Second Chances (114 page)

She exhaled slowly. “That's...”

“Only part of it,” Mitch said.

“You...what else?”

“Let's just say that if we succeed I suspect someone will sit up and take notice.”

She blinked at him. He shrugged. “Everyone's been wondering...I think maybe we should kick things off on our own instead of sitting around waiting. Don't you?”

She blinked in confusion and then shrugged. She turned as a high pitched squeal interrupted her thoughts, it looked like the Cassie raptor had caught the little Protoceraops Tucker. She smiled indulgently as Cassie tickled the little imp as she carried his squirming form back to her parents. “Don't look now but dinner's about to be served,” she said, nodding her chin to Tucker.

“Ah, good,” Mitch said, rubbing his hands together. “Poor lad. He'll never get properly potty trained if you evil women keep tickling him silly like that,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” Cassie demanded, stopping to tuck her little brother under her arm. “Mom, you going to let him talk like that?” she asked, turning to her mom as Tucker caught his breath.

Sandra shrugged. “For now. He's only telling the truth honey,” she said.

Vance chuckled. Cassie turned a glower on him. “Quiet you,” she growled. He immediately stopped gloating and sobered. Cassie nodded and then sat, swinging her little brother around to plop him in her mother's lap. “Delivery for you,” she said.

“My thanks,” Sandra said. Her eyes twinkled as her son looked at her in mock fear. She poked him, then pulled up his shirt and blew a raspberry on his tummy. The boy shrieked a laugh once more.

Mitch shook his head. “Well, that's one way of tuckering him out,” he said.

Cassie snorted. “Yeah, we learned it from you,” she said. He chuckled.

“Mommy! Stop!” Tucker said, shocking them all. They turned to stare at the boy.

“Well, he did say mommy,” Mitch said huskily as everyone stopped talking to stare at the boy.

“A year old, walking, half potty trained, solid food, he can dress and undress himself...and now this,” Sandra murmured, wiping happy tears from her eyes. “You are something else my boy,” she said, nuzzling her son. Tucker wrapped his small arms around her neck and hugged her back.

------*------

A day before the great migration was due to pass Capital Base Rozerita went into labor. Throughout the pregnancy she had been wan, depressed and unhappy. She tended to cry a lot at night. It was hard, ever so hard even though Janet, Anne, and the others did their best to help and the kids were angels. She'd tried to put on a brave face. She'd tried to listen to Doc when she had sat down and explained about the cloning issue. She didn't understand how the child could be copy of her or...she shook off the thought.

She had come to a decision; one she hadn't discussed with the kids but had with Sandra. She'd opted to put the baby up for adoption. Tina over at the Mountain Village had offered to take the child. Chief Roberts wasn't ready to be a father yet, and both adults were rather busy, or so they said.

When the baby was born Rozerita felt overwhelming relief, first in that it was over, and second, that it was a girl.

Mitch came by to congratulate her with her kids. She felt intense guilt but hugged Ruby and Fernando when they came to her in the bed. When all the kids were present she told them her plan. Miguel nodded. The other kids looked confused, but Miguel guided them to accept it. She smiled at him. “Gracias hijo,” she murmured, stroking his hair. He nodded.

Mitch cleared his throat. “What are you going to call her?” Mitch asked.

“Chica. Tina can rename her if she wishes,” Rozerita said softly. She started to doze so Mitch let the kids give her another hug then escorted them out to give her time to rest. Rozerita woke to cry softly in the night. She wiped at the tears and then sighed, hugging the pillow as she tried to go to sleep once more.

------*------

Paul, Laurence, Jackie, Angie, and Sam returned a few days before the great migration. Together the community watch the parade, then partied into the night. “I'm getting used to this sort of a holiday,” Paul said as he wrapped his arms around his lovely wife.

“Me too,” she said as he kissed her. “Oh, me definitely too,” she said with a grin. He grinned back.

“Careful there, you've already got a house full. What do you want, more?” Sam teased, handing each of them a long neck beer.

“Five is enough,” Frances said.

“Well...” Paul drawled. She growled at him. He chuckled. “Okay, okay, five is enough...for now,” he said. His wife glowered at him but didn't rise to the bait. He did notice the twinkle in her eyes as she took a pull of her beer. She always was frisky when he returned, ready to romp. Now that Aimee was out of her diapers and sleeping....his smile widened slightly into a challenging grin. She snorted to him but didn't respond to the bait.

Chapter 51

Over the long winter Capital Base built various projects it had put off due to the larger human community’s demand. Most of the projects were related to expanding the base or making put off interior repairs.

One of the largest projects Mitch had wanted to do for a long time was completed in the first month of winter, a partially automated assembly line. Robots lined the long building with sub-assembly stations behind them also set up with robots or people. The great thing was with a big of software changes and minor retooling they could move from one project to another. Arby, Adrian, Tao, and Akira had worked through most of the fall on the project to get it up and running. There were still some software and teething bugs to work out, but with the learning software, Arby and Adrian assured them that it wouldn't be a problem.

A second industrial project was also completed a week later, Sun Ling outfitted the massive paint booth Vance had constructed in the mid-fall. They still had to go through a series of sheds to the booth, but now they could bake on coatings onto various parts in large production runs.

Now that the farms were shut down for the winter and a majority of the exterior projects were curtailed, that left dozens of people without much to do. They knew the drill, however; the old hands guided by Tao and Bill went to work on in the factories and mills.

Bob took on two understudies, teenagers that had come for schooling during the summer and had stayed on. Both teens were in chemistry classes, so Mitch assumed they would be able to handle the work load.

Colonel Dunn was out to supplant Capital Base as the center of industry, Mitch could easily see that with the investments Dunn was making. Dunn's town was the fourth largest industrial center on the planet, behind Copper Town and Iron Town. All three were dwarfed by Capital though, which generated a bit of resentment Mitch realized. It also caused a logistics headache, he'd come to realize his people couldn't do everything and certainly not all at once.

He had ideas on how to deal with that; a way to hit two birds with one stone. No one community could do it all; he was starting to realize that when he looked at the lengthy list of subassemblies needed for some of the projects they were working on. That was fine. If some of the other communities did their own thing or helped out in trade with him, that would be great.

The first larger cargo aircraft, a redesigned and updated L-100 Hercules was produced during the second month of winter. The wiring for the aircraft alone had taken over a week to finish on a wiring jig and had used up over a dozen kilometers of wire and fiber optic thread.

The first flight tests were on the tarmac with engine and avionics tests. The aircraft was loud, and its exhaust kicked up a lot of snow. There were some issues with the engines and the cold so Jackie reluctantly grounded the aircraft until they could get the bugs out.

“Besides, we don't have any other place to go. No one can handle this bird but us,” she said, shaking her head.

The Lings and Summersets also had problems balancing the various ongoing projects. Sub-assemblies were a headache, getting them sorted out and ready for the next step was an issue. Just scheduling the equipment to make production runs was troubling, and when a CNC machine went down for an agonizing two hours it threw them into chaos. The schedule they had set up had turned out to be too ambitious; people started to become fatigued and mistakes crept into the work.

Storing subassemblies between projects was also a problem; things started to pile up everywhere. Tao and Sun resorted to crating or vacuum wrapping some of the hardier components and then storing them under the sheltered walkways around the base. That caused a few annoyed comments from Hejira and Maggie when they blocked access ways.

Mitch and Tao agreed to table a second aircraft until they finished catching up with other projects. That would also allow the other communities more time to make or extend their runway projects in the spring. It would also allow Akira, Conklin, and Jackie time to iron out whatever bugs Airframe 1 had and pass on any bug reports on to Tao.

Crash Town put in an order for a long range drone to probe for the wormhole their aircraft had passed through...and to find any additional aircraft crash sites. Tao took the order and said he'd get to it when he had the time and resources...without consulting Mitch about cost. Once some of the other communities overheard the order, they too put in requests for things in the winter.

“Since you aren't working on anything important...,” Yuri said over the radio. Jolie recorded it and replayed it for the staff meeting the following morning.

“Bullshit not important,” Brian protested indignantly when he heard that crack. “What is he doing? And his people? Sitting around a fire with their feet up drinking and bitching up a storm?” He snarled.

“Leave it Brian,” Anne sighed. Brian looked grim. “I said leave it. We'll deal with it,” she said. “Ignoring it is best,” she said.

“No it's not, then they'll become a pest,” Janet warned her. “We've got to figure out a way to head this off,” she said. She looked at Mitch.

“We already have a way in place. They pay for it. They pay a deposit; we get started. The final payment is due on delivery. That goes for Crash Town and other communities that are in good standing with us too. Some I'll let them wait and pay us in full and work on the equipment or vehicles in advance; I know their good for it. But others...” he shook his head.

“I am sorry I got us into this,” Tao said.

Mitch eyed the Asian and then shrugged. “It happens Tao; you were busy and no one is blaming you. We'll deal with it. Jolie, remind them of the rules.”

“I think it's time we worked out that delivery cost too,” Paul said. “I'm getting fuel from some of the communities, but not everyone has it or they only give me half of what we agreed to. Or some like Dunn flat out refuse to pay or pay but then charge me for camping fees,” he said, making a face.

“Now come on, shit like that's got to stop,” Vance growled.

“Well, I wouldn't mind passing Dunn by. He's an ass. His whole community is a sewer after what we heard happened to Rozerita,” Paul said coldly.

That comment seemed to drop the temperature in the room by a couple degrees. Mitch scowled. “Unfortunately, we can't. He's a crossroads for Tropics, Crash Town and everything in the southwest,” he sighed.

“And he's exporting his own goods,” Anne said. “Others are buying them. We need that. We the community I mean. And stuff he makes means we don't have to,” she said.

“Yeah, but he expects me to deliver it for free,” Paul growled. “And he's stupid, he doesn't have any packaging half the time.”

“Or he expects you to have it since we recycle our packaging?” Mitch asked, snorting in amusement as Paul made a face. “Yeah, I thought so.”

“The man is a menace. Honestly,” Paul sighed. “I had a crap load to deal with on the road, then had to deal with Tsakhia's bitching because his shipment of glassware didn't come through completely intact. Does no one understand it's a dirt road? Bumps and ruts break shit! Not to mention hard stops when a damn Hadrosaur or something comes waltzing out of the bush,” he said, shaking his head.

“One of the things Paul and I have talked about and decided we have to have is a mortar system. Plus some other security measures,” Sam said quietly. He held up his tablet. “I just forwarded you the list. We're going to work with our crews and Lisa to install them when Tao here makes them,” he said.

“Um...” Mitch rubbed his nose as Tao's face blanked. He knew the planned manufacturing schedule just got thrown into chaos. “We'll go over it,” he said diplomatically, hoping most of what they wanted was in stores.

“Have you gotten farther in laser tech? We could use some of those lasers you've got on the towers on the vehicles,” Paul said plaintively.

Phyllis shook her head. “It's not going to happen Paul.” He turned to look at her. She sighed. “I talked with Mitch and Brian about it too, I wanted to outfit some of the vehicles and wondered why only a couple of the robots and that damn helicopter drone has it. The reason is battery power.”

“Um...”

“Not just power storage, we currently don't have the tech to make it,” Mitch expanded. “We're getting there, but we're still at least a year away.”

Phyllis nodded. “That too. Which is why we only have them on the gate towers and a couple critical places. I've spoken with Gunny Hodges, the chief, and Gunny Usher, all are in agreement that we're thin and over-exposed on our perimeter. Fortunately, with the electric fences, moats, spotlights, and speakers, some of that is made up.”