When the shuttle touched down in the Lab’s hangar there were dozens of Lab Coat wearing scientists there to welcome them back to the facility and gather their luggage from the shuttle.

“Keep the Hoverboards, they will come in handy in just a minute.” One of the workers joked, handing Max the meter-long board that he hadn’t had much chance to actually use yet.

“Yeah, the lab is enormous, and I heard you got an outer ring apartment, so it’s going to be like three kilometers to work every day, and there aren’t any cars allowed in the dome, so it’s all foot traffic, or personal conveyance.” Another added.

“So, the outer ring isn’t about the view, it’s about seniority, being the furthest from work.” Nico mused, giving Uncle Lu a raised eyebrow look.

“Don’t glare at me like that. You’re both Alpha Ranked, it would take you like ten minutes to get to the lab, and there are electric carts inside to get everyone to their workstations for the day. You’re even on the proper floor for your lab posting, so you won’t have to wait on the elevator.” Uncle Lu whined, making the scientists chuckle._.

“Live testing Lab is my favorite posting, but I’m all the way up top here in the coding labs. All we get are rows and rows of computers, making hundreds of sets of algorithms to compare against each other for efficiency and reliability.” The first scientist, a tall ginger-haired woman, complained.

Even though a set of code looked like it worked, it might be too long to work smoothly, contain a hidden error, or have an unexpected interaction with another bit of code. There were over a thousand moving parts plus the digitally controlled weapon systems to design and code, so the job was one of the most important, but also one of the most monotonous.

The weapons coders had it the worst. With Plasma based weapons they needed to precisely control the containment field, the rate of charge, heat dissipation, energy frequency and temperature stability, rate of discharge, and the aim. Then, if that wasn’t enough work for them, every bit of that had to work together and remain functional and stable during a variety of states of damage, with the ability to bypass certain damaged areas or the weapon would be deemed too unreliable for use.

In short, they were blamed for absolutely everything that went wrong, unless they could prove that it was a flaw in the physical design.

“The first stop is the Coding Lab. You won’t need to be here much, since you are in the practical testing lab, but they will likely come to see you on a regular basis after your analysis.” Uncle Lu informed them, leading the group into the lab and grabbing a hoverboard of his own, while most of the others jogged to keep up.

Once inside the lab, Max could access a map of the facility and found that not only the lab, but the living quarters were part of the military facility. It wasn’t just in this dome, it was this dome. The lab took up the entire city-sized ball sitting high in the sky above Comor on a long tower of some unknown alloy that Max would have to explore later. The level of strength and flexibility was impressive, even if the hab domes had gravity generators to reduce the stress on the towers.

“The coding labs take up five floors, and they’re all identical, so there is no good reason to see them all.” Uncle Lu began, but Nico cut him off.

“Wouldn’t it make sense to make every section a slightly different color scheme, so that you could identify the locations more easily?” Nico asked, looking at the sterile off-white walls of the cubicle-filled floor.

“I did consider it, but that would imply that I intend to regularly visit these floors, and I don’t want to get their hopes up. If I need a coder, they come to my office, where there is better coffee.” Uncle Lu shrugged, making the scientists laugh and nod their heads.

The coffee was one of the perks of being called to the General’s office. He always had a fresh pot on when there was a meeting and only the finest of blends.

“Next up is the structural lab. It is only three floors, but three large ones, given the need for extra height. This section is working on the new Mobile Suits. They’re almost as large as a Line Mecha, but the Pilot stands in them with their feet ending just before the knees and their arms tucked in beside their torso. From early testing, we think that this should increase mobility and natural responses by Pilots with lower ranked systems.”

Nico wandered away from the group, flying over the stations on the hoverboard until she got to a board with experimental designs on it. The whole group stopped to see what she was up to as the small cyborg pulled a marker from a nearby whiteboard and began sketching a new design on an empty space.

It looked like a basic exoskeleton, with armored boots and weapon arms, but it had wings on the back and an exposed Pilot instead of the usual full shell.

“I like it, very sexy, or not, depending on who is flying it. But wouldn’t they just die the moment they get shot at?” The nearest designer asked.

“Not if we give it a proper shield generator. I see you were planning to use the small-scale Cold Fusion generators on the Mobile Suits, so you can port the rear design straight over, then add the wings and the weapon arms. Here is a simple Shield Generator design to add to it. It only needs a tenth of a cubic meter, so I’m sure you can fit it somewhere. My System Function modified it from a design for the Crusader Class Mecha. If you need a practical example of the design, there is a prototype in Stalwart.” Nico explained, and the whole section of the lab flew into chaos.

“So that’s how you walked away from so many battles without major damage. The status information we were given for your mecha didn’t show a Shielding system.” Uncle Lu informed Max.

“It was there, but inactive when I was assigned the Unit. Nico has an incredible knack for repairing damaged Mecha components, so she got it up and running again before we even made it to our first engagement. It has taken a serious amount of abuse, and still, I was taking a fair bit of damage.” Max agreed.

“Are you done causing Chaos in the design team or do you still need a minute?” General Lu called over to Nico, who was deep in discussion with the designers.

“One more minute, I just have to do this first,” Nico called back, then scribbled on the board again, modifying the design to lose the wings, but gain precision control arms, in addition to the stronger main arms, plus a pair of welding and multitool attachments that could be wrenches, sockets, or even shears.

“There we go. The construction exosuit Mark One. Antigravity hover functionality with all the standard mechanical tools used by the repair bay technicians built in.” The designers looked dubious, but Nico forwarded them another file and their looks turned to awed reverence.historical

Even Uncle Lu looked impressed, scanning through the design.

“Get a team on this. Someone from a low-priority design. Those Mobile Suits are supposed to be headed to testing soon, so you can’t switch off them yet.” He called, all business for a few seconds, but Max could see the joy in his eyes as he looked at the holographic designs for the two exoskeleton suits.

“I knew it was going to be a great idea to bring you two in. Now, onward, from the Structural lab to the Weapons Lab.”