And another. Immediately following.
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Quote:It was cold. The thermometer told her it was fifty degrees. What? 50 degrees kelvin? Maico buttoned up her lime green jacket, pulling it tight to her body. The ceremony was finished. OV-213-A was being prepared for her first flight.________________________________
The first of the Block III’s according to the literature. Maico had her footage. It just needed a voice-over and some editing. Her breath misted the air, a cold shiver rising through her slight frame. Cold lights cast a pale blueish light over a waiting room.
“Maico.” Hermes broke in “The boss is ready,”
And about time, Hermes didn’t add. But it was there in her voice. The door came open and Maico stepped inside. An aged, ageless, face as craggy as a mountainside, Tolkien beard dwarf, dressed in a red t-shirt and grubby black Jeans was having an argument with Hermes.
“...and she’s here.” Hermes advised him
He rolled upright on the couch.
“Maico, take a seat, what can I do for you?”
“I was hoping to talk to you about a few things,”
“Oh?”
“Hardsuit armour, and the effects of fire on the metals in a spaceframe,”
Wire Geek inhaled. “Well, we do blanks for hardsuit armour. It’s popular enough to pay for the tooling to press the metal into a very rough shape, which the end user then machines to size,”
“I’ve reason to believe that the Knight Sabers are using Battlesteel armour,”
“Well, I doubt we can help with that I’m afraid. If they’re using the standard parts, it could be any one of a hundred people.”
Maico checked her notes.
“I believe they may be custom,”
“Well,” Wire Geek cradled the back of his head, “If they’re machining them themselves out of billet stock, that’s a few thousand who’re capable of building them. And we haven’t had any orders to custom forge the armour ourselves.”
“Have 77 Frigga, or Prometheus Forge ordered any armour blanks,”
“Be careful,” Hermes advised, “You know what happened the last time,”
“Look, about all I can say is that they’re both customers...I think,” He stroked at his beard.
“They are,” Hermes assured him.
“I can’t tell you what they bought,”
Maico took a deep breath, swallowing her disappointment. She closed her eyes, thinking. Maybe I could try a different angle.
“What would be involved in custom forging?”
“A blacksmith?” he snorted.
Maico didn’t laugh.
“The common way would be a drop forge. They’d need a new series of dies for each individual piece, which would be prohibitively expensive and impractical for such a small production run. And rare. It’d be tough armour, but I’m almost certain they’re machining from billet. It won’t be as tough, but it’ll be much easier to manufacture. And much easier to hide.”
“So, you can’t point me towards anyone who might’ve built them?”
“Afraid not,” he said, with a faintly apologetic smile on his face “There really are too many possible candidates.”
Maico’s shoulders sank. I guess I’ll have to find out in person then. “One other thing,”
“Go on,”
“What effect would a fire have on the metals in a spacecraft hull? Would it be possible for a fire to destroy the back of a spacecraft, while leaving the forward parts undamaged,”
Wire Geek exhaled a gruff sigh as he thought, “What sort of fire? And how big a spacecraft”
“Well... I don’t have a video but, it was BAT Lancer,” Maico dug through her memory of her meeting with Ben. “It started small, a then burned very fast. I think it was the metal in the frame that was burning. It was put out pretty quickly.”
Wire Geek’s face lit up with understand “Ah, a metal fire, then fire suppression blows it out and cools the seat of the fire.”
Maico nodded.
“It’s completely ruined then,” he stated. Absolutely certain. Sealed with a sage-like nod. “For one thing, such rapid heat and cooling of the metal would cause it to expand and contract in ways it’s not designed to handle, warping it out of shape. That would be extremely difficult to fix right.”
“I see...”
“Closer to the fire, the metal wouldn’t just warp, it’d lose all its heat treating. It’d be superheated by the fire, then rapidly quenched by the suppression system.” He blew a breath through his lips. “The only thing the remains of the space frame would be good for would be the raw materials. If it’s the fire I think you’re talking about, both those frames would’ve been beyond repair.”
So... she’d have to go to the Forge itself then to chase up the hardsuit link.
Then find some way to get to Frigga from there. From one side of Fenspace, to the other.
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?