Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System

Nico got started on the custom Shuttle, equipped with the widest variety of sensors that she could manage, as well as the experimental propulsion system that had been sent to them by the research team.

There was nothing about it that seemed to be overtly dangerous or flawed, and it had already been tested in their home layer of space, so she had the data that said that building and activating it here would not lead to any sort of untoward reactions.

It was only when the experiments started that they were going to get into uncharted territory and possibly immense amounts of trouble with the Alliance.

"How is it coming along?" Khan asked as a pair of Hunter Suits carried in the sensor array that they were planning to load into the Cargo Bay.

"Pretty well. I'm not completely sure I've got the alignment of these systems right, but once I've finished the assembly, we can start running diagnostics and doing some final optimizations."

Nico finished the process as quickly as she could, then had Max come over and use his [Optimize] System Function on it to make sure that it was in peak condition before they loaded the extra sensors inside and prepared to start the experiment.

This time, they weren't going to risk doing it too close to the Camp though. The shuttle was space travel capable, so they were going to send it up into orbit and do the experiments there, using Drone Bombers as relay stations, to eliminate the chance that atmospheric interference would corrupt their data should the shuttle not return in one piece.

"I still think that we're being too paranoid. While we have failed a lot of experiments in the past, we do have a solid enough scientific knowledge base to pretty reliably say that nothing too catastrophic is likely to happen should we fail.

But, on that note, the shuttle is ready to send to orbit." Nico informed the room.

Khan smiled. "Let's do this before anyone comes to complain. You know how secrets are; they cease to exist once three people know of them, and far too many people are already aware of this project."

Seconds later, the shuttle streaked toward orbit, catching the attention of every Hunter and Myceloid in the region and even some much further away who saw the fast-moving object in the sky and wondered if it was some sort of animal or a weapon.

"Alright, orbit achieved. I am moving the shuttle to a safe distance now and linking all the sensory data to the Drone Bombers. How is the data feed from your sensor unit?" Nico asked.

"Still optimal. No interference in the data stream has been detected, so we are ready to begin the testing." Khan agreed.

"Alright, opening the Portal to begin the testing."

The shuttle powered up to begin creating the opening between layers while everyone held their breath in anticipation.

Slowly, the sensor indicated that the invisible layers were parting, and the shuttle vanished through, seeming to fade from sight as the process completed. It was exactly the same as how the Arisen vanished after a battle, which would be invaluable information to the Koleska and the other species that were facing them.

Why the Darklings had never thought to inform anyone else when they had been so helpful with Max and Nico was anyone's guess, but they had clear footage now and continuing data streams from the shuttle.

"All of our sensors are online, the feed is reliable, minimal interference," Nico noted for the records.

"Exothermic Fluctuation scans are offline or possibly receiving zero heat emission data," Khan noted.

The human scanners worked differently; they tracked the temperature of items, but they didn't actually test to see how much of the heat in the area was emitted by objects. Instead, they interpolated that from the results that they saw and the knowledge of thermodynamics.

"That is acceptable. I will begin initializing the subspace drive now." Nico agreed.

One sensor giving strange readings was much better than they had anticipated, and there had been no large-scale disruption this time or any sign of the being whose attention they had attracted.

"The drive systems are online. Preparing to move." Nico narrated, and the shuttle smoothly glided forward, skimming through space at nearly a hundred thousand kilometres an hour.

That was far from a replacement for a Warp Drive, but it was the first step of their testing and proof that the system not only worked in the strange environment around this region but that they had a reliable source of motion while they were in the other layer, no matter what portion of it they found themselves in.

"Well, good news. It's working. We are at five percent output, and the shuttle is responding perfectly to our commands, with no major anomalies detected on the sensors." Nico announced, signalling the victory of their first test of the shuttle.

The real problems would likely begin to occur when they tried to exceed light speed, and that was about to happen right now.

"Primary motion is confirmed, and all control tests are successful. Next up is the Traction Drive testing. Should we do that in real space first or here in the other layer?" Nico asked.

The Huntresses looked at each other and then shrugged.

"Might as well do it there. If it blows up, at least we won't have to explain it to anyone else." Khan decided.

"Marvellous plan. Alright, engaging the Traction Drive now, let's see if we can get this thing rolling."

The two drive systems worked together, with the Subspace drive providing the initial inertia and the Traction Drive multiplying it until the shuttle reached and exceeded light speed.

It could do it on its own, but the faster the object was moving to begin with, the faster it would get up to speed. Unlike a Warp Bubble, it was not instantaneous, and it was ridiculously energy-expensive. But it worked. It actually worked, and the shuttle made it to an equivalent of Warp Two before reaching its power capacity.