The Mech Touch

The Government District was the oldest and one of the most central districts of Kotor City.

It held a high concentration of government institutions and offices. Many politicians, bureaucrats and other public officials regularly worked in this area. The district featured a high concentration of government employees who worked with sensitive information.

Given the large number of public officials who possessed the power and authority to alter the way that Davute was run, the security levels in this district happened to be the highest!

An entire mech regiment was permanently stationed in an underground fortress that was built underneath the surface.

This not only placed a lot of nearby mechs on standby, but also allowed the military to patrol the streets and airways of the district on a constant basis.

Every mech patrol included at least one dedicated auxiliary mech that was dedicated towards scouting.

As tensions between Davute and Karlach continued to rise, the colonial government equipped the scouting mechs tasked with patrolling the crucial Government District with newer and more advanced sensor systems.

An unknown proportion of these scout mechs even received secret upgrades that replaced their second-class sensor systems with first-class models!

The colonial government exchanged a number of them from the MTA, but most of the powerful sensor systems came from different first-class groups and states.

The backers of Davute such as the Clive Consortium had been in business long enough to develop multiple ties to rich and powerful first-class powers.

It was not that difficult to obtain batches of advanced technological products.

Of course, this was bad news to any parties that sought to spy on the core institutions of the colonial government.

The Karlachs had tried to infiltrate the Government District many times in many different ways.

While no one knew for certain whether they succeeded, Davute strongly believed that these attempts had never succeeded!

A certain gem cat equipped with a black cat-sized infiltrator suit was learning this as well.

"Meow."

Lucky tried his best to remain discreet as he phased his body through a tree in a park in a neighboring district.

He did not dare to act casually when the Government District came into sight. The cat's electronic senses detected many forms of surveillance up ahead. Some of these measures were so powerful that Lucky did not feel confident in his ability to stay hidden!

When the cat silently phased through the tree trunk and traversed through the thick floor, he managed to avoid most of these detection methods.

Neither visual sensors nor other sensors could detect the gem cat when he was in this special state.

The only issue was that Lucky could not navigate by vision alone, but he had already memorized detailed maps that helped him estimate his position at all times.

As the cat's advanced processors calculated that he had crossed over into the Government District, Lucky slowed down and proceeded with much greater care.

The entire ground layer of the Government District was artificially constructed. An innumerable amount of functional systems and detection systems were active at all times.

If not for the fact that those detection systems lacked optical sensors that could spot a translucent mechanical cat passing through lots of solid matter, Lucky would have never been able to remain undetected up to this point.

As Lucky continued to move closer to the center, he detected a powerful presence that was rapidly closing in from a distance.

The cat panicked and immediately turned around to create as much distance as possible!

Above the ground, a powerful ace mech gently floated to a position where the pilot thought he detected suspicious activity.

It turned out that Saint Yorvick Clive, pilot of the powerful and renowned Indormeon, had a hunch that someone was up to no good at this location!

As his powerful Saint Kingdom swept across the underground area where his strong intuition warned him about, he grew suspicious and confused.

Saint Yorvick found no trace of infiltration, though he was certain that his intuition had not led him astray.

"Strange."

Instead of dismissing this false positive as a fluke or a mistake, the ace pilot treated this incident with utmost gravity.

As the date of the founding ceremony drew closer, it became more important than ever for the Davutans to guard against any hostile actions.

The founding ceremony mattered a lot to the prospective president. This was his big day and the moment where he would definitely prevent any rivals from snatching his seat of power.

Yorvick and Yenames shared more than just the same family name. They were cousins from the same generation and spent much of their childhoods in each other's company.

Though the two eventually saw each other a lot less often when Yenames entered a business track while Yorvick entered the mech piloting track, they continued to maintain their friendship as they advanced up the ranks.

When Yenames Clive transferred to the Red Ocean in order to take charge of the Davute Project, the ambitious leader personally invited his good friend turned ace pilot to join forces and protect the fragile colony.

Yorvick therefore treated his service in Davute as more than just an ordinary assignment. This was personal, and as such he did not leave anything to chance.

He first transmitted a message that notified the security forces of his suspicions. He then proceeded to patrol the Government District at a much higher level of alertness than before.

The Indormeon, a large and imposing ace knight mech, most definitely made its presence known as it flew past many government buildings.

As Saint Yorvick still had a hunch that a possible enemy was trying to infiltrate the colonial government through the ground, he kept his ace mech low and no longer tried to make his presence as unobtrusive as possible.

The domain field projected by his strong and resilient ace mech swept through nearby the office buildings without any restraint!

Although the public officials working inside those structures most definitely experienced varying degrees of disruption as the powerful will of an ace pilot judged their loyalty and behavior, the workers tried their best to continue with their routines.

Each of these workers were carefully selected for their loyalty and competence. They had already been trained to endure the invasive scrutiny by ace pilots.

This allowed the Indormeon to keep using its Saint Kingdom as an all-purpose detection system for hours at a time!

While this was taking place, Lucky had managed to retreat far enough that he could poke out his head from a nearby monument.

A brief glimpse from afar revealed that the amount of mechs patrolling the Government District had doubled!

Many more scout mechs scoured the streets and the air for any suspicious activity.

They particularly put a lot of effort into detecting any intrusion in the air surrounding the large blue palace that was floating a few meters above the surface of the planet!

The Skyline Palace was the residence of the head of the colonial state.

Though it wasn't supposed to serve this function before the founding ceremony, Prospective President Yenames Clive had already moved into the floating palace in advance.

Even though it was clearly exposed in the air, that also made it virtually impossible for spies to approach it without revealing their traces!

Not only was there a complete lack of cover, but the large amount of sensor systems and scout mechs could detect the approach of damn near any stealthed object!

Lucky did not possess true stealth capabilities, so he had no shot of sneaking inside the Skyline Palace!

His phasing trick did not work at all as there weren't any solid objects connecting the Skyline Palace to any other solid objects!

Even if Lucky managed to sneak into the palace by hiding inside an approaching shuttle, the cat knew that he would most definitely expose himself one way or another.

Not only was Saint Yorvick Clive's intuition sharp enough to detect anything sneaking around from an impressive distance, but Lucky also felt that there may be another ace pilot residing inside the Skyline Palace!

"Meoow…"

The gem cat didn't sign up for this. There was no way he could do anything in the Government District when the Davutans employed so many different security precautions.

Fortunately, Calabast had anticipated that Lucky might not be able to sneak his way inside this highly guarded district.

The spymaster had given Lucky a few alternative destinations where he could spend his time instead.

"Meow…"

After a quick moment of thought, the cat turned around and moved to another direction while phasing through the ground.

The cat eventually arrived in the Austere District.

Many of the most powerful government officials and other powerful and wealthy individuals resided in one of the many mansions built in this enclave.

It was a lot quieter and more subdued here. No ace mechs patrolled the streets as its residents did not like it when they got disturbed. They liked it even less when ace pilots unscrupulously invaded their privacy!

Although security was not light, much of it was private and confined to individual mansions and estates.

Of course, the large and luxurious residences of the various ministers, CEOs, board directors, senior professors and so on still weren't easy to infiltrate.

After cautiously exploring their security suites, Lucky found that any sign of abnormality or intrusion would immediately trigger a lot of alarms!

Lucky could not cut through a single cable or phase out of a wall at any moment without leaving behind clues of his presence.

This frustrated the cat yet again. There was no way he could collect any intelligence from the movers and shakers of Davute.

He could only settle for lesser targets. The Austere District featured plenty of smaller and more affordable estates that were occupied by people who were slightly lower on the totem pole.

Lucky found that the security suites were rather mixed. A few of them were just as secure as the bigger estates, while the others happened to be a lot easier for him to infiltrate.

Unfortunately, Lucky did not pick up anything significant by poking around these lesser estates. Most of their occupants knew better than to leave sensitive data within reach. The logs and security footage also showed that they took a lot of care in refraining from talking about work while they were at their homes.

After a long and fruitless day of poking around, Lucky only gathered miscellaneous data on various companies and government institutions.

Though the scattered intelligence would probably be of great value to the Black Cats, the cat did not come close to fulfilling his primary objectives!

It wasn't until the cat randomly sneaked into another modest and less secure estate that he inadvertently managed to gain more results!

The cat detected that a resident of the mansion hacked its monitoring system in order to create false records that showed that nothing special was taking place.

The reason for that became clear when Lucky slowly approached the bedroom which was strangely covered by a powerful jamming field and other anti-surveillance effects.

Although these measures were quite effective at preventing others from learning what was taking place inside, it also happened to invalidate any detection systems that might still be active, including ones that were sensitive enough to pick up Lucky's sneaky approach!

Once Lucky confirmed multiple times that nothing should be able to detect his presence, he poked his eye out of the wall and immediately found out that he intruded upon an intimate moment.

"...Oh… that is the spot…"

"You are so soft…"

"My husband isn't nearly as big of a man as you…"

The uniform of a military general laid haphazardly on the floor. A loose dress along with other feminine articles of clothing laid in another pile!

As the two secret lovers continued to share a moment of intimacy, Lucky kept moving closer while listening to anything important that the pair might say in the throes of their passion.

At the same time, the cat slowly phased his way to a cabinet where the lovers had placed their comms.

If Lucky was able to touch the comm of the general, he might be able to crack its security and access whatever data was stored inside!