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Making-up-Mech-Pilots
@Making-up-Mech-Pilots

Mech Pilot who has a mathematical formula for everything.


Powerperpetuationsimulator
@Powerperpetuationsimulator

On mech armament, United Military Solutions had specific policies and procedures. Every pilot needed weapons effective at multiple ranges, just in case the parameters of a given mission rapidly shifted. The lessons of the Sileng revolt were paid for in blood, and the company wasn't going to be blindsided again.

This was complicated by the fact that not everyone was around for that particular ambush.

Whaleteeth, for example.


Specialist Rynerson sighed inwardly. Corporate had toured the facility a few weeks prior and decided Whaleteeth in particular was a problem - the minimum range in his preferred loadout was 40 kilometers. Making him trade missiles for a chaingun was going to be a fight.

He actually never saw Whaleteeth in person - his task was largely limited to replacing barrels and stabilizers on the guns. To the pilot's credit, he never wrecked his mech.

Whaleteeth looked like Rynerson expected him to look. Lanky and pale, legs contorted into a pretzel as the pilot sat on a crate of ammunition scribbling something on what looked like a receipt. Piled next to him propped open on various bookstands were galactic almanacs and physics textbooks. The pilot looked up, half-startled, looking at Rynerson owlishly.

"Ah, Rynerson! It is Specialist Rynerson, correct?"

He couldn't have been older than 25, but Rynerson saw his record. Eleven sorties, and that was just with UMS. Every time he came back without a scratch, and DULLAHAN confirmed he usually inflicted damage orders of magnitude higher than pilots with twice his veterancy.

"It sure is. Whaleteeth, isn't it? You had a question about your equipment, I heard."

"Yes! Yes, I did. It's the chaingun, you see."

"The chaingun?"

"The chaingun. I don't need it. I don't want it. I've sortied without it. I intend to continue to do so."

Rynerson sighed inwardly.

"Orders from corporate. You need a weapon for close encounters."

"Close encounters are for infantry. I do not ride into battle atop a horse with a lance, I use a state-of-the-art, highly mobile ordnance delivery platform. At no point will hostiles ever enter my visual range."

"You can't tell me you intend to solve every problem with missile fire."

Whaleteeth stood up at this and huffed. He looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over. "I do not use missiles. I use rockets. I practice rocketry, and I do so without flaw. Open the canopy and I will explain."

Rynerson grimaced at the prospect. Career pilots, especially the ones that owned (or acted like they owned) their own mech tended to treat the cockpit like a bedroom, a kitchen, and occasionally a bathroom. As he keyed open the canopy, it rose to display not the inside of the cockpit, but a forest of thin, yellowing strips of paper completely obscuring the piloting interface. It reminded him of -

"Whaleteeth. That's why, eh?"

"Precisely so. It rankled at first, but one tends to grow into their callsign. But it is not mere decoration!"

Whaleteeth pulled back one of the papers and pulled it from the canopy, allowing a thin stream of light to pour into the cockpit. It gave off the smell of an old library.

"Look at this, Rynerson. It should explain everything."

Rynerson took the proffered paper. On it, scribbled in tiny font and inks of varying colors and ages, were physics equations. It was a little beyond his expertise, but he knew enough to tell that it was basically the same equation, over and over, with a variable slightly altered each time. If Whaleteeth was hoping for a revelation strong enough to win a fight with corporate, he was wrong.

"They're physics equations. This isn't enough to get me to skirt policy, but it might be enough to get you committed."

Whaleteeth gave him a snide look. "They are not merely physics equations. They are rocketry equations. In addition to being a pilot, I am a rocket scientist, and these equations are shorthand for launch and trajectory equations for every rocket-propelled armament in the UMS arsenal, cross-referenced by launch conditions and ambient gravity. The paper in your hand includes launch schema for ACS-20 rockets, launched suborbitally for gravity ranging from 0.2 to 3.3 Gs."

Rynerson looked askance. "You're suggesting you would rather have these than any means with which to defend yourself from attack?"

Whaleteeth beamed, as if he expected Rynerson to be impressed by his lack of self-preservation. "Correct. Take the example in your hand - I used that particular set of equations extensively during the Luxhang siege. My squad's task was to destroy the Indehar Munitions facility, and remove enemy concentrations in the manufacturing zone. A mech armed for close-quarters fighting would have taken heavy fire not only from the defending mechs, but from tanks, air support, even particularly bold infantry! That mission was instead mostly completed while I personally was about 56 kilometers from the AO, hovering in the upper atmosphere well beyond the range of the enemy's defenses. My colleagues simply walked into the wreckage after my salvo and planted a flag. No drama, no risky heroics - just a series of equations that solve to an easy payday. Ask any of them! They'll tell you that depriving me of my ammunition to save tonnage for a chaingun would endanger them all."

Rynerson handed the yellowed strip back to the pilot, who leapt up to the canopy to reattach the tooth.

"Look, I'll cut you a deal. You sign a waiver, I'll fit you with a volt-goad. It's a quarter the weight of a chaingun and you don't need ammo. Think of it as a taser."

"Yes, I'm familiar. What a cunning idea - a token close-quarters weapon to satisfy our paymasters' policies to the letter!"

"Ayup. You'll just have to say that you waive your funerary reimbursement and insurance payout if you get shot to shit."

Whaleteeth brightened. "Bargained and done! Bring your form and I'll sign it, then you can give me my rockets back."


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