As she was still considered a patient, she was wearing white hospital scrubs, but she would've liked something a little heavier. Lowen was with her. He would usually check in on her at least once a day. Looking after her was his assignment, after all.

They went to the reception desk to sign her out of Sickbay (temporarily, of course, as she wasn't scheduled to be discharged for another few days), where they were met by her physical therapist, Dr. Sankarasubramanian, or Dr. Sanka as Yasuko liked to call him.

Lowen greeted him simply, saying only, "Herr Doktor."

Dr. Sanka nodded and replied, "Leutnant, Miss Rodrigues. I'll be accompanying you today to ensure my patient avoids injuring herself."

Lowen took them down to Deck 13. The training range was about two hundred meters long. Half of it was a firing range with some twenty lanes and the other half was divided into four sections for different kinds of close-quarter combat training.

As they entered the range, a booming voice could be heard over all the ambient noise.

There weren't that many people on the range, but they immediately stopped whatever they were doing and stood at attention.

Raising his voice so he could be heard, Lowen shouted, "Carry on!"

Although Yasuko wasn't especially curious about it, the reason why it was Lowen who spoke up was because officers of support branches like Dr. Sanka didn't have any authority outside their own chain of command, so while they were shown individual courtesy based on rank, they generally couldn't issue commands to other servicemembers, even something as simple as telling people standing at attention to carry on, if a line officer was present, no matter how junior he may be.

The owner of that booming voice from before, this hulking, square-jawed brick wall of a man, approached them and went to attention, saying, "Goo~d mor-ning, sirs!"

The man stood at ease, then barked, "I am! Haupt! Feldwebel! Cirio! Da-mas-co! Cor-tes! Santiago! And I! Will be leadin'! To-day's! Trainin'!"

Did he always talk like this? That was going to get annoying real fast.

Looking at Yasuko, he then said, "And you! Must be! Miss! Ja-sooko! Rodrigues!"

Whatever.

Santiago pulled out a tablet and tapped on the screen, then started speaking in a slightly more natural cadence. "I see you been equipped with a Delta-135-Sigma adaptive armor and a Ki-mera RX-83 series cybernetic arm. We will begin to-day's trainin' with a demonstration of the capabilities of the Delta-135-Sigma adaptive armor. Sig-ma-681-Ze-ro! Die-agnostic check! Sys-tems all green?"

Santiago walked over to the first lane of the firing range and said, "The Delta-135-Sigma series is one of the latest developments in a-daptive/re-active personal armor technology. A nanomachine colony controlled by a die-stributive AI, it can sig-nificantly improve combat survivability on its own or in con-junction with other armor systems.

"Ordinarily takin' the form of a film less than a quarter micron thick, it is in-visible to the naked eye and im-perceptible to the touch, By alt'rin' its structure, it can in-crease to five millimeters overall thickness or up to two centimeters in concentrated lo-cations. By integratin' different compounds, it can change color and adopt additional properties, such as reflectin' body heat back to the wearer in low-temp'rature envir'nments and away from the wearer in high-temp'rature envir'nments, allowin' for unassisted op'rability from minus 50 to 200 degrees centigrade. When e-quipped with a sealed oxygen supply, the Sigma unit can also serve as an e-mergency spacesuit.

"Now, 'llow me to demonstrate the re-sistance properties of the Delta-135-Sigma series. Each of these dummies have been equipped with a Sigma unit. Let us be-gin with the basic ki-netic pistol."

He picked up a boxy-looking pistol laying on the counter and fired three rapid shots at the the dummy standing about ten meters away. The pistol was surprisingly quiet, making little more than a clicking sound with each shot. Yasuko saw the points of impact on the dummy flash grey as the armor blocked the bullets.

Santiago turned and said, "Standard slugs will not penetrate an' up to 80% of the force of impact is absorbed by the armor. Re-sistance to armor-piercin', high-explosive, in-cendiary rounds or any combination there-of depends on the round and the weapon it's fired from."

Without warning, Santiago pointed the pistol at Yasuko and put three rounds in her chest. Yasuko staggered a little, then looked down at herself, touching where she had been hit. There were holes in her scrub top, but not in her. The deformed slugs were lying on the deck by her feet. Yes, it hurt, but only about as much as a solid punch.

Everyone was just so stunned by it that they didn't really react at first, all while Santiago safetied the pistol and returned it to the counter.

With the initial shock fading, Lowen started quivering in anger before exploding at Santiago.

Lowen was still livid. Yasuko put her hand on his arm, saying, "Hey, Lowen, I'm alright. Let's keep goin'."

Glowering at Santiago, Lowen said, "Continue, Hauptfeldwebel."

Santiago went to the next lane and strapped on one of those wrist-mounted guns Yasuko saw the guards wearing when she was first brought onboard. Without even looking at the dummy, he started firing shot after shot, each one landing center mass and in a fairly tight grouping too.

He went to the next lane and picked up a small rifle.

He started firing at the dummy as fast as the rifle would allow, each burst followed by another.

He swapped out power packs, then twisted something on the side. When he opened fire, it was a constant stream so that the pulses seemed to blend together. The armor's grey turned red before giving out, leaving a black hole in the dummy where the blast punched through.

He went to the next lane and picked up a much bulkier rifle and said, "For a light particle shot, a Sigma unit can survive one shot." He fired at the dummy, leaving the armor in its red critical state. "Only one..." He fired again, obliterating the dummy. "Sim'larly..."

At the next lane was a sort of large-bore gun that fit over his arm.

Even though he said the output was throttled, the arm cannon nevertheless fired an impressive blast.

Adjusting the settings on the arm cannon, he took aim and the tip of the barrel glowed for a split-second before loosing a blast more than twice as big as the first one. Armor or not, the dummy didn't stand a chance. The blast seemed to hit some sort of energy field on the far wall, but when it did, red lights started flashing and alarms sounded. Santiago set down the arm cannon, pulled back his sleeve and tapped on a panel that appeared to be grafted to the back of his forearm. The alarms went quiet and the lights went back to normal.

He went to the next lane and picked up what looked a lot like the pulse rifle from before, only a little bigger, but he set it on top of his shoulder instead of holding it like a normal rifle.

He laughed. Apparently it was funny to him. He then fired the laser at the dummy. The red dot on the dummy's chest started to expand, this being the armor reaching its failing point, before punching a neat little hole.

Santiago set down the laser and said, "Now for some good ol'-fashioned melee."

With surprising agility for a man of his size, he sprang over the counter of the next lane and went over to the dummy, which was set closer than the others. He went into a boxer's fighting stance and started jabbing at the dummy's torso, saying, "Obviously, if it can take a bullet, it can take a punch, even..."

He pulled back his arm and held it like a taut bowstring. His fist was actually shaking from the pent-up energy before he let loose. The dummy was knocked flat, but Yasuko half-expected it to be sent flying clear down the lane. Santiago looked back at the audience before finishing what he was saying.

Santiago grinned.

He pulled a small metal canister out of one of his pockets, then took out his tablet and tapped on the screen. He set the dummy upright and held the canister against the dummy's surface. You couldn't see what was happening, but Yasuko figured he was recovering the dummy's Sigma unit. He then put away the canister and his tablet and wound up for another punch. He looked back to Yasuko and said, "Once more, with feelin'."

This time, what Yasuko expected to happen was exactly what happened. If the base of the dummy didn't start dragging on the deck, it would've hit the back wall easily.

Rubbing his shoulder as he assessed his handiwork, Santiago said, "Must be havin' an off day. Only managed 'bout twelve thousand newt'ns. Norm'lly I av'rage 'bout sixteen."

They never talked numbers during Yasuko's training in the Capital, but from what she knew of physics, his abilities were no joke. His augments had to give him at least four times amplification. What would happen when you combined an augmented body with a muscle suit?

Santiago pulled up another dummy to continue his demonstration. He started with a telescopic baton and started smacking the dummy.

He struck the dummy so hard the baton broke, but the armor didn't even go red.

He then took a sledgehammer and started whaling away at the dummy, saying, "Even augmented, the av'rage human can't hit both hard and fast enough to make the armor fail. Industryal e-quipment, how-ever..."

He tossed the sledgehammer aside and hoisted up a pneumatic drill. Attacking the dummy with the drill, he was able to overcome the armor in about ten seconds. Next, he took what appeared to be a machete.

He demonstrated the actions as he was talking. When he was done, he pressed a button on the hilt and even from a distance, Yasuko could hear a faint humming. He did the same motions to much the same effect.

First, he stabbed the dummy, using both hands to drive the point in after several seconds of resistance. He then cut into the shoulder, pressing down on the back of the blade until the armor failed. He pulled out the blade about halfway into the dummy's chest and switched off the vibro function.

Yasuko held up her hand and asked, "Now when can I see what this thing can do?"

Santiago grinned and said, "Fo-llow me, Miss Ja-sooko, and my associates will be more'n happy to o-blige you."