The Mech Touch

Ves already knew how Hexers treated men in their society.

It was actually a mistake to call them man-haters.

Hexers didn't hate men. They just considered them inferior.

It was not a contradiction for female Hexers to adore male gender but simultaneously treat them as lessers.

In fact, if Hexers treated men like slaves or abused them on a daily basis, the Big Two would not tolerate their conduct!

The basic rights of humans had to be respected. Just because the Hexers only treated half of its population like dirt did not mean it could get away with such rampant abuse!

The Hexers therefore propagated an alternate vision on how human civilization should be run. They ran the Hegemony like a model that other states should adopt.

Both men and women had a place in their society. Women deserved to be in charge and occupied all of the upper level positions.

Even if female Hexers weren't good at anything, they still had the right to boss around males in the workplace!

As for the boys, they were continually treated as juveniles at best or pets at worst.

They received much fewer opportunities than women and had to work a lot harder to get anywhere.

This strangely led to the phenomena where the rare male successes became incredibly successful in their chosen vocations!

Male expert pilots were one of the rare species of boys who earned genuine respect from female Hexers!

Male high-ranking mech designers also existed in the Hegemony's vast mech community. Each of them gained some appreciation and were treated better than other boys.

Of course, just because they were better than most women in their professions did not mean they deserved equal treatment.

Every male expert pilot had to answer to a female officer! This was because Hexers regarded them as powerful brutes that had to be controlled lest they run rabid!

Boys were still boys. As long as they were given free reign, the boys would surely give in to their worst impulses!

Male Journeymen and Seniors received similar treatment. While the Hegemony did not block boys from excelling in this career, they were not allowed to design and publish mechs on their own.

Each of them had to work with a female mech designer!

The best a male mech designer could hope for was to become a spouse of a female mech designer.

Those who weren't as lucky could only serve as a minor contributor or assistant to a bossy female mech designer.

This was the reality of being born a male in Hexer society.

"Don't you see the absurdity of devoting yourself to your Hexer girlfriend?" Aisling persistently prodded him. "Open your eyes and look beyond her pretty face! Behind her is an awful state that heavily discriminates on men like you! If Hexers like Gloriana have their way, they would strip you of your dignity and tear down your pride until you become nothing more than a human-shaped puppy!"

Ves did not attempt to debate her points. In order to resist her persuasion, he took a page out of Ghanso's playbook and defaulted to his Larkinson stubbornness.

"I am committed to Gloriana. I never break my commitments. To change my mind is to betray the promises I've made to her! I will never stab her in the back!"

Aisling threw a perplexed look at him. She didn't understand how someone so brilliant in mech design could be so stupid when it came to women!

"Do you enjoy being treated this way, Ves?"

"..."

"The Friday Coalition can offer you so much more! As long as you stick with me, I can give you a new status in our state! As Master Huron's direct disciple, no one will hinder me from settling you in the Warsaw Giant System and giving you an opportunity to participate in my design projects. So long as we achieve some success in our collaborations, my Master will definitely put his full weight behind our partnership!"

"I have already cut ties with the Friday Coalition." Ves flatly remarked.

"That's not entirely correct. You merely cut ties with Master Olson and the Leemar Institute of Technology. At most, you're blacklisted by the Vermeer Group and the Carnegie Group. Our Gauge Dynasty never pays attention to what they do. We are better!"

Ves shrugged. "That sounds nice, but I have no desire to restore my relations with the Friday Coalition. Gloriana will never tolerate me if I reconcile with your state!"

Aisling grew angry and momentarily lost control!

"Gloriana Gloriana Gloriana! Everything is about Gloriana to you! Don't you realize that she has got you wrapped around her fingers? The moment she met you at Centerpoint, she ceaselessly tried to trap you in her web! The two of you were never made to be together! A proud mech designer like you deserves better!"

Obviously, this conversation went nowhere. After enduring a long tirade, Aisling finally sent him back to his quarters.

During his time in captivity, only Patricia talked to him without an agenda.

Sadly, Patricia rarely appeared in his presence.

Ves suspected that Aisling was wary that he would fall for Patricia, and thereby kept her away!

However, Ves always became more mellow and receptive after talking to Patricia. This was something he deliberately did to encourage his host to keep giving him opportunities to talk to his old classmate.

Though Ves firmly regarded Patricia as an enemy, he did not hold any personal animosity against her. She was merely performing her duty to her new state. As a citizen of the Friday Coalition, it was impossible for her to remain a bystander in the war between the Coalition and the Hegemony!

The only doubt about Patricia's assignment was what the Fridaymen were doing in the Bright Republic in the first place.

Ves faintly suspected that the Scarlet Rose was sent to the Bright Republic for another, more clandestine mission. Why did the Coalition dispatch a young and talented Journeyman to perform a seemingly-routine monitoring mission when they could have easily dispatched a diplomat or a spy?

The fact that the Coalition explicitly sent mech designers to the Bright Republic meant that their mission probably had something to do with mechs!

Of course, Ves kept all of his guesses to himself. He didn't care about their prior missions.

Instead of worrying about irrelevant issues, he would much rather work on his escape attempt!

Ever since he confirmed that Lucky followed him aboard the Scarlet Rose while remaining completely hidden and intangible, Ves believed he had the capital to turn the tables on his host!

In order to reverse his current circumstances, Ves had to stay patient and make ample preparations. Taking over a mobile supply frigate by himself was not very simple!

Even if he had the help of a team of commandos, he would still fail in his attempt to wrest control of the Scarlet Rose!

To succeed, he had to mitigate or circumvent every security measure in place. Ves therefore dispatched Lucky on a scouting mission and secretly scan each and every compartment and component.

This was extremely tedious for Lucky. To keep his presence hidden, Ves ordered his pet to resort to passive scanners only. This meant that Lucky had to crawl through every single section of the ship, all the while remaining out of sight!

Ves trusted in Lucky's ability to remain hidden. The cat had become way too good at sneaking into places where he shouldn't be in. While the Scarlet Rose was much more advanced than all of the other places he had broken in, the cat possessed too many advantages in this regard!

For now, Ves did not dare to instruct Lucky to hack the Scarlet Rose's network or tap into its quantum entanglement node to send a message to Gloriana and his people.

The moment Aisling found out that Ves possessed the capability to communicate with the outside galaxy, she would surely strip him of his privileges and throw him straight into the brig!

Though Ves wanted to take it slow, he knew that delaying his hijacking attempt would only increase the difficulty of returning home!

Taking over the Scarlet Rose was just the first step! He still had to leave the Friday Coalition, so it would be best if he escaped before the ship crossed into its borders!

That meant that his actual time limit was much less! Ves estimated that the Scarlet Rose would probably enter into Coalition space in around two weeks!

If he failed to hijack the ship until then, then he would have a lot more problems on his hands!

He needed to do everything possible to hasten his preparations. Aside from waiting for Lucky, he also resorted to other means to increase his understanding of the Scarlet Rose.

One example of this was by taking advantage of the library in his quarters.

"These books are quite good." He murmured as he leaned back on his chair while flipping page after page.

He currently studied an advanced programming textbook. While its contents were most relevant to mechs, the programming language it taught just happened to be common enough to be used in many ships as well!

Learning how to hack or subvert the programming of the Scarlet Rose was essential to taking it over! Though it was impossible for him to access her systems on his own, so long as he had Lucky, he was confident he could circumvent most of the safeguards and tap into her core systems!

This wasn't enough to guarantee a successful takeover, though. He dabbled in other textbooks as well. For example, he deepened his understanding of power reactors in order to find some way to sabotage and disable the ship's central power reactor.

As Lucky occasionally came back and covertly displayed the data he gathered, Ves ascertained what he needed to do in order to subvert the ship.

He identified three core areas which he needed to control.

First, he needed to lock down the bridge and prevent the captain and the bridge crew from controlling the vessel.

Second, he needed to secure the engineering compartment in order to grasp the crucial power reactor and FTL drive.

Ves could not afford to allow anyone to damage these two critical ship components! As long as the engineers thrashed either of them, the Scarlet Rose would become stranded in space!

Therefore, Ves not only had to take control of engineering, but also neutralize the engineers before they could do any damage!

The third area that Ves needed to control was the security compartment, which also served as the armory. While the Scarlet Rose did not employ a lot of spacers, she still possessed a crew complement of fifty people, of which fifteen of them consisted of guards and security officers!

Ves not only had to grasp the entire security compartment, but also neutralize the armed personnel before they could take up arms and launch a counterattack!

Of course, that did not mean the rest of the crew were harmless. Each of them posed a risk to his takeover attempt. With their expertise and access to the systems of the ship, they could easily cut off his access by sabotaging crucial communication lines or something.

Aside from taking over these three areas, Ves also had to disable every independent safeguard. Lucky's surveys revealed that each compartment contained an independent security system that would automatically activate as soon as something went wrong!

Ves could not afford to ignore these small and isolated security systems! He had to sabotage or tamper with each and every one of them lest they blew up when he walked through a corridor or something!

"What a headache!"

Yet the more formidable the ship, the more Ves wanted to claim her for himself! The Scarlet Rose would serve as an excellent mobile workplace for him if he was on the move! She was pretty much a miniature version of a factory ship but in a much smaller and more convenient package!