What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

Lilly didn't get the whole masterwork thing really. Cu Sith was a lovely mech to her eyes. That was it. Why the MTA went gaga over them was beyond her. She was more concerned about how it functioned, which meant that the testing was worth more than the suite of scans that Bolt was going over now. There would likely be complications later, but for now things were pretty standard.

"Venerable Lilly, I really don't think this is going to work." Pup's voice sounded nervous.

She rolled her eyes in response before slumping slightly in the cockpit seat. You'd think that ascending would have helped with the boy's confidence, but no. He was still pretty bad. If you didn't hit his triggers you wouldn't even notice he was an expert from the way he spoke. This was a bit unusual for experts, but ultimately just a mild annoyance and something that would hopefully fade with time. In the meantime she had to manage it properly.

"You need to learn your limits if you want to be the primary guard for our mountain." The woman said. "That means we're testing and then sparring."

"But, but." Pup whined before Lilly cut him off.

"Yes, you are weaker. You're young and weak for an expert. That's perfectly fine. Experts can grow, and we don't even need to throw you into battle all the time. You will just need to focus." The older expert emphasized the last word.

The mech in front of her shifted as his nerves started to transmit through the body language before Pup decided something internally. It was very visible when he did. The mech shifted its paws and lowered its head as if bracing itself for battle.

Lilly smiled and pulled on Morning Star. She then shifted her wings and readied herself. "First up, weapons check!" She lowered her wings.

With a crack Cu Sith 'barked.' The mouth erupted in fire and Lilly registered hits along her wings and all around her area. Very minor damage to the wings. Already being repaired. Not bad as a base deterrent considering the sheer area of the attack. If he actually exerted some effort into the attack it'd probably have actually damaged the wings enough to force her to withdraw them. It was more a cannon than a shotgun blast.

"Put some willpower into it next time." Lilly advised. "But good. Tail weapon?"

The dog-mech flicked its tail and a sphere floated into the air between them. Lilly flicked a dagger at it after a second and was gratified to see it explode violently before leaving a cloud of fire and electricity that did not look pleasant. It wasn't a very useful offensive weapon, but she wouldn't want to follow a mech that could do that, which was the point. Pup was going to be a priority target by everyone based off his skillset. Deterring pursuit would be the largest point.

"Last bit. Howl." Lilly ordered.

Cu Sith raised its head and then stilled as its pilot hesitated. "Uh, sorry, trying to figure it out." The expert apologized sheepishly. "Not like the other weapons."

"Resonant stuff takes a push." Lilly advised.

"Got it I think." Pup said after a few seconds. "Thing is I needed to think of you as an enemy, and that's a bit hard to do."

"I'm flattered, but if it hinders the tests we can arrange something else. Let me know and we can do make some calls." The woman responded with a hint of a laugh.

Pup replied by re-setting his mech's feet and raising its muzzle up further. The howl that came from it next started haunting and grew terrifying as it continued. She was being hunted. She had been marked. THEY were aware of her! That was the feeling. Lilly pushed it off easily, and was fairly sure that even normal people would just feel a bit scared, but it was interesting to actually get that sort of feeling imposed on you. Even a little bit of forced emotion could have devastating effects.

"Venerable Lilly, I think your husband did something special again. That howl let us feel your location and what I think is your weak points." One of the men stationed nearby transmitted almost immediately.

Lilly felt herself taken aback by the statement. "Really now?" She asked. "Huh. We need a few target dummies out here asap then. This is more than expected."

A few minutes later a series of mech torsos on poles were brought out. They were simplistic things useful for target practice and verifying the damage some weapons could do. Lilly had two marked red and one marked green.

"Ok, call me your ally, and say the red are enemy." Lilly told her protégé.

Pup gave a nod of his mechs head, and then howled again. This time the howl wasn't scary at all. Lilly blinked and then closed her eyes as she realized something. She could literally see the dummies through her eyelids now. She just knew where the weak points without any sort of verbal statement at all! The information lasted about a minute before going away.

"You know, I was expecting something special and yet I'm still shocked." The woman said before speaking to the guards nearby. "Did you all feel that?"

"We did."

"It that good?" Pup asked in turn.

"Pup, that goes beyond good and into game changing. Let's test it before we make real statements though." Lilly said before starting to order a set of tests.

The range was, well as far as the howl could go, which didn't lend itself to quick measurements unfortunately. The only requirement seemed to be that the sound waves touch the target and that Pup knew there was an enemy. Something about it required a bit of awareness on his part. When Lilly had said there were two targets, but put three up, one of them hadn't been marked. That was less of a hinderance than one would think. Cu Sith's sensory abilities were second to none. All Pup needed was a scent, a blip on the radar, even just intuition, and then the howl would alert all allies that heard it. It was an ability that was literally game changing in certain circumstances. It alone had the potential to make Pup more dangerous than her.

Unfortunately the rest of the news was less promising. Sparring was downright discouraging. Pup had ascended young and weak. This was not a problem in itself. Experts could grow in time assuming they practiced and refined their willpower. It just made things difficult because the best way to hone an expert was to have them fight challenging foes. If Pup was on the weakside he'd be in a deadly situation against anything worthy of his time.

On the plus side, the designers had nailed Pup's natural desires with the design. Lilly would have said it was perfect if it didn't reinforce a few bad habits. Like the screaming.

"Ahhh!" Pup screamed as he leaped away from her.

She should have brought Dowry for this part. That one would have loved doing this. Morning Star found it sincerely annoying.

"Pup, control yourself!" Lilly demanded as she had to pause to avoid the mine left in her path. "Good placement, but your movement is too inefficient!"

"Say that again when you're on the other end! It's terrifying!!!" Pup responded and ducked a knife by almost accident before lobbing another glowing mine into the air.

Lilly growled and then slapped a wing down by instinct as she noticed something. Cu Sith pivoted on one paw and barked. The shotgun pellets slammed into her wing with all the force of an expert pilot's power before the dog shifted again and ran like she was going to discipline it with a stick. The ever-present mist obscured his form and Lilly stalled.

"Huh, that stealth is more powerful than I thought." The woman observed.

"It's mostly non-vision stuff so I figured the mist might help." Pup responded carefully as he shifted at the edges, barely visible. "Umm, should I come back?"

"I could probably chase you, but with the stealth, the vision, and the mines I literally cannot catch you in this mech." The expert said bluntly. "Which is good, but also kinda bad. The only way to hone yourself safely is like this, and your mech is not suited for it."

The answer seemed to stun the other expert. "Sims don't work?" He asked.

"Normal sims don't. Our sims? Once we've done some more fighting maybe. If they do, you will only tell me ok?" Lilly ordered. "In the meantime, come back and stay in vision range. You will need to practice fighting in limited areas anyway, and unless you want me to get Dowry this will have to do."

The woman had to turn down Pups volume for the rest of the match. The boy was getting better, but he seemed to think she was some sort of monster! She was, but that sort of thing could hurt a girl's feelings!

"This was an extremely bad idea." Wu said to her companion.

"You were the one that pointed out that we would be monitored any other way." Dai shot back quietly.

Wu made a frustrated sound. "Yes, that doesn't make it any better!"

Dai chuckled and carefully dragged the very large improvised cannon up behind him. "Just keep your mouth open so your ears don't burst." He advised before slowly edging out of the maintenance tunnel and aiming the weapon down the hallway.

The woman behind him gave a small whimper and edged back. Dai held the trigger and waited a few seconds. The sound of boots made him grin and then count. One, two, three. A man came into view and Dai pulled the trigger at the same time.

A loud explosion blew through the corridor. Dai's ears popped. The man, and everything behind him was shredded. Dai stared a moment at the gore he'd created with a mild amount of shock and then tried to evaluate what he'd done.

"Hmm. Needs a bit less penetration." He concluded out loud before his ears stopped rigging.

"I cannot hear you but I have to assume you said something stupid." Wu replied.

"That's one hijacker group down!" Dai called back.

"Good, but you do remember we need a ship left at the end right?!" The woman shot back.

The man chuckled nervously at the statement. They didn't need everything intact! Just most of it. He pulled himself out of the tunnel had hefted his cannon up.

It had started pretty simply. Dai and Wu had decided they wanted to travel some and possibly visit Bolt, if the circumstances permitted it. It had been half desire for adventure and half because things had been getting very tense on their planet. Taking some time to visit other areas for ideas or contests had seemed like a good idea at the time. The sandmen hadn't actually reached the nation yet after all, and they only lived once. Travel would likely be locked down soon as well. If they wanted to do anything more than cower at home now was the time. They'd even gotten a really good deal on a trip!

Unfortunately the constant tensions had made travel even more dangerous than usual. Dai and Wu were nobodies in the grand scheme of things. They were just educated mech designers. They had equivalents of college degrees and little else. There was usually very little reason to target them. Them traveling got noted on a list a million people long. Misfortune could hit anyway though. In this matter, the entire ship was the target and they were just bonuses. The hijackers had taken one look at them and added them to the list of 'good merchandise.'

Hence them running through the ship's maintenance areas in with a frantic and slightly insane plan to keep themselves free.

"You know I will have to thank Bolt very much for the lessons on self reliance." Dai said as he aimed his cannon this way and that with maniac energy.

Wu made a very unladylike sound. "You just wanted an excuse to have gun materials on hand." She pointed out.

"Like you're any better." Dai shot back as they moved down the corridor.

"Mine's actually useful." The woman noted as she pulled out a small vial and prepared for the next step.

Further banter was stopped as they found the terminal they were looking for. This was not the main command area. That was halfway down the ship. This was a side computer linked to the FTL drive and something far less guarded. Wu poured the contents in the vial onto the computer and brought up her comm as the nanomachines slithered into it.

"Breaking in now." Wu said quietly as she typed.

"Time?" Dai asked back.

"We timed it right. A minute until FTL travel. I can adjust the location right now." Wu initiated a few pre-made commands. "They won't know what's wrong until we arrive and by that point it will be too late. A few patrols are heading this way now, but they'll be a minute."

"Great." The weapon specialist aimed his large weapon down the hallway and braced himself. "I got ten shots left. We can make our grand stand here!"

Wu grabbed at an ear. "Or we go back to the crawlways and avoid them entirely!" She snapped back.

"But that's boring." The man muttered before deciding that boring was safer at least and involved less gore. He was handling it fine at the moment, but he'd probably crash soon.

Some crawling and careful sneaking had them back inside the small room that counted as 'private quarters' for people on a passenger ship like this. It was a small place with two beds and a very flimsy door. So far as fortifications went, it was paltry. Also, for rather specific reasons the door for Wu and Dai's quarters wasn't working, so it was really bad.

"You know, on second thought, this probably won't work either." Dai mused as he looked at the broken doors.

Wu nodded slowly and surveyed the area. "Blast doors?" She pointed out a few places.

"Those are ship standard and deactivated." He noted before shrugging. "I don't think that matters much though."

Dai couldn't connect to the net due to local jamming, but he did know that all ships had manual controls for that particular part. Critical sections like that had to have some way of functioning when power went out. They were also very deliberately easy to find.

Some brief searching located a panel they could open. A lever was pulled and the heavy metal blast doors slammed shut. To be extra thorough the two of them activated the doors up and down the hallway. They then jammed them shut with a bit of creative welding using some tools they'd 'found'. It wouldn't stop anyone with the proper tools, but it would most certainly delay them all. With the FTL happening shortly, that'd be enough.

FTL transitions took time to cool down after being used. A large passenger liner like the one the two were in had a very lengthy one. Once the transition happened, the ship would be stuck in place until it cooled down. The hijackers would typically use that time to empty the ship of real valuables.

Wu's sabotage changed that equation. It meant that once the hijackers knew they were in the wrong area they couldn't leave with the liner. The best they could do was leave with the tiny parasite ship they'd used to infiltrate with. Which was possible to do, but also very, very dangerous in a hostile area like the one Wu had changed their destination to.

What happened next was fairly obvious. It was not immediately apparent that they'd reached a different area to them. It likely wasn't apparent to the hijackers either. It did become obvious to them when the local forces noticed something was up and took steps to do something about it.

The lights going out was the first sign. Then some shaking, and then the emergency alerts starting up. Both Wu and Dai decided this was a good time to move back to their rooms.

Elsewhere the ship was boarded by armed men trained to deal with scenarios like this. The hijackers attempted to resist with all the desperation of criminals with nothing left to lose. Unfortunately for them, they were both outnumbered and outgunned. Their only possible escape was basically through the ship they'd initially used to hijack the cruiseliner.

Wu and Dai didn't know the exact details. They were not informed. It didn't matter that much.

What did matter was that the liner wasn't operational and would take time to repair. They were going to get a return trip free of charge if they wanted, but the two had decided that another trip would be an unneeded risk.

Bolt's home was in the same system after all. He'd offered them space, and the two designers were quite willing to accept that.