Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

With Nico's signal, the test Pilots raced forward, firing their Disruptors at the first targets.

Sergeant Khalil was clearly the most skilled of the batch after all the extra training he had gone through with the time-dilated training machines, and he had taken an early lead, getting the first three targets out of the way at once, using his disruptors and both wing-mounted Mass Drivers at the same time.

The explosive rounds that Nico had loaded in the Mass Drivers were doing an excellent job of preventing collateral damage to the area, and they were moving fast enough to hit the targets with ease, making the shields on the drones ripple as the target was deactivated, and the red kill light on the drone lit up.

Khalil moved into the asteroid field and rotated his Mecha so that he was facing upward from Max's point of view, allowing him to slip between the asteroids in front of him without slowing down and then firing the Mass Drivers at the next drone before rapidly evading the next asteroid and looking for the drone he had just seen off to his right.

Max could tell that the Pilot was only able to tell that he was still on course because of the map. His sense of spatial awareness was completely shot from the constant hunt for drones and the breakneck pace that he was holding in order to try to meet Nico's standards for performance.

Twice he missed targets and had to stop to reacquire them, but other than that, he was keeping a steady pace.

On the twentieth drone, Nico had put a twist into the program. It would charge them like an Arisen War Walker, slamming into their Mecha if they were too slow to react.

That one really threw the Sergeant for a loop, and the drone was less than two metres away when he hit it with his disruptors.

Max laughed as the Sergeant cursed over the radio, but the Pilots all had their reception muted during the run, other than messages from Max and Nico, so they didn't disturb each other.

Khalil was getting the hang of the course fairly quickly, though, and his movements were becoming less mechanical and more like an elegant dance as he dodged the asteroids and hunted down the fast-moving drones with the experimental Mecha.

It was far from perfect, and he ran into a lot of floating rocks, moving them off course a little, but Nico had already prepared for that and was moving along behind the test Pilots, putting the rocks back in place while Max stayed further back to get a full view of the proceedings.

The other nine were holding to Cygnus's standard maneuvering techniques, and they were way behind the pace that Sergeant Khalil was setting and not having an easy time dealing with the fast-moving drones.

That was expected for the first run, and they would be shown a collection of replays after the course was run to show them where they could improve and how a better run looked.

Max intended to show them the VR version of one of the Researchers if they did well enough, sparing them the humiliation of seeing how he and Nico had done it so much faster. The best of the Researchers had barely made it in the fifteen minutes that were allotted, and they looked quite elegant doing it, as they had never received military training and had learned all their Piloting skills from video games, where acquiring the target was the priority, and there was no risk of death.

In practice, it gave them a fearless piloting style that worked well on the obstacle course and would probably do well enough against the Arisen Army. It was enough to encourage the Pilots to improve their skills and adjust their techniques, Max hoped.

But it looked like Sergeant Khalil might actually do better than the Researchers had, despite his somewhat shaky start, as he got used to the level of smoothness that was needed to Pilot efficiently at high speed in space.

It was a style that had nothing at all in common with piloting on the ground, and the targets could come from any direction that you hadn't already cleared, so they would have to change how they thought to complete the course in time.

They were all slowly realizing that, but it was too late to salvage this run, and after Sergeant Khalil's fourteen minutes and thirty seconds, the next Pilot finished just over twenty-two minutes after the course started.

[Everyone, please return to the starting line while we compile data. Are there any complaints about the Mecha's handling? Any lag, unexplained control issues or inconsistencies that you noticed from the cockpit?] Nico asked.

[I think the problem on that run was more about how to operate the Mecha properly in this environment than about the actual Mecha's performance. The next run should be an improvement.] One of the Pilots, who had taken nearly thirty minutes to finish the course, replied grimly.

He knew that he was at half the pace, but the fact that Sergeant Khalil, with his long disciplinary record, had managed to finish it on time was an insult to his honour and his skills as a Pilot. He was certain that he could do better. He just needed the right mindset.

[Once you're in place, we have a collection of videos for you to review. First, watch your own performance to see where you made obvious mistakes, then watch either Sergeant Khalil or the best of our Researchers on their run-through. They both finished just under the fifteen-minute standard, so they are an acceptable baseline for improvement.] Nico instructed.

[Do we have time to watch your Virtual run of the course?] One of the Pilots asked.

[You should. It might not be as useful to you as the others which are within your capabilities, though. I will make it available for your viewing.] Nico agreed.

That was going to be a painful blow to the Pilots, but maybe they would learn something from the dizzying view of Nico's fly-through.