Following Halpert, Mille waited for him to do the talking with the other pilots until he was introduced, offering a friendly little wave towards them.
"Good afternoon! Well... I wanted to ask more about those engines. I've been maintaining a similar vessel to the Kali which is currently docked not too far from here that is basically a hybrid nuclear pulse engine, given all the modifications that were made to what was originally under the hood."
Mille would point towards the other side of the docks, where the Claymore was docked.
"I've been looking for stock versions of this engine technology, preferably with schematics for repairs and whatnot so that I could analyze what we're working with without having to dismantle one that's currently in use by either of you or Halpert here. I got some ideas as to how to copy some modifications that were made to the Claymore that I own for the Pulsar and achieve better efficiency and perhaps thrust performance through the use of... Exotic parts from other houses and a fair bit of experimental tinkering. Don't suppose you two would be willing to lend any knowledge you might have?"
His welder was returned to a nearby bench and the worker starts making his way to a wall full of terminals. Each one displaying a piece information of the Albatross-Class transport the team was working on. With a few keystrokes, a couple monitors changed their information from the transport to the Kali-Class.
"Right here, you'll find all the information of these light fighters. Before and after the Starflier Treatment was applied."
One section of one of the monitors had three icons representing each light fighter. Two of them are green with one red. The worker brings the pilots' attention to this.
"Gotta let you know, whatever you have in mind in doing, only two of the fighters have had the treatment done, Orcus over there hasn't been touched since you brought it back from Baffin, Halpert."
"So two ships have the new engine blocks and Orcus still has the original hardware, gotchya."
"Feel free to use these two screens for whatever it is you're doing. But leave the rest, we need to get the treatment done on these transports."
Leaving the area to return to work, this left the terminals free for examination. Both Halpert and Mille get closer to the screens and Halpert changes the magnification of the display. Instead of having small pieces of information displayed with giant text, it switches to large paragraphs and small text paired with images.
Mille headed over to the terminal, bringing up their tablet to take some notes about their modifications. Seems someone was a little old fashioned... While taking notes, the tinkerer talked with the pilots.
"This certainly does help, but I'm afraid I'll still need to tear down one of the pulse engines side by side with the custom one of the Claymore's... That way we can write down the differences and see which modifications are applicable to be reproduced, sounds good, right? Granted, I'd highly appreciate it if you folks had a spare pulse engine that I could tear down without compromising a ship from your fleet entirely."
The young tinkerer would shift his gaze towards the Orcus, taking a few steps towards it before adding on.
"Hmm... Say, why didn't you modify the Orcus? Something wrong with the ship? Although, bonus points on the naming, it sounds... Intimidating."
The technician at this point has already grabbed his tools and continued his work. Mille's words couldn't cut through the loud sounds of the new brandished circular saw.
"Orcus? Intimidating? You saw Pulsar, right?"
Halpert starts to laugh as his words come out, then composes himself. All four Kali-Class light fighters aren't any different superficially. But Mille's job on board Starflier Base isn't of a superficial kind.
"Suppose it's up to us now. Since we're here, let's take a look at the other ships, especially Orcus."
Halpert walks around the technicians to the three suspended fighters. A terminal next to each one, a down arrow was pressed next to the terminal displaying "Orcus." To Halpert's surprise, a small platform alongside the docking clamp comes down to meet the two pilots. Once the platform touches down, a giant shelf is seen with a handful of hardware, one piece gets Halpert's attention.
"The ship looks fine to me, I don't much care why Orcus hasn't been touched, as long as the techs don't - touch - Pulsar. Now, this piece looks very familiar."
The giant mechanical block has a clear exhaust on one side with multiple connectors and pipes leading out of it.
"A HNP-Class engine block."
Halpert rests his hand on it and taps it twice.
"Time we get to work. When I say we, I mean you. I hope you don't expect me to know how any of this works."
Mille chuckled lightly at Halpert's reaction, but as he brought the platform down, his attention fully shifted to the HNP engine block, his lips curled into a smile like that of a child opening a Christmas present. It would be a bit before he composed himself, rubbing both his hands together slowly before adding on.
Alright, hope restored, hah! Very well... Halper, would you mind telling the dockmaster to clamp the Claymore and bring it over? I'm going to remove the engine block and we can start comparing the two. This will most likely take a while but feel free to stick around if you want... May even turn into a little lesson on how to disassemble the Claymore partially if you folks ever feel like you need a heavier fighter but want to stick to something similar to the Kali.
The young tinkerer looked closely at the HNP block, already inspecting each and every little connector, stuck tracing parallels in his mind to what was similar to Myrtle's engine. It wouldn't be long until he grabbed an adjustable wrench that was laying around, loosening a set of hex nuts that seemingly partly gave access to a fuel injector. Someone was clearly a little eager, almost losing a hex nut as it fell from the engine block. Yet, he'd grab it surprisingly quickly before it fell off the shelf itself.
With the main docking bay being quite a big area, the trip from one end of the bay to the other took Halpert a good five minutes. He wondered why the dockmaster's kiosk wasn't located in the center to make walking to him worth it. In the end, Halpert meets the dockmaster for the third time today.
"Halpert! Coming to tell me why your ship was scorched all over?"
"Nope, need you to move Myrtle to where the Orcus is being kept."
"Always with the requests. Jeez."
"Once Mille is done working on my engine, I'll be free."
"You sure? It's been a handful of hours since you got back."
"Again, be patient."
The clamp comes down and picks up the Claymore-Class fighter. Halpert looks at it and decides to race it back to Mille. The speed at which the overhead rail system works outpaced Halpert greatly, with Mille having already opened up the rear of her vessel to compare engine blocks before the he returned to the Ocrus. Checks were made upon arrival to confirm if the magnetic anchors were in place to keep the ship stationary. Halpert then stops by Mille.
Mille would be found draining the remaining fuel from the Claymore's injectors, making it safer for the engine block itself to be removed. It would be a little while until it was properly unsecured, with Mille using the dock's part maintenance clamps for assistance to bring it over to the table.
The engines themselves were quite different, but there was a certain similarity in terms of some parts and concepts, with the custom engine used on the claymore sporting a wide array of parts that seemingly once belonged to a stock HNP engine block. Parts which most likely made their way into the black market.
I'll be honest with you, this stock nuclear pulse engine seems... Built to tight standards. I won't ask where you got them from but it's a good thing you were using these, so we can apply the same concepts. Now, if you don't mind I'm going to disassemble both blocks down to their core, this might take a while.
With that said, they got to work, starting on the Claymore's engine first, disassembling the outer layer that covered its essential functionality as they talked to Halpert.
So... I know of this thanks to a recent acquaintance of mine, but... This tech as a whole was made by Rheinland, wasn't it? I was still working planetside on Denver by the time the Gauls were fighting the Brets and the Kusari... But when I was going around Gallia searching for some of the parts that Jackson had originally used on the Claymore, I came across this place, a freeport named Monte Carlo... They had lots of parts that dated from the war, including an experimental hybrid engine that could either use MOX or that fancy Promethene-Petroleum fusion... Ultimately it seems the project was scrapped due to unreliable performance, so there were quite a few of them laying around.
Mille would carefully take apart a few lines from the Claymore's engine before disconnecting a pump system, carefully putting it aside.
But, they did something interesting... The pumps and fuel lines for that engine are built up to much higher standards, as they have to tolerate corrosion but also handle mixed oxides... And this is what we have here. Question is... Will we need custom fittings, I wonder.
Halpert sits on a crate that was on the lowered platform. Part of his time sitting down was watching Mille work, but also watching the other techs work on the transport. He had a good view of both projects. Whilst Mille was speaking, Halpert sortof nodding along, paying no real attention to the jargon being spoken. Once there was some silence, Halpert spoke up.
"Your Claymore-Class, Myrtle, that ship is classified as a Very Heavy Fighter tier? If I had a vessel of this tier, would it make your job easier?"
Halpert sighs at the prospect of vessel training.
"If so, looks like it would be my turn to get my pilot license for that tier."
The differences between the Kali and Claymore were minimal, but Halpert knew enough that there had to be a difference in engines to push the greater mass of the Very Heavy Fighters of Sirius. Halpert looks blankly at Mille for a response.
Mille would've been working on that for a while, effectively dismantling most of the Claymore's engine to test fit parts which he believed would increase the stock HNP engine's efficiency. Upon Halpert's question, the young pilot would take a moment to reply.
"Yes, but actually no. The Claymore has a bigger, beefier block so to speak in order to sustain all of its systems and the systems embedded into the ship's underside... We wouldn't really accomplish much because we would be effectively turning the Claymore into a Kali if we were to remove all of the systems and extra plating that were added to the Claymore in order to make it a heavier fighter."
Bringing a finger up and gesturing for Halpert to wait a moment as things fell silent, Mille would walk towards the cafeteria, eventually coming back with two cups of coffee, one of which they'd offer to Halpert.
"Nothing wrong with taking a lesson or two for that tier though, but I would highly recommend you leave it as is... Hell, your main business is exploring things right? You -could- benefit from having a ship like the Claymore... That belly it has can fit a downscaled corona, which if you use proper lenses on it, it can be basically turned into a mining laser to carefully extract samples from things."
"Hmph, maybe I'll store that idea idea for later."
In a near instant motion, the cup of coffee in Halpert's hands turns into a cup. An empty one at that.
"I needed that little pick-me-up, thanks. During my travels around Sirius, I've found shipwrecks that have bits and pieces attached to them, or inside their cargo hold."
The cup is placed next to him, his hands lay on his lap.
"Leaving those treasures for others to capitalize on. Especially clients who pay for the system reports. No, I don't think I'll attach any mining lasers on Pulsar. Plus, rewiring a new single hardpoint mount would be a hassle since my ship has none."
Mille's back was turned, positioned between the engine and Halpert for quite a bit of time.
"How's it going over there? If I don't see anything interesting, I'll just watch the techs instead."
![[Image: PVArGCT.png]](https://i.imgur.com/PVArGCT.png)