Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Eight: Nearly Optimum Production

A week after kicking Heath out of my office, Pemberley came to visit.

She looked less than happy as she was shown into my office by Nancy, who kept giving her the stink-eye. “Belessar.”

“Commodore.”

“I’ve been hearing things.”

“I’d recommend an ENT, unless you want a quick dose of Cure.”

Pemberley rolled her eyes. “Sarcasm doesn’t befit you. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? BAE-Dragonfly’s been pulling back from their supply commitments.”

“We’ve sort of got our hands full. Humanitarian mission to save twenty-five million people and everything.”

“I hear other things, too. You’re rescheduling deliveries, behind on shipments of armoured suits, and delaying manufacturing of new missiles.”

“I’ll agree on the new missiles, but the rest of it is mostly contract stuff. Why aren’t you talking to Gideon?”

“Because, Belessar, the Ministry of Defence talks to Gideon officially, and his responses are all very logical, contractually correct, and legally sound. I’m here to talk to you. Off the record.” 

“You mean, like Heath?”

Pemberley closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Look - what Lieutenant-Colonel Heath did was not sanctioned officially and does not reflect the position of His Majesty’s Government.”

“Is that why he showed up here and started critiquing my tactical decisions?”

A ghost of a smile crossed Pemberley’s face. “I’d hardly call starting a civil war amongst our enemies a ‘tactical’ decision. At least call it strategic.”

“... What’s the difference?”

“Mostly, who gets to make the call. Tactical decisions are the domain of lieutenants, strategic ones those of generals or cabinet committees.”

I chuckled. “So which am I?”

“You’re Belessar. One could argue that’s an answer in itself.”

“I’m not sure Heath has the right to question me.”

“You’re right, you don’t owe Heath an answer. Me, on the other hand?” Pemberley stared me in the eye. “How many times have we fought together?”

… She had a point. Which made me feel a little bad. 

“If you’d just come to me and asked, Pemberley, I’d have told you.”

“Belessar. You knew this was significant information. Why didn’t you tell us anyway?”

“Because…” I trailed off, as the question sank in. 

Why hadn’t I told them?

At first - before the Raptor Revolution had started - I’d planned to keep the information close to my chest, to prevent the Gellatoids from stopping it. 

But now?

It had been months. And knowing that the Raptors were in the middle of a civil war - one that I’d managed to trigger - would have been useful information for our allies. 

Even if my ‘manipulations’ leaked now, it was doubtful anything could be done to stop the Raptors from killing each other. Plus, if I asked, Pemberley and Windsor would probably restrict the knowledge of my power to a very, very small circle of trusted intelligence personnel - enough to keep things secret. 

So, why had I not told them directly?

I looked for reasons. And - much to my shame - none came to mind, save one. One very simple, human reason that I’d overlooked. 

“I forgot,” I admitted sheepishly.

Pemberley gaze bored into me. “You forgot?”

“There was a lot going on after Tanisport. Between Grumman’s attack, shifting to the UK and the other changes …. it just sort of slipped my mind.”

The Commodore took a deep breath. Then another. 

She was taking a lot of deep breaths. That couldn’t be good. 

“Belessar,” Pemberley’s tone was infinitely patient. “Can you tell me - and Windsor, possibly - about the powers you used now? Or maybe tomorrow?”

“I’ll need a top-secret briefing room, and no records on electronic formats.”

“Done. Any other significant things you might have forgotten to tell us? Just asking.”

I was amazed she’d managed to keep the snark out of her tone. Then again, maybe I’m used to Anne. 

“That’s it for now, Pemberley. And for the record, I’m sorry about the oversight.”

“Very well.”

“There’s something I wanted to ask, though. Heath said he blacked out and assaulted two fellow officers… I don’t remember hearing about that.”

“Because I buried it, Belessar. Edward is a good officer, and a momentary lapse of judgement - especially when he’s just lost his father, and was under the influence of an ultrahuman power - shouldn’t sink his career.”

“I thought that kind of stuff usually calls for a court-martial?”

“A commanding officer can make a judgement call in these circumstances. Heath was put on compassionate leave for a while.”

“Did he tell you…”

“That you see him as an ultra? Yes, he did. I’ve ordered him to go through the assessment again. If he qualifies as ultrahuman, we have a program for former military personnel to contribute in different ways.”

“That explains a lot,” I mused. “I suppose Heath is lucky to have you as his commander.”

“I was lucky to have his father as mine. As a personal favour - can I ask you to forget about Heath’s outburst?”

“Only if you forgive Anne’s slip-up.”

“Fine. You promise not to hold anything against Heath, and we put aside what Anne told Nicholas. Plus, we agree to share more information with each other. Does that work?”

“It works for me.”

“Thank you. Now, what’s the story with the delayed shipments?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Andrew…”

“I’m not hiding anything, Pemberley, this is the first I’ve heard of it. Let me talk to Gideon and get the low-down?”

“Please. I need to refit the Division, and I can’t do it without a steady supply of equipment.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gideon closed his laptop as I walked in. “Hello, Belessar. What can I do for you?”

“Commodore Pemberley just came to me and said we’re behind on our shipments of armoured suits.”

“We are.”

“Any reason why?”

“Belessar, how many suits have you assembled in the last two months you’ve been in India?”

It took a second for my mind to catch up. “Crap.”

“We have the fullersteel, the components, and the raw materials courtesy our standard production lines. We’ve stockpiled what we can. What we do not have is your time and energy in assembling it.”

“Damn it. All right, I’ll see what I can do for assembly.”

“Not so fast.” Gideon pressed a button. “Armand? Can you come in here, please.”

In seconds, Armand DeWitt rushed through the door. “You called, sir?”

“Armand, how far behind are we on the Boar Armour production schedule?”

The factory manager blinked. “Fourteen hundred suits.”

“And how many units do we have raw materials for?”

“About fifteen hundred Boar Armour and another five thousand nanofibre weave combat suits. The fabricators have been running non-stop for a while.”

“Power packs?”

“Raw materials for forty thousand Heavies in stock, we just need Belessar to, er, convert them.”

“There you go.” Gideon looked at me. “I know how critical your time in Mumbai is, so we’ve been pushing back on the shipment priorities. Do you have time - and MP - to spare from the picocicrin permanganate synthesis to make a few armours?”

“Will do. I’m sorry, Gideon, I didn’t realize my schedules were so badly off…”

“It’s not reached a crisis level yet, Belessar. Though being able to spare a few days would be helpful.”

“We can get you set up on the shop floor by tomorrow,” Armand added. “The mannequin stands came through last night, too.”

“Mannequin stands?”

“The boys were getting strain injuries from hauling the Boar Armour suits around, and we’re short on forklifts. So we got these mannequin stands to stash the armour. It’s really convenient for loading.”

“I didn’t realize a mannequin stand could hold up a sixty-kilo suit.”

“These ones are made of steel,” Armand said proudly. “Wheel-mounted, with separate racks for helmet, bodyplate, bracers, gauntlets, greaves and boots. A ninety-year-old grandma could wheel them across the warehouse, and a soldier can just climb on and get armoured up in thirty seconds.”

“We’re selling them as an accessory,” Gideon said. “Along with each suit.”

“Does the military actually buy them?”

“They’re incredibly popular, actually. And we have a patent on the design, so we can charge three hundred quid per stand.”

“.... Three hundred pounds for a mannequin stand?”

“You do realize we have to make a profit somewhere, right? Overcharging for accessories is a time-honoured business tradition.”

I laughed. “If you say so, Gideon.”

“Anything else Pemberley asked?”

“She talked about being more open with information sharing.”

“Did you, by any chance, mention that we’re making a few thousand tons of the most powerful conventional explosive known to man less than thirty kilometres from the heart of London?”

“... Dammit, I knew I forgot something.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a quick call to Pemberley, the wheels of government began to turn rather rapidly. 

Turns out when you need to repurpose a deadly explosive for pharmaceutical applications, you get a whole host of ministries involved. Which was why, the next day, several decidedly serious-looking cars showed up at Farnborough, dislodging multiple men in Saville Row suits and dark glasses, who turned out to be officials of the Exchequer, the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Ministry, the Department of Health, the Department of Trade, and the Department of Fisheries, Game and Wildlife.

Seriously, I have no idea why the latter showed up. 

Gideon spent most of the day closeted in with them, while I chivvied Armand DeWitt around the factory, to try and catch up with the backlog. The very, very large production backlog.

“We’re almost tripping over fullersteel ingots,” Armand explained, as he walked me through the lots. “Not enough for the maser cannons and the like, of course, but more than what we need for the suits. Non-stop production, except when you needed the MP. At this point we have more in our warehouses than we can use - but we don’t know when the first base is going to need its cannons.”

“And you haven’t exclusively reserved them for the bases?”

Armand shrugged. “That’s up to you and Gideon. I just keep making the stuff.”

“Mr. DeWitt!” A worker in a hard hat and vest raced up to Armand. “There’s another truckload of the stuff, sir!”

“Slow down, Jerry. What stuff?”

“They’ve sent another load of the mannequin stands! There’s no space in the warehouse, and the driver keeps saying he has to unload them! What do we do?”

“... They were supposed to deliver next week. All right, have him stash them in the open, and get hold of a tarp.”

“Why are we getting extra stands?” I asked. 

“We planned for four months of phased deliveries, but the manufacturer’s shipping them all this week. Giles’s team and Legal are already on it, but meanwhile we’ve been told we have to inward everything.”

“A problem?”

“Honestly, Mr. Belessar, it’s just another day at work. I’ve got this handled. Jerry - tarps, please?”

“Jerry, wait.” I scratched my head, the seed of an idea forming. “Armand - do we have all of the components for the Heavy Power Packs and the Boar suits in stock?”

“We do.”

“Can you arrange them in a line, along the length of the factory? One mannequin stand, with two computers, four video cameras, eight smartphones, half a kilo of plasmium, four kilos of lithium nitride, and forty-one kilos of fullersteel around it. Repeat, in a line, along the full length of the factory.”

“.... Sure, I can do that. Why, though?”

“I’ll go down the line and assemble as many suits as I can. Then you have fully ready Boar Armour sets, instead of raw materials, and those can be shipped out for our contracts.”

“Will do. How long will it take you?”

“That depends on how soon you get it set up.”

“Got it. Jerry! Forget the tarps, call Terry and the logistics team together and start wheeling everything into position like Mr. Belessar said. Top speed.”

As I watched Jerry race off - presumably to find Terry - Armand turned to me. “It’ll take about two hours, Mr. Belessar. We’ll call you once we’re ready.”

“That sounds fine,” I replied absent-mindedly, my attention on the blinking notification on my interface.

NEW QUEST ALERT: RAPID ASSEMBLY.

YOU HAVE A CONTRACT TO SUPPLY BOAR ARMOUR TO YOUR ALLIES, AND YOU’VE BEEN NEGLECTING IT. FORTUNATELY, YOUR VERY COMPETENT COLLEAGUES HAVE BEEN PICKING UP THE SLACK … SO FAR. NOW, THOUGH, IT’S ON YOU.

ASSEMBLE 1,500 BOAR ARMOUR SUITS IN A SINGLE SHIFT OF EIGHT HOURS. 

QUEST REWARDS: 

A CLEAN WAREHOUSE, AND PAYMENTS FOR FULFILLED CONTRACTS.

SKILL UPGRADE: 6 RANDOM ENGINEERING SKILLS.

NEW SKILL UNLOCKED. NEW BLUEPRINTS UNLOCKED.

+14,000 XP.

ACCEPT? (Y/N)

Honestly, I’d do it just for the XP….

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two hours later, the factory floor had been significantly transformed. The components I’d asked for had been collected and assembled, each centred around a mannequin stand.

To make a Boar armour suit, one needed to fabricate six components - helmet and bodyplate, which were individual pieces; bracers, gauntlets, greaves and boots, all of which came in pairs. The bodyplate required a Heavy Power pack, and each other component - except the gauntlets - required a Medium. 

A Medium Power Pack required a quarter-kilo of fullersteel, a kilo of lithium nitride, and fifteen hundred MP to assemble; a Heavy required a kilo of fullersteel and two thousand MP. Apart from that, the individual pieces of the Boar Armour required significant MP inputs - in total, two thousand two hundred and fifty MP just to assemble them. 

The total MP cost of a Boar Armour suit, fully assembled, was a whopping 10,250 MP, not including the fullersteel cost. Enough that it would take me 18.05 seconds to recharge.

The minute I’d clicked on ‘Accept’, a timer had appeared in my view, paused at 15:00:00, along with a prompt.

TIMER WILL START AS SOON AS ASSEMBLY OF POWER PACKS OR SUIT COMPONENTS STARTS.

TASK COMPLETED ONCE SUIT IS LOADED IN THE TRUCKS FOR DISPATCH. 

Theoretically, at 18.05 seconds per suit, I should be able to assemble fifteen hundred suits in seven-and-a-half hours, easily clearing the deadline with ninety minutes to spare. Theoretically.

Practically?

Imagine making fifteen hundred helmets, then fifteen hundred pairs of boots, and then each of the other components; and then manually sorting and picking one set of each item from the pile. Then moving them onto the racks, and having the racks moved to the nearest dispatch truck. 

Sorting through the messes would be a gigantic, time-consuming headache.

So I’d changed the workflow around. Assemble everything needed for building a Boar Armour around a mannequin stand - which, conveniently, were also numbered - and work on one suit at a time. 

Henry Ford would be turning in his grave. Then again, Ford hired human beings with human limitations.

For now, the team had assembled the available stands into ten rows, each with a hundred and fifty sets of raw material in a line. 

I turned to Armand DeWitt and the two engineers, Jerry and Terry. “Did we get the trucks chartered?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Belessar,” Terry said. “You get a suit assembled, and we’ll move it to the trucks for dispatch. We also called Berry from accounting.” He pointed to a short, petite woman standing by with a tablet open in front of her. “She’ll get the invoices ready when you’re done with each batch of suits.”

“I’ve authorized overtime,” added Armand. “The team will stick with you until we get this done, however long it takes. Free lunch and dinner, too.”

“We should be done by dinner,” I observed. “All right, starting now. Stand back, please.”

With that, I chugged my cup of Hypercaffeine. 

Hypercaffeine is strong stuff. Boosts INT by 1 for fifteen minutes, degrades Charisma and Attractiveness by one each for half an hour in return. Three doses is the maximum you should take at a time, because while the INT boosts don’t stack beyond that, the Charisma and Attractiveness penalties do. 

However, a three-point boost to INT also pushed my MP regen up to 592. Not something I’d try in combat, since it drained Persuasion, Control and Psydef, but effective when you don’t expect to be attacked by alien mind-controllers. 

With the enhanced INT - and the MP regen - active, I stood dead centre between the two rows of mannequin stands.

Each row had been laid out with utmost care, just as I’d asked. A glowing ball of plasmium sat in front of each stand, leaving the factory floor lit up by what looked like an eerie line of lights along the walls of a never-ending corridor. 

One way of doing things would have been to focus on one suit first, getting it up to speed, and then moving to the next. 

But. That wasn’t what I wanted to do. 

Going from stand to stand and creating the suits by hand would have been slow. Slow enough that the time it took me to walk between stands would take more than an hour.

So instead, I grasped the first Plasmium ball with Levitate. 

Then, I grabbed a kilo of fullersteel, and threw them together with two thousand MP added to the mix. Just the perfect recipe for a Heavy Power Pack. 

As the Power Pack warped into existence, I grabbed twenty kilos of fullersteel with my power, levitated it, and formed the Boar Class Bodyplate around it, sucking in one computer, one video camera, and two smartphones, even as 500 MP vanished from my pool. 

The levitating Bodyplated found itself lowered, swiftly, on to the mannequin’s torso, even as more MP funneled its way into Medium Power packs for the remaining components of the suit. As each Power Pack was forged, Levitate picked up the remaining components - fullersteel, smartphones, a videocamera or a computer - and formed the remaining part of the suit around it. 

Even as each component formed, I was stacking it in the right place with Levitate. Which took a couple of seconds - enough for my MP regen to fill the gaps. 

Each power pack took a second to assemble, and then another second to form the armour component around. And another second to float into place. 

Three seconds each for six components, and a Boar Armour suit stood perfectly positioned on the rack. 

I hadn’t moved an inch. And my MP meter was almost full.

I turned towards the stand on the other side. Raw materials ready; time to repeat the process.

Heavy Power Pack, check. Bodyplate, assembled. Float it into position around the armour’s torso. Twenty kilos weight, only 14 MP to lift it for a second, thanks to Level 4 in the skill. 

First Medium Power Pack, assembled. Forge the Boots around it, have them slide to the bottom of the stand, into their pre-designed slots. Huh, the stand is really neat.

For the curious, the Medium Power Pack can be fitted into either Boot, with the only logic being that it has to be on one side or the other. As a practice, I’ve always slotted the Pack on the right Boot.

Second Medium Power Pack, ready. Get the Greaves assembled around it. Since the Boot has the Power Pack on the right, the one for the Greaves goes on the left, resulting in an even distribution of weight along the legs. Levitate them into position on the stand, just above the Boots.

Now for a break, the Gauntlets. No Power Pack, just an application of MP, and they’re ready. They almost jump into position on the stand, even as the MP I’ve expended on the three power packs comes surging back. 

Third Medium Power Pack, the Bracers, meant to wrap around the wearer’s forearms. Although they provide rather more protection than that. The Power Pack, this time, doesn’t rest on either left or right - rather, it’s external to the Bracers, wiring linking the two that’s supposed to rest beneath the Bodyplate. There’s actually a slot at the rear of the Bodyplate to accommodate the Medium Power Pack meant for the Bracers, although the sheet power of the Heavy Power Pack dwarfs its lesser sibling by a factor of twenty. 

The Bracers slide into position as I assemble the last, and arguably most complex, piece of a Boar Armour set. The Boar Class Helmet is lightweight, chemical and bio-contaminant proof, and provides perfect day and night vision to its operator by virtue of videocameras and a repurposed night vision algorithm powered by the microprocessor of a smartphone. Not easy to build at all, though I’ve had plenty of practice.

The Helmet forms around the fourth of the Medium Power Packs my armour has called into existence, and jumps into position atop the mannequin stand. 

Two sets of Boar-Class combat armour. Thirty-seven seconds. 

I’d hardly had to move. However, being closer would make it easier to see if anything went wrong. 

So I started moving forward, and around me, the suits began to take form.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Packs synthesized. Components assembling around them, jumping into position on their stands.

A slow, deliberate step forward as the suits began to form. 

“Mr. Belessar!” I heard the voice of Terry from behind me. “Can I take a video?”

I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

And as Terry the maintenance engineer trailer after me, I let the Boar Class Armour Suits assemble. One suit at a time. 

—-------------------------------------------------------------------

I’d used the two hours of prep time to brew quite a bit of Hypercaffeine. When the stuff wears off in fifteen minutes, you need forty-eight doses to last you four hours.

There are many reasons that one shouldn’t take forty-eight doses of hypercaffeine, three at a time spaced fifteen minutes apart. Leave aside the minus six penalty to Charisma and Attractiveness for a bit, and focus only on the fact that it’s a performance boosting drug meant for short-term use.

Excessive use can damage the kidney, and I don’t mean in the long term. 

Thrice, I had to stop and cast a superpowered Cure on myself, removing the rapid buildup of toxins (which the blinking messages had warned me about). My voice had dropped an octave, and instead of its normal tone, was noticeably harsher - almost a growl. The effect of the otherwise-normal caffeine in the drink had been to leave me far more wired than I should be. At a lower Perception level, it might actually have affected my control; at 50 and with over 150 Psydef, I was basically immune to the mildly hallucinogenic effects. And after six hours, I had to stop using it or start losing kidney function. 

On the bright side? 

The Boar Armour suits went up really fast.

That didn’t mean instantaneously, of course. Four hours in, I had only completed eight hundred suits and was out of hypercaffeine, so the rest of the suits were done at a slower pace - nineteen seconds instead of seventeen.

They were still done. 

The clock was still ticking in my interface, so I kept going. Morning turns to afternoon, then evening, and the number of suits I’ve built climbs. Sixth hour came and went, as did the last minutes of seven. 

I was vaguely aware at some point that Gideon had come by to watch, but he didn’t interrupt. Which was good, because it would have slowed down my progress.

Thirteen hundred suits. Fourteen hundred. Fourteen hundred and fifty.

Fourteen hundred and eighty, sitting on a tree.

Fourteen hundred and ninety. 

By now, I’d walked the length of the factory several times. 

Dimly, I was aware that each suit - as it got assembled - was being wheeled away by the BAE-Dragonfly logistics staff. Truck after truck, loaded with one suit after another. 

Fourteen hundred and ninety-four. I could see Gideon standing at the end of the line, along with several of the suits (the civil servants, not the Boars). 

Fourteen hundred and ninety-eight. Ninety-nine.

At exactly seven hours, forty-five minutes, and thirteen seconds, the fifteenth hundred suit of Boar Armour snapped into place on its pedestal, and the waiting figure of Jerry wheeled it into the truck.

QUEST COMPLETED: RAPID ASSEMBLY.

SKILL UPGRADE: MECHANIC LEVEL 65.

SKILL UNLOCKED: PHASED ASSEMBLY LEVEL 1.

SKILL UPGRADE: POWERED ARMOUR FORGING LEVEL 8.

SKILL UPGRADE: ENERGY SYSTEMS LEVEL 12.

SKILL UPGRADE: ELECTRONIC ARTS LEVEL 15.

SKILL UPGRADE: GRAVITIC SYSTEMS LEVEL 6.

SKILL UPGRADE: SHIELDING SYSTEMS LEVEL 2.

+14,000 XP.

NEW BLUEPRINTS UNLOCKED: REALLY FAST SCANNER, AIRBORNE MANEUVER ENGINE, ADVANCED STEALTH GENERATOR, FOLDSPACE DEFLECTOR, TYPE 5 FUSION REACTOR. OTHER REWARDS TO BE RECEIVED WITHIN 24 HOURS. 

Six skill upgrades - some over multiple levels - and a whole new skill, and six new blueprints. That was one heck of a reward for clearing my backlog! 

Slowly, I became aware of the distant sound of clapping. 

It was Armand. And Gideon. And a whole lot of people I barely recognized in factory overalls. 

And a lot of people I did NOT recognize, decked out in suits and ties. Elizabeth Giles was there, beaming and clapping as well. 

The Ministry officials were still here, after … ten hours? How long had those meetings gone?

Gideon walked up. “It’s not everyday we see that,” he said, mildly. “Thank you.”

“Just clearing the backlog,” I temporized. “Did I miss something?”

The bemused CEO shook his head. “Not much. We were having quite the argument with the Ministry folks until lunchtime, but you sorted it out.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The folks from the Ministry of Defence were rather upset about the delays in Boar Armour production. Said it had been weeks since new suits were received, and we proposed to divert resources to a humanitarian effort.” Gideon chuckled. “They wanted a minimum commitment of two hundred suits delivered per month before we started mass octanitrocubane synthesis for ‘non-military purposes’.”

One of the suited officials spoke up. “As much as it pains me to admit, we did have serious concerns about our ability to defend ourselves, and whether diverting strategic resources for this purpose was appropriate. Now, though?” He shrugged. “I daresay this will keep those who are asking for more in check for a while.”

“Because we aren’t supplying you more suits until you pay for this lot,” Gideon grinned. “I hope the current inventory is enough to meet your needs for the near future?”

The official raised his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. “Consider any concerns from His Majesty’s government withdrawn. And Belessar …. thank you.”

RELATIONSHIP WITH FACTION: ‘GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM’ IMPROVED.