The bay doors slid open to reveal the Test Pilot, looking nervously around the room at all of the equipment that had been set up before his eyes landed on the new Line Mecha lying on a workbench near the centre of the open space.
"Sergeant Khalil, it is good to see your commitment to punctuality extends even to working with the Reavers. I should warn you that the cutie from the kitchen is packing a bit more of a surprise than you might have expected, though." Max greeted him.
"Hey, I'm not an idiot. I know. I just don't care. What did you need today, Commander? The bay looks pretty much immaculate, so it can't be cleaning detail." The Sergeant replied.
"No, we have something much better in mind for you today. We need a test pilot who can keep his mouth shut about everything that he has seen here. The development of new Mecha patterns is a top-level classified activity, and we have chosen you as our test Pilot for this pattern of Line Mecha." Max explained.
Sergeant Khalil thought about his situation for a moment and sighed. "I get it. You picked me because I'm on the shit list, and if I told anyone what was happening, I would be branded a liar as well as a flirt and a screwup."
Nico smiled and walked over to pat him on the back. "You're right on the first try. But look at it this way, even if you don't get to tell anyone, you still get to pilot the state-of-the-art experimental Line Mecha."
Khalil looked down at her with a slight smile. "So, why didn't one of you do it? You could keep it to yourselves, and nobody would have to worry about information leaks."
Nico shook her head. "Either of us can push a Line Mecha to its mechanical limits. That doesn't really tell us about how it will perform in real life with regular Pilots at the helm. This version has both mechanical and neural links, so you can pilot it as you prefer, and the origin of the Pilot won't matter much, only their skills."
"Alright, I will be your guinea pig. I still get the feeling that this appointment is a not-so-subtle insult to my skills and value as a Pilot, though." Khalil agreed.
Max liked this man. He was very self-aware, and he was clearly familiar with the risks that a test pilot took and why they hadn't chosen the most valuable of the available Pilots when they would have been less of a security risk.
Yes, it was because his skills were perfectly suited to the test that they were running, but it was also because the unit would continue to function without him if there should be a major mishap that led to the destruction of the experimental unit during testing.
Nico led him to the desk where the designs were being displayed. "Now that we're all in agreement let's show you around the design specifications before you get in. This isn't like any Line Mecha that you've been inside before, other than the basic height.
The weapons systems are integrated into both the arms and the wings so that the Pilot can use twin blades or a blade and shield. There are a Warp Drive and Nacelles integrated into the backpack unit, and the main weapons are a miniaturized Mass Driver."
Sergeant Khalil whistled as he heard the features of the Line Mecha and looked back at the unit lying on the table. It really did look different from the usual Mecha, but to think that it carried such an insane list of features.
Line Mecha are basically expendable in combat, and every experienced Pilot knows it. But this thing had the firepower to stand up for itself.
"What does it have for defences?" He asked cautiously.
"It has three layers of the Tarith Pattern Shield Generator, powered by the miniature Warp Core, so it will recover exceptionally quickly if the design lives up to its theoretical capabilities." Nico shrugged.
"That's better than nothing. It looks like the shields on your units hold up pretty well under enemy fire, so we might be ahead of the locals on weapons development." Khalil decided.
That wasn't precisely true, it was just that there were only two Mecha in this entire region of space, so it really wasn't worth it for the enemy to fully optimize their force to fight Max and Nico instead of the Koleska, who they were trying to wipe out.
If the Arisen had put more effort into it, Max was certain that their shields would have had a much harder time dealing with the enemy's weapons.
They hadn't put a lot of effort into optimizing them against the Koleska either, though, so it was possible that they were slower to adapt, or the fleets were fighting multiple enemies, and what they had was the optimal configuration against the entirety of the species that they were engaged in battle with.
Nico was finishing up the details of the layout and controls when Max started paying attention to the room again, and it was time to start loading everything into the shuttle. She had already pulled it out of the hangar and parked it on the cargo bay floor, so Max just had to activate the Gravity Plating and push the new Mecha over to the repair rack, which would stand it up for the Pilot to more easily get situated.
Sergeant Khalil opened the front plate of the cockpit, which swung down to make a ramp for the Pilot to walk up while being careful not to get footprints on the window. Then he strapped himself into the seat and swung the control panel back in place before hitting the button to close the front plate and seal the cockpit.
"Process complete. Powering up now." He informed the room.
Nico made a quick note of something she found in the system logs, then tapped her communicator to put him on speaker mode.
"Proceed with system diagnostics." She instructed.
"All systems check out. All indicators are green. Nominal Power Output is at twelve percent, with Nominal Usage at One Percent." The Sergeant replied.
"Perfect. Get your ass in the shuttle, and let's go shoot at some asteroids."
Updat𝓮d from freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.co(m)