It ended up taking them another week of minor tweaks until they had the beta version of the Line Mecha ready for testing. Everything was properly modular, every part could be accessed with reasonable amounts of effort, and the most common service modules were accessible in under five minutes, except for a few which were simply unable to be relocated and took nearly an hour for a single technician in the field, or fifteen minutes for one with a repair rack to get to.
That was much better than the standard listed on the military procurement orders that any of the human military forces had issued, so Max was confident that the Cygnus force would find this to be an improvement worth keeping, even without considering the increased firepower and mobility.
"Well, should we get ahold of Sergeant Khalil and have him continue with the test Pilot duties for the sake of continuity in the data set?" Max asked.
Nico nodded as she started lovingly at the now complete Mecha. "We should. I will make more of them as well so that we have multiple input points for the testing data, so you should request that they send a whole wing of Line Mecha PIlotos from the Corvette Class operators. Anyone else will be too slow to work the Mecha to our standards, and Sergeant Khalil has a lot of extra training."
"Got it. Anything else?"
Nico smiled and looked around the room. "Raspberry cheesecake ice cream cones. I think we need to celebrate."
There was a replicator programmed for food right at the side of the bay, intended to resupply the Mecha, which would normally be stored in there, so Max sent the request to Celia's Love and went to fetch the snacks.
[We have received your message, Light of Truth. We can have them ready in ten hours. Will you be sending a shuttle, or are we arranging transport?]
[I will come to get them. I have a gift for you as well, for the generous loan of your men for our testing.] Max replied.
The truly good Reaver Rum was only programmed into the Reaver ships and not every ship of the Trade Group, so it was always a welcome trade good. Every group within the human fleet had their own personal specialty, and the Cygnus Fleet preferred Vodka, while the Kepler forces often brought a form of Brandy with them.
"They will be ready in ten hours. Would you like to take a nap so that you're ready when they get here, or do we have more to do?" Max asked as he went to get the ice cream.
"We will take a break after this. If it's a ten-hour gap, they should be rested when they get here, and we can go all out to get the data that we need. I will make some flying drones that we can shoot at as well. Having shields up on the remote-controlled ships should make better targets than simple asteroids, and we can test their skills and reflexes as we go.
The best Mecha in the world is a worthless hunk of iron if it's not intuitive and user-friendly, so we will give them the once-over on the controls before they go and then let them figure it out. They're Cygnus, so they're likely used to running with pure mental control and very little manual input, which means that their control rates shouldn't change much at all."
"In that case, here is the ice cream. Good work on getting the prototypes up and running, everyone. Enjoy your break, and we will meet again when the test Pilots arrive." Max agreed.
--------------------
Twelve hours later, the ten test Pilots were assembled at a Nico-designed course through the asteroids, with one hundred moving targets, all equipped with energy shields, which should withstand the output of the Line Mecha weapons, which had been toned down for the exercise, the same as a training Mecha would be.
"Commander, are you sure that it is actually possible to complete that course within fifteen minutes?" One of the Pilots asked.
"One hundred targets in fifteen minutes while under fire is the standard to pass the Corvette Class certification. These aren't even going to be shooting back." Max reminded him.
"But look at the course. I don't even think that our Corvettes can move as fast as those Drones." The Pilot countered.
"I can have you replaced if you like, but I assure you that the course is possible. I ran it in VR testing already and didn't find any issues." Max informed him with a note of finality that shut the Pilot up.
"How long did it take you?" Sergeant Khalil asked.
"Three minutes and seven seconds. Nico finished in three minutes and twenty seconds. If any of you come in under ten minutes, I will be impressed, but fifteen is certainly possible with one hundred percent drone kills."
Truthfully, the course was actually brutal for a regular Mecha pilot to complete at all, much less with one hundred percent accuracy, but the drones were patterned to mimic the Arisen War Walkers' mobility and movement patterns.
If they couldn't keep up with that, then the human commanders were going to have to adjust their strategies when it came time to actually face the enemy or whatever had the Arisen Army so scared.
[On your marks. The course begins in ten seconds.] Nico announced impatiently.
The two hours to get the Pilots familiar with the new Mecha and get them set up outside the firing range after performing the most basic of movement checks to make sure the Mecha had no major issues had been entirely too much for her patience level and she was getting eager to see her new child start shooting things.
The Research Team was sitting in the shuttle, right behind Max and Nico, who were in their own personal Mecha, in case there was an issue with the experimental designs, and someone needed an immediate rescue.
Now that most of the nervousness had been calmed, the excitement in the air was building up, and the Pilots were completely focused on their lane of the course.
[3, 2, 1, GO]
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