A: explain to me why again you were fighting?
B: I was getting rusty, I needed someone to spar with.
A: was it necessary to create a hole in the floor?
B: you said it was reinforced! -- Anon Guest
Human Sym was embedded in the flooring. Her legs were technically within the floor below, but also tangled up in sensitive, very important, and also more than a little delicate - wiring and equipment. Human Per, her sparring partner, was crouching and blushing nearby.
"We were cleared for recreational simulated combat exercises in this space," she said. "We didn't know a flying leap would have this effect."
"It's the weighted anklets and bracelets, I'm sure," said Human Per. "The floors are cleared for us jumping about and wearing livesuits for that, but not powerful actions with extra weight load. Combo of errors on both sides."
Phrel, in the middle of investigating all this nonsense, added some notes to the report. It read, Flooring re-inforcement insufficient for Deathworlder hobbies. Five more like this, and it would be an official checkbox in the Standard Forms. "How many extra weight units were you carrying for this... mock battle?"
"Uuuhhh..." Human Per checked the weights on her wrists. "Two Siwu[1] per limb, so... Eight Siwu each, that makes a total of sixteen when Sym hit the weak spot. I scanned it. It had microfractures. Um. New ones. From like a dozen other hits in the hour?"
"You said it was re-enforced," Sym repeated. "We thought you meant really re-enforced."
Perhaps... there was truly merit to the concept of letting Humans stress-test everything they could plausibly interact with at the design stage. When a Deathworlder stress-tested something, they didn't flakk around.
[1] Siwu: Standard Weight Unit. Each SWU is roughly equivalent to a kilo.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Voyagerix]
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