Max sent the Sergeant off to the desk in the spare room of Santa Maria to write his report, with the promise and threat that if this information was leaked anywhere, a court martial would be the least of his issues, then rejoined Nico to get to work on modifying the Line Mecha prototype.
"There are so many little things to tweak on this unit. Do you want to start with running the structural analysis and the movement data while I run the rest of the system information?" Nico suggested.
"That works. You wrote all the code, so it should be easier for you to do the diagnostics, and I can take care of the structural load information easily enough." He agreed.
They both took a seat in the living room, with holographic images of the prototype brought up all around them, and got straight to work.
While the report from the Pilot was valuable, it was more valuable after they had covered all the basic deficiencies of the unit. For example, in the first one, Max found the wing joint had taken much higher than expected levels of stress during the combination of maneuvering and firing and needed modifications to be properly durable.
Each change would be completed before the next one was started, then they would run the combination through the VR simulations before rebuilding the Mecha and running the tests again to see if they had introduced any new unwanted interactions.
It was the slow and grinding part of turning a cool design into a functional war machine, but after six hours, they had a pretty good start on it.
"Hey, Sergeant. Come out and get dinner. Punch whatever you want into the replicator, and then you can call it a night. For security reasons, we will ask you to stay in the spare room overnight, and we will have a fresh pilot's suit made for you in the morning." Nico called out once she had finished her second round of diagnostics.
"You guys live pretty good in here, don't you? I mean, unlimited power, no resource restrictions, no quotas that I can see." The Sergeant commented as he entered the main room.
"Oh, there are limits and quotas, but as Commanders of a Reaver Company, we have a lot of leeway. Santa Maria contains enough resources for years worth of casual living, so we don't worry about the basics.
The old ways are fading, and with the new pattern Replicators, the food limitations of a long voyage mean very little other than as an excuse to keep the crew in shape." Max agreed.
"It's completely different. When they told us we were going to be stationed on a front-line deployment for a minimum of a year again, everyone was thinking canned and dried rations from the cafeteria again, but we've got the replicators as well, and there are fresh vegetables and salads every day." Khalil agreed.
Nico nodded in agreement. "It took some time for the crew to get used to it, but once they did, I don't think that anyone would be able to go back to the old way again. Between the algae gardens and the recycling process, there isn't much loss, so even the largest ships become mostly self-sustaining."
The Sergeant sat down with a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and Max chuckled. It was such a simple dish, but somehow, when you were out of ideas, it was the default button that most of the soldiers pressed. Just meat and potatoes, with a random vegetable on the side.
Khalil looked at all the technical data still up on the holograms and sighed. "There really is a lot to this beyond making a functional Mecha, isn't there?"
Nico nodded. "I could make a functional Mecha before I even went to the academy. That's just basic robotics. But to make something that's truly worthy of military service and does the job as intended, with a relatively safe environment for the Pilot, is a whole other matter.
The early versions of the Cygnus Super Heavy Mecha used to leak radiation when their cooling systems were damaged in combat, and a lot of the Pilots died on their first tour without their Mecha ever being disabled. Or the Talia units that used to pop the door seals open when projectiles hit the side panels too hard. More than a few Pilots died in poisonous atmospheres due to that small design flaw.
So, the refinement is the most important part of the whole process, and we haven't even started on the destructive testing other than in Virtual Reality."
The Sergeant flinched a little at the mention of destructive testing but then realized he wouldn't have to be in the Mecha for that part. They could do it all with sensors to determine what it would be like for a Pilot under those conditions.
Many nations had used Pilots for that purpose anyhow, so they could get live feedback, but the Reavers were known to be protective of their people, so he was reasonably sure they weren't going to strap him into the seat and fire a Disruptor at him.
Once the meal was done, they all settled in for the night, only to be awakened by Nico's alert at four in the morning.
[Incoming hostile forces. All hands to battle stations.]
The Destroyer didn't send alerts as the Station did, and they didn't expect Max and Nico to join every combat mission, but Nico was already awake and had detected the Arisen appearing very close to the Destroyer, forcing them to retreat and begin defensive fire while the Koleska force staged for the assault.
"I don't have any messages from the Regiment," Khalil called out as the alert pulled him awake.
"That's fine. You've been reassigned to us for now, so get in the Mecha and wait. We probably won't deploy, but if the ship comes under direct attack, we will." Max informed him as he jogged out of his room with his Pilot Suit half equipped.
"This is not how you do destructive testing," Khalil called back, but he was running for the experimental Mecha, knowing that, at the very least, it was an extra layer of protection if the cargo bay was hit.
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