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

Chapter 29

Date: March 5, 3029
Location: Kalidasa, Free Worlds League

"So, You said we could make use of anything we had in the storage," Eddy said as he led me into the 'mech bay that he and Sylvie had been working on their Solaris project in. "Well, given we had stowed that batch of freezers, I modified the engine to accept them."

"As long as you left some samples for us, then that's fine," I grunted in response. Sure, it wasn't great that the samples were gone in the first place, but it wasn't the end of the world. We'd managed to salvage something like fifty or so working and not working models out of various 'mechs in the yard. Mostly pulled out of damage fusion engines that we couldn't get working again.

Just having a handful of the various models should let me replicate them given enough time. Right now though, I just wanted to see what they'd managed to do with the junk that was left.

Stepping into the room, the Rifleman didn't look wrong to my native eyes, but to whatever ability this was, something was wrong.

Invalid unit: Construction rules…

I ignored the warning message flagging across the abck of my mind and simply allowed Eddy to explain what he'd done. It seemed that my power, my ability, worked within certain rules and functions.

The real world, on the other hand, didn't work that way. After all, from what I remembered of Mechwarrior Five, you were technically only supposed to put ballistic weapons in ballistic slots, and energy weapons into energy slots. My power didn't seem to care about that. But it did care about this. I didn't really know why, but it was another bit of information I now knew that I hadn't known before.

"Well, you remember that Marauder chassis we wrote off," Eddy asked me.

"Vaguely," I replied, walking up to the legs. "I remember telling all of you that it was more trouble than it was worth to fix and sell it."

"You were right," Eddy chuckled. "The engine was just about the only thing worth salvaging, and it still needed some repairs before we got it working. But, after fixing it, and swapping the engines out, we now had the power to make do with what we had planned. We kept the PPCs and medium lasers from the old 2N, with the freezers, it's ice cold and we now have the weight and tonnage available to do some mighty interesting things. So, I took a page out of the Jagermech and added in a pair of LRM-5s under the PPCs."

I looked at the carefully concealed launchers. It seemed there were plates or something doing the work to try and keep them hidden, and now that I knew what I was lookin for, I spotted similar bits of metal covering bits of both 'shoulders'.

"Solaris is as much a show as it is a test of skill and technology," Eddy said. "We want to be able to send a message in our first bout. Something that the crowd loves. An ace up the sleeves is the perfect thing to bring them in."

"It's a good idea," I leaned back to look at more of the heavy 'mech. "Anything else you did that we'll have to maintain?"

"Well, I wanted to add jump jets," Eddy sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "But I ran out of space when Sylvie and I started getting creative with the missiles. I could have squeezed them in but then I'd have had to decrease the armor I added. Which would mean less survivability. I could probably still take two tons off to get sixty meters of jump, but I didn't think it would be worth it. If our pilot eventually makes some different decisions, then we can make alterations then."

"How much armor are we talking?" I asked.

"Twelve tons of standard," Eddy slapped the side of the leg. "She should be just as durable as any other heavy 'mech out there."

"Well, if she's ready, then we can prep you and the 'mech for shipping," I told the engineer. "Until we have a full stable of people hired with mechs and pilots to match, you're in charge of this. Hammer got us a line on someone who's been prepping to fight in the medium circuits, and we're going to be backing him. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to establish a stable of mechwarriors, mechtechs, and everything needed for us to support our new representative. I've got a few accountants and others going with you to help, but you're in charge."

Eddy stood there for a second.

"You want me to go to Solaris?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I do," I nodded, crossing my arms and leaning against the frankenmech. "You're a good engineer, you're decent with people, and more importantly, you're trustworthy. I can send you and trust that you'll do your level best until we find someone to replace you if you want."

"No," Eddy shook his head frantically. "I always dreamed of being a tech at Solaris. I just never thought it would actually happen."

"Well," I grinned. "Consider this a dream come true. Also, we're paying for you and your family's housing. Anything you need to get established, we'll take care of it. You just focus on making sure everyone thinks Siler's is one of the best companies that exists in the Inner Sphere."

"You got it," He nodded, meeting my eyes and extending a hand. "I'll make sure Solaris and everyone else knows who's the best."

"It's Defiance, isn't it?" I joked.

"It's Defiance," Eddy admitted. "We're probably not even in the top thirty. But any progress upwards is progress. I won't let any of you down.

---

Date: March 13, 3029


Our new industrialmech lines had been released from the department of agriculture around the end of January, which had meant that everything was still offline until we tested everything and made sure our tolerances were exactly what we had planned for.

Reprogramming and testing had taken the better part of the last month. But now that it was finished, we were ready to being production on the Phoenix. Even better, if our calculations were right, we would be able to produce approximately two of them per month. With the potential for squeezing in an extra two or three per year if we ran extra shifts.

Sure, it'd take two Phoenix's to match the cost of one Mackie, but our margins were better on the medium mechs. They were cheaper to manufacture, we didn't owe anyone any license fees given the company that used to make the 'mech was defunct, and everything else was done in house. It cost us about one and a half million C-Bill to make a Phoenix. That was the raw materials that went into everything, the labor, and the cost over time to make up the difference on what we spent on the lines in the first place.

We were planning on selling the 'mechs for approximately three million per 'mech. Which would allow us to start rebuilding our reserves and invest more into the Mercury facility. I wanted the debut of our first proper battlemech to go well.

Admittedly, that was still a couple of years away, which left plenty of time for us to pump out as many of our assault and medium MilitiaMechs as was posible and put them out on the market. My hope was that we would eventually be the premier seller for rear echelon forces as well as any militia units in the Free Worlds League.

After all, if there was one thing I remembered about learning World War 2 History, it was that the rear echelon troops were always in need of something slightly less capable than their front line counterparts. Something that was easy to work with, work on, and freed up 'better gear. But they still needed something that could both take and dish out. Our Militiamechs wouldn't ever be the equal of battlmechs matching their weight. But they didn't have to be.

The militiamechs were the M1 Carbine to the frontline's M1 Garands. They performed and they did what was asked of them, occasionally they would be asked to do what an frontline needed, and when that day came, they'd perform it to the best of their ability.

And when someone used the 'mechs in combat, or had to make field modifications in order to keep it going, our warranty would cover it. We'd do the repairs, we'd RMA it. Hell, at this point, if someone brought any variant of the Mackie to us, I'd be willing to honor our warranty. It was more than a sales pitch, it was something that set us apart from the competition. The sort of thing that made people actually notice and remember us.

Right now though, I was filling out the purchasing documents for a small stable on Solaris that had been on the verge of bankruptcy. We'd swooped in and bought them along with the adjoining house and property for Eddie and his family.

Getting things ready for Solaris was a lot of paperwork. I'd had to do a lot of correspondence via the HPG and Comstar over the last few weeks. I'd had to register us as a sponsor, find the property we needed, find a stable that was going out, and then I'd had to figure out how to get in touch with the people selling the property, then how to purchase it.

It'd taken a lot of long hours sitting at the local Comstar Station talking to the oddly robed adepts to figure out how all of it worked. Oddly enough, Comstar reminded me of the Jedi Order in a lot of ways. Only they worshiped technology instead of using the Force. The gray robes, the 'supposed' neutrality, everything just rubbed me a bit wrong. Sure, there was obviously big money in retaining a monopoly on the entire telecom system for a galaxy. But something didn't math right in my head with how their prices worked and how much they claimed it cost to maintain the system.

That was all before I'd glimpsed an HPG and nearly passed out like I used to from seeing a dropship. Thankfully, all the time I'd spent learning how to ignore the things my power couldn't work with came in handy, and I'd ended up finishing those Q&A sessions with nothing more than a major headache.

But now that Sylvie's and my signature had been added, we were going to be a part of the sponsors for the next Solaris championship later this year.

"Edmund," Susannah poked her head into the room. "If you're done with the purchasing agreements, I can take them down to the HPG to get them sent off."

"That'd be great," I restacked them neatly before sliding them into a large envelope, sealing it, and handing it to my assistant. "Anything else I need to be worried about?"

"Yeah, the mechwarrior that Hammer got into contact with is here," She replied. "He's waiting upstairs, you might want to meet him and see if he's what we're looking for."

"Just have a security guard escort him down," I replied, gesturing towards the paperwork I still had to do for the new Phoenix lines.

"Sounds good," She waved and headed off.

Really, I was reviewing the logs now that the lines had been tested. I didn't want a repeat of the large laser lines to happen to anything. So, I had to print everything out and go over it.

Pencil in hand, I began to go over line by line of code and reports, continuing until I heard a knock on the door and a man stepping into my office.

"Thanks for meeting with me," the young man sheepishly smiled.

"Let's talk about your future, Duncan Fisher…"

Chapter 30


"Let's talk about your future, Duncan Fisher," One of the owners of the crazy Militiamech company that was helping make the Mackie again said to the younger man. Duncan swallowed. He still wasn't sure how he'd ended up here. Sure, he'd worked for his cousin Justin a few years back. But despite doing decently as a Mechwarrior, he hadn't done well as part of a unit. It'd led to the near destruction of his grandfather's Shadow Hawk, and his taking it back to the family in disgrace until Justin had reached back out recently to offer him a job.

Of course, Duncan hadn't leapt at the opportunity. Family was great, but despite them having your back, it wasn't easy to forget what had almost happened to the family's 'mech. That Justin had reached out at all meant that he'd gotten a good contract and was planning to get bigger after some sort of success.

That had apparently changed in the weeks since Duncan had thrown his savings at a dropship headed for Kalidasa. Instead of hiring Duncan as a Mechwarrior, Justin had sat down with him in a bar outside of the spaceport and had an honest discussion.

"Look," Justin had begun over a bottle of some sort of local beer. "I'm still not happy that you walked away right when the company was at it's lowest point. Glad that you managed to get Gramps' mech out, sure. But not happy that you left us with less than a working lance. If we hadn't gotten lucky, the unit would've gone out of business. Regardless of my feelings about this, you're a decent Mechwarrior, and I know you've been saving up to go to Solaris and put your name in the ring. Well, I have an opportunity for you. My current employer is looking to put someone in Solaris to represent them. This is your shot to potentially make it big. From this point forward, any success or failure is on you. Nobody else. Try not to fuck it up."

Duncan shook his head free of the thoughts and decided to do what he'd always done when feeling out of his element. He was going to not only fake it, he was going to be loud and boisterous about it.

"Yessir, I'm glad to talk about my future. My cousin Justin has had a lot of great things to say about you. Now, I was planning on going to Solaris to compete in the medium 'mech circuit. I've been working with our grandfather's old Shadow Hawk since I was a teenager."

"If you decide to stick with us, we might be able to move you into the medium 'mech circuit eventually, but for now, our team is going to be putting you into the heavy 'mech circuits," the redheaded CEO had an intense look in his eyes as he leaned forward, it was as if the redhead could see into Duncan's soul. Worse, Duncan had no idea if Edmund Blaze liked what he saw…

"Now, I'm not going to be the one you report to," Edmund said, standing up from the desk while calling out to the pretty secretary he had. "Susannah, can you give Sylvie a call and let her know that I'm bringing over her new hire?"

"On it, boss," the now-named Susannah replied, picking up a phone, dialing a few numbers, and repeating those words to someone on the other end of the line. "I'll make sure no one tries to blow up our large laser line. Again."

"That happens?" Duncan asked, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

"Once," the CEO casually led him into the elevator and hit the button that would return them to the surface. "But the once was enough for us to never want it to happen again."

"So, I haven't signed a contract yet," Duncan broached the subject once the doors had shut, leaving him alone with the CEO.

"And you won't until I get approval from Sylvie," Edmund replied with a shrug. "I'm not neurohelmet compatible, I can help design a 'mech, I can run a business, and I can do a whole lot of work to support others. But I have no idea what to look for in someone to represent us on Solaris. So, I'm going to leave that to Sylvie and Eddie. It'll ultimately be their decision that makes this work or not. My recommendation," the elevator stopped at the top floor. "Be honest with them. We're here to help you, and for you to in turn help us."

The doors opened up, and Edmund led Duncan to a car, and opened the door. "This car will take you to the yard where the 'mech, Sylvie, and Eddie are located. You impress them enough, and you'll have a job. If you don't, then Hammer said he'll still have you in the Hogs. See you around, Duncan, let's hope things go well for you."

With that, the door shut and Duncan shuddered. He knew that meeting people who owned companies was intense, but he hadn't been this tongue tied in years. He'd have to see if he could get some of that back. After all, a Solaris Mech Jockey had to have style, they couldn't be seen as some nobody. So, he ran his fingers through his hair one time to make sure that it was still in the right place and prepared to impress this "Sylvie" and "Eddie" characters.

---

Date: March 21, 3029


I guessed Duncan had impressed Sylvie and Eddie more than he had me. Because to me, he seemed just a little too nervous to be the sort of person who could be trusted to perform well under pressure. Maybe it had something to do with us being a new company, maybe he thought that he'd be meeting with someone other than myself or Sylvie, but he hadn't impressed me all that much.

Not that I knew a lot about what a Mechwarrior really needed. After all, I wasn't neurohelmet compatible and had to rely on manual driving when I moved any of our 'mechs out of the production and into the testing area.

Sylvie and Eddie had their strengths, and I had mine. My talents lay in administration, and with the strange ability in my head, with helping redesign 'mechs to be sold as militiamechs. I'd never been one for tournament sports in my past life, whether it be MMA, or football(American or European didn't matter), or anything that most people enjoyed.

So, I was going to leave it in the hands of those more suited to the arenas of Solaris. Sure, Sylvie still had a lot to learn about negotiations and how to handle things that might need to have something lubricate the wheels. But I was convinced that she would adapt perfectly fine.

Thankfully, things were progressing relatively smoothly with the Phoenix. We'd taken the lessons learned from the Mackie, and we were incorporating them. If projections were accurate (They usually weren't), then we'd have our first 'mech off the line in a few weeks to put through all of our usual rigorous testing and paces.

I didn't want to be another 'military-grade' company like I'd heard about back home. Where things were made to be the lowest possible quality. No, we were going to make gear that was second-string, for the rear-echelons, yes. But it was going to be the best.

Eventually, I did want to build proper Mackie and Phoenix battlemechs alongside the militiamechs. If things went well, I figured we'd be ready for that sort of move and expansion inside of a decade.

The real problem I was struggling with right now was the question of diversifying our industrial capacity. Small arms was technically a market we could easily enter into. It was even easier to make a profit via margins. I wasn't sure if we wanted to move into manufacturing gear for the individual soldier on top of making the 'mechs. But every time I looked at how hyperspecialized we were, the businessman inside of me started to shudder. Yes, we could specialize in being a defense contractor, but if one of our factories were damaged, or destroyed, or any number of things, we'd want to have something to rely on that could keep us afloat even in times that were lean.

Despite my misgivings, I had ended up running the math for starting small arms, body armor, and everything a soldier might need barring foodstuffs over the last few days while we were waiting on the last of the Phoenix lines to complete their checks.

No, it wouldn't make nearly as much money as any of our 'mech lines did. But it'd be much easier to acquire tooling, and it scaled extremely well from planetary to interstellar. And, if I could swing an SRM factory into the small-arms then we would have a steady source of income as people purchased missiles from us.

It was odd, and I didn't quite understand how they made it work on an interstellar level, but according to everything I could find, and everyone I asked, the missiles themselves were a universal thing across the galaxy. Yes, there were specialty munitions that had vanished over the centuries of war, but everything else had standardized long ago.

Which meant that anyone who had a factory that produced missiles, whether long-range or short-range had a money printer. Was it a fast money printer? No, but it was a constant stream of cash that wouldn't die down.

If I were going to do this, I wanted to get Rebecca involved. After all, she loved small arms. She might enjoy being able to pilot 'mechs, but she lived to be able to use the arsenal she'd built up over the years. If I could get her input and her investment into what was worthwhile, we could expand our portfolio into something that we could also apparently market to civilians.

Which was both cool and unsettling in equal parts to someone like me who'd never done more than go to the range with family when growing up. Nowadays, I somewhat understood why my grandfather'd always wanted me to go hunting with him and to learn all of this stuff.

The world was a dangerous place. Being prepared for anything that might happen while we lived in it made a lot more sense to me now than it ever had back home.

Back on Earth, even with natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, it felt like there was a chance to come together and for the government to eventually step in and help. It didn't feel like that here. If a disaster happened and your planet needed help, you were on your own. Even worlds that were more valuable weren't immune to losing out. I'd done my research, Kalidasa had gotten off lightly, there were worlds that had been industrial powerhouses. They'd been decimated, written off, and forgotten about. Even if it hadn't happened lately, that didn't mean that it wasn't possible for it to happen again in the future.

Things had been going well for us so far. Now I was just going to wait for the other shoe to drop and for things to fall apart around me. The 4th Succession War had started last year. We were one jump away from the Lyran Commonwealth border. It would only take one disaster for us to lose everything and for me to be back to square one. Again…