I thought I was just an ordinary guy. Just some nerd with a job writing software. I wasn’t even an expert in AI or anything like that. So when I got picked as the newest mecha pilot I was very confused. 

Sure, I know there’s a war, and they are trying to get more pilots, but usually they go for the sporty types. People with good reflexes. I’m just a lanky programmer. They took me in for initial testing, and I failed pretty much every test. No stamina, slow reactions, I even lock up under stress. I thought for sure they were gonna kick me out of the program or assign me somewhere more sensible. Nope.

Instead, the idiots give me my own personal mech, and a partner who’s in charge of maintaining it. So now I’m pouring over the code and all the info I can find on the control systems and how they work.

Ugh, what is this? Why are there so few sensors on the mech? The current design depends entirely on the pilot. Sure, they’ve got enough cameras to give the pilot full view in all directions, but there’s no good alarm systems. Pilots can’t expect to be fully aware of everything just because there’s cameras.

This thing needs proper collision detection and attack prediction. Adding proper UI feedback for it, should make combat much easier.

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As a mechanic, I thought my job would be pretty easy. Just keep repairing the mechs every time they come back. There’s so much automation in the repair process I hardly even need to do anything. Then, I got assigned to this guy.

First of all, his scores in the tests were so bad, it seemed like if he ever left on a sortie, he’d just get killed without a chance to do anything. So I made sure his mech was given a heavy armor loadout, to at least give him some chance of surviving long enough for his allies to finish the fight.

Then he started asking for modifications. I didn’t really get what he was up to at first, but after some discussion it started to make sense. He wants to build automated systems to compensate for his own ineptitude. AI laws forbid the use of real AI in a mech, but simple automation software is allowed. Maybe I can find some things in the old catalogs to help out.

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My mechanic is great. He found some old tech that was abandoned due to inefficiency, that would actually be perfect. Hands-free shields, are considered a waste of power to use, but unlike regular shields, they are much easier to automate. Regular shields would require automating hand movements on the mech, and that’s hard. Automating a floating shield though is much, much simpler.

Lets see, multiple small shields each mounted on different parts of the mech, and capable of deploying quickly. It’s a bit different from the original hands-free design, but should work well with automation. Of-course, this design is pretty much impossible to use manually, which is why it wasn’t done this way before. Manually controlling a dozen small shields is impractical.

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Ugh, I know my commander doesn’t like me, but did he have to assign the guy with the worst scores to my unit? I was worried that he’d be entirely useless, but thankfully it seems he and his mechanic managed to figure something out. 

When we did our first training run in the simulator, his shields did a surprisingly good job of keeping him alive, and the heavy machine gun he had was excellent for supplying suppressive fire. Of course, between the ammo limitations and the shields themselves getting destroyed, there was a limit to how long he could fight. Still way better than I’d expected from his scores in the initial tests.

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The first real sortie went well. Stressed the heck out of me, and I was miserable the whole time, but everyone survived; which is frankly better than my pessimistic self had expected. However, the surprise ambush made me think I need more active defenses than just shields. Against a skilled pilot, I’m pretty helpless, little more than a distraction.

“I’m afraid this request just isn’t doable. There are no weapons with enough firepower and range to be effective against a skilled pilot that don’t rely upon manual aim. You’d be better off just throwing up a smoke screen, and forcing them into melee. There’s a few good automated melee defense systems, but they tend to be power hogs, and I can’t really recommend it as part of a general equipment setup, especially since they can’t really tell the difference between friend and foe.”

Well, that’s a disappointment.

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***Author Note***

This story ended up not going the way it was supposed to. Main character was supposed to find ways to build an excellent automated setup, but as I wrote I realized the setting and tech level I’ve setup doesn’t fit for that goal, and he can’t do it.