Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

Max returned to the Destroyer while the entire Koleska Command Staff went into overdrive, trying to find a solution to the issues that they had discovered today and to analyze the data which the humans had provided them to back up their theories.

They were going to be busy at that for days, which would give him and Nico time to work on the prototype Mecha and get the bugs worked out of it well enough that they could send the data back to Uncle Lu, who was in charge of final designs and distribution of new Mecha throughout the Trade Group.

The old man would be overjoyed that Nico had sent him brand new ideas to work with. For a long time, he had believed that there was a way to overhaul the human military structure to make it more efficient, but so far, he hadn't been able to convince too many other people that there could be a better way.

The size of the Mecha was too intrinsic to its combat power, and warplanes didn't have the level of versatility that a Mecha did, so the standard of three basic sizes of Mecha for three different battlefield roles was continued.

But with this latest iteration of the Line Mecha, that entire System was going to be upset. Not only was it carrying more powerful weapons than the last generation of Crusader Class Mecha, but it was also faster, more agile, more capable of space combat, better shielded, and more flexible in piloting methods.

In short, their interactions with the Alliance had catapulted their Mecha development ahead by generations due to unexpected interactions between new technologies and Nico's brain. That was the most important part of the whole thing, how the new technologies interact with the memories in Nico's mind and the strange way that her thought processes worked.

She was currently sending Sergeant Khalil into VR training so that he could make notes faster, using the processing enhancements of the learning devices instead of having him spend days making notes on one battle.

"Alright, Sergeant, time to head to the VR simulation. It will be time dilated like the learning machines are, so spend all the time that you need in there and get your skills up to my standards. I will call you out after eight hours in real-time, so don't worry about the time spent."

"How much dilation are we talking about here? I know that those machines can give you a full college education in a day, but I've never used one myself." He explained.

"You've never used one? Oh, you're in for a treat. The standard rate is one month to an hour. We will start you there and see if eight months of intensive training using the Special Forces program that I developed myself is enough to get you close to thirty percent of the Mecha's maximum mechanical speed.

If you can get to that point, only three times faster than you are now, I will consider your training successful, and I will personally certify you as qualified as an Elite Special Forces operator in the Line Mecha." Nico told him with a smirk.

That wasn't going to be an easy task for him to accomplish, but he really didn't have a choice in the matter.

"Alright, so about eight months in the simulation then. I heard that it feels like nothing once you're out, but you retain the skills. That would be incredible. It might be to do tests on your new Mecha, but it will be a benefit for me as well." He agreed.

As soon as he was in the simulation, Max turned to Nico and gave her an inquiring look, raising one eyebrow to see if she would volunteer whatever trick she was planning to play on the man. She certainly had something planned. He just couldn't tell what with her System helping block her from his mind.

"I didn't lie to him. The default setting is one month to an hour. I just have it set to eight months to an hour right now, with an additional setting to loop so that he starts over every hour. By the time his shift is over, he should know all there is to know about being a Cygnus Mecha Pilot." Nico giggled.

Max shook his head at her but didn't bother to change the settings back to default. It wouldn't hurt anything for him to do the simulated training eight times over, and he wouldn't even remember that it had happened, only that he had gotten much better than he had expected to.

"So, what did you find after the short activation for the deployment today?" He asked her instead of inquiring more about the Sergeant's experience.

"Not a whole lot. It activated perfectly, with no error codes that I could find and no interference or binding. Of course, he didn't get to test a full range of motion, so it's not a conclusive test, but it does at least move around smoothly, and the life support functions are working as intended."

That was what Max had expected.

"Well then, I suppose that we should give it another inspection to make sure that the void didn't damage anything and then go over our own Mecha again. I suspect that the Koleska will want to talk to us again in the morning, and it will likely be about something much more militant than just a training device for their soldiers.

That isn't in the agreement that we have with them, and I'm pretty sure that we're not authorized to go that far in helping them, so we should focus on what we can do and what we can find out about the history of this place.

There is something hidden about the past of this region, and I want to know what it is."

That was just as important as the Mecha development itself. The more they knew about the region, the better they could tune the design to what they were going to be facing.