarter and better-informed than all the rest. Selecting for the best, brightest and/or least moral was an essential part of the immune system that was ROM, and each agent had a place in executing His plan.
 
Thus, they had picked him out of the gutter, who was arrogant enough to think he knew better, twisted enough to lie with conviction and curious enough to test whether technology worked without prayers. Then taught him to think scientifically.
 
He chuckled darkly as a thought struck. Was thinking of yourself as an auto-immune disorder a sign of humility, madness or pride? Whatever.
 
The man currently called Ferguson walked away from the corner he'd been listening from, wondering what 'acceptable' looked like when your baseline arrogance was apparently up a mountain.
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===Part 4===
Refinery, Outskirts of Turnerville - Wynn's Roost, Outworlds Wastes
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The lab was fairly quiet. Diego was nowhere to be seen. The *thunk* echoing from a room next to the lab made Ferguson start, but the few techs attending to their experiments barely blinked. One of them looked up from their microscope. "Ah, you're looking for your employee? He's currently in the physical testing room with Dr. Callum."
Physical testing room? He'd have to check out that out immediately, if only to see how it compared to Federated Suns tech. Lycomb-Davion had invested heavily in as many new toys as they could acquire, like x-ray imagers for microfracture inspection. Honestly, he was expecting a hydraulic press and/or a hardness test with centre-punch and hammer.
Not that they didn't work; the low-tech portions of his classes had been instructive. So tedious, though.
He came in to a thin, energetic, black-haired woman in a stained lab-coat resetting a pendulum on an impact tester. Diego was examining the broken sample with a jeweler's eyepiece.
"...ye see the crystals? Ye don't think of them occurring in metals but-" The woman looked round at the sound of the door closing. He was struck by the simple, plain glasses, tied-back hair, lack of makeup and the bags under the dark blue eyes. "Ah! Hiya." Suddenly he was having his hand shook like a steam-engine crank, and released before he knew what had happened. "Love to talk shop, but I first have to thank ye for introducing me to yer co-worker! He's a real find. Might want to steal him."
Diego's ears could be seen reddening from where he sat at the bench, but his back subtly straightened.
Looking closer, a majority of the stains on her coat were coffee.
"Forgive the shortness, special order coming up, welder wants me down on the shop floor. Bit P.O.'d at ye for dropping him on me. He got it all down in such a short time! Horrible handwriting though." She slammed back a mug of coffee that smelled like it had come straight from a tar-pit, grimacing. "Blegh. Diego, I'll leave ye a worksheet, good job, got to go." She lugged a bit of equipment that Ferguson vaguely recognised as an ultrasonic weld inspector and bustled out the room, though his ears caught, "...why do I have to test it personally?" before the door closed.
The lab was fairly well stocked. Not to the level of LDI, but an automated hardness measuring rig, other equipment that was bulkier than he was used to but still recognisable, and a rank of etching solutions and other chemicals told him that Brenda treated her techs well. He was struck with a flash of homesickness, but it passed.
 
Diego, no longer able to ignore the arsehole in the room, turned to face him. "Uh, hiya."
 
"Relax, not going to say a thing. The boss sent me out of the room to get you but I think we can take our time." A pause. "...She seems competent."
 
"Aye. Super-smart."
 
"Oh, you think she's smart?"
 
"Why, ye jealous?" snarked Diego.
 
"Curious, really. I'm good, but I'm always trying to improve." Before he could say anything about his teaching style, he gestured towards the sample. "What's that you have there?"
 
"Ah, she said it's thu alloy in thu steel frame they're fabricatin'. Sum'thin' called maraging steel. That wee bar almost held against that big hammer!"
 
"Hm. Interesting, your aunt didn't mention that. I suppose it makes sense; you don't want to let on that you're supplying a competitor. Which, now I hear that, I'm almost certain they are, because it's a cheap-ish way of creating tank frames."
 
"Hoy, ye sayin' my aunt's supplyin' Mackenzie?"
 
"Well, yes." Seeing Diego bristle, Ferguson tried to damp down a potential explosion. "It's just a rare instance of good business sense on their part, since from what I've seen she does good work. Not that what I hear of the rest of Mackenzie is laudable."
 
Lately, he'd found it important to establish himself on the 'us' side in a budding argument. He really hated it when people became entrenched. Thankfully, it seemed to work.
 
"Ah suppose. Hope she isnae so busy nex' time."
 
"I can pick up where she left off, if you wish." Taking silence for assent, he continued, "Maraging steels have a high percentage of nickel and sometimes cobalt..."
 
Messy, explosive feelings avoided, he continued the teaching.
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===Part 5===
Refinery, Outskirts of Turnerville - Wynn's Roost, Outworlds Wastes
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It was a few days before he heard back from Brenda. The new fax machine spat out a hand-drawn map, a day pass signed by the quartermaster of Turner's Irregulars, two schedules for him and Diego... and a number with a name and address attached.
 
At last, he had a lead.
 
The 'general meeting' prompted by the forge owner's pep-talk had... well, it had went. It had taken a bit of doublethink to play the part of someone who hadn't been eavesdropping. Simultaneously with that, taking on the criticisms and formulating a short logical explanation of why he felt the need to correct mistakes.
 
Which then led to a longer lecture roughly titled, "don't look down on us for not knowing as much as you" followed by an internal booster course in 'acknowledging the competencies of your fellow man'. His boss was not being petty, but Ferguson seethed internally at having his weaknesses rubbed in his face, even as he took it like the medicine he knew it was; an old battle, much-fought.
 
He could feel his brow furrowing at the thought, and rubbed it to smooth it out. No brooding, today was all positive. They'd be trialing an essential part of the CASE.
 
The test for today would be the beginnings of an ejection system: while containing a salvo, the cells of the ammunition box had to spit the munitions out fast enough to avoid further explosions. A specific place in the rear armour also had to open up or fall away at the same time, and before that act like a contiguous sealed plate even after being shot at. As if that wasn't hard enough, they also had to integrate an autoloader's ammo feed inbetween that mess, without ammo hits inducing a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly of the ejecter.
 
In theory, running the feed in reverse fast enough would do it. In practice, space constraints in BattleMechs, combined with a ton or more of modern high-brisance explosive and volatile propellant, meant that the Hegemony had had to settle for ejecting as much as possible before the blastwave hit, then coping with the blast. Combat vehicles had slightly more room to manoeuvre, but more often than not the energy of the contained salvo bursting out would still set off the ejected ammo.
 
One thing rifles had going for them was the ability to have a human load it, vastly simplifying production and introducing a measure of isolation between the ammo bin and turret - if the designer bothered. Going by the Atacama they had in the shop, they hadn't. It technically still belonged to the militia, so he had been warned off any modifications beyond the prototype CASE Devolo had been commissioned for.
 
He couldn't wait to get his hands on the militia's machines to begin at least a few field-fixes. If nothing else, working on an autoloader would be the first step if they couldn't license and/or source the weapons he had in mind.
 
Devolo was trialing a mechanical solution. The first step was the explosive bolts that would crack open a panel in the armour coverage upon sensing penetration. In this test, that would be simulated by a set of spring pins while the back panel was left off. The second, an extremely strong spring that would, after the breech sealed itself off, eject the entire bin, feed mechanism and all. To simplify the mechanism further, the ammo cells themselves would only contain the first four or five reloads.
 
So far, so simple. The devil of it was that some propellants were more tolerant of rough handling than others. Take a ChemJet round's binary liquid propellant: usually stable when loaded into a Demolisher, but modelling how it would behave accelerating back or sideways at multiple Gs was non-trivial. Would it slosh about inside? Would it be crushed against the sides of the feed by the force and burst through the dividing membrane? What about its viscosity under differing temperatures? They didn't know, and wouldn't until they could acquire a source of autocannon ammunition for real-world tests. The same went for the composite explosive/propellant of missiles, though those, being solid by default, were generally OK.
 
In the meantime, Ferguson had up a list of various propellants' sensitivities to shock and modified the dummy rounds with simple accelerometers. It would have to suffice.
 
The day of Wynn's Roost was just entering second morning, so the sun was not quite directly above. Having an entire Terran-length day feel like morning, or night, had really messed with his body clock until the daylight lamp and blinds.
There was a sputter and then a roar of a V14 engine. The Atacama in the shop, still missing its turret, drove out the curtain in front of the main workshop's door. Diego, wearing a battered motorcycle helmet, was sat in front, driving with the hatch opened.
 
There really was something primally satisfying about commanding a machine of war, as evidenced by Diego's big grin. BattleMechs were the ultimate expression of this - be the titan, striding along, laying waste! - but those were for the lucky, the landed and the elite.
 
Ferguson was of the private opinion that BattleMechs were a terror weapon that had proved to be just useful enough to displace combined arms.
 
Once Diego had edged out into the yard proper, he slewed the tank 180 degrees, causing the rest of them to wince as the worn tracks screeched against the concrete.
 
Apparently, Mackenzie coped with the corrosion caused by free-floating sulphur by... passing the buck. Paint developed for their small ocean-going fleet took care of the armour and chassis, but they'd contracted the task of track construction out to an agricultural firm that served a mining conglomerate, where they had centuries of institutional expertise in forging tracks that were reasonably acid-resistant and could be replaced cheaply.
 
That had been their intent. Devolo had delivered a blistering indictment when asked, covering things like having thrown a corroded track link and having to leave both their Atacama's tracks behind to escape before a Stinger found them. While it was tough enough, the close-spaced links meant they were a bitch to change. Rumor had it that the designer of the suspension had left the ability to drive on the road wheels to increase survivability.
 
Ferguson filed it away as another technical challenge to add to the teetering pile.
 
Anyway, they were giving the tank a run-out because they needed space for this test: how far would it launch, how fast and how badly would it jar the ammunition on the way out? Left unsaid was that this was a reward for Diego for working so hard.
 
"That do it, Grandpa?", asked Diego.
 
"Aye, cut her out."
 
He killed the engine and hoisted himself out.
 
Devolo drove a forklift with the dummy ammo rack round to its back, expertly seating it on the runners before tilting the forks just enough to slide it in.
 
Ferguson handed Diego a clipboard, then remembered and took it back off him, handing over a crude crank. Only walking alongside him with his own crank mitigated the apprentice's scowl.
 
To his chagrin, Ferguson then had to be reminded to use his mask, as any strenuous exercise would have had him hacking and coughing by the end. Diego had slipped his on almost without thought.
 
By the time the rack had been winched in, they were both winded. Ferguson wiped his arm over his forehead, pulled off the mask and slugged water, rinsing off around his eyes like Devolo had insisted upon. The incidence of cataracts and other eye disorders was twice as high as other planets in the Periphery.
 
The catapult was held with a servo for safety, and as a nod to eventually implementing active systems. It reassured Ferguson that his boss was inclined to listen.
 
Devolo, as chief engineer, had the honour of triggering the mechanism: "Testing! Prototype #89, test 123 of the CASE ejection on 1000 kg of mass. Three, two, one, fire!"
 
With a tremendous *CRACK* the tank bucked and the one-ton sled was launched out into the yard.
 
"Shite, Grandpa, ye think ye packed enough truck springs in?", laughed Diego.
 
"Depending on the results, we might need more. Or some damping. Here." Ferguson passed Diego his clipboard and a measuring tape. He, meanwhile, went to extract one of the rounds from each end of the concrete block.
 
What they were hoping for was a solution to a paradox: accelerating gently enough to keep unfired propellant and explosive happy, yet quick & powerful enough to eject the exploding cell or cells out before it chained. Diego called out "1.92 meters!" They just might have the latter, but quick enough? Another big fat unknown, dammit.
 
Looking back at the tank, the spring-pins had all fired at the same time. Good. They were thinking that explosive bolts and a simple hinge would be enough, but Ferguson wasn't optimistic; the sealant underlying standard plate would glue any armour on.
 
Extracting the rounds, he noted down the numbers on the crude gauges and the hacked-up stopwatch on his own clipboard. Ferguson was really missing a dedicated electronics lab. He suddenly remembered that taxi-driver's relative, the first day he came. Lionora... something. That'd have to wait till things settled to bring that up, though, now he finally had something approaching a working relationship.
 
On that note, he checked the figures on his noteputer. They seemed to be within tolerance for RDX, but they were just above SPHN and ETN. On the other hand, the gauges were pretty crude, little more than sliding tabs held in place with a screw tightened to a known torque. With some figuring, you could work out the initial delta-V per millisecond (which was a unit he'd never thought he'd need to calculate before) and thus the potential shock. Unfortunately, he'd had to make some assumptions. The true measurement could easily be 20% more or less either way.
 
"Ferguson?" called Devolo. "How's it lookin'?"
 
"So far, I can tentatively tell you that RDX-based rifle ammo would be fine at these forces. Everything else..." He looked pained. "My instruments just aren't good enough to say for certain. You don't know where we could get some real, live autocannon ammo?"
 
"Ah do, but wi' a few caveats. Matter of fact, you're going there tomorrow. I'll be comin' with, just t' make intros."
 
Caveats. Ferguson recalled the general attitude of the Outworlds Alliance to ground forces, took a deep breath and made a guess. "Aerospace arm gains all the funding?" He was treated to a nod from Devolo. "Inter-service rivalry?" Another nod. "And I bet there's still collaboration between tank techs and ASF techs, as the support arm is lower than all the rest and you can't afford to be divided because there's not enough competent personnel."
 
"Aye, ye figured most o' it, bu' the tankers kinda had t' be their own techs in th' field, so there's a wee bit more professional respect for th' Service Arm. Not th' flyboys tho, snooty bastards." Devolo's seamed face was split into a satisfied grin. "But when Brenda sends you their way, it'll be like, Praise be! Saint Brenda and Saint Francis, deliverer o' a fusion tech, the holiest o' holies!" He gave a 'Halleujah' waggle of his hands and chuckled. "Ahh, I'm kiddin', bu' we're gonna get a lot o' favours outa this. Ain't quite as snooty as ye, bu' they attracted th' best."
 
"What am I, a gift basket?"
 
"Not like it don't benefit ye to have friends in the milita. An' wi' the cooperation, it's also gonna be way easier to snag some AC rounds out o' their one Stingray. If ye could fix it... well. Couple o' them might up sticks and join, just fer trainin'."
 
"They've got a F-90S?"
 
"Had. Trainee flyboy crashed intae th' runway, so ah hear. Bent th' AC/5's barrel thirty, forty degrees, somehow."
 
Ferguson felt physical pain at the thought of an irreplaceable machine being treated like that. Out here, even a sub-optimal autocannon was priceless, never mind the damage that would have done to the airframe.
 
"Hang on, how do they have the ammunition in the first place?"
 
"Twenty, thirty years back, had a trader who had a few contacts wi' the black market tha' could shift germanium discreetly. Managed to get couple holds full o' autocannon rounds, bu' he disappeared and then the Assembly cracked down when someone ratted to the DTF*."
 
"I'm sorry?"
 
"The procurement board. All the more reason we need C-Bills. They were scavenging fro' the raiders..."
 
Ferguson couldn't hide his wince. Any round left behind after a tank cooked-off was either a dud or highly suspect. Juggling live grenades would be safer; at least those had reliable safeties. Some of the nastier pirates would deliberately spike stockpiles with armed shells or missiles.
 
"...but we still have a stock o' the original vintage."
 
Oh. Oh no. "Boss, depending on the composition and date of manufacture, they could be well past their use-by date." He wouldn't be surprised if they dated back to the Star League, or were bathtubbed up in some backwater Combine factory. "Do you know the model of autocannon?"
 
"I c'n ask, but ye'll probably see fer yerself tomorrow."
 
His trip to the militia base was probably going to involve being around degraded explosives. Well, in crisis, opportunity.
 
...maybe he should brush up on his juggling.
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