[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 29: Bentheim

The appearance of Ves raised some eyebrows from the pilots and their chaperones.

"I haven't seen you around in class." One of the men stated as he looked at Ves' collar. "Are you sure you've boarded the right shuttle?"

Every potentate wore a small pin on their collar, chest or arm that denoted their status. It was an exclusive privilege to the 3.5% that marked them special. With it, they enjoyed priority services, had access to VIP sections, and had their safety taken care of first before the rest could take their turn. The entire scheme originated from the New Rubarth Empire, but pretty much every human state other than the Terrans copied the treatment. They also took over the rule that stated that any fraudulent use of such pins invited severe punishment.

"Security already screened me before letting me in. I'm a participant of the YTE mech design competition."

"Mech design?" A young fresh-faced woman dubiously said. "So you're not a pilot."

"No."

That pretty much killed the conversation. The pilots all turned around and went back to their own discussions.

The blatant disregard hurt Ves a little, but he had grown used to such behavior ever since he turned ten. Before his genetic aptitude was tested, he behaved just as arrogantly as the other potentates. It took a brutal fall from heaven to realize how conceited he actually behaved.

"I was a stupid punk back then. I got what I deserved, but the rest ingrained this dismissive behavior."

It couldn't be helped. Modern society worshiped martial prowess, and a disproportionate attention was placed on mechs. Sometimes it appeared that society revolved around pleasing potentates.

Certainly, placating pilots was important, but the soldiers who bravely enlisted in the other service branches also deserved some honor. Spaceships guarded their borders against capricious aliens while infantrymen occupied territory and cleaned after the messes mechs usually caused when throwing around ordnance.

Nothing could be done about it, though, so Ves took the dismissal without complaint. It wasn't as if he achieved anything of note that justified anything more than an absent glance. Only Lucky attracted some attention, but the mostly female pilots were too preoccupied to get distracted by his cuteness.

The departure time arrived. The shuttle lifted off after everyone was accounted for. The inter-system shuttle ample power to lift off and escape Cloudy Curtain's atmosphere. Like a sparrow taking flight, the shuttle fluently broke the confines of the planet's gravity and followed a pre-programmed flight out to the nearest Lagrange point in the local star system.

Lagrange points provided fast and convenient launch points for FTL. Any shuttle or spaceship capable of travelling faster than light departed from a Lagrange point whenever possible, but were only capable of reaching the edge of a solar system as their destination.

While the possibility exists for highly advanced spaceships to arrive at their destination's Lagrange point, the act was considered near suicidal. It was like threading a needle, except one single mistake could cause the ship to smash itself apart in weird gravitational stresses, leaving the debris to fall into the local sun.

Everyone played it safe, including the transport shuttle. It took only a moment for the shuttle to reach the nearest Lagrange point. It waited in line as other vessels departed first. Once the shuttle came forward, its sleek and narrow form visibly warped into an elongated form before launching into FTL.

The shuttle lurched a little when it entered FTL, but after that the passengers felt nothing else. After hundreds of years of refinement, human FTL technology had earned a track record for safety and reliability.