It had been several weeks since the mission to find a route to allow for discreet movement between the Slate Sepulchre and the Jovangellian territory under the dominion of The Heard. During this time Cunningham had been filled with anxious energy, feeling like a bow drawn but with nothing to be let loose on. While the race against the Rubble Runts had allowed a brief respite in, the results did leave him unsatisfied but also severed as a reminder about making sure his energy was expended effectively and to not underestimate the impact of a home field advantage. Thus he had decided to spend some fine-tuning his AV to be prepared for the next mission.
“Engine output holding steady at 1.2 MW; with a max burst output of 1.6MW for 30 seconds. It would be nice if I could get just a bit more out of it; but that would probably need to disassemble the entire system and there is probably not enough time before the next mission. It would be a mistake to have my AV out of commission at that time.” He said as he closed the reactor assembly, absentmindedly scratching at the neural plugs that recently started to heal over from non-use. “Really need to stop doing that. Or figure out a way to retrofit a neural interface on this AV to be able to use them again.”
“Now what to do? Run some practical tests to make sure the theoretical values from results of the stress test can be replicated in the field? It would be nice to find a nice open area and just gun the engines as fast as I can. Might not be a bad idea to re-run the course of the race, see how the time I can get now matches to the one the winner was able to get.”
“Yeah. Doing the race again would probably be good; gives me a chance to not only gun the engines, but also test the control thrusters, see how receptive the controls are, if the cooling system can properly keep up, make sure the inertial dampeners keep the G-forces from causing grey-out, and the navigational display showing paths behind obstacles. I wonder If I could see if anyone else within Terra-Rising would be interested it joining me, or if someone from the Rubble Runts would want to go again. Might give me a chance to get more familiar with how the rest of the squad and our somewhat allies operates their AVs so I know what to expect when we are covering each others backs.”
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“That was a good experience. I can tell that there are some liquids that need to be topped off, along with some bearings that need to lubricated, and the reactor needs to fully cool down before it takes any damage from operating too hard for too long. I also now see some more areas that I could try to further tune fine-tune this AV.”
“Given that the fights are only going to get more dangerous, as once the Jovangellians figure out what we did and plan to do; their response is going to be, while possibly not quick, definitely going to be excessively destructive. And if I am going to find and get my old squad-mates out, they are likely going to be amongst some of the best within the Jovengellian forces, either fighting with them on another suicide mission or being used as on-board assistance with their best pilots, I will need to every advantage I can get my hands on."
"I wonder if there is anything I can salvage for the AV from the 13th I came here on? With how long I had to have the reactor running in the process of clinging to the outsides of ships and stations in order to try to find someplace to escape to, and how bad the crash during re-entry was, things are not going to be great. I know the super-structure was damaged beyond repair, but there might be some parts and gear that could be used. Being able to get the Zero-point cooling system and Anti-matter spiker would be good, though without both it would be hard to not have the reactor constantly over-heat or shut down from being cooled below operating parameters. The squall-shield could probably have the internal capacitors replaced to get its forcefield generator back online. Of course that assumes that someone did not boost it already. Though given that it went down in the middle of the Lizard Wastes, there is a good chance that it will still be there. And this is probably a good chance to go, since Mordred is currently staying in Taizhil for the time being, and who knows when she will move and either return or otherwise disappear and risk pose the risk returning while I am salvaging.”
“Well since I decided to do this, lets do this before conditions change and it becomes more dangerous to do this.”