TBoB - Book 8 - Chapter 16 - Rebuild not Replace (Patreon)

Hey all, hope you had a good weekend. Sorry about missing yesterday, guess I'm still having some off days... 3 out of 4 isn't bad though, right?Considering the situation I may even get a second chapter done today, so things are looking up. (I hope anyways).Enjoy the chapter. I'll talk to you again soon.

I stifled a chuckle as Dusty practically skipped out the back of the Kodiak before sprinting over to check out the Mauler. The bear was acting like a kid with a new toy, despite having commanded the Mauler before. The thing was, I didn’t quite understand how he could be so excited to climb into the tank again. 

Although I appreciated having good weapons and armor available, I couldn’t remember the last time I was genuinely excited about a vehicle. Maybe when I bought Bear Force One, but that was more pride than excitement. 

Perhaps Dusty took some small part of my personality and exaggerated it, or maybe that part of his personality developed when watching someone else; Perhaps Sharron, Jane, or the kids. He’d spent almost as much time with them before awakening as he’d spent with me, so it would make sense that some part of his, and the rest of the squad’s personalities, were at least influenced by people other than myself.

It wasn’t super important right now, but it was still something I’d have to think about later.

As I strolled out of the back of the Kodiak, and watched as Dusty struggled to climb up the side of the massive tank, I couldn’t help but shake my head. I’d forgotten how big the fucking thing was. 

You could probably fit four Kodiaks within the main hull and still have enough empty space left over for the entire command crew to sit comfortably. The treads were taller than I was, and the massive main cannons, which hung over me as I approached, looked menacing; Which wasn’t a huge surprise since they were the second biggest gun in my entire arsenal, just slightly smaller than the massive UHF railcannons, trumping even the Shardstorm cannons in sheer size.

“Why did it take the Beavers so long to fix the Mauler anyways?” I muttered. “I know it’s big but…”“They pretty much had to rebuild the cannons from scratch,” Dusty shouted over his shoulder. “I kind of damaged the barrels and the weapon housing during our fight with the Gene Tender’s pet by firing both cannons at the same time.”“Shouldn’t the tank have been built to withstand the force of firing both barrels?” I asked. 

“Do you know how strong something needs to be to withstand a single round from those things? They can’t even be used against something like a Model Twenty-Eight while near a populated area, because of how much damage they can cause after passing straight through the Antithesis,” Dusty replied. “They’re the very definition of collateral damage. You remember what happened the first time you fired the UHR? Almost the same effect in a slightly smaller package.”“I mean, I remember asking Nyx for something devastating to anchor our assault, but since we were in the middle of a siege at the time I wasn’t really paying attention to the details,” I said.

“I’m no expert, but you should probably pay attention to Nyx when they’re trying to tell you stuff like that,” Dusty said. “It’ll keep you from blowing your hand off or something.”“It didn’t prevent you from damaging the Mauler,” I muttered.

“True, but I fired the cannons simultaneously despite knowing the consequences. I would have avoided it if I could have,” Dusty replied as he finished his long climb onto the top of the Mauler. He turned around and sat on the edge so we could finish talking. “Can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been to damage this baby in a minor skirmish because I hadn’t used the weapons correctly?”“Pretty embarising,” I admitted. “And although I haven’t made any major blunders like that, I probably should pay more attention to Nyx when they’re trying to tell me something.”I’m glad you finally admit it, Nyx declared. I know you’ve got a short attention span, so I’ve tried to keep the descriptions brief, but it also means that I’ve held back on some of the more… interesting options I could have offered you, knowing that there was a chance you’d end up misusing the thing and hurting yourself.“Hey! I know that I don’t always pay close attention to everything you say, but I’m not that bad,” I growled. “If you told me straight up ‘Hey, this thing might explode if you smash an Antithesis in the face with it,’ I’d pay attention.”

I think that’s debatable, Nyx replied. I’m sure that if I warned you every single time I offered you new catalog, you’d probably tune me out eventually. 

“I’d do my absolute best to avoid doing that,” I muttered. “However, I admit, I tend to get a little impatient while in the middle of combat and if you warned me for every second catalog then I may end up overlooking something occasionally.”At least you’re self-aware enough to admit it, Nyx said.

“Anyway…” I said loudly, coughing into my hand. “Can someone explain to me why it took so long to repair the Mauler? Usually we just replace the damaged parts and move on. Why was it such a big deal here?” I asked, trying to change the topic.

“Well, first of all, you took Bear Force One to the coast almost immediately after the fight against the Gene Tender ended, so the beavers didn’t have access to the assemblers,” Dusty explained. “And from what I understand, if we wanted to completely replace the weapons, they’d need the Class III machines anyway.”

“So? That seems reasonable enough to me,” I said.

“And second of all, you purchased the Mauler, along with its primary cannons, without investing in the blueprints, so even if the beavers wanted to replace something, they couldn’t,” the bear continued.

“Wait? I did? But I buy the blueprints for pretty much all my equipment these days,” I exclaimed.

You didn’t have enough points for the blueprints at the time, even though the Antithesis had been sieging the town for several days straight, Nyx said. And I got the impression that even if you could make a second one in one of the assemblers, which you can’t because of it’s size, you saw the Mauler more as a one-time purchase. Like the Stratocarrier.

“You’re not exactly wrong…” I muttered. “However, I think having the ability to replace different parts of my third strongest weapon when they break down would be exceptionally useful.”“Third strongest?” Dusty asked, tilting his head slightly to the side. “What’s more powerful than the Mauler?”

“The stratocarrier, followed by Bob,” I replied.

Dusty’s mouth flapped open and closed a couple times, before finally nodding. “Okay, fair. The big bear can be fucking scary when he gets serious about things.” 

You do realize that while it’s faster and easier to recycle your broken weapons, you don’t have to have to rebuild them all from scratch, right? Nyx asked. Your beavers have advanced engineering knowledge and can rebuild most equipment if given enough time. Not only that, but if you have the right catalogs, you could order up parts to fix things, instead of replacing the entire thing.

“I know that,” I replied defensively. “It just doesn’t come up that often.” I paused for a minute. “So, the beavers were able to repair the cannons with what was on hand? Even though they’re Class III weapons?”Dusty nodded. “From what I understand, the more delicate instrumentation, like the capacitors and firing computer, is housed in the turret, and while the barrels were bent, they didn’t damage the coils hidden below the barrel’s outer armor. So, the beavers just needed to straighten the barrels out and replace the hardware required to secure the guns to the turret housing. It wasn’t exactly easy, bending Class III materials is difficult under the most ideal conditions, but they managed to get the tank into fighting shape again.”“Huh, remind me to give the beavers a raise,” I said. “Or… access to new blueprints. Or more work? I have no idea what they’d like,” I admitted. 

“They liked when you gave them permission to make those engineering vehicles out of old Kodiak frames,” Dusty said. “Maybe just giving them permission to work on some personal projects would be enough.”“That’s true,” I murmured. “I’ve been keeping them extremely busy with all the repairs and upgrades to Bear Force One lately, but they should be finishing up the worst of it soon. If I give them permission to work on their own stuff that might prevent them from doing wierd stuff, like dressing up Heavy’s rebuild like the set from an old movie.”“It might cause them to tone it down slightly, but I doubt it’ll completely prevent them from doing stuff like that again,” Dusty replied. “They’ve got a flair for the dramatic.”“Well, they’re free to express themselves, I’d just prefer if it wasn’t during such important operations, and not in front of me,” I said.

“You can ask them, but I suspect that no matter what you say, it’ll still come up occasionally,” Dusty said. “If there’s one thing that every single bot seems to have inherited from you, it’s your stubbornness.”“Wonderful,” I sighed. “I’m being punished for my attitude.” “Yup,” Dusty grinned. “You had it coming.”

I shot the bear a disaproving glare, and considered evoking Murphy to put some fear into him, but before I could my augs flashed, notifying me of an incoming call. 

When I saw who it was, I smiled. 

[Hey Mud, where have you been?]