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For the next four days, learning and becoming comfortable in their new Mecha was the goal of every Mecha Pilot on the ship. They were securely in their storage racks, so there wasn’t much for the repair team, or the researchers to do, though the research team did spend a great deal of time preparing data tables and comparative studies, just waiting for the data sets to come in so that they could get to the main part of their work.

The task was surprisingly time-consuming, and Max only managed to spend a few hours a day with Moonie, who had accepted that soon Max would be in the field and they would have to go their separate ways, but for now they were enjoying each other’s company and the games of chess.

The speed of Abraham Kepler was greatly improved with their new faster-than-light drives online, and they were going to be approaching Rae 3 in only one more day. That meant that it was time to start getting all the Mecha loaded and prepared for combat.

They needed ammunition, rations, water, final checks before deployment, a review of the Landers functionality, and finally the Pilot’s personal items to be loaded before deployment.

The final checks brought Max to a familiar face for the first time in a while. Sergeant Fritz, formerly a Corporal from Mecha maintenance, was in charge of operations in the First Battalion’s section of the Cargo Bays. He would be supervising their preparations and making sure the Mecha had everything Max had requested for them.

With the new patterns, that would be easier than usual, since only the Super Heavy Mecha used a solid projectile main weapon system. Both the Super Heavy X137 and the Comor Pattern Corvettes used a variety of projectile secondary defense systems though.

None of the units had names yet, and they wouldn’t for at least the first few missions until they had been deemed suitable for long-term service, but more than one Pilot had already started thinking of names for their new Mecha. It was customary that the first Pilot got to name it if the unit wasn’t a replacement for a destroyed unit, so this was a prime opportunity for the Super Heavy Mecha Pilots.

If development returned to the status quo, these units would be in service for a century or more, going through a half dozen pilots before being replaced by an upgraded model. Some of the previous Citadel Pattern Phalanx Class Mecha had served for almost a thousand years, due to the stagnation of development, but Max couldn’t see that happening again. The other Nations had already started moving forward, and the cold war of progression wouldn’t stop as easily this time as it did previously.

Much of that could be blamed on the System. It had increased intelligence, and the capabilities of everyone, not just Pilots, so new developments were inevitable, and the old generation of politicians was dying out. Whether it was of old age or hubris turning them against the Empire didn’t really matter, for most of the powerful nobles their days were already numbered, and they had ruled as long as they could before turning over their power to the younger generation.

Max went back to his dorm and dug through his duffel bag, pulling out the collection of pictures that he liked to post up around the view screen in his mecha. This time there would be much more room available, so Nico could put up all she wanted as well, but from what he remembered she only ever had one picture up inside the Mecha, plus that bright pink blanket.

Major Miller was helping the unit prepare for deployment and had already prepared his own Mecha, living up to the reputation as an efficient Logistics Officer that had earned him the position in the first place. Nico was over with the technicians, tweaking a weapon system on one of the X104 replacements for the Redemption Pattern Crusaders. It had one of the new pattern Dual Ion Destroyers in its right hand and a pair of Plasma Shotguns on the shoulder packs that doubled as both heat dissipation for the reactor and adjustable thrusters for mobility.

The Ion Destroyers weren’t linking right when they did the system test, but somehow the defect hadn’t been caught before today or had only just started. Max expected more than a few such incidents would pop up during combat, which was why he planned to send out twice the forces he thought necessary for every mission.

If something broke down, or they found a glitch, the extra manpower would allow the unit to be taken out of service for a while without jeopardizing the mission.

The enemy was supposed to be no smarter than the average beast, but thinking of the Guard Dogs on Comor, that didn’t mean they weren’t smarter than some of the people Max knew. Most of the Company and Battalion Commanders thought the same way, caution first to test the new units’ reliability, since they had solid theoretical numbers for the firepower.

The defect turned out to be a manufacturing defect that wasn’t detected, so the technicians were going over all 120 units that were equipped with the weapon, forty of them per Company. Only a few more defects were found, none of them as severe, and all of the other weapons were likely to have remained functional until taking damage and overloading the weakened circuit, but it was a good reminder that this was an experimental unit.

The message was passed to all the other Technicians serving the other Battalions, who raced to check all their Mecha before deployment. This final day was always hectic, even with proven and battle-tested units, so Max didn’t expect anyone in the technical team to be getting any sleep tonight.

The checks also provided the first set of manufacturing quality data to the research teams, so they would be hard at work for the foreseeable future, leaving Max in a bit of a limbo state, surrounded by competent people who really didn’t need his input at the moment.

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