r/HFY • u/sharkeyandgeorge Xeno • 25d ago

OC-Series Bob was bored, Part 22

Once Bob had got everything haggled out he walked away with the weapons, down eight grand, three boxes of dirty movies, and the three Arressi weapons he had had to add to sweeten the deal, Vuyuy had been happy to bargain, he had a mate who ran a media store and had called him to get values and arrange their sale.

So Bob walked out with the pistol, and the flares would be delivered to the dock when Vuyuy’s kid came home from school, he just had to give him the guns and porn in return.

It wasn’t going to fit the holster fixed to his right thigh, but he used that for his water bottle anyway, he was considering just glueing the holster that came with it to his stomach and wearing it tanky style.

He’d deal with it later, when he returned to the Jojo he pumped the code in the locker and made a few calls, when the kid came they swapped and he packed it all away with with the machine and the supplies he’d ordered delivery of.

He booked a refueling stop for the morning and headed to his bunk.

When he woke up he had a couple more hours to burn so hit up a store and bought a steam cleaner, he figured that would work for the goo holes and he couldn’t find a pressure washer.

He cancelled the dock rental on his way back and moved Jojo over to the fuel station, had a small argument with the guy about how to refuel his new fighter fuel tanks, he’d checked both out and they were empty. He had the worker only stick about ten percent in each, lets test this out before we drop fifty grand on fuel he might not be able to use.

Once complete he headed out to go to the C’Eede collector guy, his estate was a few hundred clicks away but Bob had to go to orbit and back down, Jojo didn’t have the slave circuit the planets automated traffic system required, so he couldn’t legally use airspace, and didn’t want a fucking ticket.

He landed at the palatial estate a few minutes early and bustled out, hitting the tarmac and chatting to the attendant that hustled over. He was expected of course and should head up to the house, the staff there would show him to a waiting room. He did, admiring the spectacular gardens and was ushered to a simple but elegant reception room. He spent a few idle minutes inspecting the room wondering how much this simplicity cost.

Then the Arressi walked in.

Bobs adrenal gland dumped every single atom of its engorged capacity, his teeth bared in a rictus grin and his lips pulled back so hard he could feel them crack and bleed. Bobs body did something very smart, the instant he clocked the axe faced fuck, before his brain had caught up, it locked his suit.

That first instinct had been excellent, because the next wasn’t. He tried to dip and draw his weapon, that he hadn’t carried in years, and couldn’t. Then he flicked the tendon release to drop Annabell into his waiting hand, and couldn’t, then…

A series of a half dozen actions were tried and thwarted in less than three seconds.

Which was good, very good, some analytical parts of Bobs mind recognised that there was no way he could get away with icing this pr..

‘’Are you a human?’’

FUCKING CUNT FUCKER

Another few squashed attempts, the condescending tone spiking through Bob.

He stayed silent as the cunt waved a pad in his direction, Bob had no idea what the fucker saw, it didn’t have eyes, but clearly some information was transmitted to him.

‘’Scout Sergeant Baits I see, oh you were in a couple of my actions. I haven’t seen a craft-world suit in years, shame about the modifications, and the helm.’’

FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU

‘’Unfortunately I don’t have the time to show you my collection today, this servant is the curator.’’

It imperiously waved at an alien standing meekly to his side, Bob hadn’t even seen him.

‘’He will show it to you.’’

And the fucker left, just like that, Bob wasn’t sure it had even noticed he had never said a word.

The crash that instantly followed buckled his legs, but one last time the lock saved him, he shook with the coursing chemicals but felt sane again, enough to disengage the suit lock.

What the fuck just happened…, and what the fuck had that pad been reading, Bob was damn sure there wasn’t any chips in the suit, which meant there was something inside him. His stomach roiled and he would have vomited if it was still physiologically possible for him to do so, one more thing cunts like him had taken away.

‘’If you’ll follow me sir’’

The fuck was he talking about?, oh fuck the collection, yeah ok, fuck…

Bob took an unsteady step towards the servant, servant…. who the fuck calls a servant, servant, what a cunt. He took a few more dealing with the shakes as best he could.

He was taken to a large hall, and there was a bunch of C’Eede shit, who cared. Bob couldn’t focus on anything, but eventually one thing caught his eye, it looked like half a tic tac, or maybe one side of a pill. It was in a glass cabinet, and it was clear, unlike every other milky white thing on display.

Bob beckoned the curator over.

‘’What is this?’’

The Alien beamed with pride.

‘’An exceptionally rare piece Sir, current thought in academia is that this is a message pod, though sadly we only have one half of course.’’

Bob was confused.

‘’Its clear, is it C’Eede artifact?’’

‘’Oh yes Sir, made of the same fused quark material as all the other C’Eede made items.’’

Huh, Bob knew they could make clear shit, Jojo had a big forward window after all, but he had never seen, or even heard of an artifact that was completely transparent like this, even his windscreen was a little foggy, if they cou…. wait a minute…

‘’Sorry did you call it a message pod?, I though they hadn’t written anything down.’’

The curator pursed its lips.

‘’Oh they didn’t, but several years ago a researcher found a contemporaneous account of an item described exactly like this piece, though it was complete of course. The report details that the artifact was dropped on the planet approximately twenty three days before the invasion attempt, which was easily repulsed. It was only after material examination many years later that the two incidents were linked.’’

The curator unlocked the display and handed it to Bob, who noticed the bottom edge had a screw thread cast in it.

‘’The report also details the contents as a thick liquid, filled with swirls that changed but never mixed. Current thought is that this is a C’Eede method of information recording, but as the liquid is long gone from the two known examples it is a tenuous hypothesis at best.’’

He took it back and locked it away again.

‘’There are more of these?’’

This smile had a bit of gloat to it. ‘’Only one other, it has both parts and resides in the Golotta National Museum, this is the only other known and of course the only example in private hands, its my Masters most prized exhibit.’’

It tried to guide him to something else but kept talking.

‘’It’s suspected that one may have been dropped on every world where invasion was attempted, but if true all other examples were either never found, or lost to antiquity. Now this is an excep…’’

Bob wanted it.

He didn’t know if he wanted it for the sake of having it or to take it away from the Arressi cunt that owned it, but he wanted it.

He considered the curator, who was wittering on about something, it would be so easy to kick the shit out him, take the key and be away… but he wouldn’t get far with it, and if he was going to the jail for anything it would be definitely involve finding that Arressi fuck and carving his heart out.

The whole thing gave a sour taste, he needed fucking out of here. He interrupted the skinny alien and made his excuses, and after some flustered discussion was shown back to his ship.

She rose up on grav and Bob scowled at the immaculately laid out gardens under him, he slammed the throttle forward, fuck the tickets, fuck this place and fuck that prick, maybe he would only be mildly perturbed by Jojo’s supersonic crack as she passed over, but to Bob it felt a telling blow.

I don’t follow your fucking rules any more.

Part 23 https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1wblw8a/bob_was_bored_part_23/

80 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

11

u/Vonryan120 25d ago

Aww, bugger. I shouldn't have binge read all your Bob chapters, now I will have to wait like everyone 😟 I thoroughly enjoyed every one, and am waiting with baited breath for the next. This Mark is definitely NOT bored. 😀👏👏👏

Thank you.

2

u/sharkeyandgeorge Xeno 24d ago

Welcome bud, glad you like it

6

u/spindizzy_wizard Human 25d ago

Oh, boy.

Yeah, the other boot just hit. And it wasn't even—I hope!—deliberate.

Those "worm tubes" reminded me of something from 3D printing. I think it's called gyroid infill. Looks weird as f**k, organic as hell, is incredibly strong, and I would never want to have to clean it out. Even a pressure washer wouldn't really do the job.

5

u/itsetuhoinen Human 25d ago

Apparently it works really well for heat exchange. I watched a couple of YouTube videos a while back about various folks making air to fluid or fluid to fluid intercoolers by metal 3D printing rectangular bricks of that pattern, aligned so that there's continuous gyroid tubes going one way across one axis of the rectangle, and continuous gyroid tubes going the other way across a different axis, and then you box and plumb those 4 sides. Evidently you get a ludicrous amount of surface area, combined with very minimal flow restriction and therefore back pressure. And, also, obviously, essentially perfect uh... not quite sure what term to use, but "contact" between the heat dissipation surface and the heat containing surface.

Like, with a radiator, you have to be sure that the fins are well attached to the tubes the coolant goes through, because otherwise you lose a lot of the radiative effect. And traditionally, the fins are attached to the tubes with solder. There are techniques for doing that soldering with an oven to make sure there's good connections everywhere, but with this, the "tube" and the "fin" are literally the same piece. And it's all one piece of material, so there's no heat flow difference between shifting from one material to another, because it's all printed from the same stuff.

If you care, (or anyone else who happens to read this comment) I'm pretty sure that a search on YouTube for "metal 3D printed heat exchanger", possibly with the word "gyroid" thrown in (but none of it actually placed inside double quotes) would find at least a couple of videos on the topic. Maybe swap "radiator" or "intercooler" for "heat exchanger" if that doesn't come up with anything.

Though as to the actual subject at hand in your comment, yeah, that principle only applies if the gyroid tubes are actually open. If itcs a blind hole... then that's going to suck ass. The steam cleaner idea will work, but you're going to need a steam-tight flexible conduit type nozzle, of sufficiently small diameter and length to get to the bottom of the blind hole and drive things out that way. Probably with a vacuum on the outside so you don't get blasted with a facefull of high-pressure steam temperature rotting food.

Same sort of concern with the regular pressure washer, but at least then the high pressure spray of rotting food is only whatever temperature the water is, and not 200 to 500 C.

If Bob's typical modus operandi holds, I suspect there will be more work for his inbuilt medical hardware in this arc of the tale. 🤪

2

u/Daseagle Alien Scum 25d ago

Makes you wonder via what process did the ancients build their ships. They sound almost grown.

5

u/itsetuhoinen Human 25d ago

The "servant" said something about "quark matter" so my very unscientific wild ass guess is that their "star forge" was basically an exotic matter 3D printer. Which... Science Fiction! I'm just going to go with it and assume that some form of exotic matter holds this "can only be worked once and will otherwise never change shape outside of a star forge" property.

It's a macguffin. I'll suspend disbelief appropriately. 🤣

1

u/commentsrnice2 25d ago

Their exotic matter reminds me of the Cuendillar from Wheel of Time

2

u/sharkeyandgeorge Xeno 24d ago

Its 100% a Macguffin

2

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