Wilson Port, Tewanta - 3305-07-13 08:17 AM, Galactic Standard Time
Francis Bonetti, the deck chief of the Wilson Port outfitting deck shouted across the workshop to his chief engineer.
"Hey! Kayleigh! Could ya come over here for a minute? We need to figure out today's work schedule and assignments."
"Sure thing, Frank.", she shouted back, and started walking over to the screened off niche that served as Frank's office & work area. Frank watched her walk over. He had worked with her for nearly ten years and knew her well enough to know that she was tired. They all were. Ever since the new faction, The Buurian Protectorate, arrived in the system, the outfitting deck had been very busy. They'd recently had to increase the staff by 50%, to fifteen technicians, and they were still struggling to keep up with the work. All his team were working extra hours, but nobody worked as hard as Kayleigh.
"So what have you got for us today, Frank?", Kayleigh said, as she arrived at his cubicle. "Hey, are those cookies?", she asked, referring to the small crate, with 'C is for Cookie' emblazoned on its side.
"Pastries and small cakes actually. Help yourself while I get the details of today's tasks up on the terminal. Arild brought them from the new bakery on Macomb City."
Kayleigh took a bite, chewed, raised her eyebrows in appreciation, and said, "Damn! That is one good pastry! Must have cost a fortune! In a fancy box, too. Any idea what the words below the logo mean: 'Crustulam Pascat Eas'?"
"No idea! And I am not going to do a search either, in case it is something The Order doesn't approve of. Okay! Here we go. We have four general tune ups on vipers belonging to The Order, and one of the Pythons needs two large plasma accelerators fitted. They also need two seeker missile racks added to one of their Anacondas. The Tewanta Company need shield boosters fitted to two Haulers and two Type 6 transporters."
"Maxine can look after the PAs, Felix can do the the general tune ups, and Maria can handle the seekers. We can get Paul & Li Fong on the shield boosters."
"Good. Now comes the weird stuff."
"The Buur Pit ships?"
"Yep! Those are the ones. One of their vultures needs a new shield booster installed."
"The purple one or the spiky one?"
"The purple one."
"Factory standard?"
"What do you think?"
"At a guess, I'd say it's been customized to within an inch of its life."
"You guessed right. It is being delivered by Galactic Logistics some time this morning. It'll also need an engineering blueprint applied when it gets here. One of the custom digitally signed ones from Didi Vatermann. Whoever works on that needs insurance and a signoff terminal."
"While I'd love to do that one myself, I'll get Miguel to look after it. He's ready to take on extra responsibility, and he's pretty good at tuning shields."
"Good call. Then the spiky vulture needs a Prof Palin blueprint applied to its drives. It also needs super conduits added to its power distributor."
A big grin spread across Kayleigh's face. "I'll take that one. It'll be fiddly, but fun. I would love to see how the Professor squeezes extra performance out of those thrusters. Anything else?"
"There's upgrades to be made to an Adder: improvements to the frame shift drive. It also needs an upgrade to the control system and optics of the camera drone."
"Arild and Hiroko can look after the optics system: they are UI software experts. Very knowledgable on life support, too. Miguel and I will train them up on the FSD. They are quick learners. I just wish the commissar didn't dislike them. It makes things a bit tense."
"Have they been saying anything against The Order?"
"No. Nothing like that. It's just that they used to work out at the Black Wildwood Ranch installation, and that makes them suspect for some reason."
"Okay. Not ideal, but they've done nothing wrong. It'll probably blow over."
"Hopefully.", Kayleigh said stiffling a yawn.
Frank frowned. "How are you holding up?", a slight note of concern in his voice.
"I am good. Tired like everyone and I am working double shifts to get the newbies up to speed, but it's okay. I know my limits, and I am taking performance enhancers to stay alert. In a week or two, when the new people are up to speed, I'll be able to slow down. Besides, this is fun. These ships are amazing. A huge variety of ship manufacturers, top of the line modules, and we get to work with customizations designed by the best engineers in the galaxy. On top of that, the configurations are wild. For example, there's an Anaconda with seven rail guns: figuring out how to get thrusters to compensate when they all fire together is a cool challenge, never mind dealing with the heat and the huge swings in power draw. I wouldn't miss it for the world. None of us would."
"Okay. Good to hear. Take care of yourself, though: we'd be even more shorthanded if our chief engineer got sick or had an accident."
"Don't worry, I will. As I said, I know my limits."
"Any other issues?"
"I am not sure Yergey is working out."
"You mean Commissar Ivanov's cousin?"
"He is? Shoot! Well, he's made a few dumb mistakes. Loose couplings, obsolete software patches, underspecced components. If Arild and Hiroko weren't the wizards they were with diagnostic and testing scanners some of The Buur Pit ships could have gotten into bother in deep space."
Frank and Kayleigh looked at each other. Neither of them dared utter the word that had popped into their head: sabotage! A couple of seconds passed before Kayleigh stepped closer and in a quiet voice asked, "What should we do?"
"The best thing we can do is keep our heads down and do the best job we can. Keep Arild and Hiroko at arms length: be friendly, but not too friendly. However, do make sure they always get a chance to run diagnostics checks on The Buur Pit ships before we finish up."
"And what about those?", Kayleigh asked, glancing in the direction of the box of pastries on Frank's workbench. "Arild did bring them, after all."
I think they should be okay. Anyhow, the team could do with a bit of a treat after all their had work recently. Let them eat cake!"