Birth of a Pilot

“What did the corporal mean by him getting banned?” Lorenzo hopes Rachel has some clue. Why is no one else questioning this strange man?

“Corporal Engel was just joking, captain.” answers the aforementioned strange man. “Sort of. I didn’t leave this team on the greatest of terms with the staff major. Or rather, the other staff major; I’m still getting used to this title myself.”

“You used to work on the robot, Karl?” The captain doesn’t understand how Ranger Kim could be on such casual terms with this guy after barely meeting him, but they are a celebrity in a way.

“Indeed, I was the Starwalker’s former programmer, among other things.” Staff Major Nielson responds. 

“Don’t call it that!” Engel complains.

The staff major tilts back his shoulder in surprise. “But wasn’t that the name you came up wi--?” 

The corporal folds her arms. “As if I would ever come up with something as dorky as Starwalker!”

“I… Okay… Nevermind.” His face turns serious. “Corporal, do you have any way of stopping Romero?”

The corporal turns her head away. “I couldn’t even get him to not let Taji board it. He threatened both of us with insubordination.”

“You’re... You’re right.” Nielson shakes his head. “If he didn’t stop after poor Harada’s accident, there’s no way anything less than drastic will get to him, and even that’s not a guarantee…”

“Well.” Ranger Kim leans back on one of the tables. “Speaking of drastic measures, one of our guys is trying to see if he can convince someone higher up to stop him.”

“That’s a wonderful idea!” praises the staff major. “Speaking of higher ups... “ He turns toward Lorenzo. “Pardon me, but are you related to Chief Commander Galhardo by chance?”

“I’m his son.” Lorenzo knows what he’s thinking, so he feels he should explain now. “But beforehand I had made a deal with Staff Major Romero that my brother and I wouldn’t contact him. If I hadn’t…” The captain draws his cap downward.

“Ah…” Nielson gives him a look of sorrow. “Romero has a way of getting into people’s heads like that. I can’t fault you for not expecting it.” 

“It can’t be helped now.” Thinking of the situation at hand, Lorenzo realizes that now is not the time to lament. He picks up his tablet. “Any incriminating information you have on Romero or his robot will be extremely helpful.”

The white-haired man straightens up his posture. “I’ll try to help as much as I can.”

“What’s the first thing you noticed that was off about the project?” asks Ranger Kim.

Nielson taps a finger on his mouth. “Let’s see... It was probably when he tried pitting our ideas against each other. One day he’d side with Engel, another day, he’d agree with Harada, then with me. It wouldn’t be so odd if he didn’t say things to try to bait us into jealousy.”

“What kind of things?” Lorenzo asks. He notices Engel seems to be in deep thought, but she doesn’t say anything.

“He would use our ranks to shame each other into doing better. He couldn’t really do much with mine, since I was the highest ranked, but whenever Harada said something he agreed with, we’d never hear the end of it.” He begins to mimic Romero. “‘At this rate, you’ll surpass Ashley and Karl!’, ‘Maybe you should take Karl’s place!’ Things like that.”

Kim grimaces. “That sounds so annoying…”

The staff major slumps dramatically. “It was.”

“...It was.” Corporal Engel quietly agrees.

“Not to mention, it did horrible things to the group’s morale.” Nielson continues. “It’s part of the reason I left, actually. We couldn’t get through a day without an argument or a few. It severely impeded any progress.”

Rachel nods solemnly.

The staff major turns his head towards her. “I take it not much changed after I left… What a shame. I was hoping you’d have a better experience.”

Romero’s daughter freezes up, then looks toward the ground. “I don’t mean to be rude, but since you’re also a staff major, couldn’t you have done something about it?”

“Technically.” The mustachioed man rests one elbow in the other hand. “And I did speak up a few times, but. The reason I worked under Romero in the first place is so he could teach me the ropes of being a staff major. I got promoted just a few weeks ago. Besides, despite how my hair looks, I’m quite a bit younger than he is, so he must’ve felt some kind of superiority in that regard.”

“How do you feel about the bribe?” Ranger Kim inquires.

“Huh?” Nielson does a double-take. “...What bribe?”

“After you left, Romero promised us whoever worked hardest on the robot would get to pilot it first.” explains the corporal.

“Is that…? Is that why you guys were working overtime?” The white-haired man’s eyes widen in horror.

“I thought I told you about it!”

He closes his eyes. “You were so incoherent that day that I thought you just wanted to get it built quickly. I had no idea he was bribing you guys! What on Earth…?”

“Mars, technically.” Kim mutters. “But, anyway, what led up to you leaving? What were all the reasons?”

Nielson tilts his head to one side. “Other than the in-fighting… More in-fighting, but this time between me and Romero.”

“What did you argue about?” Lorenzo feels like a journalist, ready to take down anything the staff major might say.

“The design of the S-” Staff Major Nielson glances at Corporal Engel. “The machine’s design. I felt it was wholly inefficient for its purpose! At most, it can carry two rocks of any size, and I don’t really get his insistence that being able to carry bigger rocks makes it better, because in order for the geoprocessing plant to properly examine them, they would need to be broken down anyway. At that point, we’d just be needlessly destroying Martian geology. And the entire aspect of having a pilot control it from the inside adds so many risk factors that it’s not even really worth it!”

“You should probably tell them about the big fight.” Engel suggests.

Nielson appears to be confused “The big fight?” He lifts his head in understanding and chuckles. “Oh! That big fight.”

“I want to know what happened.” Rachel leans toward the staff major. “Dad never told me the specifics.... Other than mocking some of your words.” she adds quietly.

He chuckles. “I can imagine he did.” Nielson clasps his hands together. “Where do I even begin…? I guess I should say that while I did disagree with Romero’s concepts, I tried to phrase it very politely, since even though I worked on the physical planning, I was mostly relegated to the software end of things. He’d brush me off every time, and that was usually that. But one day, I was sitting at that computer--” He points at the one the cadet is sitting at. “--and Engel and Harada were arguing about what kind of legs it should have. They were over at the table where the corporal and Jun Kim are standing now.”

Staff Major Nielson points at a desk in the back. “Romero was over there, instigating the argument on both sides.” He places a hand on the side of his head. “And the more this conversation got heated, the more heated I got, because one, why wasn’t he stopping this, and two, I started to realize that the entire concept of this mechanical beast having legs was too ridiculous to even entertain! So I tried to think of other alternatives, and I basically came to the conclusion that the entire robot should be scrapped for something smaller.”

“Annnnd you told him that.” adds Corporal Engel.

“I did. And he reacted as if I walked up and slapped him across the face.” At this, Ranger Kim stifles back a laugh. Nielson begins to imitate Romero, starting off by pushing up his imaginary glasses. Lorenzo can almost see the lens glare. “‘Who are you to tell me what I should do with my project?’” He breaks character. “Before this, I had never seen the man get this genuinely upset.” Nielson resumes his Romero impression. “‘I’ve had the idea for this baby for years and I’m not about to let some upstart boss me around!’ And then I told him ‘If you were thinking about this for years, you should’ve realized it couldn’t work. It’s completely impractical!--’”

“That’s the part we used to quote.” Engel points out.

“And then I told him a bunch of my other concerns with the robot, basically what I went over earlier about the claws, the rocks...” Staff Major Nielson continues. “And then I got to the safety requirements, which is where I might’ve let my emotions get the better of me and accused him of wanting to build himself a fantasy robot.”

The corporal looks to be remembering something. “You said something like ‘You just wanted to build a big robot that could punch things!’”

“Yeah!” Nielson bursts into laughter. “Thank you, Corporal.”

“You weren’t wrong…” Rachel mutters under her breath. The others couldn’t hear her, but Lorenzo does.

“Thinking about everything you said, it does seem like rock collection was an afterthought.” The captain nods in agreement with Ranger Kim.

“That’s exactly what I said!” The staff major raises a finger. “And I knew accounting for all the safety risks would be a nightmare; that’s what made me so mad. I didn’t expect that he would just… skip them.” He blinks, dumbfounded. “But the argument and my involvement with the robot ended when Romero said… ‘If you think your idea’s so much better, then why don’t you go build it?’ and then I said ‘I think I will.’ and I walked out and told my supervising commander that I would no longer be working on Romero’s project.”

“Did you start work on your invention?” The captain feels that now might not be the time to ask such things, but he is curious.

“It’s coming along slowly since I haven’t gotten around to recruiting anyone to help yet, but, my prototype is in construction. It’s basically going to be a tiny dump truck connected to a drone.” Nielson looks around the room. “If I do it right, it should collect a lot more samples for none of the safety hazards.”

“Interesting.” Though he struggles, Lorenzo finally finishes jotting down his notes on the white-haired man’s conflicts with Staff Major Romero.

“I think Romero’s been keeping tabs on me since. He keeps showing up at the geoprocessing plant, trying to see how much I’ve got done. And I can’t say I haven’t done the same. Whenever I came across Engel or Harada, I’d try to see how things were coming along... And it… just seemed like a really shady operation, but technically everything he was doing was legal, according to you guys.” He looks at Engel. 

Nielson continues. “When the machine was completed, Romero dragged me over to see it. He mentioned that it was too small for someone to fit and not so subtly tried to convince me to test it out.” He impersonates Staff Major Romero once more. “‘You can test it out if you want to!’ I didn’t want to. So I left! Then, a few days later, Harada’s accident happened.”

“And then I told you we would be dismantling the robot.” the corporal adds.

“I couldn’t have received better news. But now here we are!” Nielson looks between Lorenzo and Ranger Kim. “That’s the end of my tale. I’m honestly surprised Romero didn’t try to threaten me with an insubordination charge for speaking against him.”

“Can he even do that?” Engel’s question seems to surprise Nielson. “You’re the same rank.”

The staff major looks down in thought. “...Oh. I am.” 

“Get it together, Karl…” Corporal Engel shakes her head, then looks at the staff major. She sighs. “I’m one to talk. All this time, I thought you were overreacting. Especially about the risk factors, because after we completed it, I was like, ‘We didn’t have that much trouble handling that! All we really had to do is strap on a couple seat belts, no big deal!’... Me and Romero would laugh about it sometimes. Even the idea of a cockpit shield seemed ridiculous to us.” She balls up her fist, hitting the table. “I can’t believe I--! I was so convinced I would be the pilot, I didn’t even think about other people. Not Taji, or that guy piloting it now, or--” She gasps. “Rachel could’ve been in that thing!”

“M-Ms. Ashley!” At Rachel’s outburst, Engel covers her mouth.

“I’m so sorry! I’m such a--! I shouldn’t have said that. Forget you guys heard that.”

“How could we forget?” Nielson is flabbergasted. “He was going to put Rachel in that thing?? His own daughter?”

“If it helps you guys feel any better,” Ranger Kim picks up their phone. “We already overheard that little conversation earlier.” They focus on the staff major. “But yeah, if we hadn’t shown up with Angelo, Rachel would’ve been next.”

“That’s horrifying…” Nielson trails off.

“Rachel, are you alright?” the corporal softens her voice.

“No one was supposed to know, and now it’ll make Dad lose his job...” Tears well up in the young girl’s eyes. “He’ll be so disappointed…”

Meanwhile, Lorenzo notices Kim hastily typing into their phone. They seem to be waiting for something afterward.

They lift their head up. “Ah. This is a bit of a problem. I was just texting Emil to see if he specified to his dad who mentioned Romero asking Rachel to pilot the robot. He did say that we overheard you. If he hadn’t, I was thinking we might be able to stage it to sound like someone else overheard the initial conversation between her and Romero.”

Corporal Engel slowly raises her head. “When and where did he tell you this, Rachel?”

“It was three days ago in the mess hall. We were on our lunch break.”

“Okay. Okay, we can make this work.” The corporal begins pacing. “The reason you told me today is because you knew I overheard it.”

Rachel blinks. “But…”

“But nothing!” Engel cuts her off. “I’m probably gonna be taking some of the fall for this anyway. I might as well take a hit for you.”

Lorenzo can kind of see what the corporal is trying to do, but none of this makes sense to him. “There’s a couple problems with that.” The others stare at him. “One, we’re under surveillance right now, and if they do decide to go through the footage for some of our evidence, there’s a sizable chance that they’ll overhear this conversation. Two, you already said you’ve never taken a break.”

“This was after Taji’s injury, so construction on the Starwalker was already done.” corrects the corporal. “But… you’re right about the rest. Besides, at the time, I was probably trying to secure the new motor so Romero could ‘test out how it would fit in the new build.’” She makes air quotes around the last statement. “I was such a fool!”

“You were functioning on so little hours of sleep, you probably weren’t thinking straight.” the staff major reasons.

Engel gives him a tired look. “I don’t need excuses right now, Karl.”

“New… motor?” questions the cadet.

“Yeah. Romero didn’t like that the old one capped at 55 miles per hour, so me and him installed a new one a few days ago.”

Color drains from Rachel’s face. “My code… My code only accounted for it going up to 55. I don’t know what-- I hope it doesn’t cause any problems.” She shuts her eyes tightly. “I’m--!” Her eyelids relax. “I’ve decided that I don’t care if Dad finds out what I said. Someone could be in real danger right now, and Dad…” She shakes her head. “He screwed up so bad. I can’t--I can’t cover for him.”

“Are you sure?” Ranger Kim asks with a look of concern.

Rachel nods her head. The room goes silent as everyone contemplates what to say. The room stays silent as everyone contemplates what to say. Lorenzo decides to take an opportunity. 

“Rachel… is that uniform really yours? Are you really a cadet?”

"What? What is that supposed to mean?" Engel interjects, but she seems more confused than scornful.

“No…”

“Rachel...??” the corporal’s voice squeaks. 

“My dad just had me wear his uniform.” The girl looks between Lorenzo and Ranger Kim. “Was it really that obvious?” They both nod.

The room returns to silence. While everyone else is at a loss for words, Lorenzo focuses on relaying the new information and Rachel’s confession to Emil. Nielson looks around the room, before finally settling on Engel. 

“Corporal Engel, thank you for reminding me of my position. If you all will excuse me, I’m going to check on someone.” 

He runs out of the room, but a few seconds later, he comes back.

“What lab is Romero in right now?”