The Mech Touch

Dr. Ranya Wodin was a conflicted woman.

She spent months preparing for an implantation surgery. This was not necessarily unusual in her profession, but she was doing all of this work for a boy!

A boy!

How could she ever imagine that she would labor so much in order to please a boy, and a foreigner at that? Her entire being recoiled at the thought of serving a boy!

Her Hexer friends and colleagues back in the Hegemony would definitely laugh at her if they could see her now!

"Damn you, Gloriana!" She angrily hissed. "Damn you and your stupid boyfriend!"

She had nothing against Ves Larkinson. He was just a foreign boy who tried to make the most out of his relationship with Gloriana. Though the gulf between their respective stations was as vast as the gap between the Milky Way and Andromeda, Gloriana paid no mind to it at all! She would willingly marry a pig if the beast was capable of boosting her design philosophy!

As resentful as she was with Gloriana, a part of Ranya also felt a little jealous.

Despite the mismatch, Gloriana genuinely got along with Ves. Not only that, but their work-related specialties also seemed to fit like a puzzle!

It was difficult to find such a great professional match. It was even more difficult for Hexers as females like her usually developed an uneven relationship with boys.

Their male counterparts were hardly able to contribute to any collaborative projects with women! The latter always took over all of the reins!

This was why collaborations in the Hexadric Hegemony mostly centered around women. Many female professionals even sought to marry other female professionals in order to gain an edge in their careers.

"I should find a woman myself." She idly murmured. "I'm getting sick of feeling jealous at Gloriana."

Unfortunately, she wouldn't be returning to the Ylvaine Protectorate anytime soon. Not only would she lose most of her income, she also wouldn't be able to pursue any of her research interests!

For better or worse, Gloriana was the best employer that she could get at this stage. Ranya already tried to find better employment opportunities in the Hegemony, but pretty no one offered her as much remuneration or autonomy as her own cousin!

Since her early accomplishments defined the rest of her career, it was vital for Ranya to make the most out of her early years as an exobiologist!

Though Ranya devoted far more than she wished on the Archimedes Rubal, she still found some opportunities to hand over some of her responsibilities to Dr. Lupo Guernica.

It was too easy for Ranya to direct a boy like Lupo. Prominent female Hexers like her took master classes in manipulating boys. Gloriana used what she learned to good effect on Ves! Ranya could hardly afford to fail in her manipulation!

Sadly, it hardly mattered whether she managed to gain control over Lupo. Her fellow exobiologist possessed a much worse foundation due to his inferior background.

Perhaps his only redeeming quality was that he was fairly bright. Ranya found to her astonishment that the speed in which he absorbed knowledge was not much worse than her own!

How could he be so smart?! She surreptitiously analyzed his genes and his implants and nothing indicated that he should be so quick learning new knowledge!

Regardless of this mystery, Ranya still looked down on the boy. At most, she was willing to admit that he was qualified to be her assistant.

In the moments she freed up time for herself, she spent most of her time checking up on her long-running experiments aboard the Frozen Leaf.

"Grow well, my plants." She smiled as she leaned over and tapped the transparent surface of her cultivation chambers.

Aside from spending time on her studies and keeping track of her experiments, she didn't have a lot to do. Kesseling VIII utterly bored her. While the planet offered more activities than Cloudy Curtain, that didn't mean she liked any of them. The Ylvainans were utterly heretical in their beliefs!

"Disgusting alien sympathisers." She scowled.

The lesser states were lesser for a reason. Their prosperity and cultural development was equivalent to a backwoods village in the standards of the Hegemony! The splendor she enjoyed back home was completely absent in this podunk little state!

The only ones who could lift her boredom were Gloriana and Brutus.

Of the two, Ranya felt more and more ambivalent about Gloriana. Her cousin had always been.. intense in her youth.

Ranya thought that Gloriana would have matured over time and grow into her responsibilities.

Instead, she deviated from everyone's expectations by spending lots of time outside the Hegemony. Her relationship with Ves practically made everything worse as Gloriana continued to adjust her demeanor to please her boy!

"Urgh. What is it about Ves that warrants so much care from us? Is he really as impressive as Gloriana claims all the time?"

There were plenty of anomalous surrounding Ves. His rapid and unusual ascension as well as his colorful track record were the subject of much study from Ranya and the Glory Battalion.

They found many points of suspicion. Though there were a lot of holes in the information they found, it was enough to hint at some great and unspeakable secret behind his success!

Gloriana's outlandish claims didn't sound as ridiculous in this light.

As Ranya finished her inspection, she sat down behind her desk and prepared to jot down some notes.

Before she could do so, she paused.

She suddenly noticed that someone was sitting on the opposite side of the desk!

"You! Who are you! How did you get here! Guards, Guards!"

She pressed the panic buttons built into the underside of her desktop as well as to the foot of her chair!

Nothing happened!

"Don't bother, Dr. Ranya." A smooth female voice uttered. "This compartment is completely isolated from the rest of your ship. Every security system in this lab is under my control."

"Your accent.. You're the former Vraken that has partnered with Ves!"

The intruder dressed in an infiltrator suit grinned and crossed her legs. "Correct. You can call me Calabast. In formal terms, I'm Ves Larkinson's strategic partner. In practice, I act as his babysitter. He's an amazing mech designer, but he's such a boy sometimes. He completely neglected the possibility that his lovely girlfriend of his would spill his secrets to her relatives. Well, I've come to clean up his mess as always."

The woman sitting in front of Ranya immediately intimidated her. The Vraken Matriarchal Dynasty was one of the most powerful influences in the Hegemony. Aside from that, there were a lot of rumors and mystery surrounding DIVA. For a Hexer to leave both of these organizations in order to bet all of her chips on Ves was a testament to her decisiveness!

"Calabast." Ranya uttered the name with a hint of apprehension. She tried her best to maintain her composure! "If you want to talk about Ves, then you've approached the wrong woman. Gloriana isn't on my ship."

"I'm not looking for Gloriana." Calabast grimaced. "Your cousin is so obsessed with Ves that it's impossible to talk normally with her. If anything related to her boy comes up in a conversation, well… I'm sure you've witnessed her changes plenty of times."

"You could have approached her brother instead. Brutus can't speak for Gloriana or our dynasty, but he is still an expert pilot worthy of respect."

The former spy sneered. "Expert pilots. I hate them. They are so resolute and principled that it's impossible to persuade them to go against their nature. While that makes them easy to exploit, it's a mistake to underestimate them. I would much prefer to talk to someone sane. Out of the three of you Wodins, only you fit the bill!"

"Am I supposed to feel flattered by this compliment?"

"Nah." Calabast shook her head. "Just think of it as desperation on my end."

"Well, you wanted to talk to me. Here I am. What did you want to talk about?"

Calabast leaned close. "I already mentioned my problem. Gloriana, in her desperation to stay with Ves, resorted to sharing some of his secrets with you and Brutus. This is dangerous. Very dangerous. The secrets you are bandying about is enough to throw our entire star sector in disarray if the public believes they are credible."

"They're.. They're all true?"

So far, Ranya tried her best to withhold her judgement. Whether Ves was able to create gods or whether he came up with a method to turn mech pilots into expert candidates, Ranya wasn't sure whether Gloriana was lying!

Ranya half-expected the claims to be groundless, yet that was before Silent William departed from Ves! Outside most people's expectation, this strange and foreign mech pilot had advanced to expert candidate!

If Gloriana didn't tell her what Ves was capable of, Ranya would have dismissed this development as a coincidence.

Yet because of that conversation, Ranya couldn't help but ascribe Silent William's promotion to Ves!

This wasn't the first time that a mech pilot around him advanced to expert candidate. Jannzi Larkinson managed to promote as well after participating in a high-profile reveal event where she piloted one of his own mechs!

All of these observations were starting to win Ranya over to Gloriana's claims. The unexpected visit of Calabast practically pushed her over into her cousin's camp!

Ves was definitely special if he merited so much attention from the likes of Gloriana and Calabast!

Though Calabast hadn't answered Ranya's question, the silence and the uncomfortable eye contact were more than enough to form an answer.

Ranya released a weary sigh. "I get it. Ves is not just a simple mech designer. What do you want me to do? What do you want us to do?"

"My demands aren��t much." The spy said mildly. "I simply want you Wodins to keep what you've learned under wraps. Don't share Ves' secrets to the Glory Battalion and don't pass them to Constance Wodin."

Ranya crossed her arms. "Why should I listen to you? From what Gloriana told me, you're no longer a Vraken and no longer a DIVA agent."

"Just because I set out on my own doesn't mean I'm powerless. I still have connections, and I'm more than capable enough to infiltrate your ship. Do you believe I'm incapable of repeating this feat? I might not come for a friendly visit next time."

The edge in the voice was absent, but Ranya nonetheless began to sweat. Calabast's threat was very blatant in her ears!

"I'm not looking for trouble." Ranya hastily replied. "Regardless of what Ves is capable of, I'm just a exobiologist. My main research interests are plants."

She brushed her fingers across her leafy green hair to emphasize her point.

"I know. You aren't invested in Ves. This is both good and bad. I prefer it if you focus on the benefits that you can gain. Ves is already a very successful mech designer. He is continuing to improve as we speak. Even if he isn't chasing after profits, he is still a great earner! So far, Gloriana has subsidized your research, correct? Do you realize that she is actually in debt? All of the money you've received has actually come from the boy!"

"What?!"

"And this is just the start." Calabast grinned. "Ves will continue to reach greater heights. I'm sure of it. In a couple of decades, he will probably reach a height that you can never imagine! While the future is never set in stone, it's very worthwhile to continue to work with him. Do you think you can gain any better opportunities in the Hegemony?"

"No…"

The Komodo War truly came at a bad time for someone in her profession. Most funding was diverted to war-related expenses.

Even if the war came to an end, the money wouldn't be coming back. Instead, Ranya could already tell that the Hegemony would definitely pour most of its resources into reconstruction!

With that in mind, maybe seeking to work with Ves on a more permanent basis didn't sound like a bad idea...