Chapter 23

“Thanks for letting us find that out, I really mean that. I can't believe we were lied to like that.”

It was actually several days before Jeff found Sam's message, which was placed on top of some reports he had no intention of reading. They were filled with performance data on the unique rig configuration and were generally considered too vital for inexperienced mechanist to review. Since Jeff used an old design and could generally appraise performance based on what he saw compared with his experience, he was only going to file them away without looking at them.

The unexpected location of the note only compiled his confusion that came from the content of the note. He had spent the previous few days dreading contact from Sam, expecting her to lash out at him for using her as a tool to win the match. That she hadn't realised it was completely unexpected. Having her thank him for doing something he knew was wrong just made his stomach churn.

That said it was only for a moment. Mostly he was just glad to have gotten away with it. While actual assassinations were regrettably fairly commonplace in the sport, character assassinations were handled unofficially by the community. If Alicia was willing to reveal her identity and call him out, it would be very hard for him to find work or buy parts. Thankfully the one person who didn't stand to lose anything by reporting on it believed that he did it for her sake.

On top of that, things were going fairly well in the completion. Since Sam and Sachiko's previous match, against some member of her own country's junior league team, they had had plenty of spare time, due to the exhibition causing delays. While Sam somehow seemed tired as she went into the workshop, it was clear that she was recovering quickly.

Sachiko's victory meant that the next round, the junior league semi-finals, would be against Sav. It was something that both Jeff and Sam had been looking forward to and had been preparing for. Even when Jeff was short on time and preparing for his matches, he would still consider plans in his head, if not on computer or paper.

Thinking back to his own apprenticeship period, when he was still in the final year of his degree, Jeff and his mentor in the maintenance staff at that school had a similar competition just prior to Jeff's graduation. At the time, a new piloting teacher was being interviewed so they used that as an opportunity to have a match. Even if it was just a school match using rigs without cores, it none the less felt important to compete against his teacher like that. In the end Jeff had lost and the new teacher was hired, but it let him know just how much further he needed to go. More than the outcome of the match, that was the kind of experience he wanted Sam to have.

As a side note, when he met that mentor, Jeff punched him. They had hidden just how horrible working at that school was and openly laughed at him after the contract was signed. In that regard, Jeff considered himself to be a far better mentor for letting Sam experience just how bad the school could be. It was just another reminder that his co-worker at the time, another student in her apprenticeship, was lucky to have signed on at a different school, even if her conditions were only slightly better.

Savannah, dressed in her almost characteristic fatigues, also seemed excited for the upcoming match as she hovered about the workshop. From what Jeff had gathered, it seemed that she had watched Sachiko's matches and liked how straightforward her rig was. While Sav knew that she wasn't suited to that kind of fighting, she admired pilots that were willing to directly face opponents with direct and simple methods. Even the highly visible orange colour of her rig was worthy of respect. If Sav was a disciplined soldier, then Sachiko was a wild berserker, though if Sam heard that she would protest.

When Jeff heard Sav's opinion on Sachiko's rig, he couldn't help but laugh. Rare was the subtle attack type rig. More rare still was the actually effective one. Trying to be clever when it was entirely unneeded could actually be hindering, so it was safer to focus in one area. Though from what he had seen, Sam had yet to notice just how basic her designs were.

That was a sign of Sam's lack of experience, and also the starting point for Jeff's plan to beat her.

Since Sachiko had focused her training solely on attack type rigs, and Sam didn't have the necessary experience to make other types feel and handle like an attack type, it was very unlikely that they would radically change their rig. That meant any plans Sam made would be about how they used the existing rig. That was far from uncommon, especially for pilots without a permanent mechanist, and worked best with versatile rigs. It also meant that a speed type rig would be the best counter.

While the orange rig was far from versatile, Jeff was very aware that it did have potential. A particular problem would be in the missile launcher. That was literally inside it. Since Sam knew that Jeff knew that the launcher had a variety of ammunition types they would likely make no attempts at hiding it and would instead use it to maximum effect from the beginning. That was problematic since the missiles were classified as ammunition rather than parts. While the parts that were being used had to be locked in before a match started, amounts and types of ammunition only had to be shown after the first round began. No one had time to sift through files looking for that while the match was on.

Worse still, if Sam dropped a packet of spares at the start of the first round, he would have no way of knowing what would be used in any other rounds, even if he counted the ones used. That seemed unlikely when he considered the price of each missile. Even if it was a good strategy, he couldn't see Sam being so wasteful with money.

While planning, he opened up a major weapon distributor’s catalogue and looked through the type of missiles they could sell to school and junior pilots, hoping to get a general idea of the types of things he could expect. There were more than twenty options, just for the one launcher that Sachiko used. The most versatile launcher had more than fifty. The thought of planning a counter for each of them seemed entirely impossible. He could rule out the most expensive ones, and ones that required specialised protections or complicated controls, but that still left a lot of options. That meant they could only plan a general solution to protect against anything that they had.

The most obvious answer was the best one and you take no damage from a missed shot. With that in mind, they planned their match.

While they could easily leave it to the last minute to submit their plans and fill the documents with fake parts, for that one match, Jeff didn't want to do that. He wanted to win while being above board, with no gimmicks or tricks. Sav was surprisingly up for that also, as she wanted to fight Sachiko with the same thoughts in mind. As such, with more than twelve hours before the submission was due, Jeff uploaded the documents.

The designs couldn't be more straightforward, yet he knew the crowds would love them. The most important benefit of giving so much notice was it gave Sav plenty of time to get used to using the radically different rig.

While the previous rig’s design had been very balanced and adaptable, the new design was certainly not. With sleek and sharp parts, tight geometric wings and an absorbingly black paint, the design was entirely like a human shaped stealth bomber. Its hyper-modern design seemed incredibly simple at first glance, but with careful analysis, it revealed many secrets.

The first was the paint, which was made of a strange alloy that had a negative reflection value, effectively absorbing light. While that in no way made the rig invisible, it was incredibly uncomfortable to look at. It also absorbed other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, including both infrared and radio waves. That meant both radar and heat seeking guidance wouldn't work. That effect was only amplified by the shape of the armour. There were downsides to the paint; the absorbed heat went directly into the armour and slowly cook the components and the formless particles couldn't make the paint so it had to be purchased and applied manually.

That, in turn led, to another problem; both the paint and the stealth shape were out-dated technologies. They were remnants of war methods before rigs were created. As such, Jeff had to have the paint recreated by an acquaintance from his university days. Not everyone that studied Rig Sciences became mechanists. That was actually the minority. While a career in development was less lucrative, the difference in average life expectancy more than made up for it. The time Jeff spent not studying in his early years, the reason he ended up in that school, wasn't wasted time. The people he met and stayed in contact with turned into valuable friends at times like that.

While the darker than black rig would be almost painful to look at, Jeff made sure to give the crowd a reason to want to. With the focus on speed, and their previous victory, he knew that the look he had chosen would be popular. While the shape was flat and modern, anyone could tell with a single glance what the image they were going for was. It was Sara's Golden Harpy. It was flattened, angled and blackened. The feathery wings were replaced with flexible and segmented, jet-like wings. Despite all that, one look at the silhouette revealed the design.

It definitely helped that the claw like weapon in one of its hands was golden-looking; like it was forged from the broken parts of Sara's rig. Its off-hand was filled with a simple pistol shaped hybrid rail-gun. Overall, its performance was actually slightly higher than the Golden Harpy, even with the harpy having extra power. That was thanks to the difference in efficiency between fixed and demountable parts. Jeff couldn’t imagine what Sam would think when seeing his plans, but he knew that both he and Sav would enjoy the game.

Just as the deadline for submitting passed, Jeff sent Sam a message.

“Good luck. My Black Harpy will be hard to hit.”