The noise was as deafening as it was diverse. The sound of large gears turning, saws cutting, mechanical arms squealing, and heavy metal slamming to the ground with a thunderous thud. The Wakefield factory was a never-ending symphony of loud, unsynchronized instruments pounding away without any sense of rhythm. Even with ear muffs, working on the factory floor was only barely tolerable. It has long been rumored that the factory was so loud workers could actually get concussed from the sound waves alone. Though in the two years she had worked there, Mara had never actually seen that happen to anyone.

Silly legends aside, the Wakefield factory was nonetheless an unpleasant working environment. In addition to all the noise, the heat in the facility was unbearable. Between the constant movement and the exhaust from all the heavy machinery, Mara was dripping sweat all throughout her shift. The Wakefield factory was largely automated. Massive pieces of metal traveled down the wide conveyors to be worked on and cut by the various mechanical arms. By the end of the assembly line, the had been shaped into the hull plating for the spacecraft that were constructed at the shipyard.

The process was messy, resulting in large chunks of scrap metal dropping to the floor beneath the conveyor system. Mara's job was to collect the scrap so that it can be melted back down and recycled for other projects in the factory. The runner, as it was called, was a bottom level position. So much so that it wasn't even handled by actual employees of the factory. The job was handled by temps like Mara, though she could certainly see why none of the full-time employees wanted to do it.

Much of the scrap metal was as large as Mara herself and Mara was not a short girl, she actually stood taller than a lot of the guys in the facility. She would crawl under the conveyors and drag the scrap out with gloved hands along with whatever partner she had been assigned with that day, hoping that bits of scrap wouldn't fall right on top of them. They would load up the scrap metal into large wheeled metal containers called 'boats'. The boat wasn't that heavy at the start of the shift but, with all the scrap collected with just one loop around the factory floor, it didn't take long before it required the combined strength of both Mara and her partner to move it.

Once the boat was full, it was time to take the scrap to the recycling center which was tucked away in the corner of the facility. The benefit of this is that, once there, Mara could remove her hardhat and earmuffs. In the heat of the Wakefield factory, the relief of taking off the large helmet and ear protection never got old. She stood there drenched in sweat from the long day of work that still had several hours to go. As the recycling engineers took control of the boat, Mara and Jose, the man she had been partnered with for that shift, went over to the water fountain. They took turns getting a drink and splashing cold water on their faces. More sweet relief.

"Another hard day at the office?" One of the recycling engineers remarked as he helped load the boat into an automated machine that would carry it to the forge. That question did get old for Mara seeing how often she heard it but, thankfully, Jose took the time to answer for the both of them.

"Yeah. Just another day."

Mara looked up at the clock to see that it was just past 8 P.M.

"Time for our final break?" Jorge asked.

"Yes, it is." Mara answered before shouting to the recycling engineers. "Hey, we'll be back in fifteen."

The engineers nodded their heads and went on with their work. Mara and Jose then walked off the factory floor with their gear in hand and made their way to the rec room. It wasn't a very long walk as the entrance of the factory floor was right by the recycling center.

Once in the rec-room, Mara grabbed a couple of water bottles from the cooler and handed one to Jose as they sat down at separate tables. Mara didn't have any problems with Jose, he seemed like a decent guy who just started working there a few weeks earlier, but she wasn't very interested in getting to anyone at the Wakefield Factory. There wasn't even any way of knowing if he would still be there in a few weeks, not that Mara would blame him for leaving. But, mostly, she just wanted to spend her brief break in relative peace and quiet...but that was too much to ask for.

Shortly after they sat down, a group of maintenance workers came strolling into the rec-room. The maintenance workers were responsible for maintaining all the automated equipment on the factory floor. A surprisingly easy job from what Mara could tell. The parts were quite large and they required other machines to be moved around and installed. The entire process of fixing one of the machines one the factory floor was as automated as the factory floor itself. All the so-called engineers had to do all day was stand around and wait for something to break. And when that happened, all they had to do was push a few buttons and the problem was fixed.

Despite all of this, not only were they full employees, they were the highest-paid people in the factory outside of management and they were unbelievably smug about it. One of the maintenance engineers, Nick, went over to the cooler and grabbed himself a water bottle. He sighed at the number of bottles left in the cooler, causing Mara to roll her eyes.

"Unbelievable, isn't it?" Nick said to the other maintenance engineers. "How people who aren't even actual employees get to drink all of our water. I mean, it's bad enough that they get to breathe our air."

Mara didn't comment on that, though she really wanted to. There was more than enough water to go around in the factory and the arrogance of him suggesting that she and her fellow were less than them simply because 'they were' rubbed her the wrong way. But mostly, she was astonished that a few less bottles of water were apparently all that was needed for the young maintenance worker to act out.

Mara, however, was perfectly content to sit there with her mouth shut and just move on with her day. Jose seemed to feel the same as he also didn't give any reaction to Nick's comments but it seemed Nick wasn't willing to let that be. He looked at Jose. "Well, I certainly hope that water tastes good."

"It does." Jose answered calmly. "Thank you."

Nick then turned to Mara. "And what about you, traitor's blood? Are you enjoying the water?"

Mara sighed. "We only have 15 minutes to rest, is this really how you want to spend it?"

"Rest." Nick laugh. "What do you temps need to rest from? What do you people need to hydrate for? You do nothing?"

That was a good way to get under Mara's skin after a long day of work. She looked at Nick, he was a few years younger than Mara, probably still in his late teens, and was clearly just a trainee who probably didn't have any bills or responsibilities once or ever. But he stood there with a smug smirk on his face that didn't have an ounce of sweat on it after 6 hours in the factory.

"We do the heavy lifting you people are too good for." Mara fired back.

"Girl, you do nothing. You do nothing."

Mara finished up her water and decided to end her break early. "Well, if you excuse me, I need to go run more scrap."

"Oh, like that counts as work. You do nothing."

Jose finished his bottle of water and decided to follow Mara. "Hold up, I'll go with you."

Nick shook his head. "Go with her to do what? Oh, that's right, nothing. You do nothing."

Mara and Jose left the rec-room and began to make their way back to the factory floor. On the way, Mara looked to Jose and said. "You didn't need to end your break early."

"I know. I just didn't want you to push the boat on your own."

"Thank you. And I'm sorry, it's just life around here is difficult enough without dealing with that schoolyard nonsense."

Jose agreed. "Yeah, that brat is annoying. He always uses those same three words 'You do nothing'. Have you noticed that? He just repeats those words again and again like an obnoxious wind-up toy."

"That's how you know he's an idiot."

The two of them put their hard hats and earmuffs back on and returned to work. It was a simple routine they went through, grabbing an empty boat and making the round across the factory floor. The first few stops on the lap had relatively small pieces of scrap, so only one person needed to crawl down and collect them. Jose looked at Mara and signed. "I go first."

"I go second." Mara signed back. They had to use sign language to communicate on the floor, it was so loud. "We trade places like before."

This was only the second time Mara had worked with Jose and she needed to make sure he followed the right procedure. The first time she had worked with him, he had tried to show off by doing most of the work and was falling over from exhaustion by the end of the shift. He learned the hard way that it was best to keep a balanced pace on the factory floor.

Jose signed back, confirming that he understood what Mara had just said to him, and crawled under the conveyor system. Mara looked around the massive factory as she waited for Jose to return. The hull plates that were being constructed were so massive and, even at the slow pace of the conveyor, a decent number traveled down the line every day. At the annual meeting held at the beginning of the year, it was announced that the factory had produced enough components to build 4 new ships in addition to the repairs made to the existing ships the previous year.

It was hard to believe that all that time and effort only produced 4 new vessels, down from the 6 ships constructed the year before that. The executive manager of the factory was quick to point out to everyone that the reduced number was the result of the larger ship designs put out by Union High-Command. The ships were all military, of course, mostly frigates and cruisers. No fighters though. There were fighters stationed at the Wakefield shipyard but they weren't built here. Mara wasn't sure which city was responsible for those but then, she didn't really care.

At 24, Mara was just old enough to remember that Wakefield didn't construct military vessels at all. Some of the cities were known for supporting the then limited military force, but Wakefield was known for its line of luxury liners for civilian cruises around ringed planets and beautiful gas giants. There were annual events around the reveal of the ships, contests to see which famous engineer would design it and which architect would handle the interior. It was Wakefield's holiday season.

Nowadays, the main question was how much bigger the guns were. Those were assembled in a different sector of the Wakefield factory. Mara worked that line on occasion but she didn't enjoy the sight of it. At least on the hull line, she could pretend shipbuilding was still about the art and beauty. It did get slightly harder for Mara to do that however each and every day she worked on the floor. And, with Rhea Day coming up, it was virtually impossible to view shipbuilding as anything but what it actually was.

Mara shook her head at the thought and then it suddenly dawned on her...Jose had been under the conveyor system for too long. She stepped away from the empty boat and knelt down to see Jose struggling to crawl his way back. Something was clearly wrong. Mara frantically scurried under the conveyors towards him and quickly began to see the blood spilling from his neck. A sharp piece of scrap had fallen from the conveyor line above and sliced him. If he had screamed, it would've been impossible for anyone to hear him. Mara dragged him, trying to reassure him that she would help him but her voice couldn't beat the machines.

Jose's eyes were already starting to grow dim as Mara made sure he was applying enough pressure to his neck. She sprinted over to the red emergency button nearby, pressed it, and ran straight back to him. She quickly signed. "Help is coming."

Jose barely registered a response before losing consciousness, Mara presses down on the side of his neck. The floor managers rushed over with others...too late. Jose was already dead.