TBntG Chpt 5

==The Bull and the Genie- Chapter 5==
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===Tourist on Taurus===
3018 - City of Samantha, Taurus, Taurian Concordat
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Don’t look like a country bumpkin. Her commander’s half-humorous words echoed in Mary’s memory. Here she was, wearing her mechwarrior uniform, every bit in place and…
She had to remember to not let her mouth hang open. She’d never seen skyscrapers to tall! Built out of crystal and cermacrete, gleaming in the light. And things were so clean! The air almost felt like ship-purified air, only it had that wonderful scent of growing things in it. The streets were wide and clean, the battery powered cars moving silently. Mary had nearly gotten lost once, but she’d walked up to a little kiosk with a touch-screen, and used it to find her way.
She felt silly, because in addition to her modern e-camera, she had an old-fashioned camera.
But mother had given it to her, along with enough film to fill a duffel bag. Her CO had smiled and ensured it was put where radiation wouldn’t damage it, but now she was here, and Mary wondered if there was even a place in the capitol of the Taurian Concordat that would process something as ancient as chemical film.
Come to think of it, she should take some pictures for Mother. 
Click. Click. Click—HOONNNKKK! 
Someone yanked Mary back from the car that had almost run her down as she’d stepped onto the street. Mary squeaked and blinked as she looked around at the person.
Oh. Mary came to attention. “Sorry, Ma’am.”
“Don’t sorry me,” the woman said. “I’m just here to avoid having to patch you up.” 
Mary blinked and quickly nodded, looking at the Uniform. “You’re Medical Corps!”
“Guilty as charged. Name’s Darcy. You’re not looking where you’re going.” 
“I’m sorry,” Mary said, putting her camera down. “Mama wanted me to get pictures and she’s a bit old-fashioned.”
“I see. Well, since my friends will be badgering me for information about our new mechwarriors, you can pay me back by letting me buy lunch for you. Or let me guess, you forgot to eat.”
Mary blinked then blushed as her stomach gurgled. She had forgotten lunch, since they only had two days before they were moved to base. 
Mary soon found herself sitting at a little diner. A bit further away, some teens her age were trying not to stare at her.
“Is my uniform off?” Mary asked. 
“No, it’s fine, but you’re a mech warrior who just took part in a parade that had 36 new Marauders walking down the street, along with your 12 long-range fire support mechs. It’s been a while, and they’re probably wondering who you had to kill to get the posting.”
“I was best in my class,” Mary said. Then she blushed. “but that wasn’t hard. I mean, we just had mechanical calculators—“
“Up!” Mary eeped at woman’s tone. “I’m not a Davion to ask you if you worshiped the Machine God. You used what you had, and between you, me, and the secret agent in the corner”—Mary tried not to glance at the corner—“Working with a mechanical calculator is harder than a noteputer.”
“Yeah…” Mary shrugged. “But it’s, well the one time the fire control failed, at least I could do some of the calcs in my head.”
“Failed?”
“My training officer was a sadist.” Mary paused. “But I can’t say too much about that.”
“Understood.” Darcy paused. “I’ve been thinking about heading out to Brannis. My hospital has a relationship with the Brannis Health Department. I’m an ophthalmologist, and there’s a huge demand—“
“You’re an ophthalmologist?” Mary’s squeal attracted attention. “Oh Lord, can I get a picture? Have someone take a picture with us together?”
“You’re a fan of doctors?”
“You’re wiping out eye rot!” Mary said. 
Darcy shrugged. “I thought that we were already taking it down.” 
Mary sighed. “Sort of. I know that most of the water where the midges bred has been sterilized but it’s hard. They’re not a bacteria you know, but a little worm. The problem is that they nest at the base of the eyesocket, and can stay there for years, before they start to mature and then they burrow up through the eye, and secrete this kind of… It makes the tissue go necrotic so eye…” Mary ran down and turned red. “I shouldn’t be talking about this when we eat, should I?” 
Darcy laughed. “Mary, trust me, very few things about the human body can ick a doctor and yes, I know about eye rot. I know that we’re working on a treatment, but well, it’s difficult for already infested patients.”
“Don’t worry,” Mary said. “Ann, she was the prettiest girl in school, a lot more pretty than me, she developed it and the Taurian medical mission managed to extract them, and she only lost about 10 percent of her vision with only a little scarring. I mean, in the old days, if she lived at all, she’d have been blind.” Mary winked. “Just tell people you’re a doctor and you won’t have to pay for meals.” 
The conversation continued, as Mary ate the spicy food, talking about places she could go when she was on leave. Mary tried not to talk the woman’s ear off, but… 
She shook her head. “I never dreamed I’d leave Brannis, and I’m here… I flew through the stars…”
“...And the Concordat might demand your life for it.” Darcy said. 
“Eye rot might demand my life. Pirates might demand my life… if I live long enough old age will demand my life. The Concordat gave us hope, so if they need me to die to give it to someone else…” Mary shrugged. “Okay.”
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Later, as Mary headed back to her base, Darcy relaxed. She was an ophthalmologist, but her reserve commission was in intelligence. The TDF trusted everyone in the unit, but MechWarriors who might be fast-tracked for command got a bit more of a check for their discretion. And save for the one, very minor slip up about her training, Mary had been very discrete indeed.
Well, other than the camera. Darcy smiled and looked up at the skyscrapers, starting to gleam with office lights as the sun went down. 
But then, sometimes it’s good to see how other people view us. To see just what achievements familiarity has made us ignore. She shook her head. First a report to her boss, and then study her medical plans for tomorrow. With that, Darcy got up and headed off to her apartment.
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===Building the Tools... For Victory===
Factory, Brannis System, Periphery
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"Sir! This could revolutionize mech combat! Give us an utter, incomparable advantage!"
"Uh-huh. A direct neural interface. Based on the idea of wearing a smaller suit, which is itself powered armor, and hooked directly into the larger BattleMech, allowing you to treat it, truly, like an extension of your own body."
"Exactly."
The man sitting behind the desk smiled. It was not a nice expression. "The revolutionary system that was still sitting at: "we have pretty computer simulations" in the most advanced R&D facilities of the Hegemony."
"But I think it could be done!"
"Sure," Jack told the bright-eyed young scientists in front of him. He reached under his desk and brought out a thick stack of paper.
"What's that?"
"A list of everything we'd have to be able to do first. Not a synopsis, not detailed descriptions, a list of the fucking names of what we'd need to understand. Starting with, oh the important part that was holding up the Hegemony "how not to kill 50 percent of the candidates within the first five years of implantation, never mind the 20 percent deaths on the operating table." He got up and loomed. 
Jack was 6'4 and wide. He loomed very effectively. "Now, you're allowed to look into stuff on your own time. You're not allowed to start trying to push things that will hurt the project, hurt the Concordat, and make the Protector very angry so he yells at Me. Since I can't yell back, it makes me cry. Do you want to make me cry?"
"Uh…no sir?"
"You're damned right. I ugly cry at romcoms, and it's not a pretty sight. The reason you're here is that you've let this little project take time away from what you are supposed to be doing, which is finishing up vetting the schematics for the light fusion engines, which the fabrication department has been telling me they've been waiting for since the last week. No more fantasy projects, not until this project is back on track!"
As the two scuttled out of his office, Jack sighed, waiting while the other door opened, and after two security officers checked it, the Protector entered. "I make you ugly cry?"
"If I'd had to explain this the hard way, yeah. They should be happy I'm a kind individual, or I would have had you do that so they can see how ugly I cry and realize that the Protector was listening in."
"Is it causing any real problems?"
"Nah, we're well within the margin, and the thing is, you hire geniuses, expect 'em to go off the reservation, now and then. We've had a few breakthroughs, but everyone wants to be the guy who changed the world, instead of the guy who pioneered the 10 percent more effective fuse." Jack shook his head. "Okay, and the fact that I'm an applied engineering puke with a BA in engineering and twenty years in uplift, makes some of them wonder if they'll catch me banging rocks together and ooking at the pretty sparks. But you're not here to hear about my problems from kidnapping half the geniuses in the Concordat. You're here to see the first fruits and yeah, it's finished all of its test flights. Follow me."
As they walked out of the complex, Thomas looked around. There were now hangers and cermacrete bunkers, more and more people from Brannis working in the ever growing factories and fabrication sites. Not the only ones—both the core and some of its tech was being proliferated all over the Concordat, but here was where it could be in the open. 
Everywhere else we pretend that we found a few books or manuals, safe for the highest clearances. Here, anyone cleared to be here can call up the total contents. Best of all, the money from licensing the super conductor and water purification systems to the Lyrans is letting me do this without destroying our budget. 
"Behold the Victory!" Jack said as they entered big hanger. The big aerospace fighter was sitting, test insignia on it. Behind it were two more of the same design. "65 tons, Two and a half g's standard thrust, decent warload, most importantly, it includes the advanced armor and heat sinks."
"Some of my staff think it's sluggish," Thomas said. 
"Sure. We're not ready to start producing light engines sir, at least not light engines that are reliable enough for field use, to say nothing of the need for trained technicians." Jack shrugged. "The fittings are designed to accept a light engine when we get it done, but it still has a better acceleration profile than a lot of fighters, and it' s also tough. Double heat sinks let us put in two PPC's and some Medium Lasers for up close, so no worries about running dry."
"And the flight tests?"
"Over eighty hours on every frame we have, and we've put them through a ton of work, but you're not here to hear about boring things."
Thomas tried not to smile. Jack Chen had been vetted and chosen mainly because in the private sector he'd gotten a reputation for taking failing factories, figuring out what was wrong and fixing it—just the kind of man needed to manage a project like this, and he hadn't disappointed.
"The Victory Mod A is our vanilla fighter. I give you the Victory Mod B bomber." 
"Improved engines," Thomas said. "I did read the synopsis." 
"It looks better in person. We pulled one of the PPC's and associated heat sinks which gave us a bomb-bay and it can run a full external bomb load while keeping up with the Mod As. It's a bomb truck that can shoot back, and since the acceleration profile will be the same the bad guys can't pick 'em out of the swarm." He chuckled. "Mod C is our "punch big holes in things". The last fighter had a ugly autocannon muzzle set beneath the pilot's cockpit, along with several SRM launchers.
Thomas wasn't entirely certain about that design. Such a fighter would have to accept everything the enemy could throw at it. On the other hand, if they failed to stop it… 
Well, even a dropship would know that it had been nudged.
"And the guided anti-spacecraft missiles."
"Eh," Jack shrugged. "They can be made, but not in large numbers. I mean, some of the guidance systems aren't just expensive, they'd be competing for things like onboard targeting computers when it comes to the chip source. I figure we can start manufacturing them, but it's going to be a long time before they become something a pilot just grabs because he has an empty hard point." 
"And compatibility?"
"Outside of weapons? Every airframe is 100 percent parts compatible. Couldn't quite get to the point of just being able to change things on the fly, but no mechanic is going to be unhappy."
"Good. We've got three production lines on Taurus ready to go." And advanced armor and internal structures won't be quite as obvious as advanced electronics. Thomas turned to Jack. "Now for the other things. Project Panzer is on schedule, but… I've been getting complaints that you aren't treating Project Knight with the importance it deserves."
"Well, sir, in my uncouth opinion? The complainers need to sit and spin."
Thomas raised his eyebrow.
"Look sir, yes, we have the complete documentation for the Nighthawk. I also have the complete data for a CASPER destroyer, and about as much chance of getting it done. I know people look at a load lifter and say: that's easy, just slap some armor on it, but that's like saying a biplane and drop ship both fly so they're the same. They have no idea what it's like to build a suit of armor that you can treat like an infantry kit, and abuse in the field, that will still keep running with just the maintenance a grunt can do on it. Not to mention the huds, the systems that let him see better than a grunt, let him be able to pull off gymnast style stunts, but that that doesn't let him move the armor so he shatters his legs—I've got some of the bright boys looking at dumbed down versions, which do have more commonality with traditional exos… but yeah, unless you want me to pull a lot of people, it's not going to happen."
"No. But some of the ones in the loop think that we're sitting on the thing that will save the Concordat."
"They won't. Oh, they'd mulch regular infantry, but on the battlefield—big deal, but probably not a game changer. Again, we do have some ideas—one of the bright sorts suggested making a heavier suit with a little cockpit, which solves the issue of designing arms and legs that don't twist the meat arms and legs off, but still… lots of work."
"And how long?"
"At our current pace, and assuming no miracles?" Jack shrugged. "3030. 3030 for limited designs. And I can't really speed that up, because a lot is depending on us figuring out other things. The core helps, but it didn't come with machine tools or trained workers."
"I'll keep them off your back, but what else do you have for me?"
"Well, Sir, they're going to be expensive, but how would you like to come out with me to the test field tomorrow so you can see our first test of the guided Arrow artillery missiles and our new heavy IFV."
"The Rampage?"
"Just the one, and thanks to yours truly riding herd on our geniuses, it'll be the base of five different models, with again, at least 70 percent parts commonality."
"I would be delighted…"
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===Space Fabrication Dock 1===
In Orbit, Brannis System, Periphery
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SFD 1 was far from Brannis, in a place that made little sense. At least unless you had the core. Granted, the Hegemony had flexible fabrication systems that could dynamically adjust heat and magnetic fields while curing a core to make up for changes in gravity. 
They couldn't do that. Those systems were too expensive, which was why they didn't exist outside of Terra. 
Which is why so many cores go bad, Dr. Janice Sims thought. Just the cost of doing business, since you couldn't afford the needed computers, which were all too often diverted for military use. 
But… 
She had figured away around that. Instead of using a computer to dynamically calculate how to keep a KF Core happy in changing situations… use the computer to calculate where you could put a KF core drydock where the conditions wouldn't change. It was beyond the jump limit of the system. Once it was cured, they'd fit it with a navigation computer, charge it up, and jump it to a final fabrication dock.
Something the Hegemony had never worried about because until the end, they had powerful defenses. But here at Brannis, the first six cores were being cured, each one safely far away from the others, each one concealed by the immense void around it…and even better, because they were outside of the jump limit, there was a charged jump ship with an assault ship on its rings ready to come their assistance in minutes. 
If this works, six cores in a year. And two years after that, twelve cores in a year. And better yet, the information they got and the work on it had let them start big. Half of the cores were Invaders, and half were Star Lords. Enough ships to start building up a real merchant navy.
The thunder of the big fusion engine would have deafened anyone close enough to feel the heat from it. Even here, in the bunker, it set the teeth to vibrating.
"Shut it down!" Wilma said. "Four hours… Good job."
"Now we tear it apart," her assistant said, sounding grouchy.
"Computers don't tell you everything, and I'd hate to have someone find out the hard way about microfractures," Wilma said. The single engine was nearly as big as a Union's entire drive assembly, but given it'd be part of a drive assembly for a ship slightly larger than a Mammoth…
And to think that the super conductor is paying for this. The Inner Sphere Militaries had lost interest when they found out it couldn't be used in mechs. But according to her sister, the phone was ringing off the hook at Taurus from civilian buyers. Even some Davions had come sniffing around, and been shown the door. 
Though according to rumor, they were buying via the Lyrans. 
Which didn't bother Wilma. After all, Davions funding the Concordat's industrialization was just wonderful, and they were probably paying through the nose for the privilege if Wilma knew the Lyran's.
Fine with her. Her family still had preserved pictures of the lush forests of New Vandenburg before Forlough turned them to desert. Even today, they were pale shadows of what had come before, many species having been exterminated, and if Forlough had been SLDF, everyone knew that their destruction was Davion's price for his membership in the gang of thieves that called themselves a Star League. 
No, she didn't mind them paying for the Concordat's guns at all.
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