Team Shift Happens and Team RK-Series Racing
The Full Story, Part 2 of 4
The plan turned out to be as follows:
Constantin stayed up front and was pushing into the passenger side A-Pillar through the open door. Tim and Valentin taking position on the rear left and rear right corner respectively.
The combined effort was far more than needed to get the car going, especially since Valentin seemed to muster a very unusual amount of strength out of his legs, being propped up against the taillight with his left shoulder, his cycling-specific shoes providing ample grip due to the metal plate built onto the sole acting as a traction mat. As such, the car gained quite the amount of speed, forcing Constantin to largely abandon his attempt at helping push the car along.
As Connor stepped on the brakes, which, unlike the Bricksley, still were working semi-decently albeit without the brake booster, Valentin did not expect that at all, given no verbal warning being made and him not seeing anything due to both his position and haircut. The inertia of him on the rear end breaks the passenger-size rear taillight cover.
“OWW!”, Valentin shouts as he rights himself, looking at Connor up front. “Could’ve at least announced the stopping!”
“I am sorry, Mr. Schrant.” Connor simply replied, not having thought of the two in back.
With the car now stationary next to the Bricksley, the team heads up to greet the foreman, Valentin being pushed ahead as the brainchild of the idea. He wasn’t exactly confident, especially with the amount of people buzzing about behind the foreman in the building.
Though the entire team was in immediate need of help, which allowed him to muster enough courage to speak semi-confidently about what he planned.
“Greetings.” Valentin says, trying to leave a friendly, well-mannered first impression. “I’m Valentin Schrant. I have Constantin Schrant, Tim Redwood and Connor for company.” He continues, motioning to each member of the team as he goes along.
“Our vehicle has broken down and cannot be repaired to original state, and i thought of converting it to use steam instead of internal combustion.”, Valentin adds.
The other three simply line up next to Valentin, nodding as their respective names are mentioned.
“Greetings to you as well, Valentin. I am Duncan Michaelson, the foreman of the Itzgarde Steamworks,” the foreman replied, looking over the pale orange painted car in front of him. “An internal combustion engine? I’ve seen a big one, sounds like it could move the world if it could ever get up to speed, but it was so heavy it had to be shipped by rail and hauled the rest of the way into town by a team of eight lizards. One of the local tinkers in Duskriver Village has a self-pulling carriage she uses on business trips, selling perfumes and such. You want to convert yours to run on steam? Heard that internal combustion can be a bit unreliable at times. Then again,” Duncan said, waving a hand around his shop, “so can steam.”
When Duncan looked over at the members of Team Shift Happens, or at least the ones who had made themselves known, he asked, “Is there anything you need?”
“To wait for our vehicle to cool down, mostly,” Kaylie said. “Otherwise,” she motioned to the open hood, “it’s one stupid hose clamp, a rubber radiator hose that came off, and a whole lot of water. They’re going to need your help, we just need time. And some space, I suppose, because we’re not going anywhere until this cools down.”
Duncan nodded. “You’re friends of Jayde, right? From the War?” he asked Valentin.
Jayde spoke up with, “Not from the War, but they did help fight the Dyre.”
“I figured with the lack of parts and suitable workmen for our internal combustion… carriage, making it run on readily available technologies seems like a valid alternative.”, Valentin reasoned, finally making his teammates grasp why he wanted to do this in the first place.
“So THAT’s why you were so keen on steam!”, Tim exclaimed.
“Yeah. Steam seems to be everywhere in this place. Might as well use stuff locals know.”, Valentin replied, looking past the foreman into the building. Other than some empty rails and a few workmen, he couldn’t see much due to the angle they were standing at relative to the road entrance.
“I mean… yes, ummm… some of us did…”, Valentin admitted, twiddling thumbs in some degree of shame on having done nothing to support the effort.
Duncan smiled, then said to Valentin, “We’ll get you back on the road, then. Hey, Jayde, think you could get that boiler over there and bring it over for them?”
“Not… like this, no. And they’ve just been in a Dyre fight. If I use my larger form around them, I’m going to scare most of them senseless,” Jayde admitted, covering for Valentin in the moment.
Duncan nodded. “Not a problem,” he said, turning back to Valentin. “I’m making you, officially, the Lead Engineer on this project, then,” he told Valentin. “My work crew is yours. Any parts you need made, machines you need operated, you say the word and it will be done.” He then turned to his work crew and said, “Listen up, men. Mister Schrant here has a project that he needs help with, to convert their combustion carriage to steam power. Any of you choose to volunteer for this project, step forward.”
At Duncan’s order, 30 men out of the larger work crew stepped forward. Duncan smiled, turned to Valentin, and said, “Looks like you’ve got a full crew. Same as we’d use on a locomotive. You need any help with any of them, you just ask me, alright?”
“Son of a bitch!” Kaylie yelled, shaking her hand after scalding it on the radiator core support. “Rukari, I can’t even get this hose back on because the whole front of our truck is hot!”
“Let it cool down, then,” Rukari said, wincing as Kayden held him still and picked shards of glass out of his mane. “Could you be gentler?”
“This is gentle,” Kayden said in a half growled voice.
“Kayden, remember your agreement. Off with it,” Malavera said. Kayden, recognizing what Malavera meant, slid the black square out of his pocket and silently commanded Nova to take him out of his combat mode.
“Can someone get Kivenaal to come over here and put this damn hose back on?” Kaylie asked.
Jayde grimaced. “You know he won’t do it, right?”
“Convince him,” Kaylie replied.
Valentin initially smiled in enthusiasm and so did Tim and Constantin. Though, as Duncan continued about promoting him to lead-engineer, Valentin’s already very pale face went practically white. This was the very first time he had full authority over a group of specialized employees at a major company. The next best thing is bossing two friends about when moving apartments.
As the steamworks employees, one by one, formed a small company of volunteers, neatly arranged in a grid, Valentin tried to grasp the magnitude of manpower he was now commanding.
Unsure on how to manage this amount of a workforce, he starts highly basic to see how their command structure works.
“Could someone get me a 13 mill wrench?”, he orders, carefully and not knowing what would happen.
The other two simply submitted to the newfound person of higher rank, even if that rank was by circumstance, and awaited orders as well.
As Valentin called out for a 13mm wrench, one of the men quickly stepped away from the group, walked over to a toolbox, and pulled out a somewhat large, though still reasonable 13 millimeter wrench, wiped it down with a rag, and then walked over to Valentin, handing him the tool he’d requested. “Anything else you need?” he asked.
Over by the Bricksley, once Kayden had picked all the bits of broken glass out of Rukari’s mane and made sure the Valraadi wasn’t bleeding, it was Kaylie who decided to step up and take charge of her team. Jayde came in with Kivenaal, who quickly stuffed the hose onto the radiator, slid the hose clamp into place, and tightened it down with the screwdriver Kaylie handed him. Once that was done, Kivenaal slipped back outside, hoping to go unnoticed.
Kaylie then glared at Rukari. “So,” she said, hands on her hips, “you say your kind don’t fear maintenance. I say, you fried the brakes, you get to fix them.”
Rukari stared at Kaylie, slightly surprised that despite being the smallest member of the group, Kaylie was proving to be the most energetic when agitated.
“If you don’t fear maintenance, Rukari, then I say,” Kaylie said, opening the toolbox in the truck bed and grabbing their imperial wrench and socket kit, “that you get to put your hands on the wrenches for once!” She slammed the kit into Rukari’s chest, making him take half a step back as he grabbed the kit and stared at it, completely lost with these foreign tools. Kaylie, meanwhile, rummaged around in the toolbox and grabbed two new front brake rotors, new brake pads, the spare set of front calipers, a set of rear brake shoes for the drums, and several bottles of brake fluid.
“I do not know where to start,” Rukari admitted.
“Not a problem. I’ll be guiding you through every step of the way,” Kaylie said, grinning.
Jayde looked over to see the look on Rukari’s face and laughed. “I never thought I’d see someone who only takes military orders from the Emperor or Empress could look so terrified of a little bit of wrench work,” Jayde admitted.
“Oh… Thanks… uhhm…”, Valentin stuttered, still very much befuddled and now holding a rather clunky 13mm wrench he had no immediate use for.
“I’m sorry… I’m… very much not used to commandeering 30-odd people…”
The Constantin and Tim mostly remained silent, due to differing reasons.
While Constantin perfectly knew what it was like to have hundreds, if not thousands of people under his control, Tim was equally clueless on large-scale leadership as Valentin was.
Constantin, though, did not feel to be in the position to be of use, having broken trust the day earlier.
Then, Jayde of all people, from all the way across the driveway behind the Bricksley, tried his hand at motivating Valentin: “Valentin, these people, these men who work on steam engines every day, are here to help you. Their skilled hands are yours, their talents are yours, their tools are yours. They will help you make your plan a reality. You have the plans, they have the skill. Some leaders are born. Some are forged in battle. Others come from people like you and me. I believe that you can do this. These men are disciplined and skilled in their craft, and you have a bold plan in your mind. Let them help you with it.”
Valentin just stared at Jayde with a blank and show-white face, still unsure as to how to handle it, but now at least willing to give it his best shot. He turns back around, facing the small army of workmen.
“Uhm… so… one. The car needs to go inside. Cannot really work out here in the rain now, can we? Two. I need some info on what we have available in terms of tools, machinery, components and such.”, Valentin explains, still shaken but making a valiant attempt at being reasonably professional.
Jayde looked over at Valentin, knowing the kind of struggle he was going through. He’d been there before, standing on the shores of Tapari during the Four Corners War. A hundred-and-thirty men under his command, someone who had never once held command over more than a handful of friends, now having to fight against armed invaders. He sighed quietly to himself, then asked Kaylie quietly, “What is his name?”
“Him? Valentin,” Kaylie replied quietly. She understood Jayde might have a plan, and right now, she didn’t have to pay too much attention to Rukari fighting with the lug nuts on the Bricksley.
Jayde nodded, moving to the passenger side of the Bricksley and standing by the tailgate, giving some respectful distance between them. He gave another quiet sigh to himself, then looked up and spoke in a calm, quiet, but strong voice, “Valentin, these people, these men who work on steam engines every day, are here to help you. Their skilled hands are yours, their talents are yours, their tools are yours. They will help you make your plan a reality. You have the plans, they have the skill. Some leaders are born. Some are forged in battle. Others come from people like you and me. I believe that you can do this. These men are disciplined and skilled in their craft, and you have a bold plan in your mind. Let them help you with it.”
Duncan looked over at Jayde, slightly impressed, but not saying anything in fear of ruining the moment. Once Valentin had, however, found his footing and given the command to bring the car inside, and that he needed information on tools, machinery, components, and other such items, Duncan smiled and respectfully left Valentin to do his thing.
Several of the men helped push the Dione into the steamworks, parking it up next to an old steam lorry with a sign on it saying it was to be scrapped for spare parts, with a list of all the parts that were still good, which looked to be just about everything except the frame and the actual steam engine itself.
Then one of the men gave Valentin a hand-written list on a clipboard of all the tools, the various bits of machinery, known quantities of brass tubing, spare parts, and even mentioning supplies they had in storage. “You need anything, just let one of us know. We’ll get it for you,” he said, before walking off to join the others in their wait for further instructions.
Just as Rukari finally got all of the lug nuts loosened up, Kaylie said to him, “Grab the wheel chocks out of the truck bed, make sure they’re under the rear tires, and while you’re there, grab the jack. The tire iron, by the way, is also the jack handle,” Kaylie mentioned.
Rukari groaned as he got up, kicking the wheel chocks under the rear wheels, grabbed the jack, and tried to figure out where exactly to put it. At first, he put it directly under the running board, and Kaylie told him, “You do that, you’re going to peel the whole side of the truck up like a can of sardines. Under the frame, zaruki.” She smirked as Rukari stared at her, then said, “Yes, I know it means ‘idiot’ in your language. You say it enough, I’ve finally learned it.”
Valentin watched four people push the car inside, following them in immediately after, himself being followed by Constantin, Tim, Connor and the remaining 26 temporary employees. One of which had split off and procured what to him looked like the inventory list of the steamworks. He accepts the clipboard and starts shuffling through the pages of it, spotting a multitude of components that could work in the Dione. In his mind, he already had the first steps figured out, though it was on him to accurately convey them to the workforce.
“Okay. I don’t know you lot and what you do, so ideally i’d have you sorted by skillset.”, Valentin orders, immediately second-guessing himself as he isn’t even sure they have specific traits to them. “That is assuming you are trained differently in the first place…”
A small break of silence follows as he shuffles further through the remarkable parts-list. After that, he hands that clipboard over to Connor, who scans it in less than a minute, internalizing the contents in the process for future reference.
“Also i’d like that boiler to be checked for the safety of it.”, Valentin adds, pointing at a derelict steam lorry full of brass, bronze and other, similar materials.
Tim, meanwhile, was starting to feel the urges of hunger and made his concern known:
“I take it that we’re staying here for a while… maybe i can get some food going.”, he suggested, getting a non-verbal agreement as Valentin once again dug into the inventory list.
Tim thus headed off and was searching for Duncan, a completely unrelated, but friendly worker pointing him the way.
“Erm… hi. Valentin sent me to prepare some food… well… kind of, though he agreed to it.”, Tim stutters, not sure as to how Duncan would react, as he explicitly appointed Valentin in charge of the operation.
Constantin followed Tim along, but with a different idea.
After the conversation with Tim was resolved, Constantin raised his own concern:
“Greetings. Do you know of any Bowyers in this town? I got some made yesterday, but they aren’t exactly what i expected.”, Constantin asked politely and with much more confidence than Tim had.
As Valentin mentioned he wanted the men sorted by skillset, one of the men took the initiative and said, “Boiler crew, stand over there. Engine crew, over here. Piping crew, I need you to stand here.” He then looked to Valentin and said, “Your four main crews. Boilers, engines, pipes, and controls. Some of us can paint, too, if you need that.”
When Valentin pointed out that he wanted the boiler checked for safety, one of the men climbed up and checked the tag they’d put on the boiler. “We’ll get this checked again. We had it tested last month when someone said they had a steam wagon that needed a boiler, but that one was too small,” he said. “Better to be safe than to be sorry.”
Duncan smiled as Tim and Constantin walked over to him. When Tim asked about food, he nodded. “I’ll show you around the workplace kitchen in a moment.” When Constantin asked him if he knew of any bowyers in the town, Duncan thought for a bit, then said, “Right, you’re the archer who took down six Dyre wolves. Head back on the road you came here on, back through the gate. It’ll be the, was it the third shop or the fourth shop on the right? Ones a tavern, the other’s the bowyer and fletcher. I wish I could tell you more, but… I don’t drink. I’ve seen what being drunk around heavy equipment can do.”
As Constantin headed out, Duncan led Tim into the workplace kitchen. “Fairly standard in here. Wood fired stove, cooking pot over an open fire, pots and pans are here in on the rack. Plates and flatware, bowls are up here. If you need hot water for something, put this glove on and turn that valve. The glove’s in case she spits at you, that small boiler can be a bit mean some days. If you need supplies, just holler and I’ll send someone to run into town and get what you need.”
Valentin looked at the crew basically sorting itself by their specialties and was rather impressed by the orderly fashion created by this.
“So my idea is as follows. Boiler-Team, please go and have the lorries boiler safety-tested and measured by external dimensions and weight. Controls, i’ll show you what we have for controls and we can figure something out. Connor will accompany the engine team and tear it up as needed. Get rid of the manifolds, coolant piping, anything fuel delivery related. We don’t need that anymore. As per piping, that is step two, you lot please help the other teams as needed. Especially the boiler crew.”, Valentin ordered. He seemed to quickly grasp what he was now in charge of and with a fairly accurate plan made up in advance, he got to work explaining the car’s existing controls to the controls team.
Connor took a few members of the engine department, had the hood popped by Valentin and dug in to get rid of anything immediately unnecessary.
Meanwhile in Duncan’s office, Constantin had to correct the story a bit:
“Seems like numbers getting inflated. I shot five arrows, all of which hit. Four of those were lethal.”, Constantin calmly corrects. “Not faulting you. Inflation happens with tell-tale stories.”
The three head out of the office, splitting when Tim and Duncan took the turn into the works kitchen. He went to great length showing what was available and how it worked, though Tim did not know how to make a good fire with a wooden stove.
“You have someone who knows oven firing? I usually have it heat directly via steam.”, he explains, partially lying about the steam part as he had a gas stove at home, but that didn’t change the fact that he had no clue as to how a wood-fired one worked.
Constantin headed past the Dione, sat in one of the eight berths usually used for steam engine maintenance. One other was occupied by a Mountain-Type locomotive, which was currently undergoing extensive repairs after a connecting rod failure. A third one contained one of the engines used on the Longitude Express, currently stripped of it’s streamlining panels for routine valvetrain maintenance. The other five berths currently were empty, for now, at least.
“I’m out looking for another bow to replace these ones!”, Constantin shouted across the entire hall.
“I’ll be back for food!”
No immediate reaction from Valentin followed, as he was busy explaining the car’s pedals, stocks and steering to the controls-crew.
As such, Constantin left the building, encountering Team Shift Happens, still busy with their brake job.
“Hmm…” Duncan said, thinking about what Tim had said. “I’ve never tried cooking with a steam stove before. But, I can probably help you there with a wood fired one. Before I worked here, I used to run a locomotive on a branch line, a little wood-fired engine that got replaced rather soon after I got there. But, I know how to build a good wood fire.”
Kaylie chuckled as Rukari wrestled the wheel off of the brake rotor, then watched him fighting with the caliper bolts. As the lower one suddenly gave way, Rukari gave a yowl of pain as he smacked his hand into the ground and dropped the wrench.
“And how much do you fear maintenance now?” Kaylie asked as Rukari scowled and lifted the loose caliper out of the way, just in time to drop both brake pads, or more specifically, what was left of both brake pads, straight to the ground. The rotor was visibly heat-scarred and discolored, and also visibly warped.
Rukari sighed, removed the bolts holding the rotor in place, and promptly dropped the heavy steel disc on his left hand, cursing roughly in Valraad as Constantin walked by.
Kaylie looked at Constantin, then said, “He says his people don’t fear maintenance. I figured I’d make him change the brakes he ruined. Jayde, how long has he been at this?”
Jayde flipped open his pocket watch, then closed it. “It’s taken him about 30 minutes to get that far,” Jayde replied.
Kivenaal got up off the bench outside, trying his best to not be noticed by anyone else but the rest of his own team as he lifted one of the purple glass bottles out of the Bricksley’s bed and returned to the bench.
In the steamworks, progress was going well.
Valentin and the workforce were going at it tearing the Dione apart where it mattered. Carburetor, Intake and exhaust manifold, the rest of the exhaust, what was left of the ignition, among other things found their way out of the engine bay. Within the car, theories were crafted as to how one would arrange all the switches, levers and dials needed for safe operation of a steam powerplant. It was determined that single-driver operation was impractical due to lack of space and personnel overload.
Meanwhile in the kitchen, Duncan had started a small fire on their stove and Tim got about looking at the number of ingredients available.
“How many people are working here? Like… would be a waste to cook twice for the same meal, right?”
After getting a reply that he would likely be feeding somewhere up to 80 people, Tim held still for a bit, but wanted to challenge himself while also handing a bit back to the crew that is currently working with Valentin on the conversion.
With what was there and the amount to be made, Tim decided that something easily scalable would be the best course of action, as grilling 80 individual steaks concurrently would be outrageous.
He settles on a rather simple pasta-based meal and got to work with some help from Duncan, managing the fire under the stove.
Outside the massive building, Shift Happens seemed to be poking fun at Rukari, who was currently digging about the wheel well working the brakes.
“Seems like you lot are having fun watching one person fix the car.”, Constantin joked, then looked at Jayde.
“I was gonna head out and visit the local bowyer. Apparently there’s only one here, so might as well try that one. Do you still have the Coin?”, he said, mentally preparing to catch the pouch in it’s entirety
“One person broke the car, so one person will fix the car,” Kaylie said, grinning. “Seriously, you guys didn’t get to see how many times he sent us off of the road.”
“He made me hit my heads on the radio console, too,” Malavera added. “So, yeah, we’re letting our royal pain in the ass fix the brakes he fried.”
When Constantin asked Jayde for the coins, Jayde reached into a robe pocket and pulled out the pouch, then handed it to Constantin. “Didn’t want to throw it. Last time I did that, the pouch burst and there were coins everywhere,” Jayde admitted.
Rukari scowled as he put the new brake rotor on, then went to put the old rotor in the truck bed. He picked it up and put it in the back of the truck with a surprisingly loud crash, then fumbled with trying to disconnect the caliper from the brake line.
Kaylie looked up at Constantin, then said, “We can’t trust the caliper seals after he got them that hot. Full front brake overhaul, guaranteed at least brake shoes in the drums out back.”
“One person broke the car, so one person will fix the car,” Kaylie said, grinning. “Seriously, you guys didn’t get to see how many times he sent us off of the road.”
“He made me hit my heads on the radio console, too,” Malavera added. “So, yeah, we’re letting our royal pain in the ass fix the brakes he fried.”
When Constantin asked Jayde for the coins, Jayde reached into a robe pocket and pulled out the pouch, then handed it to Constantin. “Didn’t want to throw it. Last time I did that, the pouch burst and there were coins everywhere,” Jayde admitted.
Rukari scowled as he put the new brake rotor on, then went to put the old rotor in the truck bed. He picked it up and put it in the back of the truck with a surprisingly loud crash, then fumbled with trying to disconnect the caliper from the brake line.
Kaylie looked up at Constantin, then said, “We can’t trust the caliper seals after he got them that hot. Full front brake overhaul, guaranteed at least brake shoes in the drums out back.”
At the massive engineering project surrounding Valentin and the Tangerine Tank™, not much of note happened. With the boiler now declared safe, teams boiler and control got to work stripping anything useful off of the derelict steam lorry. Most of it’s cab was taken off and set aside, various smaller controls, dials, knobs, levers and other various stuff was removed off of the engine. Even the piping team could start dedicated work sourcing piping of suitable size for the intake and exhaust ports of the engine’s cylinder head.
Constantin quickly thanks Jayde for the coin, pocketing the pouch and it’s contents as he did yesterday.
“Well… true. Sounds like a lot of work i cannot help you with, even if i wanted to.”, he chuckles, then heading off into town to the bowyer.
