RK Series Racing; Stage 16 Drive
and
Team Shift Happens
(Collab with @Madrias, obviously)
It was still very much dark in the Allvenitz Steamworks, save for some dim electrical lighting dotted about the room. At precisely 4 hours before expected sunrise, Connor’s internal timer went off, kicking him out of his stand-by state, with everyone else partaking in the Shitbox Rally still asleep. The only other people awake were the local workers with the Bricksley’s soon-to-be rail wheels and Neville, who was supervising the whole thing as best he could.
Those wheels did already look mostly complete, but the four of them were stacked onto a lathe-like tool, where they were to be balanced for the expected speeds.
Connor did not wait long to execute the assigned task, choosing to get Constantin out of his sleep first.
He approaches the Dione, carefully opening the front passenger door, behind which Constantin was “sat” on a heavily reclined seat.
Connor gave Constantin some light taps to his right jaw area, which already was enough to get Constantin into a very vaguely alert state.
“Good morning. It is approximately four hours before sunrise.”, Connor calmly stated.
“Yeah cool thanks.” Constantin mumbled back, still in the process of waking up.
“I am going to get Malavera awake.” Connor replied, already heading off to the tent Malavera was in.
“You do that…”, Constantin replied, while he put the seatback up to it’s upright position.
Connor then went over to the tent as announced.
Malavera gave a quiet, half-growled groan as he slowly sat up. Sleep, for the last hour or so, had been impossible as a dropped tool in the distance had rang out quite sharply and startled him awake. He’d been laying there in hopes that he’d fall back asleep, but instead, had just heard the sounds of machining going on, the sound of a lathe removing metal to get the wheels closer to their finished form.
As Connor walked over, Malavera crawled out of the tent. “Good morning, Connor,” Malavera said, standing up to his full height and stretching a bit before reaching back into his tent and putting his shirt back on.
Connor looked at Malavera with a bit of confusion.
“Good morning. I see you are already awake.”, he said, mentally ticking off the task of getting him out of bed.
By this time, Constantin was also mentally functional and got out of the car, closing the door with a noticeable thud that didn’t seem to bother Tim at all.
He then came over to the other two, his face looking perfectly awake, but everything else as if he hadn’t slept for a week.
“Mornin. Looks like the wheels need some work still…”, Constantin spoke to the other two while trying to neaten himself up as best he could.
“Indeed they do. They currently are being balanced to make them as round as we can get them to be. They should be completed shortly.”, Neville spoke eagerly and with little consideration for the volume of his voice.
This didn’t seem to phase Valentin or Tim, though the members of Shift happens did not take this lack of awareness too kindly.
Rukari startled awake at the loud voice, then grumbled out, “Why don’t you step on my tail next time? It’d be just as unpleasant a wake-up call, but at least your foot will also be in pain.”
The loud voice seemed to also have an effect on the rest of the crew, with Kivenaal sitting up in the back of the truck with a glare before shoving the door open and climbing out, Kayden soon joining him with a rather large yawn, Kaylie grumbling as she crawled out of her tent, still looking sore from yesterday’s fall, and Jayde muttering under his breath, “It’s not worth it to cast silence, he didn’t know any better.”
As they made their way out of the car or tent one by one, Rukari made his annoyance very known, which made Neville realize what just happened
“Oh fuck… i am so sorry!”, he started, going from heightened voice to almost whispering halfway through trying to excuse himself from the bad he just did.
“Good job in pissing of an entire herd of furballs.” Constantin commented, aware that his choice of words probably was less than ideal, though in his defense he didn’t have any real info on what the members of Shift Happens actually were.
“At least that saves us the effort of getting them out of sleep. Well, most of them…”, he added, chuckling a bit while looking at Valentin tucked between some toolboxes and sleeping through all this mess as if he was at home, in bed, undisturbed by anything.
At the other end of the shop, the workers were stepping back from the workpieces, followed by some nasty coil whine as it spun up to whatever speed the lathe could muster, the four workmen watching the array of wheels for any oscillations and vibrations. A few moments later, the speed was dialed back down and they got back to work, turning the cylindrical wheels into conical ones.
Malavera smirked, then quipped back to Constantin, “I’d prefer the term ‘pack’ over ‘herd,’ though given our heavily feline-biased nature, maybe ‘pride’ is better.”
This, of course, earned him a light elbow in the ribs from Kaylie, followed by her looking through the building, seeing the balancing process going on for the wheels.
Kivenaal grabbed one of the water jugs off of the roof of the Bricksley, flipped the cap open, and took a long drink. When Kayden poked him in the side and made him spill water all over himself, Kivenaal bonked him on the head with the now-empty container.
“Really? It’s too early for this shit,” Jayde grumbled, watching as Kivenaal and Kayden had a momentary, surprisingly quiet scuffle that ended with Kayden managing to knock Kivenaal’s hat flying, only to get knocked over and kicked in the ass by a cowboy boot for his trouble.
“Settle down, children,” Kaylie quipped, looking over at the two of them.
Rukari looked over at Neville, then asked, “You say the wheels are still being worked on. When can we expect that they will be done?”
“I’d guess we’d be able to get breakfast done first,” Malavera said. “Granted, we’re almost out of easy supplies.”
“As far as i am aware, they are currently being balanced for roundness. Should be done in less than half an hour.”, Neville said, turning around to have a quick look at the workers near the lathe.
“Definitely less than half an hour. Seems like they are shaving off the excess into the conical shape that rail wheels have.”
“Well in terms of breakfast i am covered. Still have an MRE i can feast on. Though we will have to get at least Valentin out of “bed” soon, with how he takes longer than your locomotives to get going…”, Constantin commented.
“If he takes 2 hours to wake up then i would genuinely be amazed.”, Neville replied, unaware of the differing time scale on earth.
“Had a case of that once already.”, Constantin quipped back. “I’ll get breakfast for myself.”
Constantin then went back to the Dione to retrieve canned bread and some butter.
“You’ll ruin your fireboxes doing that,” Rukari mentioned to Neville. “Better to bring them up to temperature slowly when you can, otherwise you earn yourself a lot more work.”
“We’re in a steamworks,” Kivenaal said. “Maintenance is their business.”
“Hey, less talking, more making of food, please,” Kayden grumbled.
“Thank you for volunteering to cook the meal, then,” Rukari quipped back, making Kayden groan.
“Do we even have any food left in the truck?” Kaylie asked.
Malavera reached into the truck bed and grabbed what was left of the supplies they’d picked up the day before, then said, “We’ve got plenty of fruits that should be eaten soon.”
“Great. Breakfast without actual food in it,” Kayden grumbled. He then watched in shock as Kivenaal grabbed a fat orange out of the bag and bit into it like it was an apple. “Seriously? You’re supposed to peel those.” He watched in horror as Rukari did the same thing, then shook his head.
Jayde, on the other hand, just chuckled. “Good luck convincing either of them that they’re doing that wrong. That’s just how they eat citrus fruit,” Jayde said, picking out a green apple and pulling out one of his knives to cut slices out of it, eating each one off of the blade of his knife.
Malavera chuckled and opened the toolbox, pulling out his personal supplies and grabbing an MRE labeled in a language that was hard to read, even with the rings on, peeling it open and taking a bite out of the very dense brick inside it. This was followed by a lot of chewing and Malavera grabbing his canteen from inside the truck with a grimace. With his other head, he mentioned, “I do so very much hate these things. How in the name of the Moons above can one bite completely dry out your mouth? I swear, whoever invented these deliberately wanted to torture people.”
Kaylie and Kayden shared a glance before reaching for Malavera’s bag, only to stop when Malavera shook his head. “They might not be safe for the two of you, they’re made for my kind.”
“So what are we supposed to do for food?” Kayden grumbled.
Kivenaal looked over at Kayden, then replied, “You could go hunt. Or, you could do the sensible thing and head into town to buy food so we don’t have to rush to do that when we arrive at the next camp.”
Kaylie leaned over the bed rail, grabbed two decent looking apples, and handed one to Kayden. “Quit whining about eating fruit, you know you’re able to eat some of it,” Kaylie grumbled.
“Yeah, and it’s not right,” Kayden said, taking a bite out of the apple with a grimace.
Malavera shook his head again, taking a long swig of water before taking a smaller bite of the tough brick again.
“What exactly is that?” Kivenaal asked, looking at the block.
Malavera glanced at the label, then said, “Supposedly, beef, vitamins, minerals, wheat powder, and salt, cooked and formed into a block and then thorougly dehydrated, before being vacuum sealed. They’ll keep for about 5 years.”
“Five of yours, or five on Earth?” Kivenaal asked.
“Mine. About 35 years on Earth. Provided the seal stays intact and they’re stored properly, that is. Truth be told, I think they’re designed to be something you only eat because it’s better than starvation,” Malavera replied.
Breakfast was much less eventful for Constantin, who had a slice or two of buttered bread before deciding that it wasn’t exactly enough. Digging back into the box, he locates a small package of biscuits, which he happily pulls out before dumping the remaining contents and the box itself into his backpack.
“Good old Bunker Buster Biscuits. Love 'em.”, Constantin spoke while opening the plastic wrapping, followed by him happily munching on them, followed by a drink rivalling Malavera’s in volume. After all, they were known for being dry as the Sahara and somehow being a good substitute to charcoal bricks if paired with a suitable fire starter.
Other than that, breakfast was not exactly exciting, especially with half of RK Series Racing still asleep.
Eventually, a pair of workers came over, pushing a crude wooden cart of sorts with a stack of shiny flanged rail wheels on top of it.
“Got them done. Finally.”, one of the two proclaims proudly, though it is obvious that the two were exhausted.
“Yeah… that guy of yours specified really tight tolerances that turned out to be major ass-pain in some areas… Alas, here they are.”, the other spoke, before both headed off to collect the two other colleagues, soon heading out for their deserved time away from work.
With the wheels ready and “breakfast” finished, Malavera and Kivenaal slowly moved the truck into a maintenance bay to test-fit the new wheels and set the vehicle down on the rails for the first time.
While they were busy getting the truck lifted up to fit the new set of wheels, Rukari pushed the cart over to Kivenaal and Malavera, who had the front end up in the air on jack stands and had the front wheels off already, tossed into the truck bed.
There was a quiet scrape and clunk as Kivenaal lifted the first wheel up, gripping it around the rim with all four hands before placing it over the spindle, where Malavera then loosely spun on the lug nuts. They did the same for the other side, before gripping the wheels and torquing the lug nuts down appropriately. With that done, the truck was settled down onto the rails, and then the process was repeated for the rear of the vehicle.
It hadn’t taken that long, but sure enough, the truck now sat on the rails on shiny new rail wheels.
Of course, this gave everyone the first real view of the first problem they’d need to solve, as the Bricksley on the rails seemed to tower over the Dione.
The size disparity problem became obvious almost immediately to Constantin, who decided that now was the time to get Valentin out of bed. Before he could do so, however, a shunting engine that was within the steamworks had just finished the final inspection and was now ready to be sent back to work.
As such, it aggressively blared it’s whistle to announce the moving train to everyone within and around the building, after which the steam pressure within forced the cylinders into motion, propelling the engine out the door and onto the yard out front.
Amazingly, Valentin still slept through all of this commotion, not even moving an inch.
“Uhm… is he still alive? Like… how could anyone sleep through a goddamn steam train whistle going off?”, Constantin commented, which prompted Connor to check.
He walks up to Valentin, who has been sleeping on Constantin’s sleeping bag for basically the entire night, save for the first hour or so spent in the maintenance trench below the Dione.
Once there, he determines that Valentin is indeed alive and well, albeit still fast asleep or unconscious simply by closely looking at him. With basic vital signs known and normal (for a sleeping 7 footer, at least), he went a level further, eliminating unconsciousness via a pain reflex test.
Needless to say, Valentin was indeed not unconscious, as the classic pinch-test has him roll around and off of the sleeping bag, groaning.
“He was asleep.”, Connor confirmed, since Valentin did show a reaction to pain.
“Good job… now to wait until his brain actually gets going…”, Constantin replied, crossing his arms while looking at Connor and Valentin.
Kaylie startled as the whistle blared, glaring in the direction of the loud, offending, brightly-colored object that was the shunting locomotive as it departed the steamworks. Kayden, on the other hand, looked concerned about Valentin right up until the moment that Connor pinched him and got some movement out of him.
“How the fuck can he sleep through a train whistle?” Kaylie said, shaking her head.
Rukari shrugged. “Not entirely sure myself.”
At the far end of the steamworks, Malavera and Kivenaal were joined by Jayde, who helped put the last tire in the bed. “So, any problems putting this thing on the rails?” Jayde asked.
“Getting it lined up was a bitch, but it’s on there,” Malavera said.
“Shame the engine’s still broken,” Kivenaal added. “It’d be interesting to see how it’d handle the rails like this under its own power.”
Malavera looked down through the steamworks, then said, “We might have to come up with a backup plan in case Val doesn’t wake up on time. We don’t have enough time to make another set of rail wheels, and I can’t learn how to operate on the line in just a few hours, but… We have tires, there is an old steam truck out there, we could technically tow the Bricksley.”
Jayde mentioned, “Valentin’s waking up. Just very slowly.”
“Good, because while I’d like to drive a steam truck,” Kivenaal said, “I’d rather not have to figure it out while towing something else.”
“Well now we wait. He will get going… eventually…”, Constantin commented.
Thinking about it a little more, he took a quick look around, spotting a set of things that could speed up the process a bit. He went off to get them out of anyone’s view, returning with a sizeable bucket full of water.
Said bucket was blinked down near Valentin for now, spilling some of it’s contents onto the surrounding floor.
He then went over to Valentin, who conveniently was not on the sleeping bag anymore, dragging said bag clear from his vicinity.
“Mind if i borrow your phone for a second?”, Constantin asked, followed by Valentin actually handing his phone over without a second thought, not that he was awake enough to produce that second thought to begin with.
With the electronics secured and his sleeping bag safely stowed, the contents of the bucket made their way straight to Valentin, absolutely drenching his entire upper body in one go.
The once practically asleep Valentin turned into a perfectly awake, though very soggy and confused Valentin, frantically flailing around in a futile attempt to shield himself from the latter half of the bucket.
Once the waves stopped crashing down on him, he cleared his field of view from the mass of hair now stuck to his face, followed by him looking around, trying to make sense of what is going on.
“Seems like jumpstarting your brain works.”, Constantin chuckled, still holding the now-empty bucket.
“You blithering idiot! Just because you can get up on a whim doesn’t mean everyone can!”, Valentin blared after a short pause of processing, going from laying on his back to seated in the process.
“Well we don’t have half a day to wait for you to get going. We’ve got problems to solve… Like how the hell are you gonna tow the Bricksley over there?”, Constantin countered, pointing at the truck in question.
“I don’t know!, I just got the nuclear option of being woken up!”, Valentin snapped, still visibly angry at the rude awakening.
“Well that nuclear option would be the steam whistle going off about 20 minutes ago which you slept through in it’s entirety without even flinching…”, Constantin protested, not really wanting this to escalate into a fist-fight both because Valentin would lose by a landslide and because he himself hasn’t been awake for all that long either.
Kaylie groaned as Constantin dumped a bucket of water over Val, which had the expected result of being one hell of an alarm clock. “Jayde,” Kaylie called out across the steamworks, “Could you bring my good towel over here? Val’s going to need it.”
Jayde thought for a moment, trying to figure out what Kaylie meant by the “good” towel, up until he realized the real intent. He grabbed Kaylie’s bubble-gum pink towel and, making sure he was hidden from sight by a locomotive, quickly put a mild enchantment on it to wick up just a bit more water when it was used. It wouldn’t be much, but now they had a towel that would certainly help dry off Valentin. He wandered over, knowing better than to run considering the multiple hazards around, then handed Valentin the bright pink towel.
“It’s not much, but Kaylie said to bring the good towel. Should soak up most of the water without too much of a problem,” Jayde said in a calm, polite, and friendly voice, hoping to defuse the situation a little.
Kaylie, on the other hand, gave a grimace as she realized Val’s nice new suit was also soaked. “Not sure that’ll pull the water out of his suit, though,” Kaylie admitted. “It’s good at getting water out of fur, but… Not sure if it’ll pull water out of fabric.”
“Well thank you…” Valentin grumbled, still annoyed at the extreme measures taken to get him awake.
He dries off his face and most of his hair, the latter remaining somewhat moist through force of habit. The suit, however, remained soaked all the way to and including the skin beneath.
Still, something is better than nothing as he returns the towel to Kaylie, completely oblivious to the enchanted nature of it.
After that, Valentin just sat there, trying to actually get going and mentally prepare for what is to come.
That being figuring out the operational things of how Robert will move the Bricksley along the rails.
Kayden rummaged in one of his pockets and turned up three of the cycling bars, looked over at Val, and decided to hand him two of them. “It’s not really a good breakfast, but… We don’t have any decent supplies, either. I mean, I can run over to the truck and get the mixed bag of fruit if you want to pick through it, but otherwise, it’s just these. I’ll have to get my canteen from the truck anyway, so it’s not an inconvenience either way,” Kayden said.
Kaylie chuckled as Jayde tried his best to wring out as much water from the towel as he could, his canteen sitting at his hip pretty much in plain sight.
Over by the truck, Kivenaal and Malavera were still holding a discussion about the old steam truck when it was noticed that Rukari seemed to be missing.
“Where the hell do you think he is?” Kivenaal asked.
“Oh, this isn’t good. When’s the last time you saw him?” Malavera inquired.
“Breakfast, eating an orange. How about you?”
“Same. The good news is, he can’t have gone far,” Malavera said.
“So you think. He knows how to operate steam vehicles, Mal. We’re surrounded by things that run on steam.”
“Yeah, and we know he wouldn’t steal a train.”
“Shit. Ten credits says he’s fucking around with the steam truck,” Kivenaal said, getting up and heading toward that area of the steamworks. Malavera followed shortly after, and just outside the shop, they found Rukari with an oil can.
“What are you doing!?” Kivenaal asked.
“Preparing our backup plan. Just need to fill the tanks and light the boiler,” Rukari replied.
“Val’s awake, you fool,” Malavera said. “Once he figures out how to deal with the two vehicles, we’ll be okay.”
Kayden stormed over to the doors, then said, “You know, the three of you don’t have to shout. Kaylie and I can hear the three of you loud and clear over all of the background noise in the shop.”
“It’s certainly something…”, Val replied, pocketing one bar and opening the other. After taking a bite or two out of the opened one, he fumbles around to get up to standing, making the mess that is now his suit even more obvious. The front was all kinds of soggy and wet while almost everything else was in some state of dusty.
Regardless, he vaguely overheard the discussion going on about Rukari prepping the steam truck out back, promting him to head over to the Bricksley and take a look.
It indeed was substantially larger, as was already known. But with the Bricksley now being dead, another issue presented itself, it being that it couldn’t provide any motive power with a dead engine.
“Can we get Robert railed? Would be good to know the true size and clearance relations between the two. Ideally one behind or ahead of the other.” Valentin ordered, looking back at the Dione.
Constantin immediately went over to push it into position, though it became obvious that steering, pushing and aligning was a bit much to handle alone, the latter of which was covered by Valentin also heading over again to help rail it up.
“I’d appreciate some help here.” Constantin said from near the Dione, which pulled the last member out of Dreamland.
Tim moans, looking about the car’s interior a bit before greeting Constantin and Valentin.
“What happened to you?”, he inquired, unaware of the bucketload move earlier.
“Just… don’t ask…”, Valentin replied. “We need to get Robert railed, just a heads up.”
“Sure, i guess…”, Tim answered, getting out of the car to walk and stretch for a bit.
Kaylie and Jayde were the first ones to realize while the Dione was being moved, the Bricksley was right in the damn way of the easily-accessible set of rails. “Shit!” Kaylie said, taking off at a full sprint toward the truck, with Jayde unable to keep pace despite his longer stride. When Jayde finally caught up, the two of them pushed together, the Bricksley moving almost-effortlessly on the rails.
“We’ve got to go move the truck!” Kivenaal yelled, prompting Malavera to take off toward the doorway. The same doorway where Kayden was standing, aware of the need to move the truck and making a few steps in the right direction to help, only to get bowled into by 500 pounds of charging two-headed wolf-man who hadn’t anticipated Kayden taking so long to get moving. The two of them went to the floor hard, with Rukari quickly following them, tripping over Malavera’s leg, and doing a rather unelegant tumble across the shop floor.
Kivenaal walked in, looked at the three of them, and rolled his eyes. “Really? Are doorways that foreign of a concept to you three?” Kivenaal quipped, stepping around the pile-up that was Kayden and Malavera, then looking over at Rukari, who had stopped mere feet from landing in a maintenance pit covered in coal dust.
Kayden groaned and shoved Malavera off of him, getting up with a wince. “I feel like you hit me with the fucking truck, Mal,” Kayden groaned.
“I hit one of my heads on that fucking rock you call a skull,” Malavera replied with a grimace. He wiped a finger against his left lower lip and winced, seeing the red tint of blood. “That fucking hurt.”
“Oh, yeah, bit your lip when you hit me in the head?” Kayden asked, taking a look.
Malavera grimaced and gave a light nod.
“I guess we’re even, then,” Kayden said with a smirk. He ducked as Malavera took a half-hearted swing at him, chuckling as he dodged the friendly punch. “So, how did Rukari do?”
“Other than the fact that if we were playing Charades and he was attempting to mimic a scorpion quite well,” Kivenaal said, “he seems okay.”
By the time the four of them made it over to the truck, Jayde and Kaylie had already pushed it forward enough to fit the Dione behind it.
The issue of understaffing solved itself via Connor steering, Valentin directing and Constantin pushing the car about. As it made it’s way out of it’s current “parking spot”, the commotion in the doorway unfolded, garnering curious looks from all four members, all of which asking “Are you okay” in their usual variants.
Once it became obvious that both Kayden and Malavera were (mostly) fine, they returned to maneuvering the Dione about the place.
Getting closer to the bay where the Bricksley was railed up, they discovered that Jayde and Kaylie already made some space for the Dione to park up behind it.
What followed was the usual process of railing up, except that the boiler did not carry any pressure at this time.
Kayden, Malavera, Rukari, and Kivenaal joined Kaylie and Jayde at the truck, where Malavera opened up one of the doors and grabbed a clean shop towel to wipe the blood off of his lip and chin. There, they watched the process of the Dione converting from road to rail, with a bit of commentary here and there about it seeming a bit easier than railing up the Bricksley.
“Shit. Shouldn’t the truck be behind the Dione?” Kayden asked.
“Steam engines can push a train just as well as they can pull it,” Malavera replied. “The only difference here is that someone’s going to have to manually control both ends of the train, because we can’t hook the brakes together.”
“Yeah… that and the fact that i have no way in hell of seeing past the truck. Which means that we either are swapping ends and waste a ton of traction that we don’t have, someone with railroading experience tells me what’s going on… somehow… or i’m not the one actually in the driver Seat of Robert.”, Valentin added to Malavera’s explanation, mentally weighing each option against the others.
“The best logical option is to have you up front giving signals to someone behind to control the Dione. The issue is, we have a 6 seat truck and 6 people already, and only one person who could fit in the Dione,” Malavera replied.
Kaylie groaned. “Great. If that’s the case, I hope the weather stays mild.”
“Let me check something…”, Val remarked, after which he went into the Dione from the fireman’s side, pulling out a little cheat-sheet containing info on what each lever does. After reading through it, an idea comes to mind.
“Here’s the plan. The reverser lever on the fireman’s side can override the throttle setting enough to make it redundant. So whoever is in the driver seat instead of me just has to weld their foot to the floor and keep it there for as long as that person is sat there. We could modify the cable pull, but we’d lose reversing in that case. Connor can then control power from his end, allowing direct visual communication from the Bricksley back to the Dione. Back-to-front could be solved via light signals, horn or the whistle, if need be…”, Valentin explained rather confidently. The lack of any objection or protesting from Connor boosted that confidence further.
“So… Kaylie gets the driver seat, then?”, Tim inquired.
Kaylie looked over at Tim, then back to Valentin. “How hot is it, usually, in the driver’s seat? Because if it’s cooler than in the back, I might take that option,” Kaylie asked.
“Truth be told, i don’t know. To me, it’d perfectly bearable windows up, but i feel like i’ve won the gene-pool lottery in terms of heat resistance, especially since that chain out there and human hairdo don’t mix all that well. And i haven’t been in the back for extended periods of time to say much about that either… However, on my way in and out of the car during crutch-times, the temperature gradient surely was noticeable.”, Valentin answered, unsure if that was what Kaylie wanted to hear while running one hand through his voluminous hair to prove the point.
“The temperature should be anywhere between zero point four and two degrees Celsius colder in the front row. A steeper gradient is expected if any window is rolled down. Absolute temperatures range from two to six degrees above ambient, depending on vehicle state and ambient temperature.”, Connor added calmly.
Kaylie nodded. “Should be doable,” she said. “All I have to do is sit in there and pin the accelerator to the floor, then?”
Malavera chuckled, then said, “Kaylie’s just making sure she’s heard it correctly. It’s not every day someone tells you to get in the driver’s seat and floor it.”
“Get in, floor it and keep it floored until we either arrive or need to reverse, in which case Connor will tell you when to take that foot off.”, Valentin confirmed, grinning a little at the hilarity of perpetually welding one’s foot to the floor.
"With control over Robert sorted, Connor and I need some way of communicating. I guess we’ll just head off while you pack up your stuff. Can also get the two coupled if you want and have some spare time.
After that, the two went off to discuss and arrange a set of signals in both directions. Meanwhile, Constantin and Tim got to work packing up what little equipment was taken off of and out of the Dione yesterday.
Just let me sleep…”, Valentin mumbled, rolling over to the other side.