The Mech Touch

Linaresa Warden carefully stalked the passageways of a commercial combat carrier. Her invisible form closely followed a specific crew member that she had sought out beforehand.

It was much more difficult for the infiltrator to enter the more sensitive areas of the ship by herself.

DIVA originally targeted the less important vessels that were inherently more vulnerable and located away from the core vessels of the Cenatus Prospecting fleet.

Elite infiltrators such as Linaresa secretly drifted through open space and managed to land onto their targets before sneaking inside through a combination of trickery and advanced technological gadgets.

Getting inside one of these ships had been a considerable challenge to all of the elite Hexers involved in this sabotage operation.

The chances that any of them would get detected on approach was low, but the consequences of exposing the existence of just one of them could threaten them all. If Cenatus Prospecting realized that its fleet was under attack by hidden elements, its personnel would be able to sweep the other DIVA agents!

People like Linaresa Warden were therefore shouldering multiple burdens.

They needed to do their best to sneak as impeccably as possible in order to keep their presence a secret from the oblivious Cenatus employees.

They also had to put their trust in their fellow DIVA operatives to maintain their own cover at the same time.

It was fortunate that Linaresa Warden did not harbor any doubts. She had absolute faith in her skills and the skills of her colleagues.

Some of the DIVA agents had even prayed to the Superior Mother in the hopes of getting her blessing, but Linaresa saw no desire to follow suit.

She needed no blessing to pull off her mission. She was already capable enough to succeed by herself.

Her invisible and undetectable form continued to stalk through the corridors of the rather boring and average combat carrier.

Despite the lack of sophistication of the combat carrier, the owners and crew had done their best to bolster the internal security of the ship over the years.

They installed additional sensor systems that could detect all kinds of suspicious signs. Strange occurrences such as displaced air, gravitic activity, a minute elevation of heat and more could all give away the presence of an intruder that didn't belong.

If these constantly active detection measures weren't enough, there were also the security checkpoints that controlled the passage to important compartments such as the engineering bay or the data vault.

These security checkpoints forced everyone and everything to pass through high-powered scanning gates.

While all of these security measures sounded incredibly troublesome to circumvent, the DIVA agents that had snuck aboard the various combat carriers of Cenatus Prospecting did not worry too much about these challenges.

No system was perfect. There were many developers who constantly tried to come up with better ways to spot intruders, but there were also a lot of developers who tried to defeat these efforts!

The Hex Federation had inherited a lot of industries and know-how from the old Hexadric Hegemony. It had never given up on researching methods to defeat all of the common detection methods and always equipped its best DIVA agents with their latest advancements.

Once upon a time, An agent known as Calabast snuck around while wearing an infiltrator suit that was capable of circumventing many detection methods.

Nowadays, it was up to Linaresa to carry the torch. She trusted in the technology developed by her fellow Hexers to automatically exploit the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of the detection methods employed by Cenatus Prospecting.

It was not as difficult as it sounded.

The Hexers mainly developed their infiltration tech to defeat the advanced detection methods of powerful states like the Friday Coalition.

As powerful as Otrus Magrin may be, he was only a single private individual. He may have amassed a sizable vulture fleet as well as various organizations that were able to provide him with more legitimate sources of income, but all of this could never equal the efforts of an entire state!

Therefore, Linaresa slowly snuck her way through many corridors and compartments. She made sure to employ techniques and take precautions that increased her chances of remaining undetected.

Even if her advanced infiltrator suit already took care of most of her problems, it never hurt to minimize her chances of detection even further.

She eventually reached a point where she could go no further. While her infiltrator suit was powerful enough to circumvent most detection methods, it wasn't quite up to the task of defeating the more powerful and expensive scanning gates that guarded the entrances to the engineering bay!

Of the handful of DIVA infiltrators that had quietly snuck aboard this particular combat carrier, she assumed the most important responsibility.

Her objective was to render the vessel's FTL drive inoperable.

The ship system was so critical to the functioning of the combat carrier that only a select few drive engineers received permission to approach this massive device.

Cenatus Prospecting had also installed an enhanced security suite around the FTL drive that was much more difficult for her infiltrator suit to defeat.

Linaresa could not justify the risk of sneaking up on the FTL drive with the help of her infiltrator suit, so she did not make the attempt.

She instead executed a different plan that DIVA had prepared.

Her invisible form quietly moved away from the security checkpoint and moved to a quiet and fairly private maintenance compartment.

She removed a few devices from her suit and planted them around the space in order to ensure that any active monitoring systems would loop fabricated sensor data.

She waited 13 minutes until the hatch quietly slid open. A female crew member wearing the uniform of an engineer in the service of Cenatus Prospecting entered the compartment.

Once the hatch slid shut, the woman tried to maintain as calm as possible as she scanned the space with her handheld scanning device.

"You won't be able to detect me with that gadget." Linarosa said as she spoke while remaining undetected.

The engineer almost released a cry!

"Where are you? Are you the person that I was expected to meet?"

"You have come to the right place, Miss Elster. I do not need to expose myself to you, but rest assured that you are in the right place. Let us show our codes before we proceed."

Both women pulled out small cards that were printed with a bunch of symbols. This allowed them to verify that the other person was part of the plan.

The drive engineer hardly calmed down. What she had embarked upon constituted a naked betrayal against her employer. Otrus Magrin had never been merciful to the people who plotted behind his back!

Linaresa Warden did not ask the engineer why she decided to betray her employer and lend her assistance to this operation. Another department of DIVA had been responsible for turning this woman into a collaborator.

All the DIVA operative needed to do was take advantage of this situation to sneak up to the FTL drive.

It would have been ideal if the drive engineer used her existing access rights to sabotage the FTL drive herself, but she was unwilling to risk her life.

She wasn't willing to let herself get used by DIVA!

As such, her first question was related to her safety rather than the planned act of sabotage.

"Can you get me out of this ship?" She hissed.

"You can make your way out as long as you follow the instructions that we have passed to you." Linaresa replied as she opened up a pack mounted on her back.

The DIVA agent pulled out a thin and folded infiltrator suit to the drive engineer. "This should allow you to jump into space and remain unnoticed by the detection systems of this fleet. Just keep drifting away and one of our stealth vessels will quietly scoop you into its hold."

The drive engineer accepted the suit and handed over a data chip. "This contains the information that I have promised to provide."

"This isn't all I need from you. Are you prepared to let me borrow your identity?"

"...Let's get this over with, please."

The engineer reluctantly sat down and allowed the DIVA agent to place a strange device onto her head.

"This will make you feel uncomfortable for two to four minutes. Please bear with the sensations. The lower your resistance, the faster the process will complete."

The head device soon became active, causing the engineer to clench her teeth in an effort to suppress her screams.

Soon enough, the torture came to an end. Linaresa picked up the head device and slotted it back onto her head through a special mount built into her infiltrator suit.

"That should be all." She spoke to the recovering drive engineer. "I suggest you take 5 to 8 minutes to recover before exiting this compartment. Please follow the plan that we have devised for you and make your way out of this ship no later than 78 minutes from this moment. We will try our best to adapt to any unexpected deviations from the plan, but we will not guarantee your retrieval if you are too late or triggered an alarm."

"I understand. Just get me out and we won't have a problem."

Shortly after the female drive engineer donned the infiltrator suit left the compartment under stealth, a copy of the woman nonchalantly exited the compartment while holding a plain-looking toolbox.

Linaresa still wore her infiltrator suit, but it had morphed to show a close copy of the engineer's body and work uniform.

The imitation was scarily accurate, and Linaresa was able to mimic the drive engineer's movements, tics and other behavioral characteristics to an exceptional degree with the help of the data chip that she had received.

Her training allowed her to completely assume the identity of the collabor to the point where only her closest friends and colleagues might vaguely detect anything amiss.

When the disguised DIVA agent walked up to the security checkpoint, she remained calm as if this was just another necessary routine in her life.

The bored and inattentive security guards who manned the checkpoint did not have any reason to suspect anything amiss, but they went through the motions anyway because their superiors would punish them if they skipped any of the steps.

The DIVA agent put her full trust in her disguise and successfully managed to get through the checkpoints.

Not even the dreaded scanning gate detected anything out of the ordinary!

"Are you going to catch the game tonight, Johnny?" The disguised DIVA operate asked in a tone that conveyed just the right amount of informality and familiarity.

The security guard on the right snorted. "I am not a masochist, unlike you. I don't want to see the Redram Fanatics get humiliated by the Sikka Boys. Ever since the team replaced one of its star marksmen with an old has-been, it has lost all of its synergy. Call me when it is the turn of the Mad Lads to show what they are made of. At least they have the sense to contract the best mech athlete of last season's Fanatics team."

Linaresa finally entered the engineering bay.

She did not head straight towards the guarded enclosure where the FTL drive was resting.

Instead, she made the rounds and stood behind a work station while performing highly technical work as if she was a true professional.

It was only when she managed to confirm that she had drawn no special attention and that the security measures around the FTL drive remained unchanged that she executed the most crucial step of her plan.

She approached the FTL drive while greeting and talking shop with her 'fellow' naval engineers and pretended to inspect the device.

"Has it just completed its cycling process?" She asked one of 'her' seniors.

"It did. We managed to reach a new record. We managed to shorten it by another two seconds."

"That is still within the margin of error." Linarosa said in a distinctly unimpressed tone. "Let us wait until we have managed to shorten the cycling time by 5 seconds before we celebrate."

As the two continued to talk, Linarosa gained many opportunities to mess with the FTL drive. She did not act with haste but continued to maintain her act until she recognized an excellent window of opportunity.

None of the nearby crew noticed anything amiss.

Less than hour later, a bomb detonated inside the FTL drive, destroying crucial coils and several other parts that were notoriously difficult to repair and calibrate!

"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

"SECURE THE ENGINEERING BAY!"

"ALERT OUR FLAGSHIP!"

As alarms erupted throughout this combat carrier as well as numerous other starships, Linarosa's invisible form quietly drifted away from the disarrayed fleet.

A stealth shuttle eventually scooped her up, allowing her to relax and disengage her active stealth before she completely drained the energy supply of her suit.

A DIVA officer walked up to the elite operative. "Welcome back, Agent Warden. Any complications?"

"Negative."

"Good work."

"Status of other missions?"

"All successful. Few complications. None compromised."

"As expected."

"As expected."