Doctor Yi leaves her staff to drain the tanks and towel off the pilots while she walks out of the testing center and through the med bay to another adjacent room where five large VR Mech piloting simulator pods with full rotational capabilities are arranged in a half circle. She powers on each machine.
One by one the pilots walk in, dressed in clean flight suits, toweling the remaining moisture from their ears, their hair.
“Woah, haven’t seen one of those in a minute,” Chase remarks when he sees the simulators.
Doctor Yi motions for them to sit down on folding chairs arranged in front of the pods.
“Thank you for your patience, pilots. The tests confirm that you are all ready to advance to Rank 3.”
“Nice! Does that mean it’s time to upgrade our Mechs again?” Reo asks, excited.
“Not quite, Mr. Mafui’e. But it does mean we have enough data to measure your Synergy Rating with your Mech.”
“Synergy?” Kora repeats. “I feel like you mentioned that before…”
“Yes, Ms. Saint-Sheppard. It is part of the unique bidirectional feedback and adaptation possible with these advanced machines. The more experience you have with your Mech, the more Synergy develops between the two of you,” the Doctor explains. “The higher your Synergy Rating, the less and less you will need to rely on manual controls. This is beneficial when it comes to operating your Mechs, obviously, but there are also benefits to you personally. Your body and nervous system sort of adapt to the, er—strain—of using the Mechs. Like exercising a muscle!”
Doctor Yi pulls up the private pilot profiles on her tablet, starting with Hanami.
Name: Hanami Goto
Athleticism – 110
Fortitude – 100
Perception – 140
Willpower – 120
General Intelligence – 150
Emotional Intelligence – 80
Synergy Rating – 30
==REDACTED==
==REDACTED==
“Ms. Goto, you have a Synergy Rating of 30 with Ranger. Keep in mind this only applies to your assigned Mech. If you were to start using a different model, you would need to build Synergy all over again. Also, as a result of the bidirectional adaptation process, it seems that your overall Athleticism score has improved.”
She brings up the next pilot profile.
Name: Chase MacArthur
Athleticism – 130
Fortitude – 130
Perception – 120
Willpower – 150
General Intelligence – 100
Emotional Intelligence – 100
Synergy Rating – 10
==REDACTED==
“Mr. MacArthur, we are recording a Synergy Rating of 10 between you and Ronin. Also, your Fortitude test scores have improved since the time you arrived.”
10? Only 10 while Hanami has 30? What the heck? Chase thinks, then sighs in resignation. I hate to admit it but maybe she’s a pretty badass pilot after all…
Doctor Yi brings up the next profile.
Name: Reo Mafui’e
Athleticism – 140
Fortitude – 150
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Perception – 90
Willpower – 100
General Intelligence – 130
Emotional Intelligence – 120
Synergy Rating – 5
==REDACTED==
“Mr. Mafui’e is showing a Synergy Rating of 5 with Bombardier. Not a bad start. Also, your test scores in Perception have gone up.”
Doctor Yi brings up the last profile, reviewing the data.
Name: Kora Saint-Sheppard
Athleticism – 120
Fortitude – 130
Perception – 110
Willpower – 140
General Intelligence – 100
Emotional Intelligence – 140
Synergy Rating – 1
==REDACTED==
“Last but not least, Ms. Saint-Sheppard has also shown an admirable increase in Perception. Another benefit of Synergy is that you can take further advantage of the Macros process we discussed earlier—”
“Wait a second,” Kora interrupts. “What about my Synergy Rating? You skipped right over it.”
Doctor Yi looks chagrined, nudges her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Did I? Oh, well keep in mind that every pilot increases at their own rate. It isn’t a competition. Our scans show a Synergy Rating of… 1 between you and Templar, so far.”
Kora’s bronze cheeks glow a faint rose.
“One? A lousy ONE?”
“You are an excellent pilot. But for some reason you are not developing Synergy at quite the rate we would expect based on our… um… projections. You should be at least a 5 by now.” Doctor Yi scratches her head, looking at her tablet in puzzlement. “It’s not a perfect science, heh heh. It may be a glitch with Templar. Or maybe…” she trails off.
Kora slumps in her chair.
What am I doing wrong? I may not be a soldier, but I’m at least as good with a Mech as the rest of these guys.
“But regardless of all that, as Rank 3 pilots with unlocked Synergy Ratings you can take advantage of the Macros process by which your Mech can store and help you perfectly recall specialized training via the neural interface. You each have capacity to complete one additional training program at this time.”
Doctor Yi gestures to the simulators.
“You all have trained on these before. Same deal. Check the Sim-Pod computers for a list of currently available programs. We hope to have more developed in time, but there should be a decent variety to choose from. I’ll leave you to it…”
Hanami abruptly stands and walks to the nearest simulation pod, bringing the external screen to life and scrolling through the list of programs. Her first training was Discern Vulnerabilities. She sees two that interest her: Lateral Targeting and Improved Initiative. The first will allow her to improve the accuracy of her Squadron mates by sharing targeting data for a single enemy. The second will train her to optimize her chances of reacting before enemies at the beginning of an encounter through early activation of her QPS.
In shogi, the opening phase is focused on the formation of pieces for attack and defense. Being the first to act does not guarantee an advantage overall in winning the match. If I think of myself as a single piece on the board, I may desire to move first. If I think of myself as marshalling many pieces, preparing for success in the middle game is more valuable.
Hanami steps inside her simulation pod, the spherical recreation of a generic Mech cockpit closing around her. The Lateral Targeting training program boots up.
Kora remains seated, wrapping her towel around her still-damp blue hair. Reo walks over and gently touches her shoulder.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah, I guess. Nobody likes to be told they are a last place loser, ay?”
“You’re a winner in my book!” Reo says, giving her a playful punch on the arm.
Ouch! Kora winces, then smiles to disguise the very real pain.
“Don’t lose heart. Let’s go download some knowledge into our brains!” Reo calls out in his booming voice as he approaches a Sim-Pod.
Yeah, nah. I’m not sure I signed up for nervous system adaptation… brainwave stuff… taking mystery ‘vitamins.’ Was there some fine print I forgot to read when I volunteered for this crazy assignment? Hey, wait a minute! What if Synergy has something to do with those pills I’ve been cheeking? I probably can’t find out without admitting I’ve been blatantly disobeying ‘orders.’ What to do… what to do…
“You comin’?” Reo asks, looking back over his shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah. Right behind you.”
“Reo, what looks good on the menu?” Chase calls over, swiping through the options on his screen.
“I see one that has my name all over it,” Reo says. “Field Customization. Teaches you how to make alterations to your Mech when you’re away from HQ. Would have come in very handy, no pun intended, on our last mission. You?”
“Too many options—oh, this looks good! Multi-Weapon Coordination. Switching between my Semiauto Cannon and Laser can feel a bit like patting my head and rubbing my stomach at the same time. This would help me use both weapons systems simultaneously. It might not be as accurate as using one at a time, but in the heat of battle…”
Chase flashes a thumbs up to Reo and hops in the simulator. Moments later the pod is spinning and rotating every which way.
Reo laughs and shakes his head as he boots up his selected program. He climbs in. Having been in an actual Mech now, he notices how the simulation pod is both similar and different from the real thing. But overall, the layout of the controls and size of the cockpit is spot on.
The cockpit ‘windows’ begin to glow solid white, then light up into immersive VR screens as the training program loads.
[Please engage your Neural Net]
Right! Reo remembers. He pulls the mesh hood up over his head from the back of his flight suit. His brain tingles as neurons fire in rapid succession in sync with his responses to the training prompts.
Kora is last. She chews her lower lip, studying the list of available programs. She finds two that stand out to her.
Prone Recovery – Teaches the pilot a technique to rapidly regain verticality when one’s Mech is knocked prone.
Shield Overdrive – Learn how to temporarily overcharge defensive shields to withstand a significant energy weapon attack (will require subsequent cooldown of Core systems).
Well, those both sound very useful. I think I’ll go with—wait, what’s this?
Hacking I – Breach basic defenses and exploit vulnerabilities of enemy computer systems and networks.
Kora looks behind her to make sure nobody is watching. She feels a nervous flutter in her chest.
Hmmm. If I could take a peek into Aegis Drift’s computer system… I just might be able to find out…
On an impulse, she selects the program.
[Hacking I – recommended General Intelligence score of 120 and above]
Bugger!
Kora selects Shield Overdrive instead and enters the pod.
---
After the programs end, and the memory data is synced with their Mechs, and pilots get out of the simulators and stretch, their eyes, brains, and bodies readjusting to the real world.
Commander Carver is standing there, waiting for them. He wears a grim expression.
Reo is the first to notice.
“Hey, Big Boss. Everythin’ alright?”
“We’ve located our missing pilot. We’ve located Reginald Cook.”