Veni, Vidi, (Re)aedificavi "I Came, I saw, I (Re)built" (A Commissioned Battletech Isekei)

Chapter 9

Date: March 1, 3026

"I don't know how you can live like this," Sylvie said as her and a handful of the old guys from the shop walked around my new house.

"I don't really need all that much," I replied with a shrug. "I lived in a studio apartment for a long time. There's not much I actually need out of a house. I eat dinner and sleep here," I chuckled. "The only reason I bought this house is because the property came with the massive workshop."

"It's not a bad place if you can get past the smell on the drive in," Billy nodded. "I take it the place was cheaper because of the waste treatment plant a few klicks down?"

"Got it for a great price," I agreed. "I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with a four bedroom, three bathroom house. But for now, this is it."

"Men," Sylvie scoffed. "I'm going to help you get this place set up. I don't know how anyone could feel welcome here."

"I've had it for a month!" I protested. "I bought a bed, a couch, a table, and a tri-vid. That's all I need unless I'm expecting someone else to move in with me. Which is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Also, why spend money on areas where I'm not going to be spending a ton of time? Anyway, I've spent more time making sure the workshop has the proper tools for what I'm trying to do. That takes up a lot of my spare funds."

"I'll let it slide because you seem to be eating properly," Sylvie said, allowing my refrigerator to close behind her. "Now, you promised to at least show us a glimpse of what you're working on."

"That you did, boss," Eddy chimed in, the normally silent graybeard seemingly just as excited as Sylvie to see what I was trying to experiment with in the workshop.

"Alright," I sighed. "I see now that you aren't really here for me. You're just here to see what I'm working on."

"It can be both," Billy said. "We're excited that you're living in a house instead of in the loft above the garage at the yard, and we want to see what you're working on."

"Well, I was doing some research into the Age of War, and I realized something after also examining the industrialmech we're using for dragging things back in," I began. "For one thing, the older 'mechs were easier to make. As in, they all had to be built out of industrialmech facilities to begin with before being fully converted into battlemech factories. So, I wanted to do some testing."

"What kind of testing?" Sylvie asked.

"Well, as we discovered with the Griffin we sold to Hammer lance, when you do an engine swap and upgrade the armor to standard, it makes a world of difference for the 'mech. Sure, you're now having to produce the modernized fusion engine, but it's both more efficient in terms of mass, as well as helpful in allowing you to properly armor something."

I opened the back door and led them to the multi-story workshop in the back, the metal structure barely able to contain the height of smethign like that Mackie that lay within. "So, I pulled the engine out of that gutted Marauder and swapped it into this 'mech. It freed up some tonnage for the skeleton without putting undue strain anywhere. Now, I'm not sure what exactly I want to do with the extra weight I've got now, but when I'm done, this will be a mix of modern and old tech that I think can be mostly made in an industrialmech factory."

"How much math did you have to do to compensate the gyro for the decrease in engine weight?" Billy asked, climbing up the gantry and looking closer at the assault 'mech.

"More than I wanted to," I lied, not wanting to explain the strange information that had popped into my brain to make it happen. "That said, this is what I think we should be working towards."

"What, half-assed battlemechs?" Eddy scoffed. "Like anyone will buy that."

"Plenty of militia might buy them," Sylvie pointed out. "They're not quite militiamechs, they've got better armor. It's like a mixture of both. With some of the improvements of battlemechs without putting that high of a price tag on it."

"Problem isn't will someone buy it," Billy muttered. "But how we're going to get our hands on an industrialmech factory."

"There's a few struggling in nearby cities," I smirked. "Turns out with the easy mines drying up, there's not much use for factory fresh indymechs in the area."

"How much is it going to cost to buy one of them out?" Sylvie asked.

"Four hundred million," my smile disappeared. "Even if we tried to take out a loan for it, we couldn't afford it right now."

"So, how do you plan to fix that?" Eddy leaned against the wall. "Because from where I'm sitting, boss. We're not going to be anywhere near that for another decade or so. At the rate we're going. Also, what about licensing fees? I can't imagine anyone's going to be happy with us over taking this sort of thing away from them."

"Manufacturing and business are like a snowball rolling down hill," I began. "It might be extremely slow at first, but when it begins to kick up speed, no one can deny how large and fast it's coming on. As for licenses and patents, the Mackie is ancient, and the Hegemony doesn't exist anymore. There's no one to enforce the intellectual theft, even if it was a problem. So, we'll ignore that unless and until it bceomes an issue. Either way, I've got to finish tweaking this before we can begin seeing how to refit a factory to produce this."

"First, we need to make the money to buy or build an industrialmech factory," Sylvie corrected. "Then we can finish the design."

---

Sylvie had been absolutely right. Four hundred million eagles was a lot of money. Even for an old, decrepit industrialmech factory. So, we'd have to work our tails off, repair and strip anything useful from the yard, and start a fire sale. By my estimates, we were looking at a year or two before we could build or buy an industrialmech factory and start production of the hybrids.

"So, what's the plan for everything we're dragging in here?" Eddy asked, looking at the lance of decrepit 'mechs hanging in the bays of the secondary workshop.

"We're restoring them to the original configuration and selling them to whoever will take them," I replied, ignoring the headache that was buildnig up as I stared at all four different fifty-five ton designs. "Because we're ahead of schedule on the militia tank repairs, I'm planning on splitting our focus, people with experience work on restoring the 'mechs, any new hires start working on the tanks under supervision. We've got the manuals filled out and copies made. So, it shouldn't be too hard to keep up on the contract while we get the rest of this done."

"There a reason we're just staking up the light 'mechs out front?" Billy added to the question.

"We're only fixing things that are thirty tons and heavier," I replied, closing my eyes for a moment in an attempt to block out the sheer amount of information I was receiving. "I ran the numbers, it's cheaper to strip the parts from the bugmechs and use them in other things than it is to repair and sell them on the market. After we've gotten everything useful stripped from them, we'll set them up for use in the proving grounds."

"That makes sense," Eddy agreed. "Bugmechs have a worse rep than Scorpions do, sometimes. So, what are we going to fix first?"

"Mediums are the staple for a reason," I replied. "So, we're going to start with the fifty-five ton trio here, that Phoenix Hawk, and then we'll move on through the rest of the 'mechs in the yard."

"Alright," Billy sighed. "I'll start getting the crews started on the Shadow Hawk, then the Wolverine, and finally the Griffin. The Pixie can wait until we're done."

"I'll work on the Phoenix Hawk," I replied, something about the way the 'mech looked reminded me of being a kid playing through old scifi games on an Xbox. Before I'd started pushing so hard into work. "You guys take care of the other three."

–
–

Three weeks later…

"Do you take C-Bills, or is it just Eagles?" Lieutenant Castle, this merc unit's logistics officer asked.

"We take C-Bills," I replied, knowing that we had an account with Comstar for this reason.

"How much for the lance?" She asked.

"Eighteen million," I started the negotiations at the price they'd pay for brand new machines instead of old ones.

"Maybe if we were buying factory fresh!" Castle scoffed. "Fourteen million."

"Seventeen point five," I responded. "We have these machines running just as good as factory fresh, if not better."

"Fifteen," the lieutenant shook her head. "Hosing out the previous occupants doesn't count as better than factory fresh."

"Sixteen," I gave what I hoped was my final counter offer.

"Done," She replied, extending a hand to shake mine. "Do you have the account details? We'll have Comstar transfer the funds to escrow for holding until we receive the 'mechs at the dropships."

"We'll start working on transferring them into your possession," I said, pulling out a notebook and sharing the acount number with her. "A pleasure doing business with you."

"Likewise," Castle nodded. "It's nice to have people who don't try to cheat you on quality or price. Sixteen's a bit pricy for us, but it's worth it if we don't have to do anything extra to them."

"We'll make sure the ammo bins are full before we bring them over," I chuckled. "Thanks for shopping at Siler's Salvage."

"If you keep this up, we'll be back," Castle replied. "Good used machines are easier to come by than factory fresh. But they're still not common. We'll be back after our next contract."

"Looking forward to seeing you again," I waved as she began to walk away.

"So, how many more lances of mediums do we have to sell to make enough?" Sylvie asked once I got back into the workshop.

"Twenty-five," I sighed. "And there aren't another twenty-five lances in there. We'll make more off the assault and heavy 'mech sales. But we've only got about a company's worth that we can fix and sell. Anything else's going to be some sort of abomination of multiple 'mechs."

"Well, we'll see what it looks like when we get there," Sylvie shrugged. "If nothing else, we can probably get Snord's Irregulars to pay us a quiet visit if we get into frankenmechs. I hear some of their people love that sort of thing."

"I'd rather not make an enemy of the Captain-General," I shuddered. "Infamy might make for good rep sometimes. But not when you're trying to become a giant."

"We could also look into loans once we have the capital," Sylvie offered. "I know that's not something either of us want, but the Federal government does have sections set aside for situations like ours."

"The problem with that is that all of the current companies are entrenched and would look for ways to drive us out of the market if they thought we were competing with them. We won't be, at least not at first. They won't know that for sure until we hi the markets. Until then, we just save up and pay cash for everything."

"Didn't you lose your first business?" Sylvie asked, arching a blond eyebrow as she leaned in the doorway.

"I did," I felt my body tense up at the thought of everything that had led to me getting hit by my own truck. "That's how I know what not to do this time."

"Fair enough," Sylvie shrugged. "I just hope you're right on this one..."

"Sylvie," I sighed. "We could take out a business loan. We'd be buying assets that would be producing worth and holding value. The problem is, that we'd end up paying so much in interest, taxes, and other fees that in the end, it would make it harder to sustain what we're doing for our employees. I compromised way too much my first time. I'm not making that mistake again. We do this smart, we do this slow, and we do it right. I know the snowball looks slow, but trust me, when it picks up speed, you're going to wonder where the time went."