Tough Turds

The 1004th, the Tufters, is the premier mech mining unit in the entire system. No one pulls higher percentages or volume, or takes bigger risks. My grandpappy was a Tufter, my daddy was a Tufter, and I’ve been a Tufter since I was old enough to mount a mech. When the contract came through to be the first Tufters on Larissa, a moon of Neptune, I volunteered so fast I nearly broke my elbow raising my hand. The first Tufter on a moon of Neptune? The first Tufter on Larissa? All contracted, all hazard pay? No politics, just good clean riggin’ and rippin’? It would be four cycles of hard ass work, but hell... I could take the next cycle off after that! And still have enough credits to save towards my own ship. This was perfect. This is exactly what I needed.

Now, before we get too far into this story, let me tell you who the hell I am. I am Bryon Gladwater, of the Gladwater clan. My people come from Space City, for generations now. My grandpappy was the first to put the suit on, and he rigged and ripped through a few contracts on Callisto, back when Jupiter was established and Saturn was just gettin’ started. The first mechs, the real early ones, years before my grandpappy, they was riggin’ and diggin’ on Earth’s moon. The Moon, as it was called. Real creative group them early Earthers. Anyway that’s where the 1004th got started, rippin’ rego, meaning regolith, off the surface of the moon to process. Story goes that two mechs got into over territory, with one grabbing the other and tossin’ em into the moon's orbit before it fell back down a real long way away. Well the mech made it back, even after his ughh, terlet unit stopped up. The locals gave him the nickname One tough turd and I guess it stuck. Over the years it became Tufters for short. Anyway my daddy also worked Jupiter’s moons, he wasn’t the exploring type. He met my momma and wanted to have a family, so he moved himself to contractin’. The first time I worked the mech I knew I wanted to go far out there, someplace new. Someplace crazy. Well here I was.

Ten weeks of sleep, some rehashin’, and I woke up to meet my new crew. My lead was Jim, we called him Haus, and his second was Blue, and we called him Blue. The other six of us was me, Jim Two, Bill, Kenny, Crazy Jose, and Berna. We all come from all over the place, cept me and Berna, we was both from Space City. We both ran YJJ mechs too, best that come from around there. We dropped pretty fast after rehashin’ and met the group of engie’s settin’ up shop. Most of the processing machines dropped just like they wanted em, so they was ahead of schedule. Now all they needed was the Doot we was fixin’ to rip, and boy was we ready to start rippin’.

For anyone readin’ that hasn’t been schooled, Doot, pronounced doot, is slang for Dueterium, or heavy hydrogen. That’s what we use for fuel in space, and it is worth a lot of credits. When the surveyors found a huge clean patch of it on Larissa, they started sending equipment before the contracts were even signed. They wanted it bad. We was to be working from the moment we landed, and boy howdy they was ready. Prep, travel, hashin’, and drop, and then within hours I was in my mech and pinnin’ down my rigs for the first set of rips. I was pushin’ em hard, walkin’ the envelope and watchin’ the red. My grandpappy would have been proud of me! I was goin’a make quota for the day with time to spare, with time to get a jump on tomorrow. When the call came through for overtimin’ it, I checked my gauges and was good to go. Hell yeah I want them extra credits! I worked until I couldn’t see no more, then got picked up by the haulers on their last ride in. We did great that first shift, we crushed it. Then the engie’s crushed our loads. After some rack time, we woke up to the best first day in living history. Seven percent above average pulls! It was a record! We was all high-fivin’! If we could keep this up, we would nail our first bonus, and hell we could probably get the second one too! That’s enough credits for me to take a vacation and pay for my ship! Hell I might even go see Earth!

We kept that pace up for weeks and weeks. Chasin’ that number, watching our mechs, riggin’ and rippin’ as hard as we could. Everyone was pulling overtime, even the engie’s. Their gear would break down, and we would see them working through the night as we racked to get it back up and working through the loads. They was workin’ as hard as us! I was kinda proud of them. Not like Tufters proud, but still. They did good work. When the numbers kept up, we got word they was sending a second shift, the investment was worth it, and that they were super pleased with our runs. A few months later, more showed, and then we was killin’ it. Record breaking collects and hauls, best in the system.

A few weeks into split shifts, I come out to my favorite spot and rig in. I get a real nice bite, so I start rippin’ hard. My radar alarm goes off, lettin’ me know about a potential collision. I dump my screws and turn, and see in the distance one of the night crew is spinnin’ up, and looks like it is coming right for me. I call out on my comms, trying to reach em.

“Mech in quadrant bravo you are too low and might hit me. What’s going on?, over.”

Nothin’ comes back, so I try again.

“Mech in bravo, do you copy, over?”

Still nothing. I use my hud to zoom in on them, and work the rig to target them and keep a lock. The other mech isn’t rollin’, and looks clean. Maybe their radio was broken, so I push my location beacon on and off, hoping they will see it on their hud, in their mech, but I still get no response.

“Mech. In bravo. How copy? Over.”

I keep lookin’ at em, and even though my screen is tellin’ me they are ok, I can see clear as starlight that something is wrong. They weren’t rollin’ over and around me, they was just too straight. No one flies that clean without usin’ the computer, and the computer would never let them keep flyin’ towards me. Something was wrong.

“Mech in bravo this is shift one. You are headed right for my mech! What the hell is goin’ on?, over.”

Nothin’, and they was gettin’ close now. I gave up on the radio, and start working my rig’ hopin’ I can anchor hard enough to catch em. I rework my lower riggin’ and tell the computer my plan. A few bypasses of the computer’s warnings later, I think we are ready.

“Shit.” I say out loud. I need to let my boss know. “Haus, this Byron. I got a rig comin’ at me that is not respondin’ to calls. I am going to try and catch em. Can you send me auth codes to shut down their gear?”

Haus comes back and tells me I lost my damn mind, and that I need to quit wastin’ his time and get back to it. He says something about quotas when I cut him off.

“Haus, c'mon man. I’m not that funny. Send me the durn codes.”

He cusses at me a few more times, then sends the codes off to my mech, and my radio starts broadcastin’ em as soon as I walk through all the warnings. My alarm goes off again, pointing out that the new trajectory of the now powered down mech is going to land a little in front of me, but still in the danger zone. I walk through all of the screens to change how I’ma catch it, and even though the computer is pissed about it, I set the rig and go for it.

Well then everything goes to hell. I get it stopped, but lose two of my mounted rigs. Every damn alarm I know of starts going off. The other mech bounces off the ground and starts pulling up into the air, hard. My lower rig was able to keep us and yank that mech back towards the ground, but the primary cable, the one I used as a lasso, snapped, and the mech I caught went spinning down a deep crater not too far from us. I managed to get a hand hold on it, which then ripped my last riggin’ out, and damn well almost pulled me down with it. I worked the computer and was able to fire the emergency riggin’ on my belly and it stopped us before we got yanked down.

While I was stuck face down, I had one hand that was dedicated to holdin’ on to that other rig. I used my other hand to work the computer, and was able to bring the comm system on the other mech up with the auth codes Haus had sent me. Whoever was in it, wasn’t talkin’, or something was wrong as I used their setup to call right into their mech and talk through the speaker system. They still said nothin’ and wasn’t movin’.

As I was trying to bring their medical monitors up, I got an alarm that my right hand on my rig was havin’ hydraulics issues. The alarm came up fast and it was about to fail. If it failed, I was for sure going to lose that other mech. I pressed my emergency beacon, first in my career, and then decided I had to blow the riggin’ in that hand to get it to bite, so that even if the hydraulics failed, my mech’s hand would lock closed, and I wouldn't lose that other mech, so they would have a chance. I pulled my hand back as hard as I could, and blew the emergency riggin’. It made an awful racket and my ears were ringin’, but it held! The computer didn’t like it, but it worked! It looked like we was going to be ok, just had to wait for the team to come rescue us. As I was working the last remain’ riggin’, the one from my back, trying to get it to bite as a backup, I heard Berna in the other mech, she must have finally come to and was awake.

“What happened? Where the hell am I?”

“Hey Berna, it's Byron. I’ve no idea what happened, but I got you. Team is on the way.”

“How the hell did we get to be hangin’ over this crater?”

“You was comin’ right for me, so I had to do some fineglin’ to get your durn mech stopped.”

“How are you holding on to us?”

“I had to blow my arm to get the emergency riggin’ to bite. It worked, but the computer was pissed!”

“I bet! Well shit, don’t let us go!”

“I can’t! The hydraulics are blown and the hand is locked! I don’t even know how I could even try to let go!”

After a few hours the rest of the team arrived and pulled us to safety. We was down two mechs for repairs, but the rest of the crew got back to work and made quota for the day! Nothin’ stops a Tufter. Nothin’.