Chapter 30 Broken Toys

At noon the next day Colonel Black arrives with two damaged Line Mecha for the Cadets to diagnose and repair.

They'd been damaged by the senior class during their live fire training, and he thought the damage on these units perfectly suited the way that Cadets Max and Nico had treated their simulated machines during the qualification exams.

"Enough chatting Cadets, Let's get to work. I picked these two damaged Mecha specifically for the pair of you, based on your combat styles. Somebody thought her Mecha was an acrobatics cyborg and would have blown out a load of seals in the hydraulic systems." Colonel Black can't help but smile at the memory of Nico climbing up the parkade building, and the various barricades and obstacles she navigated during the examination.

"And someone else thinks that if he can't see the target, it can't see him, so I've brought you a mecha with blown capacitors and and scorched armor isolators all over the unit."

Both Cadets chuckle, knowing that this is going to be a long day, but it was mostly self inflicted. No level of mistake, no matter how small, goes unpunished under General Tennant's watch, so even though their exam was virtual, he'd found a way to make them do the repairs in reality.

They go over all the damaged areas, and Colonel Black hands each a data tablet with the diagnosis and repair information for the Kepler Line Mecha in it and instructs them to get to work. Just like Inquisitor Wolf, his theory is to see what they can make of the available information on their own.

Nico has some maintenance memories from her previous life, which Max has already reviewed, finding them only partially relevant due to differences in technology, but both Cadets had taken the time to read and understand the textbooks on the basic theories and techniques of Kepler Empire Mecha design and repair long before coming to the academy.

They couldn't bear to call themselves a true fan of Mecha is they didn't understand how they worked, after all.

The work begins slowly after they finish making notes on the visible damages, and Colonel Black starts offering advice and assistance as soon as the actual repairs begin.

"No, you remove the end pin, then the C clip before unscrewing the cap, or it will jam and you'll have to start over." The Colonel instructs Cadet Nico, pointing out the correct way to disassemble a particular type of hydraulic ram.

Nico's day has been the much more mechanical of the two Cadets. The unit Max is repairing just got shot a bunch of times, so he's mostly removing and replacing armor plates and energy absorption capacitors over and over, then checking electrical circuits and the internal structure for damage.

Nico has rebuilt 4 electric motors and two dozen hydraulic cylinders so far, thanks to the overload damage the unit she is working on suffered when the pilot managed to fall off an elevated walkway. It's still functional, but leaking from basically everywhere.

The systems are redundant and isolated, so there are dozens and dozens of small damaged parts from the Mecha's fall and subsequent maneuvers to finish the course.

'I should really have apologized to the repair staff in my last life. I brought them machines in much worse condition than this.' Nico muses silently, going over both past life memories and her new learning to get this job done as quickly as possible.

"That looks good. Cadet Max, double check all your left arm securements and then we can sign off on that arm. Cadet Nico, power up the unit and check for torso joint leaks."

Colonel Black actually enjoys spending all his time in the shop, away from the politics and nonsense involved in running an Academy. He asked for the transfer to this duty station specifically to get out of the political trap he had gotten himself promoted into. No senior officer truly escapes politics though, as they're an integral part of every company command level and up posting.

That being the case, a whole afternoon, with only two Cadets, not even ones from the maintenance program, was almost a perfect day at work for him. If his old friend the General would bring some Brandy it might actually be perfect.

Once the mechanical repairs are done they Cadets clean the units, then run a double system check for damages and leaks, and finally refresh the academy regulation paint on their armor. By the time they're done the two units work better than new, properly tweaked and tuned with every little lingering problem common to a training Mecha solved.

"And that's two correctly serviced Mecha, ready for their next deployment. Enjoy your evenings and I will return tomorrow with more units for you to work on."

Second break is over, and the Senior Cadets are nearing graduation, so every day they will have more Mecha to repair, so many that the repair class students dread this final semester every year.

The Instructors say that it's part of their training, the rush to get units operational during a battle, but the developing minds of the young Cadets always have problems truly appreciating that the reality would actually be much, much worse than what they receive in the academy.

It's a bit like heaven for the Mecha loving Max though. He's literally up to his elbows in a real life Line Mecha, testing systems and replacing the composite armor plates that seem to get heavily damaged every training run.

They're built of sandwiched layers of a resin impregnated cloth and an advanced ceramic inside a metallic shell, designed to absorb impact, energy and heat and dissipate it without damaging the structure they're mounted to. Deliberately sacrificial to save the components that actually keep the Mecha working underneath.

The design makes a lot of work for maintenance crews, but it's far easier than repairing the more complex Armored shell of the Crusader Class Mecha. Most of these Line Mecha armor plates Max can maneuver by hand, even in the increased gravity of their training building. The plates for a Crusader Class Mecha require a crane and multiple team members to safely remove.