2951-10-25 – Tales from the Service: The Quickley Job
“You must be joking.” Avin Matveev folded his arms and leaned against the blast-scored wall of what had probably been built as a high-rise residence tower for the first wave of architects and technicians who would turn Quickley into a first-class colony. Now, it was the frowning massif looming over a forlorn ruin made all the more desolate by the fact that it had never been properly built before it was destroyed.
“Afraid not, Boss.” Leo Goranov, Avin’s chief architect, gestured down the arrow-straight street leading back the way they’d come. “Admiral Abarca’s rep says they have two brigades of fortress troops landing in thirty hours.”
“What in all hells am I supposed to do with thirty hours?” Avin threw his hands up. “We haven’t even been groundside for a whole shift! Has he seen what the grunts did to this place? We’re doing everything almost from scratch!”
Fortunately, Leo had worked with Avin long enough to know that these were rhetorical questions. He winced and pretended to make a note on his data slate, then soldiered on after a politely long silence. “The block tower will hold almost that many, if they don’t mind having room-mates and hot-bunking.”
Avin looked up at the twelve-story ferrocrete edifice. Most of its windows were dark, hollow sockets, and chunks of material had been blown out of its sides by wayward artillery fire. He’d already verified that its foundation was solid, but he’d expected that his crew had more than a week in which to complete their work. Leo was probably right, but even with most of the team working round the clock, there was no way they’d have that building ready. A new coat of paint wouldn’t even be dry in that time.
Avin dropped his shoulders. This was the part of being a military contractor that he’d never grown to like, no matter how big the payday. “Herb’s already on his way with the crane crawlers?”
“Soon as they’re unloaded.”
“Get back over and pull Lydia off the revetments. Bring her team this way as soon as you can.” Avin pointed toward the edge of the incomplete city, where one of his teams had already been bundled off to work on fortifications.
Leo nodded. “I’ll call ahead. The Marines won’t like losing their pet diggers.”
“The Marines don’t fill our bank account, Leo.” Avin shooed his associate away. “Go on, I’ve got to get the plan markers laid before Herb gets here.”
Leo scurried off, leaving Avin standing on the cracked walkway, staring up at the structure that would, in not much more than a standard day, be housing Confederated troops. They’d never have the whole inside ready by then, of course; running plumbing to sanitary stations on every floor alone would take most of the time he’d been given. It was time to do some of the famous Matveev improvising that his father and grandfather had built the company on. It didn’t have to be pretty; it just had to keep more than three thousand souls warm, dry, and mostly clean.
Walking across the street to the corner of a low building skeleton which had probably never had a complete roof, Avin reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of planning markers. Building a schematic in his head as he went, he set the markers down every ten meters or so as he circumnavigated the huge tower. The inside didn’t really need to house so many thousands of bunks; it just needed to have water, sanitary facilities, and somewhere to put the chow line. The fact that it was an ugly, over-engineered block of ferrocrete would also come in handy.
Just as Avin returned to his start point, he heard the rumble of polymer-coated treads on cracked pavement. Looking up, he saw the first crane crawler nose around a corner, a crimson Matveev Logistics insignia freshly painted on the front of the cab. Behind the telescoping crane mount, a flat bed held a towering pile of pre-fabricated metal beams.
Avin waved the vehicle over and hopped up onto its side while it was still moving. Inside the cab, behind a strung-out looking driver, Herb Armando was standing on the vibrating deck, scowling out at the ruined streets.
“This is impossible, Boss.” Herb handed Avin a disposable cup of coffee. “Did you hear we only have-”
“I heard.” Avin pointed to the tower. “We’re going to use that.”
“The whole crew working round the clock couldn’t make that ready in time.” Herb shook his head. “Prefab’s going to be faster, but still not fast enough.”
“Yeah.” Avin tapped his wristcuff to send Herb the locations of the planning markers. “Which is why we’re going to use that.”
Herb frowned. “I don’t get it, boss.”
“Start assembling support struts.” Avin looked out over the street, imagining a net of metal girders blossoming upward from the wreckage and converging on the top of the tower. Once the girders were secure, his imagination started dividing the intervening space with crossbeams, then flooring. Synth-canvas became walls, and a double layer covered the whole thing like a monstrous tent.
Herb, of course, couldn’t see Avin’s designs. He sighed and pointed to Herb’s wristcuff. “I need support beams to go from those points, up to the top.”
Herb glanced at the screen, then out at the building. “What good’s that?”
“Just do it, Herb.” Avin popped the top off the coffee, drained it in two gulps, then handed it back. “We don’t have time for the big picture presentation this time.”
Herb looked at Avin strangely, then smiled. “That almost sounded like your father, Boss.”
“Yeah, well.” Avin opened the door and started back out. He would need to head into the tower to set markers to give the other teams their marching orders before they arrived. “If we pull this off, even that grouch will be impressed.”
Though the fighting has been over on Quickley for some time, Nojus is still on that world and still talking to the combat troops and support personnel who were part of its capture.
Quickley is an interesting case; this was no hit and run raid. Seventh Fleet is apparently fortifying the world to resist attack long enough that the main fleet can depart from Sagittarius Gate to relieve it.
Among those who arrived on that world within hours of its capture was Avin Matveev, the chief executive of Matveev Logistics, a mid-sized civilian contracting company that has been building ground-side bases and facilities for the Confederated Navy for nearly seventy years. Nojus apparently knows Mr. Matveev from way back, and seems to have had little difficulty extracting this particular story of engineering exploits from him.
It should be noted that though the account included pictures of the odd circus-tent hab structure Mateev built to house the incoming troops, the strange building has already been largely disassembled. It was only needed for a few weeks, until Mateev Logistics could build more permanent barracks facilities.