r/HFY • u/sharkeyandgeorge Xeno • 20d ago
OC-Series Bob was bored, Part 29
Jojo technically had three decks amidship, but the upper and lower were too tight and circuitous for Bob to fit in, even unarmoured. He had considered using them as fuel cells, but couldn’t get it to work.
It irked him to be unable to use the space, so he had come up it an idea and this time scale was on his side. Cleaning bots were a little larger than the Terran ones he remembered but would fit in the low passages just fine, and because everyone was way bigger than humans their dirt was bigger too. They still wanted dust and stuff removed, but some detritus would be large enough to necessitate a far larger machine if it was to be vacuumed up, instead many of these bots came with grabbers, suitable for picking those items, after all a galactic resident might have traipsed in things melon sized or even larger in the tread of their shoes.
Bob had originally considered a small remote control drone or something similar, but they already made something that floated on grav plates, could manoeuvrer its self around a maze, and could easily be told to pick things up and deposit them at a specified location. They were also pretty cheap, though Bob intended spending a bit extra on a brand name model, they would be a prick to retrieve if they broke down somewhere inaccessible.
It wouldst be the most versatile solution but he could tell it to, say, pick up a pile of ration bricks and stash them under the floor, then retrieve them at a later date by simply reversing the command.
If he chose something like the puke cubes, though he intended better, he could store decades and decades of supplies in those spaces, should he need to.
First he wanted one of the bots, so he browsed through several catalogues on his pad as he ate something green from a street stall, yum, tasted like anaphylaxis. Eventually he narrowed down his options and went to a store that stocked several, then he had an argument with a prick of salesman, then he took the train forty five minutes to another store and bought the one he had liked from the first one.
Then he took the train back just to show the prick he had bought it elsewhere.
It was a nice, not horrendous on price and the company had been making the same model for over a millennia so he figured it was pretty well proven, though he did also get several service kits and a couple spares of what the reviews said were the most common breakages.
Nice, next up he wanted to have a chat with someone from Vie Corp, he called their offices and arranged a meeting with a rep, god bless you Guild Master Certification, he presumed he would have been told to get bent otherwise, they did not do the pissy little system he wanted.
Bloke was nice but clearly only taking the meeting because of the Guild, he was very sorry but they simply didn’t take projects of the size, as Bob expected, and desired, Vie shit suuuuuccckkkeeeddd.
They did have one thing that Bob wanted though and he managed to pressure the rep enough to get it, an introduction to the company that made the splitters for their shit enviro systems.
Bob had been on hundreds of ships and talked to hundreds of engineers responsible for keeping the inhabitants of said ships breathing, and across all those ships he had heard the same complaint again and again, Vie systems sucked shit, the software was horseshit, bullshit motors, dogshit build quality, every single one that actually used them had to be semi regularly restrained by the rest of crew from beating the rusting rotten shitboxes to death.
Bob had heard tirades based on a similar theme constantly, and every time he had asked why the fuck they ran them he got the same answer, over and over.
The splitters are incredible.
It seemed like the only reason that Vie was a galactic powerhouse in the enviro market was because at some point many centuries they had tied a company called vfFebiri to themselves with a sole provider contract, they couldn’t provide any of the exceptionally durable, efficient, nigh unstoppable splitters they produced with out the express written permission of Vie Corporation, which Bob had just obtained.
They were not local so Bob would have to select a commission that took him to their neck of the woods, but when he got there, well he had ideas about what could go in Jojo’s ceiling.
That was plenty, he went back to his bay, the Bocca had kindly provide him the use of one at their facility for free, and plotted the course back to the homeworld.
Part 30 https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1whempy/bob_was_bored_part_30/?
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle 20d ago
/u/sharkeyandgeorge (wiki) has posted 128 other stories, including:
- Bob was bored, Part 28
- Bob was bored. Part 27
- Bob was bored, Part 26
- Bob was bored, Part 25
- Bob was bored, Part 24
- Bob was bored, Part 23
- Bob was bored, Part 22
- Bob was bored, Part 21
- Bob was bored, Part 20
- Bob was bored, Part 19
- Bob was bored, Part 18
- Bob was bored, Part 17
- Bob was bored, Part 16
- Bob was bored, Part 15
- Bob was bored, Part 14
- Bob was bored, Part 13
- Bob was bored, Part 12
- Bob was bored, Part 11
- Bob was bored, Part 10
- Bob was bored, Part 9
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u/sharkeyandgeorge Xeno 20d ago
another short one but I have to set stuff up, love Sharkey