As you consider your options, a suggestion arises once more. It is less certain than usual, but a suggestion nonetheless.
Suggestion: Equip Kitsune legs for improved speed. Useful for travel.
Your pilot rubs his chin, squinting back and forth between the table of options and the new text you're displaying beside it.
“Faster...? But why's it so heavy...?” he murmurs, and taps at the different pieces of information beneath it so you'll expand them out for him to look over in further detail. “That's a lot of thrusters. What do those do...?”
You answer his question by displaying your information page on the topic for him.
Thruster: expends fuel to forcibly accelerate the frame. Enables faster and more nimble movement, both on the ground and in the air. Thruster assistance can also increase jump height, distance, and air time, and soften landings from great heights.
Even as he reads the text that appears, the man shudders. “Nope, don't think I'm going to get used to that...” It's unclear what he means by that, but he soon shakes himself, and returns to looking over the part you've suggested.
After a minute, he sighs. “Fine, fine, it hasn't been wrong yet, so let's give it a shot, I guess...” He taps through the menu and you send out the command. First, the repair bay gets to work on removing your current Comet model legs, which will take a little while.
In the downtime, you have a chance to broach the next subject, suggested earlier.
Registering as this unit's main pilot will enhance performance and unlock additional support features.
Register as main pilot?
Of course, there is no such thing as a 'main pilot' within your system, but this will give you an opportunity to build more of a rapport with the man and fish for further information.
He spends a few minutes contemplating the yes or no options before him, no less suspicious than before. “...Me? A pilot...?” he murmurs, but continues to consider in silence a while longer.
Ultimately, he groans, hanging his head and choosing to accept. “Screw it, why not," he finally grumbles. "If it'll make it work better. Just hope I'm not gonna get pulled into anything...”
Again, you have no idea what you might be 'pulling him into,' but needless to say, his worries are unfounded.
In an attempt to show that his acceptance will have an immediate, direct effect, you gather up a bunch of relevant system information, and throw it up at the edges of the cockpit monitors.
In one spot, the average motor charge level, heat in another. The current fuel in your reactor's tank on the far left. Your (currently empty) extra fuel tanks for your thrusters, the rough map from your radar scanner, and the charge of your holstered Kelpie, further toward the side than before when you displayed it for him earlier, when you were actively holding it.
You even display the other important systems available, far out along the outer edges, including your small phaser, grapple line, and rocket launcher, noted with zero for its current ammunition.
Most of it is pretty small to stay non-intrusive, not blocking his line of sight through the bulk of the monitor space. But it's there, so he'll see it, and hopefully use it to make better decisions in his piloting.
After a bit more effort, you even put up a small model of your body, colored to indicate the integrity of your different systems. Of course, everything is green right now, since your parts are in pretty good condition after the replacements and repairs.
The only exceptions are your legs, the outer armor still somewhat marred from earlier, so you shift that to a slightly yellow-green. They'll be disconnected before long anyway.
Among all of the different information you provide, your pilot focuses in on that last one, leaning in closer, and poking it. You expand the body diagram, and provide a small pop-out with further information based on the part he touched – your right arm.
Zera – 90%
Armor: 90%
Internal: 95%
Structure: 85%
He nods a little, taps through a couple other parts to see that they're mostly in the upper eighties and low nineties in terms of their current integrity, and eventually leans back into his seat once more. You shrink the diagram back to its original size.
After a few moments of quiet, only the whirring of the repair bay to echo off the cavernous hanger, you press on.
Pilot Information
Pilot Name:
You leave the space blank, and again, he considers, glancing about the cockpit, before answering aloud. “Tendou Saichi.” You fill that in for his name and follow up on the next line.
Age:
There's a another pause this time. Shorter than the last, but still more than ten seconds for him to answer the simple question. Then, “Eighteen,” he lies. At least, the information from Pilot Assist assures you it must be a lie. However it makes its determination, it says Tendou is only sixteen years old.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
Whatever the reasoning, you fill his age in with the answer he gave before asking the next question.
Allegiance:
“Allegiance?” he questions uncertainly. “Uh, none? That I... know of?” You fill it in with 'None.' Given the answer to the last question, you have a good idea what he'll say for the next, but you want to ask anyway.
Should assistance be optimized for solo battle, or synergy with allies?
“Allies...” he mouths as he reads it over, brows furrowing deeply. His frown slowly turns into a grimace, teeth gritted. He grunts back “Solo,” nevertheless.
Still unable to make out the meaning of his various emotional responses, all you can do is move on to the last of your pre-prepared questions.
Reactor fuel currently at 23%. Activate Low Fuel Consumption Mode?
This one he doesn't hesitate over for long. And rather than tapping on the screen, he simply answers “Yes,” aloud. He must have realized that the 'buttons' you've been showing him aren't necessary. Not that they were real, you only displayed them in the first place because he wanted to poke your monitors for some reason.
Following the direction, you pull the charge from all the motors in your soon to be disconnected legs, and redistribute the power to the rest of your body, making up for the shortfall with your battery. Your heat levels rise, up toward the maximum safe levels, but without going too high.
Now, it will take far less energy to run all of your motors once you're moving around again.
“Oh god, why did that make it so hot?” Tendou questions, panting and fanning himself with a hand.
To draw his attention, you expand the info panel that notes your average motor charge levels are about 72%. Beside that, you explain by summing up the information from your logs.
ESM Motors: Electrical power stored in ESM Motors increases motor output achieved from the same amount of electrical input. This increased motive power increases fuel efficiency.
ESM Motors constantly generate waste heat the higher their charge level. Waste heat produced increases further when the motors are put under load.
“So... more charge means more efficiency, but also more waste heat? How the hell does that work...?” He grumbles and scratches his head. “Screw it, I'll roast in here before this thing runs dry.” He looks around, eyes scanning over the various switches and buttons around him. “How do I turn it off...?”
Deactivating Low Fuel Consumption Mode
“...Right.” He glares briefly at the words on-screen, before you clear them away. The heat doesn't dissipate immediately since you still don't have anywhere to offload all the excess power, and you don't want to keep it in the legs you're going to lose soon. The best you can do for now is let it bleed off over time as your systems consume it, letting your reactor remain idle.
After a stretch of silence, your pilot speaks again, eyes sliding back and forth across the cockpit, like he isn't sure where to look. “What about getting more fuel?” In response, you swap the still-open repair bay menu back to the top-level, where the Fuel option is still present.
“Hmm.” He reaches out and taps the button. You display the next menu for him.
Inventory
BPF Fuel: 35/500,000
Comet
Core Reactor: 115/500
Fuel Storage 1: 0/10
Fuel Storage 2: 0/10
Fuel Storage 3: 0/10
Fuel Storage 4: 0/10
Fuel Storage 5: 0/10
After a couple moments, you erase the last two from the list, since those are the fuel stores in your soon to be detached legs. And after digging through your info logs, you find something relevant to help him out. You display it beside the repair bay menu.
Fuel Storage Types:
Reactor Storage is the primary fuel tank, built directly into the frame's main reactor, for keeping the frame powered. Often compressed, doubling total capacity.
Local Storage has fuel feeds to surrounding sockets for powering maneuvering thrusters in the same frame part.
Universal Storage has extra fuel feeds, running to other fuel storage tanks and thrusters throughout the entire frame.
“BPF?” Tendou mutters, “it can't be...” He shakes his head and turns to read the info you supplied, face slowly scrunching, lips pursed in thought. “So, all of these are 'local,' meaning they only power the thrusters in that body part...” He taps at your screen, backing out of the refueling menu, goes over to the inventory, and double checks the Kitsune legs.
They have four fuel tanks, two in each leg. Also local type. “Guess they need that many to power... what is that, twenty two thrusters?” His eyes trail down the list, counting them off one by one, before he nods to himself.
“So...” he wonders aloud as he returns to the fuel menu. “This place is almost out of fuel too. If I split up what's left, like three in each leg, one in the others, that leaves, uhh... twenty six... what, liters, maybe?” He holds his head, then double checks his math, counting it out on his fingers three times over, before finally tapping at the screen to distribute the fuel. He leaves six aside for filling the Kitsune legs once they're attached. Wincing at nothing, he mumbles, “Shit...”
Even as all of the tiny arms whiz around, disconnecting your legs, a few new ones extend out to each of your parts, one in the shoulder of each arm, and two in the back of your torso, near the neck. You can't see, but your force sensors pick them up as the hoses slip into minuscule refueling ports. They deposit the fuel into your stores, taking just a moment since there's so little to go around, and retract once more.
With that done, there's little more to do beside wait for the repair bay once more. Apparently not content with that though, Tendou slides forward, eyes scanning slowly across the controls, before he hits the distinctly colored button to open the cockpit's hatch.
Despite the height, he peers down. “Damn...” he hisses. While he's slowly starting to look around like he's searching for something, you send a message to the repair bay, getting it to extend the catwalk for him. He lets out a sigh and sits back, waiting for it to arrive.
You aren't sure what he intends to do after getting out, but he is definitely acting differently than before. His chest is rising and falling faster, his breath shallow. When the catwalk arrives, Tendo staggers out onto it, holding tight to the railing as he hits the button to retract it back toward the repair bay.
You watch as he wavers from side to side on his walk across the front of the massive machine, and how he leans heavily on the railing as he takes the flights of stairs down, slowly but surely reaching ground level. He continues walking, past your right side, eventually disappearing from your line of sight.
And then... you wait. The repair bay eventually finishes detaching your legs, and you order it to connect the new ones. It even finishes with that, and Tendou still hasn't returned.
Now with your new legs attached, you see that while they're listed as nine-meter legs, the Kitsune legs are notably taller than your previous ones. Not a full meter, but definitely a half meter or so. Perhaps the torso of the Kitsune model is shorter to compensate, or maybe the frame is just a bit taller, but not enough to be grouped with the ten-meter frames.
Another hour passes, before Tendou suddenly appears again, walking much faster than when he left. He climbs the repair bay, extends the catwalk out, and climbs back into your cockpit.
Wondering what exactly he was doing, the only indication you find are the two large, metal cylinders tied to the side of his bag, which weren't there when he left. After he sits down, and closes the hatch, he raises one of the containers to his mouth and tilts his head back for a few moments, then sighs happily.
“Alright, uhh, where was I...?” he wonders momentarily, looking left and right across the monitors. “Ah, yeah, new legs are on, need the fuel...” He taps through the menu and you put in the request, getting the last of the fuel that's available.
“Let's see, what else is there...?” Tendou crosses his arm in thought, looking all across the information he has available.
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No specific vote this time, but there are definitely things you could do here before setting off. So if you want:
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