[401-600] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 474: Compromised

The offending hacker never returned. Ves imagined that the interrogation hadn't managed to cough up the answers they needed.

"Why did he sabotage us?"

The Vandals made sure to grab his family members as well, so the man staked not only his own life, but everyone else he cared about as well. From what Ves had seen from his brief encounter with the family, they didn't appear to be a dysfunctional family either.

What brought a Vesian to risk damnation to everyone he cared about? Was it worth it to spite the Flagrant Vandals?

"I don't understand."

Was the hacker a patriot? Did he truly hold so much loyalty to his state that he didn't hesitate to risk everything he held dear?

"It's so stupid."

Perhaps he shared some of the blame as well. Though he kept a fairly keen eye on their actions, to the hackers it appeared that Ves only barely paid attention to them with his multitasking. If they thought they could get away with something, then his own behavior only encouraged them to go through.

In the end, nobody won. The hacker and his family would surely suffer a miserable fate because they directly crossed the Vandals. Captain Orfan couldn't afford to be lenient in this regard, not if they wanted to keep the two surviving hackers in line.

The Vandals also suffered a setback due to the uncertain condition of the mech in question. It happened to be a powerhouse of a knight mech, one of the few in the stables of the Dastardly Handsome Bastards that could endure a beating.

Every other mech of the former mercenary group served offensive of support roles, so they dearly needed a solid knight to protect their backline.

"Can this mech be recovered?"

Ves investigated it for a time, but quickly figured out that it possessed one of the most advanced security suites of the mechs in their possession. The knight mech must be one of the prestige mechs of the Bastards for it to be so stuffed with security measures.

"Damnit. That hacker must have bided his time until he began to work on this mech."

Captain Orfan and her band of shipwrecked Vandals already ran a threadbare operation in Neron City. The loss of a single mech severely impacted their chances to survive and complete their objectives. The amount of restraint they needed to adopt alone would set them back by as much as half.

Yet what could they do? Ves couldn't trust the remaining two Vesian hackers in their grasp and neither did he possess the ability to reverse the afflicted mech's condition.

In the end, Ves decided to punt the decision to the woman in charge. As soon as he contacted Captain Orfan through his comm, the woman looked back with a serious expression.

"I am already aware of what transpired. These Vesian slimes are willing to do everything they can to ingratiate themselves with the nobles. The hacker holed up in our holding cell must have thought to buy Lord Javier's favor. Hmph! He won't be receiving a good end, I can promise you that."

Ves brushed the fate of the hacker aside. He could care less about that worm right now. "That still leaves the question on what to do with the mech in question, ma'am. I'd hate to leave a knight mech unused, but in my professional judgement the risks of deploying it are substantial."

The script that the hacker had slipped in only contained a few lines of code, but they might have activated some traps embedded in the knight mech's programming. It could be anything from shutting off the mech in the middle of a pitched battle to breaching the containment around the cockpit and dumping loads of waste heat inside.