What Do You Mean I'm The Captain Of A Yandere Mercenary Company?-Chapter 798: Flight Tests

When we reached the hangar, there were rows upon rows of white coloured Exo-Knights, all of them with the same design where it had the shape of triangles assembled together like some kind of abstract art.

The cockpit was in the largest triangle in the centre which opened up like a flower bud to allow the pilot to board.

This was similar to the one that I saw at the exhibition which I did not get to pilot.

I was guided to one of them that was docked on a maintenance bay and I stepped onto the platform lift that lifted me up to its chest level.

There were a few people that looked like scientists and engineers gathered there and they watched me climb into the cockpit that was large enough to fit three people inside it.

I started to strap myself into the seat and a few engineers stood outside the cockpit with their personal terminals in their hands.

One of them nodded at me, "First time?"

I nodded, "I’m new. First day today."

He grinned, "You’re lucky to be able to pilot this. I’m going to say that this Exo-Knight is pretty sick."

I grinned at him, "I’m sure. Thanks."

The engineer taps on his personal terminal for a while more before giving me a thumbs up and steps back with his colleague, allowing me to initiate the startup sequence for the Exo-Knight.

I flipped the switches and closed up the cockpit of the Exo-Knight.

The screens came to life and I did a quick check of the controls around me, familiarising myself with the cockpit.

It was basically similar to the Exo-Knight that I was piloting during the exhibition so I should be able to get used to it pretty easily.

"Daddy~ Should I take over the machine?" Renata asked, her voice coming from my chest.

"Let’s not... In fact... I think the Exo-Knight is being monitored too..."

Renata giggled, "Ehehe~ It definitely is, Daddy~ I already disabled it though~ If Daddy wants me to completely take over the machine, just let me know~"

"Wait... I mean... Isn’t the monitoring equipment getting disabled a clear sign to them that something is wrong here?"

"Oh, don’t worry, Daddy! They only have audio monitoring systems and not video ones. So I’m just feeding them white noise at the moment~"

"Ah... I see. Thanks, Renata."

"Ahaaann~ Daddy praised me! Ehehehe~"

Right then, a call notification came up from the side and I quickly answered it, prompting a screen to pop up with Gary’s face on it.

The screen then expanded to show several smaller windows beside Gary as the other test pilots also answered the call, filling up the entire space with their faces.

Gary nodded, "Alright test pilots! Seems like there’s no issue with the startups. Detach and head out of the hangar to regroup."

I looked around the cockpit and found the switch to turn on the external cameras and when I flipped it on, the entire walls of the cockpit around me turned transparent, making me feel like I was seated on a chair that was just floating in the air.

I would have thought that the Exo-Knight itself had turned transparent if I hadn’t looked to the side to see the other Exo-Knights around me start moving with no changes to their cockpits.

I relaxed, knowing that the outside was merely just projected onto the inner walls of the cockpit so the people outside still couldn’t see me.

Looking around, the rest of the Exo-Knight was still opaque so I could see the head, arms and legs just fine.

Alright, let’s not screw things up on my very first day here...

I moved the controls and the Exo-Knight began to move, the machine detaching itself from the maintenance bay to turn towards the hangar doors.

The other test pilots started marching towards the door so I did the same, joining the crowd as they jumped out of the hangar before activating their thrusters.

When it was my turn, I paused for a moment to look out into the emptiness of space before I jumped out, switching on the thrusters to boost me toward the crowd of Exo-Knights that were gathered a short distance away.

There was a single Exo-Knight that was floating in front of everyone else so I assume that was being piloted by Gary.

We waited until everyone was gathered before he spoke again.

"Alright everyone! I’ve got our tasks for the day! The labs want to test the manoeuvrability of the machines so they’re giving us a course to fly through! They will be uploaded to your machine’s maps so be sure to follow the route given to you! You don’t need to worry about logging anything as the labs will be the ones doing it so just fly to the best of your abilities! Got it?"

As soon as he said that, my map screen was updated with several coloured dots that were connected by lines with arrows on them. At the same time, I also saw what looked like holographic rings appearing in space itself, coinciding with the positions of the coloured dots.

That’s cool... They basically turned this to an AR obstacle course.

It’s like those flight simulation games where you have to fly through checkpoints in the shape of rings to complete the game.

I took a moment to memorise the course that was given to me to complete, formulating the best path that I should take to complete the course as fast as possible.

Gary then flew up slightly, presumably to stay out of everyone’s flight path before he addressed us again.

"Alright! We’ll go off in waves! First group, Marcus! Tria! Spielia! Orta! You’re up first!"

The four mentioned test pilots immediately flew off in their Exo-Knights, following their own flight path as they dove through the invisible rings that only they could see.

I frowned slightly as I watched them fly through the void.

While their flying looked normal... It was just that. Normal.

Like... I was kind of expecting them to be doing spins, twirls and dives in order to maximise the speed of their machines but... I don’t see them doing any of that.

They were just flying their Exo-Knights normally...

I mean... These are supposed to be elite pilots, right? So why are they just flying their Exo-Knights so ordinarily? Isn’t this supposed to be testing the machine’s limits? There’s no way they are pushing any limits at all from just flying it like that...

Gary called out five more pilots and they also flew along their own flight paths, doing almost the exact same thing that the first group was doing which meant that this wasn’t just a personal thing for the first group.

It might sound crazy for me to say this but... Why are they all so basic?

I turned towards the screen with Gary and asked, "Umm... Team leader? Could I ask if we are supposed to do our best and fly as fast as we can?"

Gary frowned at me, "What? Of course? Why would you think otherwise?"

Hmm... So this was really what was expected then...

Oh! I get it now! They’re probably going to do several attempts and this is most likely them doing a warmup run.

I suppose... Maybe I should just take it easy as well?

Or... On second thought... I should just try my best first to get used to this Exo-Knight. Especially since this was my first time flying this Exo-Knight while the other test pilots already have experience with it.

"Tera!" Gary’s voice brought me out of my thoughts.

I realized he had already called me to move and I was too lost in my thoughts and missed it.

I reacted immediately and initiated my thrusters, boosting the machine towards the first ’checkpoint’.

My muscle memory took over for me as I spun the Exo-Knight, using the most optimised flight path to speed towards it.

The moment I was through the first one, I immediately spun my Exo-Knight in a ninety degree spin to shoot myself upwards, flying towards the next ring.

Before I was even through the ring, I had already turned to face myself towards my next target, allowing my momentum to pass me through the ring before I activated the thrusters again, flinging my machine towards the next checkpoint.

I was spinning, twirling, and looping all around the space to move through the checkpoints that were assigned to me.

Space around me became a blur as I pushed the thrusters to their limits, flying as fast as I possibly could.

I was fully focused on completing the course and only relaxed after I sped through the last checkpoint, doing a final spin to slow myself down.

That was when I realised that the first group of test pilots who had started their course first hadn’t even finished their run and everyone else was just staring at me.

Err... Did I do something wrong again?