[401-600] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 450: Driven

If she expected someone to finish a report within a day, he better well do it or he would face a reckoning.

If she said that someone should increase the performance of a specific component by a couple of percentage point, the entire design team would be forced to slave for weeks or months until they finally achieved their goal.

A mech designer like the professor was set in her ways, and she never showed any leeway in anything. That troubled Ves a lot, and he struggled to think of to deal with this personality trait until he realized that if he played things correctly, it could play to his advantage.

While most of his fellow mech designers grumbled about Velten's inflexibility, Ves recognized that she was simply a mech designer that worked in terms solid numbers and quantifiable results. In other words, she was a very data driven engineer.

To overcome the objections of someone who was driven by data, Ves merely had to serve up additional data that played in his favor. So in the final day before he had to report to the professor, Ves brought Iris to one of the Wolf Mother's hangars and conferred with Chief Carmon and Lieutenant Chandis.

"I have a way to renew the Inheritor." He began after pulling them aside. "Iris and I have worked on a set of minor modifications that will boost the performance of a mech pilot. The changes aren't very big, but it could potentially be the start of something bigger."

Ves proceeded to explain a summary of what he had in mind.

"What do you need us for then?" Chief Carmon asked as she crossed hear hefty arms and chewed on an illegal stimulant. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're kind of busy right now. We don't have time to spend on installing fancy frills like a spiffed up cockpit."

The lieutenant voiced his own objections as well. "My men are used to piloting with bare heads. They won't take buckethead interfaces very well. Light mech pilots really hate those unwieldy things!"

"Don't knock it until you try it! I only need one mech and a test pilot to gather some data. What will it hurt? Besides, once I can get this modification proposal approved, it might open the door to further improvements."

They both thought that this was a waste of time, but the carrot that Ves had dangled at the end sounded very tempting. If Ves could get the obstinate professor to approve of further modifications to the Inheritor design, then they stood a chance of vastly improving its survival rate.

To that end, letting Ves free reign on a single Inheritor mech was a cheap price to pay.

"Okay, you've convinced me. Go ahead, but don't change anything else!"

"Thanks!"

Ves and Iris proceeded to inspect the Inheritors in the hangar and selected the most up-to-date one because it matched the current design the closest.

After that, Ves personally worked on tearing out the old interior and replacing it with his own. He did everything in person, from fabricating new replacement parts, to assembling them into place at their exact positions.

Iris in the meanwhile worked to fabricate and install the buckethead interface system. Though Ves could have taken care of this chore on his own, he found it best to leave it to a genuine expert.

"It's best you leave it to me because I can tailor this neural interface to our test pilot." She said. "Not all neural interfaces are born the same. The best ones are made to accommodate the mind of a specific mech pilot."

So Ves left the job of installing the best neural interface system as possible on their testbed mech while Ves cobbled together the rest. He worked quickly but efficiently, helped by the fact that none of the work involved anything challenging. At his level of skill, putting together the revamped interior was a piece of cake.