790 790 Enter Player Three
True to his word, the materials were waiting in a crate with rollers outside the airlock to Santa Maria when the pair returned home after dinner, along with four security guards to protect the materials and return the newly created learning devices to the Education Ministry.
They were taking the deal very seriously, and they wanted to make sure that the students had them first thing in the morning so that this month’s graduates could have as much time as possible in the simulation to pass all three of the exams and master their skills before they had to see combat.
Nico had included information that it might not be possible for them to complete them all, as the final one was for Elite Pilots, but the Education Minister thought it was better to let them think that every human soldier could pass them all, as a motivational factor that would drive them to be the best that they could.
They were meritocratic, to begin with, so Max didn’t think that they needed the incentive, but if it helped morale, it wasn’t a bad thing.
Those who finished the most and scored the highest would get the best postings for rookie graduates, with priority for advancement, so they would drive themselves to complete the challenge as hard as they could.
It was a good thing that there would be no permanent body damage from the learning machines, as Max knew very well that they would drive themselves well past the point of sanity if they thought that they were going to lose out on opportunities later in life because they didn’t try hard enough here.
That was just how the Koleska were.
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“It is our pleasure. Some of our coworkers have children in the next few graduating classes, so we are all excited to see what these devices of yours can do for them. The Arisen Army is a scourge upon the civilized species, and we will all be glad to see the day when we gain the upper hand and drive them back to wherever they came from.” The security officer agreed.
Max wheeled the carts full of ore inside the ship while the guards took up defensive positions as if someone was going to threaten the ship while they were making the learning devices. That seemed incredibly unlikely to Max. For one, the soldiers aboard the station weren’t stupid enough to challenge the pilots of two Mecha who could likely solo their entire unit, and for two, the learning devices weren’t actually that valuable outside of their use for training students.
If anyone had a use for them, it was the people that they were already heading to, and the payment had been made, so there was no reason for the Education Ministry to try anything shady at this point.
The guards looked ready to throw a celebration party five minutes later when Max brought out the goods, and he noticed that there were a lot of new minds in the area, all with security concerns foremost in their thoughts. The minister must have deployed half of the security staff on the station to come to pick up the devices, and Max wondered if he had somehow given the man the impression that it would be hard to get more of them should there be an issue with the first batch.
The only reason he had set the number at four hundred sets is that it was enough to provide one unit per student in the graduating class, and they only needed them for a maximum of a week, so every successive class would have plenty of time in their last month at the Academy to use the device and level up their skills.
“Well, the work is done, and they will be giving them all to get better students to the front lines, so what do we do for the rest of the night?” Nico asked suggestively.
“I have a few ideas, but I haven’t seen a mindless comedy movie in a while, so how about KepFlix and chill?” Max replied with a wink.
The next morning when the alarms went off, they were still tangled up on the couch, with the holographic projector playing a random movie selection after having been forgotten early in the evening.
The noise got them both up and moving in an instant, despite their entangled sleeping position, and Max brought up the alert on the main display in the room instead of the movie that had been playing.
[All units and unknown vessels are inbound toward our location. Intentions are unknown. Prepare for hostile contact.]
So it wasn’t the Arisen, but it wasn’t anyone that the Koleska knew either.
Max looked at the ship on the screen, then stopped and did a double-take. For a second, he thought it was Absolution, but the design was wrong. The style was similar, and the construction seemed to be the same, but it wasn’t his World Ship.
But the Alliance, or more specifically the Hunters, had a legend about this ship that showed up at random and made the population of entire planets disappear in a single day, then it would disappear again.
That had sounded similar to what the Arisen did, but as he watched the sensor feed, he could see that the immense vessel was no longer alone. They were engaged in heavy combat with an Arisen fleet, exchanging energy weapons fire at a tremendous rate, with hundreds of thousands of smaller ships being disgorged from both of the attack vessels.
The vessels of the Arisen were somehow more sinister in nature, more angular and simplistic looking, but visibly more heavily armed than this elegant ship they were fighting.
The ships that the strange vessel that reminded him of Absolution was using didn’t resemble what the Huntress had described at all, though. The larger ship did, but the smaller ones had a much different design, like they had turned every forward-facing edge into a blade to use their ships as weapons in close combat.
The design philosophy was insane, but Max could feel the lust coming from Nico as she looked at the attack craft. Weaponized Melee spaceships were exactly her design fetish. Now that she had seen one in action, he was certain that she was going to try to make one of her own in the near future.
[Attention all units, Arisen Army Force has engaged the unknown vessel. Standby for a decision from Sector Command.] The station’s comms system announced, keeping any of the units from launching to assist the strangers.
“We should go help out. The enemy of my enemy dies second and all that.” Nico suggested.
Max sent off a brief message to the Station Commander, letting them know that he and Nico would be intervening on behalf of the security of the Anomaly, and received an almost instant response in return.
[As you see fit, Commander. We will be on standby until the intent of the unknown vessel is clear.]
“Alright, Nico, get in the Mecha and let’s go see what we can find. Just be careful since both sides might attack us.” Max informed her.
“Maybe, if I’m a really good girl. But that ship looks familiar. Not because it looks like Absolution. I swear that I’ve seen it before somewhere.” Nico replied, but she was already running to the hangar as she spoke.