[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 113: Discoveries

"That's a good thing, right?" Dietrich asked.

"The safe is made by an amateur, but it's still generating heat. I can't be too sure about what's inside. Let me take some scans."

While the sensor-blocking exterior hindered most of his efforts, the proximity made it easier for the multiscanner to return some readings.

"There's a trigger attached to the hinges. Any use of force will trigger some sort of mechanism that will ignite a block of flammable high-density fuel."

"Is there any way you can stop that from happening?"

"Not yet, but I'm working on it." Ves replied as he churned his brain for solutions.

His Jury Rigging skill applied primarily to mechs, but it also came in handy in situations like this. He knew what type of fuel was inside. If he froze the section close to the fuel block, he could prevent its ignition even if he trigger went off. It might not be able to prevent anything else, but Ves was hopeful he could retrieve the contents.

He picked up a specialized freezing tool from the floor of the mech stables and got ready to freeze the flammable fuel block. He first dug out a wider channel to the top of the armored box. He pressed the semiflexible nozzle against the top and started the freezing process.

The box frosted over rapidly as the cold spread out quickly. After estimating that he'd done enough, he turned off the freezing tool and threw it aside. He quickly picked up a miniature plasma cutter and started cutting through the front of the safe.

He was racing against time. He had to finish cutting and retrieve the contents of the safe before the fuel block unfroze. Ves carefully operated the cutter in order to prevent its localized heat from spilling too far outward.

The box clanked as Ves successfully cut a hole in the front. He turned off the cutter and pulled away the circular piece. This time he covered his hands with a thick pair of gloves which he also borrowed from the deceased techs. With remarkable speed, he dug out a handful of objects that turned out to be a pile of data chips.

He finished the job by throwing in a prepared explosive before running outside. The blast ripped apart the entire wall setting. Ves deliberately strengthened the explosion in order to interrupt any other surprises. The scanners he placed around the closet failed to register any follow-ups. He was fairly certain it did not trigger any alarms.

"Are you certain no one has a clue we're here?" Dietrich asked again.

"The sensors and scanners that I have at my disposal are state-of-the-art. I haven't detected any outbound signals. I also haven't found any signs of an active quantum entanglement node."

The latter was difficult to stop, but those things were large, expensive and power hungry. They had to be in order to establish instant communication with the rest of the galaxy at a decent bandwidth. Ves suspected that the raiding force prioritized their destruction.

Before Ves tackled the larger stash, he wanted to take a look at the contents of the data chips he painstakingly retrieved. He grabbed a secure data pad and inserted one of the chips.

No viruses or hacks popped up when the data pad accessed the chip. To no one's surprise, he encountered nothing but encrypted files.

He had an answer for that. "Barracuda, please connect to this data pad and decrypt these files. Disable any precautions in the chip while you're at it."

His ship featured basic electronic warfare capabilities. By basic, it meant the systems paled in comparison to those installed by warships. Compared to the dismal technological standard of a third-rate state, the Barracuda only took 4.7 seconds to decrypt all of the files. That was considered to be fairly slow for a modern corvette.