Inside the left ankle service portal of a well worn Shadow Hawk, the hunched silhouette of a woman sitting cross-legged in the cramped confines can be seen against the stark white LED wash of light from a techs work lantern within. The loose fitting grease soiled beige mechanics jump suite does little to hide her athletic build nor does it disguise the fact that she is a woman. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a neat ponytail that accentuates her high cheek bones and gives way to her piercing blue eyes and supple lips. A strikingly beautiful look one would expect of a fashion model strutting on a runway in one of the snooty socialite gatherings on Solaris, not elbow deep in the narrow confines of an aging medium class Battlemech.
Reaching somewhat awkwardly under a loose myomer bundle that has fallen lazily across the medial actuator of the ankle joint, she gropes blindly sweeping left to right, straining to reach a sizable shoulder bolt she just recently mishandled and dropped. As she stretches forward in attempt to reach just a fraction deeper into the structure, an azure arc of static electricity reaches out from the myomer bundle and touches the back of her right hand causing her to instinctively and violently yank it away from the source in such a way that anyone in the nearby vicinity would have thought she had severed her hand. “DAMN IT!” she howls while rubbing the scorch mark on the back of her hand before muttering something about forgetting to ground the ambient charge in the neural net before beginning repairs like a tool-bit noob...
She adjusts her seated position slightly and extends her arm forward again and easily avoids repeating her painful gaff as she deftly extricates the offending piece of fastening hardware. With the shoulder bolt in hand, she grabs a ceramic insulator ring from her lap, to which she nimbly slides around a dozen inch-thick myomer bundles and begins the task of affixing these loose bundles to a honeycombed guide beam just above the ankle joint. As she toils with hand threading the bolt to avoid cross-threading it, she glances over her left shoulder and barks in a startling loud voice one would not expect from a woman, to another tech across the bay; “Hey Mike!.. When you fill out the repair log for “Lt. I’m too f***ing cool to float my landings when I descend from a jump”… Make sure to note the fine motor bundle stays for the anterior and medial bundles snapped again making this the fourth replacement this week and that if he wouldn’t mind feathering his landings I’d be immensely appreciative”. “Got it… defective ceramic stays noted in the left ankle assembly, take it easy on J-hops” he responds with a teasing snicker. “*ss kisser!” she quips playfully back at him as she moves onto the two remaining damaged stays...
>> To be continued <<
Edited by DaZur, 09 August 2012 - 05:43 AM.