CHAPTER 4 : PERHAPS THE MOST ELABORATE PANTY SCENE IN THE HISTORY OF BOOKS

Finally! The pilots had taken two weeks to form. Would she get someone to talk to besides ZU? She didn't know what to expect from the pilots. The Zoids were apparently alive too but had the personality of an insect.

She stood up and waited with bated breath. Ever since the muscle layer finished forming, the pilots had all been encased in some sort of supporting cloudy gel so she had no idea what they looked like. When peering down into the pool she saw no trace of the gel cocoons but some shapes seem to have gathered around the five Zoids at the deep center of the pool. After staring for a while trying to make things out and then shouting "Hey!" she realised she was forgetting herself. She quickly straightened and used the proper channel to issue a clear command: the pilots were to bring the clothes and armour up to the beach.

Riona watched nine adult human figures exit the pool, some carrying stacks of square baskets which they then proceeded to arrange in a neat grid pattern on the smooth rock which constituted the pool's beach. The containers helped to keep smaller items from scattering about in the pool and were apparently grown along with stuff as part of the packaging. The ten larger baskets each contained the set of standard pilot armour, which included a tool kit, a small sidearm, and a short sword which was supposedly powered like the Groundmauler's claws. The basic underclothes came bundled in just two baskets for the top and bottom.

The Zoic liquid sensibly didn't stick to or soak into stuff and just slid off leaving bodies and clothes dry. The baskets had holes. ZU didn't like to be separated from itself. Maybe the baskets could be used for something later but Riona suspected they wouldn't be doing much laundry given how the pool worked.

A small frown gradually formed as she studied the line of naked women settling into a tidy line – she immediately had trouble telling any of them apart. Their features were vaguely Colombian, which was a moot comparison since they were pretty much aliens. It did raise some questions though since the current population of this planet mostly looked like... well, less tall Dutchmen or something.

The pilots all had the same jaw-length black hair. It was short enough to fit neatly in a helmet. Perhaps it could be styled, but modern 1980s hair styles would certainly not fit in a helmet. Using face paint could work? A physical name tag? Or perhaps she could just use her command display which surely showed their location and ID-name, but she had to be in the pool or in a Zoid for the display to work.

She momentarily wondered if there was a larger, male pilot variant made for hand-to-hand combat, but maybe that didn't actually make much sense given the power of the Zoids. She remembered what horse jockeys looked like on Earth. Anyways, things were fine this way.

The pilots were all of the same average height. As for their build... if Riona looked like a 100m sprint athlete, then these women were the 400m sprinters, so not much difference. The rather rectangular build and moderate chest made them look fit for purpose. Riona had always wondered why sprinters consistently had such muscular arms. Was it all the arm swooshing? It probably was. It didn't seem likely they were all doing bicep-curls for fun on the side – there'd be at least one person with stick-arms, right?

Lowering her gaze, Riona somehow wasn't surprised to find that all nine were sporting a very familiar 1980s bush and the sight foiled one of her more desperate ideas for telling them apart. It appeared the wise and ancient bio-architect was a bit of a one-trick-pony. Still, she was caught temporarily enthralled by the lineup and froze for a moment.

–– "Commander!"

The nine pilots had suddenly rigidly saluted in unison, bringing Riona out of her contemplations. Huh- was it time for some kind of briefing? The nine just held the salute.

It looked kind of dumb since they were all naked and Riona stifled a laugh.

–– "Uh, first put some clothes on.", she gestured with a small nod and kick towards the underclothes in the two baskets. She hadn't had time to look at any of it herself in the excitement.

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The underclothes consisted of a white set of basic plain sporty tops and some kind of low 1970s bikini panties – seemingly a size too small as if otherwise deemed a frivolous expenditure. She did a double take, having expected something more generic like the midi panties she had worn on Earth.

Riona's eyebrow further rose at the confused manoeuvring and tugging exhibited by the nine as the tops were wrangled on, but her curiosity countermanded intervention and she continued to watch in fascination. Dressing was apparently not a prioritised part of their programming.

The next phase of the operation proved more difficult as several of the pilots exhibited balance problems and fell, halfway wiggled into the shamefully undersized hiphuggers. However, they all seemed dead serious and focused on the task. As the scene unfolded Riona finally couldn't hold it in and laughed out loud for the first time since arriving here. Were these her deadly warriors?

Sizing issues aside, from an aesthetic perspective the underclothes were actually an appropriate match for this body type with not much in the ways of hip or chest. Any curves and it would have been a no-go in terms of both physics and style. Well, so Riona opined, nodding very sagely to herself as one panty after another were tenaciously elevated, scant providing half their duty at their final destination.

The standard pilot armour consisted of a thick cloth-like material in drab olive and dark gray tones. Upon closer inspection it was some sort of fine mesh – like woven kevlar but probably different. "Counter Energy Lattice Armour" was the technical term for it.

Bits of plate armour came attached to the chest, shoulders and limbs. The only difference between the Helic and Zenebas set was the gold and silver plate finish and some heraldry. She had gone with five of each.

As they were getting into the suits, this time only one of the pilots fell – a foot trapped in the wrong leg.

When the pilots had finished suiting up Riona suddenly felt naked herself. She had just stood there watching the show and clothes hadn't really been on her mind for weeks. Looking into the basket at the remaining pair of little white panties she briefly considered going commando before surrendering to curiosity and fishing them up.

The panties were very minimal – just a thin single layer of cotton with fine seams, the two sides tapering into just the seams.

They got stuck somewhere up her thigh, initiating a struggle consisting of various vigorous shimmying manoeuvres. Then finally with a last forceful tug they snapped onto what felt like the lower half of her butt – the taut elastics cutting a straight line. It made her acutely aware of their presence but perhaps she'd get used to it.

Just as with the pilots, fully half of the bush rose exposed out of the front of the tight panties – the fabric just going straight across the lower half of the mound and bridging its flanking valleys.

The sporty white top did its job better and ended in a straight horizontal cut with elastics an inch under the breasts, visually rather matching the low cut of the white panties straining into horizontal triangles on the back and front. This left a large rectangular section the torso exposed to Riona's absentminded drumming slaps as she moved to study the pilot armour.

The suit was a onesie but actually made out of several layers. Upon sliding into it she found that the inner layer was smooth and tight fitting while the outer layer was rough and kind of baggy. With the heavy armour plates dangling here and there it was a bit like putting on long johns attached inside a worker's overall that had heavy tools stuffed in all of its pockets.

According to the specs she had read, the tight inner suit offered some degree of adaptive G-force mitigation and thermal regulation. Regardless, it was quite comfortable and she wished she had known about it back when loading minerals by hand.

The armour came with a helmet which looked similar to a motorbike helmet, but with a pair of big disc-like nubs on the forehead containing various sensors. The orange tinted visor featured a handy heads-up-display allowing her to access all of the command display features.

She wore the Helic suit in gold along with four others. There was no special Commander suit that she knew of so hers was identical to the rest.

The pilots had been standing ready in formation for a while now and with helmets in place they looked far more menacing than when in the little white panties.

She could see their names in the HUD as floating tags. She appreciated how they had lined up in order and even consistently grouped up in gold and silver – it would probably had bothered her otherwise. A1 to A4 were wearing gold and A5 to A9 silver. Technically that made Riona "A0" she supposed, but she showed up as "Commander Riona" on the map.

She paused in thought for a while, then shot a question into empty air.

–– "Hey ZU, is there a renaming feature?"

It answered by opening up an "alias" interface in her HUD. Riona tried to think of a name for A1 but soon found that she wasn't in the mood to come up with nine names now, so she just closed the window leaving their names as they were. Perhaps it would make more sense to name them later when the circumstances necessitated it.

–– "Are they ready for operation?", she asked instead, seeing the pilots draw straight.

–– "While they will gain more experience over time, they can indeed already perform at a satisfactory level."

Riona looked down at the five Zoids and other equipment at the bottom of the pool. Time to get to work.