Fiona dropped her gear bag in her small quarters. They were musty, that was the first thing she noticed. The bed creaked like an antique. There were no windows, and she was dubious of the functionality of the single air vent in the room. Everything on Mudd Station had a kind of damp, slimy feel to it, and her quarters were no sanctuary against that feeling.

        In spite of that, she found herself feeling good about her conversation with the unit commander. There was nothing concrete about this Aidan Pryde, but at the very least, he seemed fair, and she dared to hope that his reputation for being unorthodox would translate well into the units fortunes going forward.

        She started unpacking her relatively few belongings, mostly uniforms and such. Truth be told, she hadn't had many possessions with her on Anywhere either. Since leaving home on New Ivaarsen, there had never really been anyplace that felt like home. Mudd Station was certainly not going to be it, that much she knew, even if, in some ways, her little band of friends and allies was starting to feel like family.

        There was a knock at the door, and she bid the person to enter. What came through the door was a scrawny little wisp of a girl dressed in baggy, oversized coveralls that were dirty and stained with what looked and smelled like grease, coolant, and who knows what else. Before her time in the clan, Fiona had been scrawny, but at least she had been tall and lithe. This girl had neither height nor bulk and simply looked frail and fragile. Her light brown hair was swept back away from her face in a short ponytail, and her one cheek and forehead sported smudges similar to that of her coveralls. 

        She thrust a bony hand in Fiona's direction. "Hi there!. My name's Maddie. I'm assigned to be your tech here in the Falcon Guards."

        Fiona shook her hand, which was predictably slick with some kind of grime. She glanced at the collar of the girl's coveralls, which sported the insignia of an astech, as well as marking her as freeborn. "I am Mechwarrior Fiona, pleased to meet you. I was not aware I had a tech assigned to me."

        As their grip broke, the girl wiped her hand on her coveralls and smiled sheepishly, almost blushing. "Sorry about my state. I've been working on your mech all morning, but when the senior tech mentioned that you had arrived, I wanted to meet you. We'll probably be spending a lot of time together getting your mech outfitted at first."

        Fiona waved her hand. "There is no need to apologize. I am grateful for your efforts. I was not aware I had even been assigned a mech yet. I only recently finished meeting with the Star Colonel."

        The girl fumbled through her many pockets and retrieved a small, heavy-duty noteputer, flipped it on, and handed it over to Fiona. "Yep, there you go. Mechwarrior Fiona, that's you, and Hellbringer 1056AH5GHK, that's your ride. She's a little banged up right now, but we'll get that fixed in no time. I've already started some basics. I figure you're probably really stoked, there's not many freeborns get to pilot a frontline omni."

        She knew the basic specs of the Hellbringer class of omnimech, and gave the noteputer a cursory glance before handing it back to the girl. "I will pilot whatever I am assigned to. If you do not mind my asking, you seem rather....young."

        Maddie shoved her hands in her pockets and shrugged. "Maybe a little, this is my first assignment. I just turned eighteen last month. But I know my stuff, I promise. Both of my parents are techs, and I was crawling inside mechs ever since I could walk. Of course, my parents worked mainly on second-line mechs, we bounced around different PGC's most of my growing up. But I passed my exams with top marks, and I even volunteered for the Falcon Guards to get assigned to a front-line combat unit. Not many freeborns in the unit, warrior or tech. Most of the techs here are old wash-ups. I guess they assigned me to you since we're both freeborn. There aren't many freeborns in the unit, mostly desperate ones looking for a last shot at combat. You don't seem to fit that description though."

        Fiona chuckled. "Neg, my curse lies elsewhere. I am here mostly because my bondholder at the time embarrassed a Galaxy Commander."

        Maddie's eyes went wide with enthusiasm. "You were a bondsman? So you're not Falcon born? What clan are you from? You don't talk like a Falcon freeborn."

        Fiona smiled. "That is because I was not born into a clan. I am originally from the Inner Sphere. I was captured in the first wave of the invasion."

        Maddie seemed awestruck. "Wait, you're a Spheroid? No way! Have you been to Terra? What is it like there?"

        Fiona held up a hand to pause the girl's rambling. "Neg, I have never been to Terra. I grew up in the Federated Suns. But that is beside the point. There is plenty of time later for chatting. You said you were working on my mech. Can we go see it and go over its state of readiness?"

        Maddie nodded. "We can go over her with a fine tooth comb if you want. You'll probably want to change. I'll get back to work and you can swing by when you're ready? She's in slot twenty-six in the mechbay."

        Twenty minutes later, Fiona had changed into coveralls and made her way to the mechbay. She now stood in front of slot twenty-six and looked up at a wreck. The basic Hellbringer silhouette was there in terms of legs and torso, but the mech lacked the critical component of arms. The torso armor had clearly been freshly replaced, as it was not even primed in grey. The head looked relatively unscathed. The legs sported pockmarks in the armor and a few laser burns. But the arms both sported nothing but small nubs that were black with laser scoring.

        Maddie popped around from behind one of the legs. "Hey, glad you're here. You want the rundown?"

        Fiona glanced up at the mech and shrugged. "Aff. Why not."

        Maddie walked over and stood beside her, gesturing up to the mech. "Well, you can see, she got trashed pretty bad by her previous owner. Not sure if they even survived. I'm pretty sure it was an LB-X flechette that pierced the cockpit. AMS was torn clean off too. Both arms totally ripped off. Same with the Streak rack in the torso. Good news is that the engine and gyro are untouched, same with the Targeting Computer, the ECM suite and the Active probe. So you've basically got a mostly intact legs and torso, and a rebuilt head. I finished a respec on the cockpit, and it's ready to go."

        Fiona ran her mind over all the info, looking over the mech in front of her. "Keep in mind, I am new to all of this, but my understanding is that omnimechs are modular. Can you not simply fit two new arm pods on and the mech will be ready to go?"

        "Yes, in theory. There are a few problems with that though. First, I haven't looked to see if the pod locking mechanism or coupler are damaged. It might be harder than you think to get those damaged nubs off. Secondly, there are no Hellbringer prime arm pods available. We'll have to either figure out some other combination of Hellbringer arm pods that we do have, or else use something else compatible."

          Fiona stared up at the mech with her hands on her hips. "What are the options?"

          Maddie shrugged. "Depends on if you want to keep the torso roughly in prime config. There's a couple of Timber Wolf prime arms handy. If you pull a couple of the mediums out of the torso then you're neutral in terms of balance, and you're ahead of the game in terms of tonnage. You could bulk up on heat sinks."

          Fiona nodded. "How hard would it be to mount jump jets?"

          Maddie thought for a moment. "Harder in the torso than the legs. I'd have to tear off the A-pods, but that would be easier than trying to get the torso balanced with the current heat sink layout."

          She raised an eyebrow. "What are A-pods?"

          Maddie pointed to a pair of bulging plates on either leg. "Anti-personnel pods. Basically one shot anti-infantry weapons. There's a charge behind those plates, and the plate itself is designed to fracture into small shards to throw out a cloud of shrapnel. Brutal against infantry, not so much when it comes to BattleArmor. But they're easy to pop off, and mounting leg jets is pretty simple. Of course you can only mount two in each leg, so you're looking at like 120 meter jump distance."

        Fiona nodded and smiled. "That sounds like a plan. That would give me about the same lift and distance as I am used to."

        Maddie bobbed her head eagerly. "Alright. I'll see what I can cook up. You can poke around a bit if you want, otherwise, I'll let you know when she's ready."

        Fiona turned to Maddie. "Actually, I was hoping that I could help you out with some of the work."

        Maddie shrugged. "Not many warriors work on their own machines much, especially in frontline units. But if you want to, I'll sure take the help."

        Fiona nodded. "I am not sure how much help I will be, but I will try. I have no experience with omnimech technology, so I'd like to get at least a basic working knowledge."

        Maddie grinned. "By the time we're done, you'll be able to fix her yourself."

        Nearly fourteen hours later, Fiona was starting to doubt her decision. They had just finished locking down the connections on the second arm, which had given them fits removing the old damaged pieces, then more fits trying to attach the new pod. The arms were basically the final piece of the puzzle. They had started off tearing out components, re-routing conduits and feeds, swapping hardpoints out, and ensuring the torso was laid out the way they wanted it. They were both filthy dirty from climbing around, over, and inside the guts of the mech. Very early on, she had developed an appreciation for what an advantage Maddie's diminutive size granted her in maneuvering around the cramped inner workings of the mech.

        Maddie looked over the mech with pride. "It's going to be a day or two before the new AMS module comes in, but that's about all that's left of the heavy lifting. Tomorrow I'll set up the software interface and align the gyro, but I always like to do the real techy stuff when I'm fresh. So, working on a mech, is it all you thought it would be?"

        Fiona rubbed her sniff neck with a grimy hand. "I knew it was an intensive process, but it is entirely different first hand. I think I will sleep better tonight than I have in ages, that much is for sure."

        Maddie nodded eagerly. "A word of advice though? If you don't want to smell like coolant and mech-grade lubricant for a week, shower before you hit the rack. You'll thank me later."