Hangar Queens: A Modern Military Mecha Satire

So I'd planned to have this update done about 4 days ago, but a sudden rush of dinner parties and starting a (sort of) new job utterly derailed things.

I'm now way behind schedule for this thing. No idea how I'm gonna make up the gap. Oh well, just gotta press on and see what comes of this.


JAPAN TO DEPLOY MECHAS TO INDO-PACIFIC AMID RISING CONTROVERSY

Japan's newly commissioned multi-purpose operations destroyer JS Kaga is being deployed to the Indo-Pacific region with a full complement of Type-16 mechas, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force said in a statement this week.

The deployment comes at a time of mounting tensions in the region, as China continues to claim ownership of the South China Sea, where it is constructing a series of airstrips on reclaimed land. Analysts believe that these airstrips could be used to support mecha deployments by the People's Liberation Army.

China's foreign ministry issued a statement criticizing the deployment, saying it was "a destabilizing move that threatens to upset the existing peace between neighbours".

Japan's domestic mecha program has been deeply controversial at home, with its critics arguing that mechas violate Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which forbids Japan from possessing offensive military weapons. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an outspoken supporter of the program, has been accused by political opponents of attempting to re-militarize the country.

The JMSDF continues to insist that the mechas carried on board JS Kaga are not in fact machines designed for combat, but rather "humanitarian reconstruction vehicles". "As you can see, these rear mounts are designed to allow the machine to carry I-beams," an anonymous spokesman described a scale model of the Type-16 at a press conference. "And these handheld tools it carries are rivet guns, to rivet the I-beams together. Thirty millimetre rivet guns."


"Good morning, Lieutenant Johnson."

"Good morning to you too, Doctor," you answer, shaking his hand.

Major Adrian Syme is one of those individuals who got commissioned straight into the hallowed ranks of officerdom on the basis of his rare and valuable skills as a civilian. A tall, slender man with sculpted features, he has glossy black hair with far too much gel in it – you wonder idly how he manages to get a hold of it, considering how remote and secure a location H-3 Air Base is – and an exquisitely trimmed five o'clock shadow.

"Let's get right down to it," he says cheerfully, the two of you sitting in seats opposite each other – both of which, you note, have cushions. "How are you feeling today?"

"Okay, I guess?" You shrug. "Someone stole my toothbrush so I had to go find another one, and people kept making artillery sounds at breakfast; apart from that, today's been alright so far."

"Any headaches? Sudden uncontrollable chills? Feelings of existential dread?"

"Not right now, no."

"Good, good." He scribbles something down on a sheaf of paper attached to a clipboard, as medical personnel are wont to do. "Put this on, please."

You sigh and obligingly slip the object he hands you over your head. It's essentially the scientific edition of the flight helmet you wear into battle; not having to worry about being ruggedized, it's less of a sleek bubble and more of a footballer's cage, little more than a framework that's crammed to the brim with all manner of instruments that record more about your brainwaves than you ever wanted to know.

"How are you under there?"

"It's fine." You can't actually see out from under the brim, and Syme's voice takes on a weird reverberating effect. "Let's get this over with."

"Okay." You can hear more scribbling. "Reaction time is a factor in this, so please pay attention."

"I know," you mumble, having heard this preamble far too many times to count.

"Just making sure. Now, answer as quickly as you can." There's a sound of paper being flipped through. "What is your Air Force Specialty Code?"

"18QX Rapid Surface Strike Pilot."

"What is the capital of Azerbaijan?"

"…Baka?"

"What did the lion say to his cubs on the sidewalk?"

"Don't go until you see the zebra crossing."

"Why did the United States develop QM technology?"

"To one-up the Soviets."

"Describe your last sexual encounter."

"I plead the fifth."

"Your entire squadron, save you, is tied to a railroad, with a train about to hit them. You can pull a lever to divert it, but it will hit your entire hangar crew instead. What do you do?"

"I roll to disbelieve, because trolley problems don't exist in real life."

"Complete the sentence: in the grim dark future of the forty-first millennium…"

"Congress votes to raise the debt ceiling."

"If you're pregnant with an identical copy of yourself, and you abort it, does it count as suicide?"

"That would be biologically difficult."

"Name three of Hitler's top men."

"Goering, Goebbels, and, uh, Fegelein?"

"Die."

"I roll a twenty! Critical hit!"

"What's the strangest food you've ever eaten?"

"Well, my uncle does this really weird black pudding…"

"In Soviet Russia…"

"Mecha pilots you!"

"Eenie meenie miney moe."

"Catch a snail with your toe."

"What is the meaning of life?"

"To suffer."

"What do you call it when somebody with an annual income of fifty thousand dollars borrows five million dollars?"

"Subprime mortgage crisis."

"Favourite Schwarzenegger movie?"

"Predator."

"Okay, you can take off the helmet now." To your credit, you don't hesitate, unclipping it and setting it aside. "Good news, Lieutenant. Your QM aptitude is at a healthy sixty-two percent. A whole one percentage point over your last score."

"Yay?" To be totally honest, you don't really know what the percentages actually mean. Sometimes they go up and sometimes they go down, but as far as you can tell they don't seem to have any meaningful effect on your ability to pilot. Not that you have a very big sample size to draw on.

"Yay indeed, Lieutenant. Yay indeed." Syme ticks off a few last boxes on his clipboard. "That's it for today's check-up. Keep up with your exercise regimen and make sure you get plenty of sleep. Do you have any questions for me before you go?"

"Yeah," you pipe up, your cheeky streak choosing this moment to flare up, "why aren't you a hot female scientist like in all the movies?"

The major chuckles. "For exactly the reason you're intimating right now, Lieutenant. Good day."

You stand, shake his hand again, and exit the room.


As you're leaving the examination room, you almost collide with somebody standing in front of the doorway, only just managing to pull back at the last moment.

"Oh!" It takes you a moment to remember your fellow pilot's name. "Sorry, uh, Clarke, I didn't see you standing there."

"Mm," she replies laconically, making no effort to move aside so that you can actually leave. She's doing that weird mixed posture thing again, slouching with her hands in her pockets, but she's so close that the effect is for her face to be merely centimetres from yours. It's rather invasive of your personal space, but there's something about her green eyes you find starkly fascinating.

"Um…" you venture as the silence stretches awkwardly, "is there something I can help you with?"

"Not yet," she says with a strange lilt. It's not technically a staring contest, since both of you are blinking; but nonetheless, you can't help but feel this is some sort of evaluation. Or hazing, which from a certain point of view is the same thing. But you expect hazing would be more obviously unpleasant. This is just weird.

"Well, uh," you begin to fidget under Clarke's stare, "if there isn't anything, I'm gonna just, go now. There's, uh, maintenance and stuff. That I've gotta do. Y'know?"

"Mm-hmm." Her right hand leaves its pocket and brushes a lock of golden hair from her face, but she doesn't move. "Ta ta, then."

"Um, bye!" With a surge of courage, you brush past and double-time – not running, that would be unseemly – down the hallway and around the corner away from 2nd​ Lt Clarke.

Seriously, what was that?


The incident is still nagging at you when you arrive at the hangar, hitching a buggy ride with some random airmen to reach the spot you were at yesterday.

A few engineers are already clambering all over your Q-35A when you get there, taking notes on clipboards and tut-tutting disapprovingly at what they find. Their supervisor, a staff sergeant by the name of Miles Perrier, hops off to greet you.

"So, what can I do for you, chief?" you ask politely after the introductions are done. As much of a butterbar as you might be, even you know full well the importance of keeping on good terms with senior enlisted. Especially when those same enlisted are responsible for the continued ability of your fighting machine to generate miracles.

"There's a few items I wanted to go over with you before we get started," Perrier replies with that understated tone you've come to recognize from engineers. You've even used it yourself from time to time. "First of all, how much did you actually boost-jump during your last sortie?"

"…A lot?" you answer, already knowing where this is going.

"Yes, I could tell." It seems that almost everyone on this base has a penchant for writing on clipboards while they're talking. "I'm sure you're well-aware of this, but a standing boost-jump adds nearly as much wear and tear on the joints as four running jumps using the same amount of fuel. It's lucky you got back to base when you did; any more jumps, and your knees would have blown out from under you on the runway. Again."

"That bad?"

"Yes. And while we're on the topic of using your rocket thrusters, just what the hell did you do to them to mess them up so badly? It looks like a toasted bagel in there, with lots of cream and sugar melted on top. Seriously, what did you do?"

"Well…" You're rather reluctant to disclose any details related to your close brush with fratricide, the knowledge of which thankfully doesn't seem to have proliferated beyond your squadron. That hasn't stopped them from teasing you mercilessly about it. "There was an unexpected obstacle in my landing zone, so I had to perform emergency evasion. That shouldn't have been a problem, right?"

"Not normally, no." Perrier consults some notes. "But when you do it on the tail end of a cruise and suddenly go from a soft landing to a full burn, it tends to really mess up the casing. Like I said: bagel."

"…Would it have been better if I didn't evade the obstacle?"

"If that was the case, you wouldn't have been able to fire twenty-eight shots from your anti-tank rifle. And yes, I went and counted them, just to be sure. Now, I understand that combat can be a very chaotic affair, and that the pieces often don't line up the way we want them to. But I don't suppose there's any way you could possibly avoid firing your main weapon as often? I'm sure you can appreciate how difficult it is to clean a seven metre-long barrel."

"You want me to use my gun less?" You look pointedly over at your Q-35A and its lack of any secondary armament. "On a sharpshooter variant?"

"If it helps, think of them less as bullets and more as tickets for an hour spent swabbing the barrel with a ramrod. Each."

"…I'll do my best," you commit half-heartedly. "But can I ask you something? What's the deal with the fire control and sensors on this thing? I wouldn't have had to shoot so much if I could actually, y'know, hit something."

"Oh, those?" Perrier waves a hand. "We're still waiting for Northrop to send us a patch for those. Thermals and radar have been broken since 34.0.7b. You're just gonna have to live with it in the meantime."

"I… see." There's a brief silence while you stew on that. Surely you can do better than just wait around for some defense contractor to get around to fixing your war machine? Your name isn't Ricky Eagle Buster Johnson III for nothing, after all.

The distinct loudness of vociferous swearing carries over from somewhere close by, and you glance over to witness 2nd​ Lt Hansen laying it hard into his hangar crew. You're not sure who you pity more: the enlisted airmen, for all the abuse they're putting up with; or Hansen, for how poorly maintained his Q-35A is going to be. Or you, because he'll be accompanying you into battle in that condition.

"Now, unfortunately, with all the damage your friends took in that last sortie, it might be a while before we can get around to yours." The chief engineer flashes you a winning smile. "Hope you remember your way around a spanner, LT."


You'll be spending the next month or so performing essential maintenance on your war machine. Your selected character traits have spared you any significant damage, but the other members of your squadron aren't so lucky.

Since you'll have a (relatively) decent amount of free time available, you might as well use it to better acquaint yourself with your fellow pilots. But whom?

Select three. Votes will be tallied by line.

[] Challenge Patrick Hansen to a simulator duel.

[] Assist Richard Buck in debugging his targeting system.

[] Probe the mysteries of Antonia Clarke's mind.

[] Receive additional sharpshooter training from Robin Taylor.

[] Volunteer to assist Edward Tanner with his paperwork.


I was going to include a Brexit joke in this update, but at the time this quest takes place, Brexit hadn't been extended yet.