The Mech Touch

The Scarlet Rose entered a lifeless star system centered around a listless red dwarf.

Due to the absence of terrestrial planets, there was no desire to found a settlement in the star system. The couple of gas giants and their tiny moons offered very little resources to pay back the investment.

Nonetheless, the star systemʼs close proximity to the border of the Friday Coalition demanded at least some presence.

As soon as the Scarlet Rose entered the star system, her sensors detected numerous listening posts and sensor outposts.

As Ves gained a greater mastery over the Scarlet Roseʼs bridge systems and other core command systems, he made numerous discoveries about his new ship.

One of the more welcome surprises was that the mobile supply frigate possessed more powerful external sensors than he expected?

As a ship purposed for monitoring duties, how could her sensor arrays be weak?

Unfortunately, he found out too late!

If he grasped better control over the Scarlet Rose back when he just hijacked the ship, he could have used the upgraded sensors to track down the stealthed escape pods carrying Aisling and Patricia!

Even if he didnʼt kill them, he could have at least held them hostage!

If Ves still possessed normal emotions, then he would have gloated at the irony of subjecting them to the indignity he suffered at their hands.

No one kidnapped Ves and got away with it! At least that was what he would think if his spiritual energy wasnʼt in a sorely depleted state.

As it was, from a rational point of view, he should be thankful that he managed to succeed in his hijacking attempt.

His first priority should be getting back to safety. While taking revenge sounded nice, he wouldnʼt actually gain much aside from satisfying his vindictiveness.

In any case, he wasnʼt sure whether the Scarlet Roseʼs sensors were good enough to overcome the stealth employed by the special escape pods. If Aisling was smart, then she would have configured their stealth systems to defeat the Scarlet Roseʼs detection methods.

The key was that he was still too close in the sphere of the Friday Coalitionʼs influence! Even this small red dwarf system his ship just entered was littered with listening posts!

Ves knew that these unmanned outposts would soon transmit the whereabouts of the stolen ship to the Coalition!

Fortunately, the star system was a bit too obscure. The sensors failed to detect the presence of any ships in the system.

Of course, that didnʼt mean that Ves trusted the results. Stealthed ships might still be lurking somewhere in deep space. Even without such capabilities, as long as a ship minimized emissions or hid within an asteroid belt, it was too easy to escape the detection of long-ranged sensors.

A more complicating factor was that most of the sensor systems employed by the Scarlet Rose were limited by the speed of light.

Only a couple of long-ranged sensor types escaped this limitation, but all of them tended to return fussy results.

”Only the CFA excels in sensor technology.” He muttered.

As an organization devoted to space warfare, the ability to see everything across light-hours was indispensable!

”Well, as long as nothing is close by, itʼs fine.”

Ves did not dare to be complacent. He instructed the Scarlet Rose to keep her sensor arrays working at full power.

Knowing that the shipʼs location was not a secret, Ves did not hesitate to resort to full active scanning, focusing completely on observing the immediate vicinity!

No ship or stealthed vehicle should be able to escape the Scarlet Roseʼs detection!

While his actions meant that he was putting a lot of strain on the sensor arrays, thereby accelerating their wear and tear, Ves didnʼt even consider holding back.

As long as he returned to safety, he could always replace the worn-out components!

Around five hours passed as Ves quietly waited for the Scarlet Rose to cycle her FTL drive.

If the ship still received the care of a chief engineer, then her FTL drive could have finished its cycling routine in just four hours!

While this was slower than the Barracuda, the Scarlet Rose was several times bigger!

Ves already started regarding his new prize as his flagship. He faintly smiled as he caressed his hand over the temporary workstation that Ves installed in the half-ruined bridge.

A muted sense of pride emanated from his restrained heart. With the Scarlet Rose, Ves finally possessed a ship that could stand equal to Glorianaʼs Stellar Chaser!

Of course, right now his grasp on the ship was only tentative. During the tense five-hour period of exposure, Ves constantly delved into the internal network and deepened his control.

This was not an easy task! Just because he managed to fool the ship into thinking he was the captain didnʼt mean he grasped every other system and subsystem!

Mechs were much less troublesome. Though their complexity had no limits, most mech designers tended to make them as simple as possible.

The core concept of a mech was that it should be at the beck and call of a single mech pilot.

Even the rare multi-pilot mechs only featured two or three mech pilots at most.

There was never a case where fifty or a hundred people simultaneously controlled a single mech!

Ships were different. Despite not offering the ability for someone to interface with the vessel, hundreds or thousands of crew members worked in unison to control every aspect of the ship!

While the agency of a single officer or ship rating was limited, when hundreds of them pooled their capabilities together, a qualitative transformation occurred!

Under the collective power and will of a crew, the ship would run as a well-oiled machine!

The problem was that this mode of operation became a drag to Ves. Unlike mechs, the operation mode of a starship was very decentralized.

A mech always ran as a single whole. With just a single mech pilot in control, there was no need to split its control systems!

Ships abided by a different paradigm. They were run much like a government, where the captain served as the ʼpresidentʼ. The different officers in charge of engineering, security, life support, maintenance and so on acted as the ʼministersʼ.

Grasping the office of the president did not immediately mean that Ves also gained control of the ministries!

The only way to secure more control over the ship was to take over these ministries one-by-one!

All of this took time and expertise, both of which Ves was short of. Even with Luckyʼs hacking capabilities on hand, Ves had the impression that he had to siege dozens of castles, each of which boasted many layers of defenses.

The officers in charge of the different departments each tailored the defenses of their castles to their own quirks and preferences!

While not all of them were very diligent or paranoid, Ves encountered enough hindrances to give up on converting the entire ship!

Even when the Scarlet Rose finally transitioned back into FTL, he barely made any progress!

”I donʼt have to take over every system.” Ves shook his head. ”There is far too much work for me to do.”

His priorities shifted to gaining solid control over the most essential systems. As for the others, Ves either isolated them or shut them off if they werenʼt necessary for the functioning of the ship.

”Looks like weʼre in this for the long haul, Lucky.”

”Meow!”

His cat glowered at him. Lucky had an entire storeroomʼs worth of exotics to consume! Spending hours on the bridge was pure torture for the cat with a bottomless stomach!

Under his catʼs repeated complaints, Ves finally let him go after a while.

He was getting rather tired as well. With his injured body and his exhausted mind and spirit, his mental and physical endurance had reached a low point.

Ves reluctantly pulled away from his work and decided to eat a quick meal before turning in for the night.

Once he shut down the interface, he looked around and saw that the cleaning bots had already scrubbed or cleared away the dead remains.

As he commanded his floating chair to exit the bridge, he passed through various corridors and compartments.

A large number of bots zipped back and forth, diligently closing holes and cleaning up the bodies and debris.

Due to employing the Amastendira, the collateral damage at the upper decks was very significant. Ves encountered numerous scorched and melted traces along the way.

The situation was different at the lower decks. Starting from engineering, hardly any collateral damage occurred.

Luckyʼs close-strike capabilities were unparalleled!

The only damage the ship sustained at the lower decks came from the futile counterattacks of the armed guards and crew members.

None of their weapons came close to hitting their fast-moving, elusive attacker!

While Luckyʼs mode of attack resulted in much less collateral damage, the bodies he left behind looked much worse.

If his victims were lucky, his scorching hot energy claws cauterized the wounds.

If they were not as lucky, then their torn bodies had emptied their entire reserves of blood over the deck!

It took hours for the overburdened cleaning bots to scrub all of the traces!

What was worse was that Ves only issued the order to clean up the mess after he was out for two days!

This was enough time for most of the bodies to decompose.

Since the Scarlet Rose became his possession, Ves lamented the ugly messes at the lower decks.

Even if the cleaning bots managed to wipe away all of the dirty biological traces, Ves still couldnʼt forget his initial impressions.

He took over a tainted ship! The Scarlet Rose was unclean!

While Ves felt a little bothered by that, his rational mind prevented him from caring too much.

Under his current condition, a ship was a ship!

Regardless of her sordid history, the Scarlet Rose was just a very huge machine. She possessed no life or spirit to speak of! Why should he regard her in the same way as a mech?

As Ves reached the mess hall and tore open a nutrient pack to have a quick, nutritious meal, he examined his strange state further.

He used to think that there were only downsides associated with the so-called low period.

Only after Patricia revealed the existence of rational mech designers to him did he look at this state in a different way.

The suppression of his emotions and the muting of his passion meant his mind wasnʼt subject to their whims as much.

It was as if he stopped polluting himself.

Ves never considered the influence of his passion and emotions to be a detriment to himself. Yet now that he guessed that rational mech designers entered the same state as him, his perspective on the matter had shifted.

There were always two sides of a coin. What Ves regarded as downsides, others saw them as upsides!

It was just that Ves had been so focused on his mental exhaustion that he hadnʼt thoroughly examined his other changes.

Now that Patricia pointed out the benefits, Ves became a lot more clear about the advantages of rational mech designers!

”Even if Iʼm tired, as long as Iʼm used to it, I can take full advantage of my clear-minded state!”

It was easy for him to enter a pure state of mind. The weakening of emotions, biases and instincts made him feel as if he was sophisticated AI in human skin.

If not for his plummeting creativity and ingenuity, Ves would have considered staying in this state permanently!

”Iʼm not suited to be a rational mech designer.” He reminded himself.

He lost too many advantages after losing most of his passions, feelings and emotions. The benefits of attaining a clear and open-minded mentality were not very much.

Mech designers like Patricia who aimed to become rational mech designers from the start probably derived much better benefits from this state.

As for Ves, he should forget about it! Stripping himself of his passion was the same as tearing out his heart for mech design!