Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

The Pilots all chose to watch Nico's footage first since it was only three minutes long, but what they found shocked them to their core.

None of them could even keep up with the target data inputs. It was coming up, they could see it coming up, but before they could process that information and respond, Nico had already destroyed it and moved on to the next target.

That was only half of the issue, though. The other half was that she was moving through the course at an insane speed, barely dodging the asteroids as she spun and twirled the Mecha without concern for structural loading.

Clearly, it could hold up to that sort of abuse, but the thought of trying to shoot while piloting a Mecha through a tight obstacle course at those speeds was impossible for their minds to fully comprehend.

[Can we see Commander Keres' footage? Perhaps it would be more enlightening than this one is.] One of the Pilots asked.

[It's available on your footage now. I'm not sure it will help you, though. He finished the course even faster than I did.] Nico replied with a laugh.

Max listened to their thoughts as they watched him fly through. It wasn't as graceful as Nico's was, as his piloting style was more methodical and less flowing than hers, but with the multiple targeting from his System Functions, it didn't have to be. His System input found targets even faster than Nico's direct link to the Mecha's sensors, using the predictive functions of the nanobots, which allowed Max to get into position for most of the shots even before the drones powered up and became visible on his sensors.

[You two are both insane. What if you had hit an asteroid?] Sergeant Khalil laughed as he saw the standard that they were judging everyone else against.

Max could sense his annoyance that it was physically impossible to match up to the standard that the two Commanders held themselves to, and the determination to do better than the minimum standards that they had set for everyone else.

He had barely scraped by on the first run, but he knew after watching them run that he could do better.

So, he switched feeds to watch the fastest of the Researchers, who were all Innu, and not soldiers but amateur game enthusiasts who had run the course in Virtual Reality. They would have used the neural link the same as he did, so they wouldn't have an advantage there, and they didn't have a System backing them up, so it should be a good comparison.

Khalil watched as the Mecha moved elegantly through the course, using its own inertia to move around the asteroids without harsh inputs from the thrusters, and the way that so many seconds were lost between target acquisition and the actual firing of the weapons.

That was understandable since the Innu weren't soldiers, but the fact that she was only a few seconds slower than his time and faster than the other nine Pilots was a harsh blow to his pride as a Cygnus soldier.

They were using identical Mecha with identical baselines, and still, the Researchers managed to put up better numbers than the professionals.

Three times he watched the footage, stopping at various points and overlaying his own performance to see where he had made mistakes that they didn't. Then Nico called everyone back to order for the next round.

[The data of the first run is compiled. Everyone, please return to the starting line and prepare for your next run. I hope that you managed to learn a few tips and tricks from the footage, and we have a bonus waiting for everyone who can make the standard by the end of the day's testing.

Light of Truth has a Reaver Rum Cake dessert that only Reaver vessels are programmed with, and it's on the menu for dinner tonight.] Nico informed them.

[Now that's a motivation. Let's get this done.] The Pilots cheered while Nico started the countdown to the next run.

They were noticeably less clunky, and there was far less hesitation this time, as well as higher velocities.

They were too used to moving slowly and methodically in their Mecha, which didn't suit a space battle, but they were adapting fast.

This time Sergeant Khalil managed to get down under thirteen minutes, decimating the previous record for Pilots without a System advantage by over a minute, and two other pilots managed to get under seventeen minutes, a vast improvement on their previous runs.

[Perhaps there is hope for you all after all. No runs over twenty minutes, and you all improved on your previous runs. This time we will give you a fifteen-minute break, so watch whatever footage you think will help you, and then we will send you through again.

After that is lunch, and we will be returning to Light of Truth for a two-hour break, including data analysis and a midday report.] Max chastised and encouraged the group.

The third run saw great improvements all around, and though there were a number of impacts with the asteroids as the Mecha Pilots increased their speed to make the run on time, they were getting better at multiple target acquisition, and it was shaving entire minutes off their times without any increase in movement speed.

One of the Researchers, who had been tasked with the collection of data to see if the standard they had designed the Mecha to was suitable for use by a standard human, sent out a group text as the third run ended.

[It looks like they just needed to adapt to the new style of Piloting. Their previous Mecha units didn't include a lot of multiple weapon layouts, unlike the larger Mecha. So, they're not used to having three independently targetable weapons systems on board, and they are treating them as three options on one weapon.]

That was a very good way of putting it. It also meant that the problem could be easily solved with a short trip through the learning devices to get them used to the weapon layouts.