When Max woke up he was curled around a cool metallic shell. It was time to get up, no matter how comfortable he was. Looking at her happy sleeping face, it was obvious that Nico was content to stay in bed and Max contemplated just leaving her there, but that wasn't going to be feasible today.
Sister Lilith would need the Mecha's data from his tests and Max wasn't going to analyze it all himself when Nico had a System Function that would let her do it in an instant.
So, once he was up and dressed Max picked her up and used Nico's metallic body as a barbell to do curls.
"If anyone else could see you, they would think you are into some weird stuff," Nico told him, but made no attempt to move, hoping he would put her back in bed.
"And you think differently?" Max asked, lifting her higher to blow a raspberry on her stomach.
"I don't need to see you to know what you are into. I have your browser history since you were a child." Nico teased, finally twisting herself off of his arms to stand on her own.
That wasn't entirely true, she probably didn't have anything from before he came to the academy, but her point was valid.
[All Command Mecha, report to the pinned location for live fire testing.] General Yaakov's voice brought everyone to full readiness, with Nico slipping into a pair of fatigue pants to go with the tank top she slept in and stepping into her boots.
"Good to go. We will have to get back into uniform when we get back to Abraham Kepler anyhow, we might as well stay comfortable for now." She told Max before fastening her safety harness.
All twenty Super Heavy Mecha in a line was a glorious sight. The bulk of their torsos, with the massive amount of ammunition storage and the artillery batteries, stood out like soot-blackened statues among the scorched ruins of the battlefield, giving Max a sense of nostalgia.
There was a scene like this in the memories of his past life. A single line of mecha standing in front of a mighty mountain fortress had survived a firebombing, and looked out over the battlefield, waiting on their fate.
The perspective didn't make sense to Max, he was looking at them from above, but he didn't seem to be moving, and the rest of the memory was missing. All he had of the battle was just that one scene.
Once all the X137 Units were lined up, General Yaakov designated a point in the distant sky for them to target.
[Sensor logging is active and functional. Maximum firing rate, ten-shot burst. Fire at will.] The General Directed the Pilots, and the sky immediately filled with bright white Ion Blasts.
As Max had suspected, after the changes, the weapons were no longer all firing at the same speed, and the blasts were staggered wildly, with some of the Mecha finishing the ten-shot pattern more than a second after the fastest of their peers.
That was Max, of course, finishing slightly faster than two other nearly identical firing rates. Against a static position, targeting skills didn't matter, and they weren't moving, so just firing the guns wouldn't tax the skills of any Pilot that they would allow in the Cockpit of a Super Heavy Mecha.
That left only the actual capabilities of their weapons to make up the difference in speed.
Though there were a lot of variances, the two groups, modified and unmodified, were clearly visible in the times, but more notably in the stability and power of their attacks.
Half of the Ion shots were visibly more powerful than the others, and they held cohesion much longer as they raced through the sky toward the simulated Orbital Insertion target.
[Again] General Yaakov ordered, verifying the data that they had collected the first time.
The results were nearly identical. None of the Pilots was holding back, or making an error, they simply had a different level of equipment, though they were ostensibly the same weapon.
Five times in total they repeated the tests until the Research Team had enough data, and then it was time for the Crusader Class Mecha to be put through their paces.
That process took nearly three hours with all the changes that had been made to the Heavy Mecha, but in the end, the Researchers were satisfied with the data that they had, and the stability of the changes that had been made, so the orders were given to proceed to their Landers, and get ready to return to Abraham Kepler.
"Nico, you don't see anything in orbit, or any transmissions from the ship back into Kepler Space do you?" Max asked, making sure that the infiltrator wasn't still active.
The ship watching them could be taken as a sales pitch, but loading them on a Kepler Military vessel was pretty solid proof of ownership if anyone who wanted to use the information against them was watching.
"No, we are clear. The Inquisitor has everything worked out at his end, and the teams that came to assist us won't be spreading any rumors. The moment they got back to base, he ordered them to be put on a thirty-day communications ban during debriefing. I intercepted the transmission between him and General Tennant.
I suspect that there will be trouble with Sector Governance though, and soon." Nico informed him.
"That should do. In thirty days, they will likely be ready to tell the public about the new Mecha anyhow. I can't see Imperial Command losing the chance to launch a surprise announcement about our improved capability after all the work they have gone through so far to keep things secret." Max agreed.
[Everyone to the Landers, you know the drill.] Max ordered First Battalion, then headed for the Lander that he came in.
With just one Super Heavy Mecha and two fast attack Crusaders as Bodyguards, the inside of the Lander felt positively empty. They didn't even have the supply of munitions and materials that they did on the way down to keep themselves company, the Lander was empty except for the Mecha.
They were the first up if you didn't count the Shuttle that General Yaakov was in, so Max didn't have to wait long before the oppressive force of the thrusters engaging to propel the cavernous transport to orbital velocity pinned him to his seat, marking the official end of the trials on Rae 3.
[Docking at Hangar Bay 1 in 14 minutes 30 seconds]
The announcement came just as the thrusters calmed and the artificial gravity kicked in, allowing them to move freely around the Mecha again, and was accompanied by a string of Mecha data returned by the Research Team. They had compiled the averages from all of the test firings, and come up with a ranking of adjustments, to be tested in the Virtual simulators once the Pilots had returned to the ship.
Clearly, they were not a big fan of downtime, preparing the next round of experiments even while they worked on the data from the first round, but at least that solved the problem with bored Pilots that so many expeditions suffered from during long transit times.
The Lander gently docked with its mounting point, sending a vibration through the whole structure, and spurring the Ground Handling Crews into action. For safety's sake, the Mecha would be moved with repair bay trollies, and not under their own power, reducing vibration in the ship and the chance of stumbling if there should be a hard docking in a nearby bay during the move.
Now that they were back aboard the ship, every unit would be cleaned, refreshed, inspected, updated, and repainted. Which brought Max to his next problem.
Now that their first combat mission was complete, it was time to name the Mecha.
Names for Heavy and Super Heavy Mecha were first come first serve, and couldn't be duplicated within a Regiment, though duplicates between separate Regiments were known to happen with popular names.
Not only would Max have to come up with a suitable Moniker for this behemoth of a Mecha, he would also have to check every other Crusader Class Pilot's entry against the rest of the Regiment's entries and reject all duplicates.
But there was a solution to that. [Major Nico, you are in charge of the verification of duplicate names. Major Miller, you are in charge of the official filing of names. Company Commanders, please gather your Pilots' naming suggestions and submit them to Major Nico for verification by the end of the day.]
The ability to delegate was definitely the best part of being a Battalion Commander.
All he had to do now was come up with a suitable name for his new partner, and send it to General Yaakov, who would be confirming the names for all twenty Super Heavy Mecha before any of the others were processed, giving them priority in case someone else wanted a name better suited to the new Command Mecha.
