1st Ash, 122
One might wonder why Stefan was doing minor repair work on machines that would not be needed for the extremely important and potentially dangerous endeavor, that the survivors of Zaichaer under his care were to undertake within the next day. The answer was that he had done all that he, personally could do, and hovering over any number of people who still had things do to to ensure the safety and success of their escape from the ruined city had proven counter productive.
It seemed that Dienerin had informed his lady wife that he was thus hovering and she had insisted that he find something to occupy himself with that would fill his mind enough that he wouldn't be sitting around wishing he were still hovering. The only thing that had come to mind was working on either one of the unfinished Verborgenheit engines or working on repairing his Personal Armored Flight and Battle Suit (He was working on a better name, linguistic creativity had never been one of this strengths.)
There were two suits, now. He had ordered the parts for two right from the start, before he'd ever expected to actually get them working. This was partly because he if broke something, which he surely would, he didn't want to have to go back and order more parts immediately, and partly because he had learned that having a second model to work on solved any number of headaches. He could put one together while having another in all pieces to examine if he got stuck or lost or something didn't work, and if he did something wrong taking one apart after they were together, he could look at the still whole one to figure out where he'd gone wrong. It had been his practice since childhood, always asking for two of any model ship kits he got. It was one of the only odd habits of his that his father had understood and therefore indulged. His mother had not understood, but Sylana had never been mechanically minded and had deferred to her husband on the matter. Deferral by his mother had never been a sure thing, so Stefan had been grateful and tried to keep his tinkering out from under his gaze as much as possible.
Stefan had found his thoughts wandering to his parents and childhood often in the weeks since... Since the storm had come. When he reflected on the fact he decided it must be a form of mourning. He hadn't felt the desire to shed tears or hold ceremonies or, Empire forbid, talk to anyone about their deaths, so, he accepted his reminiscence as his form of grieving and allowed it.
Returning to his work he tried to turn his mind back to the project.
The request to have the guns made, larger than what any one person could shoot but designed as if to be shot by a person, had caused some questions from the men he'd passed his initial designs over to. He was no gunsmith, though he understood the mechanics behind their creation. He had answered that he was working on a new weapon to be attached to smaller ships. The explanation had led to problems when the gunsmiths had tried to add mountings and change his balance suggestions, assuming that he was simply mistaken. Getting them to return to his original ideas had been tedious and in the end he'd had to admit that the operator of the guns would have their arms inside large gauntlets. The gunsmiths had actually been impressed by that idea, though they still believed the gauntlets were to be attached to a small airship, and the designs had gone smoothly thereafter. The ammo for the guns had to be specially crafted as well, but, at least for that, he could simply let the gunsmiths who had designed the guns send their plans to the manufacturer.
Why he had gone so far as to have ammo and working guns put together for a project that he was still telling himself was just something for him to play with, was a question he decided not to answer. Even so, it was becoming obvious, by that stage, that the hulking machines he was putting together were something he really did intend to finish. Between the prohibitive cost and the exceptional effort even someone as skilled as he was had to put into making even one, there was no possibility of the government taking out a contract on them. If the business had been smaller, it might have been worth it to make them on a private basis for the very rich who wanted to play with them, but even had that been so, Stefan didn't think he would have wanted to make the effort for spoiled men of nobility just to show off.
The design was practical, made to be used. The fact was, in his heart of hearts, he wanted to use the pair of suits with Brenner, to fly with his brother into situations that would have been hopeless without them. Images of swooping in to skirmishes their troops were loosing and turning the tide, being wherever they were needed most, swam in the deepest recesses of his dreams. Even though he knew he, personally, wasn't good enough a fighter, marksman or flier to keep up with his brother, it was still something he longed for. If he ever finished the suits it would be better to give them to Eitan and Brenner than operate one himself. Eitan had always been the wing man Brenner favored, and with good reason, however much it had stung in their youth.
The changed relationship between himself and Eitan had taken the sting out of it, and the idea of Eitan and Brenner soaring away to step in and save the day was almost as sweet as that of doing it himself. The pair of them coming back to him after, explaining the nicks and dents that they had caused to the suits amid tales of daring-do while Stefan pretended to be put out at having to repair them while really feeling a sense of massive pride that he provided the means that his brothers might fully express their skill and bravery.
It was a pretty dream. But the Expedition had started off as a pretty dream, a drunken one at that, and look how it had turned out?
So he worked on. The alignment of the dragonshards to allow for flight was one he used so often it was second nature, but working out how to operate the propulsion, keep balanced and control the speed and reduce it as needed for quick maneuvering was, by far, the hardest part of the whole design. Eventually he ended up with a complex system that required the pilot to memorize practically a manual worth of information. Men who were already pilots would already know a lot of it, but knowing how to make something happen with a set of control panels in front of you was vastly different from making a suit do the same things, only ten times faster and while keeping track of the movement of your whole body. There were dozens of places on the suit that propulsive energy came out of, and while Stefan did his best to make the design as natural to operate as possible, there was still a learning curve.
To ensure he was making the design fit with natural movements Stefan had climbed inside himself, without any power system attached, of course, and spent hours just figuring out what his body did when he wanted to move a certain way. His notes on this filled several notebooks, and he wondered if he should eventually turn them over the the doctors, if they might find the information useful for rehabilitation or similar.
By the time Brenner informed him that they had been called away for a diplomatic mission to Kalzasi, of all places, for a wedding, of all things, he had been quite put out for several reasons. Not least of which was he'd been just about to get into the suit with the power on for the first time. Not for flight, of course, but to see if the movement of the suit on the ground worked the way he hoped it would. Being able to land and move just as he would on his own, to fight, but also to interact with objects, walk around, even run, was as important as all the flight calculations.
Unfortunately, the disastrous trip, though successful in the expectation over the Government, and then the coup that come about while they had been returning to Zaichaer, had led to his appointment as a Minister, and a price on his head high enough to make a lord (and a lordship atop it). The combination of those two had meant that he'd been in no mental place to work on his project, even if he'd had time with all the new work dropped on his plate. It wasn't until Eitan had returned to the capitol and convinced him to come home that the panic state he'd been in for week finally abated. From then he began to delegate, not try to read every report, answer every request himself, and his life had returned to some semblance of normalcy.
One might wonder why Stefan was doing minor repair work on machines that would not be needed for the extremely important and potentially dangerous endeavor, that the survivors of Zaichaer under his care were to undertake within the next day. The answer was that he had done all that he, personally could do, and hovering over any number of people who still had things do to to ensure the safety and success of their escape from the ruined city had proven counter productive.
It seemed that Dienerin had informed his lady wife that he was thus hovering and she had insisted that he find something to occupy himself with that would fill his mind enough that he wouldn't be sitting around wishing he were still hovering. The only thing that had come to mind was working on either one of the unfinished Verborgenheit engines or working on repairing his Personal Armored Flight and Battle Suit (He was working on a better name, linguistic creativity had never been one of this strengths.)
There were two suits, now. He had ordered the parts for two right from the start, before he'd ever expected to actually get them working. This was partly because he if broke something, which he surely would, he didn't want to have to go back and order more parts immediately, and partly because he had learned that having a second model to work on solved any number of headaches. He could put one together while having another in all pieces to examine if he got stuck or lost or something didn't work, and if he did something wrong taking one apart after they were together, he could look at the still whole one to figure out where he'd gone wrong. It had been his practice since childhood, always asking for two of any model ship kits he got. It was one of the only odd habits of his that his father had understood and therefore indulged. His mother had not understood, but Sylana had never been mechanically minded and had deferred to her husband on the matter. Deferral by his mother had never been a sure thing, so Stefan had been grateful and tried to keep his tinkering out from under his gaze as much as possible.
Stefan had found his thoughts wandering to his parents and childhood often in the weeks since... Since the storm had come. When he reflected on the fact he decided it must be a form of mourning. He hadn't felt the desire to shed tears or hold ceremonies or, Empire forbid, talk to anyone about their deaths, so, he accepted his reminiscence as his form of grieving and allowed it.
Returning to his work he tried to turn his mind back to the project.
The request to have the guns made, larger than what any one person could shoot but designed as if to be shot by a person, had caused some questions from the men he'd passed his initial designs over to. He was no gunsmith, though he understood the mechanics behind their creation. He had answered that he was working on a new weapon to be attached to smaller ships. The explanation had led to problems when the gunsmiths had tried to add mountings and change his balance suggestions, assuming that he was simply mistaken. Getting them to return to his original ideas had been tedious and in the end he'd had to admit that the operator of the guns would have their arms inside large gauntlets. The gunsmiths had actually been impressed by that idea, though they still believed the gauntlets were to be attached to a small airship, and the designs had gone smoothly thereafter. The ammo for the guns had to be specially crafted as well, but, at least for that, he could simply let the gunsmiths who had designed the guns send their plans to the manufacturer.
Why he had gone so far as to have ammo and working guns put together for a project that he was still telling himself was just something for him to play with, was a question he decided not to answer. Even so, it was becoming obvious, by that stage, that the hulking machines he was putting together were something he really did intend to finish. Between the prohibitive cost and the exceptional effort even someone as skilled as he was had to put into making even one, there was no possibility of the government taking out a contract on them. If the business had been smaller, it might have been worth it to make them on a private basis for the very rich who wanted to play with them, but even had that been so, Stefan didn't think he would have wanted to make the effort for spoiled men of nobility just to show off.
The design was practical, made to be used. The fact was, in his heart of hearts, he wanted to use the pair of suits with Brenner, to fly with his brother into situations that would have been hopeless without them. Images of swooping in to skirmishes their troops were loosing and turning the tide, being wherever they were needed most, swam in the deepest recesses of his dreams. Even though he knew he, personally, wasn't good enough a fighter, marksman or flier to keep up with his brother, it was still something he longed for. If he ever finished the suits it would be better to give them to Eitan and Brenner than operate one himself. Eitan had always been the wing man Brenner favored, and with good reason, however much it had stung in their youth.
The changed relationship between himself and Eitan had taken the sting out of it, and the idea of Eitan and Brenner soaring away to step in and save the day was almost as sweet as that of doing it himself. The pair of them coming back to him after, explaining the nicks and dents that they had caused to the suits amid tales of daring-do while Stefan pretended to be put out at having to repair them while really feeling a sense of massive pride that he provided the means that his brothers might fully express their skill and bravery.
It was a pretty dream. But the Expedition had started off as a pretty dream, a drunken one at that, and look how it had turned out?
So he worked on. The alignment of the dragonshards to allow for flight was one he used so often it was second nature, but working out how to operate the propulsion, keep balanced and control the speed and reduce it as needed for quick maneuvering was, by far, the hardest part of the whole design. Eventually he ended up with a complex system that required the pilot to memorize practically a manual worth of information. Men who were already pilots would already know a lot of it, but knowing how to make something happen with a set of control panels in front of you was vastly different from making a suit do the same things, only ten times faster and while keeping track of the movement of your whole body. There were dozens of places on the suit that propulsive energy came out of, and while Stefan did his best to make the design as natural to operate as possible, there was still a learning curve.
To ensure he was making the design fit with natural movements Stefan had climbed inside himself, without any power system attached, of course, and spent hours just figuring out what his body did when he wanted to move a certain way. His notes on this filled several notebooks, and he wondered if he should eventually turn them over the the doctors, if they might find the information useful for rehabilitation or similar.
By the time Brenner informed him that they had been called away for a diplomatic mission to Kalzasi, of all places, for a wedding, of all things, he had been quite put out for several reasons. Not least of which was he'd been just about to get into the suit with the power on for the first time. Not for flight, of course, but to see if the movement of the suit on the ground worked the way he hoped it would. Being able to land and move just as he would on his own, to fight, but also to interact with objects, walk around, even run, was as important as all the flight calculations.
Unfortunately, the disastrous trip, though successful in the expectation over the Government, and then the coup that come about while they had been returning to Zaichaer, had led to his appointment as a Minister, and a price on his head high enough to make a lord (and a lordship atop it). The combination of those two had meant that he'd been in no mental place to work on his project, even if he'd had time with all the new work dropped on his plate. It wasn't until Eitan had returned to the capitol and convinced him to come home that the panic state he'd been in for week finally abated. From then he began to delegate, not try to read every report, answer every request himself, and his life had returned to some semblance of normalcy.
