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It was definitely an interesting few days for Richard. His new roommate, while quite polite and helpful, was not very social. A good portion of this is probably the language barrier. Every sentence had to be delayed and translated through those little golden balls, which though not that heavy do wear one out over time having to carry that around all day just to have any idea on what anyone else was talking about. He was given one of those orbs, a watch so that he can make sense to all the strangeness of the station's time scheme. With the station being in geosynchronous orbit around a planet, station time is based around the time it takes the planet to turn. Which has nothing to do with the sense of how time works in his mind. And considering all instructions are given in station time, the watch is extremely useful since he can just tell the watch and it'll convert it for him to a time he can understand. He has been given a tablet to use and he would look forward to checking it out. Unfortunately, it does not currently have any languages on it that the human actually knows and though his roommate has said they could download any language onto it, it wouldn't have anything so archaic and it's better to learn the Station's written language anyway, at least a passable amount of which.

He was also shown the pod which he has to spend two hours station time each day to prevent bone atrophy. Richard has no clue how it works, only that while he's in there his mind is disconnected and he doesn't feel anything from his body. And then when it's done his body is now extremely tired for a while. And since he needs to know the information anyway, he had decided to spend his two hours for the first few days watching a somewhat childish program designed to teach people who to read and write the language on the station. And despite being told that he was going to be getting a job he almost had absolutely no interaction with anyone but his roommate for those first few days. Supposedly it was to get things properly set up for him as well as go through other channels going into checking his information. It really ended up feeling like he was being led on.

The food was a different experience, to say the least. Nothing of what he'd thought he'd see was around. Thankfully they weren't eating little food pellets, but the appearance of how food was made changed so much that a lot of food looked very strange to him, even with pasta. But he reminded himself the first time that the walls were colored for a reason, thus it makes sense for their food to be equally strange. He was also, thankfully able to still handle the food, though whether that was because of that quarantine stuff in him he couldn't really tell. His roommate certainly seemed interested in getting him to try all sorts of stuff.

Finally, after what felt like forever, he was finally allowed to go down to the flight deck, if only to measured more accurately for a flight suit and then be given the necessary safety precautions and everything else that could be added to that. Thankfully that whole area also seems to be under that Language of Intent spell thing so he could at least understand what everyone else was saying. And once all of that had been finished and he was half exhausted from trying to remember all the things they were trying to force on him they guided him over to a room with a lot of the other pilots. Unfortunately, this room doesn't have that language convenience in it. And with so many people around it is far too awkward to try and introduce himself to all these people. And his roommate wasn't making things any better for him as he had simply wandered off to go mingle with the rest of the pilots. He notices a somewhat short lizard-like creature walking towards him. All the others don't really seem to be paying much attention to this individual though they give him more than enough space for him to walk around. When he gets close enough to talk without having to shout he does so, his voice having a sort of raspy quality to it, even with the Language of Intent spell active.

"Don't mind them," he says as he continues to close the distance. "They're just extremely excited about an event coming up."

"What kind of event?"

"A test run to something that we've been working on for a very long time. But I assume that you're the new recruit?" he says.

"Um, yeah. I'm Richard Crawlen," Richard says, not knowing if he should be offering his hand to shake the lizard's hand or whatnot. But no one else seems to have had that kind of thought regarding him.

"Magis," he says in response. "I do have a surname but it really doesn't matter. Magis is enough. The important thing is that everything you see here is mine. Well, except the people. I'm the station's chief engineer. This station is a wonder to behold. Not bound by the racial ties. Everyone from every race can come here and hone their craft against all the other races. We are allowed free reign over all the projects in this place but only with two conditions. First, we cannot make anything dangerous to the user," he says, starting to walk back across the deck. Not knowing what else to do Richard follows. "And secondly we cannot use this place to steal technology for our own race. Anything we make has to be only for the station, or for all races evenly. The same goes for you pilots. It doesn't matter what empire you come from or if you are a TD14, you are here for the station. You serve this station and the people within. I don't care who comes knocking on our door or who we are being expected to protect. If we send you out on a mission, you put that mission above your own prejudices. Is that understood?"

"Um, yes sir."

"No need to sir, me. I have no rank. I just know what I'm doing and have proven myself enough that everyone listens when I have something to say. But I'm in charge on a very general level. The one person I need to insist you meet for the time being is main engineer in charge of your own personal fighter." He says before cupping a hand to his mouth. "Zera! Where you at?"

"I'm here!" a voice nearby responds. Richard looks to the source of the voice and sees what looks to be a small mechanical animal.

"Put that away and greet your charge more formally," Magis complains.

"Oh, right, sorry!" the animal responds before the head lowers and then stays completely stationary. A kitsune with four tails quickly then gets up and takes off a helmet of some sort and rushes over. "I was testing some new settings I put in it."

"Anyway, let me make the introductions then I must head off to make sure all the preparations are complete and the system is running fine. Second Grade Engineer Zera Siief, this is your new rookie pilot Richard Crawlen. Richard, this is the person who is given final say on anything going into your ship and is the one responsible to keeping it in prime condition." He says before quickly turning around and heading off.

"Nice to meet you, Richard. I've heard you're a TD14, is that right?" She asks excitedly.

"Uh, yeah."

"Don't worry. I'm sure all this stuff is super scary for you. But we got you. Come, look at my little pet project," she leads him to where that animal was. "You won't understand what all it means but I have frequently been called a technoferal. Meant as a joke, of course. This little guy," she rests her hand on top of the animal, which now that Richard can see more clearly does have a lot of features in common with her, making it look more like a miniature mechanical fox than anything else. "is my baby. This place is great. You'll fit right in here. They don't care who you are, they'll accept you regardless. Most places wouldn't even make this little guy, let alone actually use it. Here, most they do is just roll their eyes at me. Which is definitely a massive step in the right direction."

"So what does it do?" Richard asks.

"This is what I'll be mainly using when I'm working on your ship. Don't worry, I've tested it very rigorously," she starts to speak and then stops for a moment. "Oh right, TD14. I'm not going to tell you how it works because you wouldn't have the background to understand much of any of it. But basically, it's a little robot that I jack my brain into and use it to get into all the spaces that my real body is far too big to fit. It being much smaller also makes it very easy for me to look at details in a very precise manner. Works very precise too. Unfortunately, it does come at the cost of making things take longer, though, so I can't use it too much."

"Are you okay to be out here? Do you need to go with that lizard thing to set up?"

"Raeshael. Not lizard thing. You'll definitely need to learn species names. I'll have that added to your required reading list. But no, this isn't one of my projects. I'm more interested in miniaturizing and making things more precise. This test is a great step forward, but I have nothing to do with it. You should definitely stay and watch the event too. I doubt you'll be able to get much from what the test is about, but you should at least be able to get a good understanding on what can be possible in a ship maneuvering. I highly doubt you'd be able to get anywhere close to their level in your life time."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Richard asks, wondering if they are making fun of him ore being hyperbolic.

"Exactly what I said. Your test results don't hold you to being some never before seen prodigy at piloting fighters and she's been flying these things for longer than any human has ever been alive. When she was in the Battle of Mars she had already been distinguished with over a hundred years of flying experience. And that was like ninety years ago. Humans live to be about one-forty, maybe as much as one-sixty. By simple matter of experience you'll never reach her level. Sorry if that puts a damper on any plans on being the best pilot ever."

"It's fine," Richard says in response, noting how different species must have different life spans if that statement were true.

"Anyway, come on, let's go look at a monitor and I'll do my best to explain what's going on so that you can understand at least a little bit."

Anon exits the station and flies out to the designated point. It's far enough away from the main ring that there are no civilian craft. It's the same location they do all of their testing and flight training. There're plenty enough cameras to watch from multiple angles. And even with it fairly far from the station it is close enough that if something were to go slightly wrong a rescue could be very easily launched in time.

The test could theoretically be run by any of the pilots, but it was best for Anon to go. Not only would it make the demonstration more impressive but Anon would be far more skilled at handling any sort of troubleshooting that may end up being required. But also as the top pilot it was also her right to choose. And more importantly for her, this is a chance to really be appreciated for who she is, rather than what she is. This is a right she earned through her own skill, not because of who she is and what happened in the past.

For this particular test her own fighter has been rigged with all sorts of additional sensors to get as much information in real time about how the module is carrying out its job. And naturally all of the cameras are being shown to not only all the engineers so that they can see how well it runs but also to all of their pilots so that they can see what to potentially expect on their own ships in the near future. The start of the test is fairly simple as far as things go, more in just making sure that all of the recording equipment is functioning correctly. Which means letting the drones tag her ship a few times as well as tagging the drones a few times as well. All of their weapons have been powered down to the extent that there is no real chance of doing any real damage to each other. One of the drones crashing into her fighter would do more than all of them hitting a single point. Even still, as a precaution she'll be using her own shields as well for the actual demonstration of the test. And since they also need that information they shoot at the shield that has been in a static point, making sure that the equipment can tell when the shield is hitting the target. And then with all of that done she begins to speed up her ship, getting ready to the full demonstration.

A light hits her from the console for a second before she is able to adjust and then it starts to display all the information she is able to get at. First thing is to mark all of the cameras as non-threats. This will save some processor time for the shields. Not entirely necessary for the test but is best to try and give them the data on how well the program handles ignoring targets. Once she's up to full speed she sends a signal to the engineers to start the test. The drones begin to fly around her as she does the best she's able to not only avoid them but hit them as well. To be easy on her and to make sure the shields are functioning correctly the drones start fairly slow and are fairly easy to hit and dodge. The shields she's testing use visual information to track potential threats and calculate based on their trajectories where the next likely spot it'd be that they would fire. And then would use this data to restrict how much the shield is covering to only protect that area. In theory this will allow the ship to handle taking more hits and stronger hits before anything gets through the shields by only shielding areas that are getting hit and leaving everything else exposed.

The test is specifically to see how well their algorithms can protect the ship even with leaving it partly exposed. And so as she flies around during the test the drones will be moving faster and faster and firing more erratically and accurately. Eventually they'll exceed the capabilities of any ordinary fighter and should eventually start to overtake the capabilities of the shield system. The purpose of the test is to see how long it takes before it gets to that point. And simply for her own practice as well Anon goes about refining her own shields at the same time. She doesn't really get many opportunities to fully practice her skills as much as she would want. At the start of the test when she has a lot more time between shots she tries making her own shield as small as she could and actually put them in front of the ship's shields so that she can tell if they hit or not and just left them as extremely thin to not interfere with the test. But as the drones start getting faster she quickly has to start increasing the size of her shield.

But that's only normal. It would be bad design of the test if the drones didn't eventually start exceeding her own capabilities. The main test is mainly to see how well the new system can track attacks and how long it is before they're overwhelmed. And to that extent Anon is somewhat surprised by how well they've done. About the point where the drones are moving twice as fast as any fighter she might be able to come across the shield modulation starts failing. It's not so much that the shields stop working completely, but rather that they aren't updating as fast as they need to be, that the shields are either guessing wrong or guessing too slowly to stop the shots. Her own shields naturally are able to keep up, only because she can use them to encase the entire ship. It doesn't matter if they don't actually contact the ship or not. The drones and sensors would still be able to tell that the beam did connect with something, and it wasn't the shield. She goes about drastically increasing the size of the shield's coverage. This reduces the amount of calculations and allows it to block more effectively. And then just keeps increasing it as shots get through. About the point where the drones are moving three times as fast as a fighter her shields are just to the point of being normal shields at this point and the test ends.

The drones stop attacking and begin to fly back to the station. Anon as well begins cycling down some of the systems, needing to slow herself down a bit to be able to get into the station safely without any risk of crashing and then heads back to the station as well. As far as tests go it went well. It actually did what they were trying to do. A future test would be to see how many fighter speed targets can it track and account for at one time before it's overwhelmed, but the engineers wanted to be able to proof this first and then make adjustments before they run a second test. And then naturally test it with everyone before putting it into the fighters. It might even make for an interesting and fun exercise for the entire fleet of the station's fighters have a nice little skirmish amongst themselves, just testing out the shield system on all of them at once. The engineers would definitely like all the data such an exercise would give, as well as potentially show off other projects they're working on if possible. After all some of the things that they're working on are improving on things beyond what the pilots can actually do anyway. Though as much fun as that would be for Anon, she knows that she likely wouldn't be able to attend. Not only for security issues but also that it would drastically skew the results as many of the pilots would be trying to see if they could best her. On the whole, she would consider this test a massive success. Not only did it exceed her expectations but they were able to perform the entire test without any malfunctions in either the equipment or the program. All in all she considers it a pretty decent start to the day.