The Story of an Ace Pilot Who Is the Only Man in an Alien Army Where Chastity Has Been Reversed

A Worrisome Striker
“Ah, thank you, we are troubling you every time.”

One of the maintenance crew received a coffee can from Kisei with a shy smile. She is the chief mechanic in charge of the [Caliburn-Revive] who explained its specs to him the other day.

“It’s me who’s troubling you a lot after all.”

Kisei smiles and glances at the [Caliburn-Revive] on the maintenance bay. As he expected, the maintenance had already been completed. Since it did not suffer any damage in the previous battle, all they had to do was replenishing the ammunition and fuels along with some standard maintenance checks.

“It worths all the hard work when you put it like that.”

The chief mechanic replied while shyly scratching her cheek. Next to her, a mechanic who’s probably her subordinate pops opens the coffee can with a big smile.

“You said it, Chief. There are a lot of pilots who wouldn’t appreciate our work and make fun of us after all. I’m glad that Hokuto-sn is not that type you know. It does feel a little like we are taking advantage of your goodwill when you are being so kind to us though.”

While sipping on the coffee can, the chief mechanic shows a bitter smile.

“If you have a near-death experience because of poor maintenance work then there’s no way that you wouldn’t appreciate the work of a good maintenance crew you know.”

“A near-death experience? If it’s alright with you, can you share that with us? You see, for reference.”

Feeling a chill running down her neck, the chief mechanic reflexively asked for more details. After all, in her line of work, ‘Poor Maintenance’ is not the words that she’d ever want to hear.

“Well, it’s not that rare of an accident you know. I forgot to refill the coolant liquid and the valve got all clogged up……and there was this faulty seal I forgot to replace so the coolant just started leaking. This happened when I was surrounded by enemies too.”
“Geh.”

The chief mechanic’s face immediately cramped up. The same reaction was shared among the mechanics who were listening to his story with great interest.

And their reaction is reasonable. The coolant liquid works as a heat-transfer-fluid that collects the heat from various parts of the machine and circulates it to the cooling device which will, in turn, circulate it back to regulate the heat of the machine. If it all leaks out, at worst, the phase transition turbine which is the main engine would literally go up in flames.

“Wh, what happened after that?”

A young mechanic nervously asked and Kisei could only smile bitterly at her.

“Fortunately, it didn’t all leak out since the pressure was not that high so I gradually made my way back to base. Honestly, I thought I was going to die back then.”

“Well…….”

The chief mechanic looks at Kisei with hollowed eyes. In such a situation where the seal broke and coolant started to leak, no striker should be able to move properly. The chief mechanic was quite impressed that he managed to hull his striker back from the battlefield.

“That’s why, you see, honestly saying……I’m not very good with the brand-new one-of-a-kind striker. You don’t know what kind of technical problem will suddenly appear after all.”

Not to mention that the [Caliburn-Revive] is a rush-job remodeled striker which was put through actual combat after only one test flight. It is rather difficult to not feel anxious piloting it.

“It’s okay!……..that’s what we wanted to say but we are actually pretty concerned about this too.”

“At least, it would be nice if we can get more test runs, right Chief.”
A young mechanic voiced her agreement to the chief mechanic’s concern. No matter how many times you run a simulation, there are problems that you will notice only when you actually pilot it after all. To the maintenance crew, they honestly can’t say that they are completely alright with putting such a striker in actual combat scenarios.

“So, if you found something strange, please make sure to tell me about it. When something goes wrong it will make all kinds of differences if you know about it beforehand after all.”

“Even if you say that.”

If they notice those strange things then they wouldn’t have a hard time like this. The chief mechanic thought.

“Ahh, come to think about it, I’m kinda concerned about the regenerative armor.”

“Certainly.”

When another mechanic brought that up, the chief mechanic concurred.

“Originally, the [Caliburn-Revive] was only equipped with minimal armor to defend against debris……..we forcibly installed the regenerative armor we prepared for the [Excalibur] to it, you see. We did some fitting already but….the charge might still flow to some unintended parts.”

Regenerative armor is a type of armor system that converts kinetic energy and heat of the shell/beams into electric charge to minimize damage to the striker. Even a single beam can generate a lot of power on impact so if it doesn’t get managed properly then the charge may cause damage to other equipment instead.

“I prefer old school so I think that’s going to be alright. I have a mindset that even a single hit can spell the end for me after all.”

Although the older models do have regenerative armor, the converted power would usually exceed the limit of the small capacitor. That’s the reason why older models like the [Jetta] can be shot down with only one blaster beam.

“Well, there’s no pilot that would want to get hit after all. I felt this is irresponsible of me since I am in charge of the maintenance but….please do be careful.”

“Of course.”
Kisei obediently nodded. After all, he doesn’t want to die. That’s why he needs to take their advice seriously.

“Well…….does any of you have anything else? “

“Yes YES! I HAVE ONE!”

A flippant mechanic energetically raised her hand. The chief engineer narrowed her eyes in hesitation for a moment before deciding to hear her out.

“…….what.”

“Kisei-san, what’s your favorite type of w—……OUCH OUCH OUCH!”

The chief mechanic moved in and immediately strangled her subordinate.

“You, don’t get carried away just because you haven’t seen a man in a while!”

“Ouch! That hurt, Chief! When you meet such a cute man, it would be rude instead if you do not offer the courtesy right!”

“Stop messing around already!”

“Uwah! I give up, I give up!”

Seeing the screaming mechanic, Kisei let out a small sigh. At least he would be happy if she called him cool instead but unfortunately, Kisei is only 165cm tall, he’s shorter than your average Vuld woman. Even if he tries to sweep his eyes around to see if there’s anyone shorter than him here, most of them are taller than Kisei. Moreover, due to his natural babyface, he’s often called cute by women.
“Is this sexual harassment? It is right?”

The one who raised her voice during all that fuss was Schleer. When they arrived at the hangar, She took Kisei’s advice and went to see the mechanics in charge of her striker. The fact that she’s here means that she’s already finished talking to them.

“Ah, it’s the Sexual Harassment Princess.”

“No matter how lax our country is on formality, there’s still something that you should and shouldn’t say right!?”

Schleer flared up at the flippant mechanic.

“I mean, Your Highness did quite a sexual harassment on Hokuto-san when he first arrived didn’t you.”

However, she was immediately betrayed by someone who she thought was her ally, the Chief Mechanic.

“Besides, Your Highness always tags along wherever Kisei-san goes, aren’t you?”

“Is this not an abuse of power?”

“It’s too envi—-I mean it’s just shameless. Let’s call the MP here.”

“S, S, Shut up! Let’s go! Kisei-san!”

Perhaps seeing a bad flag as her subordinates started to gang up on her, Schleer hurriedly pulled Kisei’s hand and ran away.

A burst of loud laughter can be heard from the hangar. Naturally, they were just teasing her. It appears that Schleer, who doesn’t get angry when her subordinates teased her like this, is unexpectedly popular.