88-Valkyrie’s View: A Year Among the Stars
March 28th, 2552 Stress points
Tow Truck Driver/metallurgist’s apprentice/ – Katherine ‘ConV’ James Reporting
Tower and Fipps have been doing their best to keep me occupied and out of the way, but by midday, they’d had to call for re-enforcements. Cookie tried being reasonable and when that didn’t work Mac went straight to the facts.
“Kid,” he began, and I always knew he was trying to lay down some wisdom on me when he started with that. “They aren’t going to let you work on it because the deck is stacked against you. 1) you’re an apprentice, 2) you’re a conscriptee, 3) it’s your ship, and while that would mean to anyone with any sense,” he added gesturing around him to Cookie, Fipps and Tower. “That you are most qualified to work on it— they seem to feel otherwise and when you add it all up, they see you as a problem not a solution, and finally, 5) they’re afraid to risk you based on this development… if anything happens to you… Gumbo 5.7 doesn’t happen.”
So, I can’t be risked working on maintaining the Twilight, I can’t be allowed to work on either of my ships or to do test flights… I let that sink in for a while and finally sighed. “Fine, am I allowed to be acerbic in the corner?”
“Always,” Tower answered.
“Hey, do what you’re good at,” Cookie agreed.
That, at least made me laugh. The good mood lasted until the two mechanics who’d taken my Gumbo apart showed up with a bunch of pictures, wanting to know why I’d used a flatbed fuselage with a Dart/Lander cockpit and balanced it out with a crew transport support.
They did not like it when I answered that those were the parts that were available.
Sometimes you design for effect, sometimes, available parts dictate form.
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