Paul clapped his hands once. "Wrap it up. I've seen enough."
As the crew powered down the Tempered Blade and prepped it for sensor data transfer, Haller turned to Rennick. Through the transparent viewport of the observation booth, Rennick watched the MTA pilot emerge from the mech's cockpit. Assisted by the built-in anti-grav nodes in his suit, the man drifted down smoothly to the ground.
The pilot stepped with confidence—neither impressed nor disappointed. He walked over to the booth and keyed open the side door.
"So, did you like the mech, Bertrand?" Haller asked casually.
Bertrand, the pilot, gave a short nod. "The mech is pretty solid for the components it has."
He stepped forward and offered Rennick a handshake, which Rennick met firmly.
"Good weight balance. I've piloted my fair share of glossy junk. A lot of designers these days chase form over function—overload the frame with modular gimmicks, overload the pilot with data." Bertrand said without condescension. "This one knows what it wants to be. That's rare."
Rennick smiled slightly, "I appreciate the feedback."
Bertrand gestured toward the mech, "There are a few areas which you'll want to keep an eye on like Paul stated previously about the temperature increase in leg musculature and slight insulations in some parts if this mech is going to be deployed in special environment. But overall, it's solid. Very intuitive to pilot and the latency feels crisp it's intuitive to pilot. Clean interface. No clutter in the HUD. You've given the pilot space to think."
"That means a lot coming from someone with your piloting hours." Haller said.
Bertrand simply nodded." Good luck with the rest. You'll go far if you stay grounded."
He turned and left without another word.
Haller chuckled, "Don't take his brevity the wrong way—he only gives feedback when he means it."
Rennick nodded and sighed in relief inwardly. Although, he was pretty confident about the certification process, it still took the weight of his shoulder that he was unconsciously carrying, when they confirmed the mech for certification. 'It always makes me nervous, no matter how many times I do it.'
It was not the first time he was certifying a mech from MTA, previously he also certified the marksman mech he built for one of the Freddy's crew and many mechs that he salvaged and restored before that.
Paul re-entered the booth after finishing with the data handoff to the archival systems.
"Results will be processed overnight," he told Rennick. "But unless something wild comes up in the logs, consider your design provisionally certified."
Rennick could only nod. He was tired—his mind and body worn out from the long days of building, tweaking, testing—but the quiet satisfaction swelling in his chest was worth every second of exhaustion.
"Thank you," he said, sincerely.
Back at the workshop The Tempered Blade now rested proudly on its platform, inert yet imposing. Its faded dark-blue armor seemed almost contemplative in the filtered light of the jungle clearing. Rennick stumbled in and collapsed onto the couch.
Jean looked up from his terminal.
"Well?" he asked, anticipation in his voice.
Rennick let a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. "It passed."
Jean jumped up, pumping his fist. "Hell Yess!"
For a moment, they shared a quiet victory. This was Jean's first credited mech project, and it had cleared MTA certification without a hitch.
"Now we just need to inform Freddy and arrange delivery," Rennick said, tapping open his comm.
Freddy's face popped into view. "You called just in time, boy. I was about to call you myself to ask how the Guardian turned out."
Jean leaned into view. "Call it Tempered Blade now, old man!"
Rennick grinned. "The mech's ready for pickup. Just send one of your pilots and a crew tomorrow."
Freddy's eyes shined and he guffawed, "Good, very good, I knew I was right to trust you boy. You brought the news just in time, right brother he said, glancing offscreen with a laugh. "I'll send my people tomorrow morning."
Rennick furrowed his brows in question, "What did he mean by 'I brought the news just in time'?"
"Who cares boss. Let's party- "As Jean was saying that his comm buzzed with message and when he saw the message, his face soured a bit and he sighed a little and as he tried to say it to Rennick but he stopped him.
"Its alright Kid, I know it was from the count, he must have some important business to call you right now. Go and besides I also have to do preparations for the trip to Friday Coalition." Rennick said smiling.
Jean nodded and left the workshop in a hurry. Rennick now sitting on his couch ordered some food and, in the meantime, he proceeded to book the ticket.
"Wait, now that I remember, Jean booked the ticket of this ship…" Rennick looked hesitantly at the page of the "Torch of Vanguard".
The reason he was hesitating was because he just saw the news about the incident involving Vincent Ricklin in which he attacked the Ricklin estate on Bentheim in Bright Republic.
"This means that Ves will be on the ship too…" Rennick muttered suddenly unsure about going to Friday Coalition That man was a lightning rod for drama. He knew from the novel that wherever Ves went, messes followed and he wanted to avoid that as much as he can. In the end, after much deliberation he sighed and booked the business class ticket for the Torch of Vanguard.
If he can't avoid it, might as well embrace it and with that he paid 225,000 Seed Credits, fortunately, since the cost was paid by the count since it was his request, it didn't burn his wallet.
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The next morning.
Rennick was eating his breakfast in the balcony when he spotted a familiar hovercar approaching through the clearing. He stood and made his way down to greet it.
The vehicle hissed as it landed, and out stepped Freddy—wearing his usual breezy expression. Behind him came a girl with wild brown hair and a bomber jacket, looking around with a frown that said she'd rather be anywhere else.
"C'mon Freya, don't make that sour face, you always wanted to pilot grandpa's mech right? This is your dream coming true." Freddy said as his lips twitched at the frown on the girl's face.
The girl crossed her arms and looked around the jungle-framed workshop with thinly veiled disdain. "I don't know what you were thinking, Uncle. Bringing grandfather's legacy to this backwater? This place looks like it needs the fixing more than the mech."
Rennick raised an eyebrow and gave her a neutral look. 'Ah... One of those.'
So, this was the new pilot. Freya—clearly a relative of Freddy's, probably the daughter of the branch family? Slightly older than Jean, but carrying herself with far more… arrogance.
Freddy gave Rennick a sheepish smile. "This here's Freya. My niece that I talked about. She graduated last week and came home yesterday and since you completed the mech just in time, I thought it would be nice to let her see the mech that she'll be piloting for herself."
"I see," Rennick said neutrally. "Well then, you're welcome to see it up close before judging."
Freya gave Rennick a critical look, then shrugged. "We'll see if it's worth the trouble."
Rennick hid a smile. So that's how it's going to be, huh?