After spending more time with Gloriana in a day than ever before, Ves retired to a guest room set aside for him on the Ster Chaser. When Ves entered thepartment with Nitaa and Lucky, he immediately noticed that Gloriana added a few touches.


    The luxurious room exuded a grand and ptial atmosphere with its white interior and itsrge, traditional bed. It made Ves feel as if he entered a luxury hotel suite. The only weirdness about the room was that it featured numerous images and projections rted to Gloriana!


    Gloriana designing a mech. Gloriana performing research on an exotic. Gloriana graduating from university. Gloriana ying happily with Clixie on Scimitar II. No matter where Ves directed his gaze, Gloriana was everywhere!


    Acting upon a hunch, Ves looked upward, only to see a huge portrait of Gloriana staring straight down on him! Though the portrait looked incredibly artful and aesthetically-pleasing, Ves did not relish going to sleep with Gloriana’s giant face staring down at him all the time!


    Ves grimaced even deeper when he recalled that this was her ship. If she was obsessive enough to sprinkle the guest room with her images, then she definitely bugged every surface!


    Maybe travelling aboard her ship hadn’t been such a great idea after all.


    "Alright, Nitaa. Let’s sweep the room. Sorry Gloriana, but I still like my privacy. Don’t me me if I have to wreck your guest room."


    Though Gloriana wasn’t present in the room, he knew for certain that she was listening in. He didn’t need to rely on his intuition to determine that he was being observed.


    He activated his jammer while sending Nitaa and Lucky to sweep the guest room. While his bodyguard failed to detect anything with her armor’s inbuilt sweeper, Lucky continually managed to detect and neutralize the tiny bugs buried under practically every surface!


    Gloriana probably expected that he only had ess to third or second-ss anti-surveince tech. Unfortunately for her, Lucky assimted tons of CFA tech, and while a bit outdated, was still more than capable enough to defeat her best spying tools!


    Lucky didn’t even need to break too much in order to disable the bugs. His body turned intangible and only briefly solidified a w to destroy the tiny bugs without affecting any other systems.


    "That’s new." Ves observed with surprise.


    "Meow!" Lucky proudly swished his tail.


    Evidently, eating the P-stone had refined his spiritual abilities and improved his spirituality. Not only could Lucky maintain his intangible state for a longer period of time, he also gained more control over his power!


    Ves frowned at Lucky while his cat continued to hunt down bugs as if he was chasing after mice.


    "Should I eat a P-stone?"


    He shook his head and rid himself of this ridiculous notion. Even if his digestive system had been modified by a crazy exiled exobiologist, he couldn’t digest minerals like a gem cat.


    He still glowered enviously at Lucky. The only way for him to grow his Spirituality at this time was by developing his design philosophy.


    As for Lucky, it appeared that all he needed to do was to eat lots of spiritually-reactive exotics!


    How unfair!


    Of course, Ves didn’t seriously believe that he was disadvantagedpared to his own cat. They just grew my different means. Whereas Lucky’s growth depended on an ever-increasing amount of rare and expensive exotics, Ves could basically continue to advance all the way to Master while designing the cheapest mechs.


    He decided to busy himself by deactivating all of the projectors and screens depicting Gloriana. The jamming device already disabled the bulk of them, but they would quickly return to normal once the interference ended. It was better for him to disable them before he turned crazy!


    Some time passed until Lucky finally deactivated all of the bugs. Ves was worried if Gloriana or a crew member of the Ster Chaser would knock on his door, but evidently it was no big deal to sabotage the monitoring system in his own room.


    Ves sat on the surface of the bed and let down some of his guard. He still kept the jammer active, though.


    "Alright, I think we can speak freely now. What are your thoughts, Nitaa?"


    His bodyguard took a few seconds topose her answer.


    "I’ve kept my nose active ever since we stepped aboard this ship. No one carries a suspicious scent. As for my observations, I have not detected anything amiss. While I’m not confident enough to clear Gloriana, her assistant and her guards of suspicion, I see no cause for rm."


    "That’s good to hear."


    While Ves would have liked to trust Gloriana, he was still a paranoid person by nature. Until he ruled out that Gloriana was a spy for the Compact or one of the Big Two, he would refrain from sharing anything sensitive to her. The stakes were simply too high!


    "Gloriana definitely has some ties to the MTA." He spoke. "It’s fine if the rtionship is shallow. If it turns out that she is spying on their behalf, then... we won’t be an item anymore."


    "It will be difficult to prove or disprove this possibility. Even if she’s a spy, she won’t leave any incriminating evidence within reach."


    He smirked. "Within reach of normal people, perhaps. I doubt she knows what Lucky is capable of. Isn’t that right, buddy?"


    "Meow!"


    "You know what to do."


    Lucky pressed a paw against his cor, causing him to turn invisible. His disappearing form also phased through the deck as he became intangible.


    With his phasing power and his Miniaturized Stealth Generator, he gainedplete and undetected ess to the Ster Chaser for five minutes at a time!


    While five minutes didn’t sound like much, the Ster Chaser wasn’t a veryrge ship. As long as Lucky knew where to go, he could easily infiltrate anypartment and utilize his CFA hacking capabilities to steal lots of data!


    The entire reason why Ves agreed to ept his girlfriend’s invitation to stay aboard her ship was to ess her systems! Before he was willing to progress their rtionship any further, he needed to ay his suspicions!


    Was he a bad boyfriend for going behind her back this way? Perhaps. He didn’t care, though. After finding out about Gavin’s double loyalties, he no longer took anyone’s loyalty and sincerity for granted.


    A bit more than five minutester, Lucky phased through the bulkhead and reappeared in the guest room.


    "Meow meow."


    "Come here and let me take your data."


    Lucky fell onto hisp while Ves drew out a high-capacitym from his pocket. He connected it to Lucky and downloaded all of the raw data that his pet collected.


    If the cat followed his instructions, then Ves obtained some of the contents of the Ster Chaser’s databanks as well as Gloriana’s personalm.


    "Did you find anything special or incriminating in your brief search?"


    "Meow."


    "Nothing at all?"


    "Meow meow."


    Though Lucky only caught a brief glimpse of her stateroom and her possessions, she didn’t hide anything too weird. Ves felt a bit relieved, but still resolved to send out Lucky multiple more times as soon as he was ready to go on another infiltration run.


    Once his high capacitym downloaded all of the data, he began to spend the entire night to browse its contents. Skipping a night of sleep wasn’t a big deal to him, and he needed lots of time to skim over the mountains of data that Lucky managed to retrieve.


    He first inspected the contents of herm. Though she made sure to encrypt all of the data inside, Lucky already defeated it beforehand.


    Lucky retrieved a lot ofmunication logs and mech design files.


    He decided to skim over hermunications first. She talked a lot to her mother, her father and some of her other rtives. Aside from that, she asionally talked to someone in the MTA, her mentor and some of her industry contacts in the Hegemony.


    Ves didn’t dig in too deeply in her discussions. He only kept his eye out for anything that signalled that she had ulterior motives in trying to pursue a rtionship with him. If she was truly a spy, then he needed to find out now before it was toote.


    He failed to find anything incriminating. Instead, hermunications mostly concerned mundane business and design activities. Her talks with her mother were very illuminating. He yed out one clip.


    "...but mother, I really do love him! It’s not a passing fancy!..."


    "...Mr. Larkinson is a fine young man, but he is beneath your notice. There are much more qualified boys waiting for you at home..."


    "...I don’t care about their backgrounds, their positions or their wealth! None of them understand mechs the way that Ves and I do! The two of us are destined to be together!..."


    "...Be mindful of Operation K, Gloriana. The schedule is..."


    Operation K?


    Ves searched for this term among all of the data he collected. Hism returned with a few more scattered mentions.


    He was worried that this so-called ’Operation K’ referred to a deliberate spying or seduction attempt on him. Fortunately, after reading the context behind all of the mentions, he realized it had nothing to do with him. It instead referred to a major move within the Hegemony. The entire Wodin Dynasty was involved.


    Though Ves tried his best to figure out more, Gloriana and her mother Constance had always been careful when mentioning it over their calls.


    "Well, at least it doesn’t have anything to do with me." He shrugged.


    Ves noted that she asionally talked with some old friends in the Hegemony. Their discussions yielded nothing useful as they only discussed shallow matters or exchanged gossip that only pertained to Hexer high society.


    "Useless prattle."


    Finding nothing incriminating in themunication logs, he diverted his attention to the documents and other files she stored on herm. He nced through her design schematics, finding each and everyone of them to be remarkable.


    "I shouldn’t peek too much at her work. It’s better if she exins them to me in person."


    Ves did not wish to spoil such moments, so he quickly dismissed them after he checked that her files did not carry any secret messages.


    Aside from some irrelevant junk, Ves also stumbled across arge stash of footage and recordings... of him. His face immediately became grave as he counted an ufortablyrge amount of files.


    "This crazy woman!"


    He did not feel any desire to inspect this data any further!


    He dismissed the contents of herm and decided to dive in the Ster Chaser’s databanks. He checked the navigation logs and noted that the ship hadn’t been traveling anywhere weird. He also dug into some other files and logs.


    Ships stored and processed a lot of data. So much so that his high-capacitym wouldn’t be able to store all of it. Even if it did, Ves wouldn’t be able to make sense of much of the data anyway.


    Nheless, the sample that Lucky retrieved did not reveal anything interesting at all. Lucky copied all of the files that Ves instructed his cat to retrieve beforehand. He had an easier time studying the Ster Chaser’smunication logs, cargo manifests, passenger movement and other understandable documents.


    None of them revealed anything incriminating.


    Several hours passed before Ves finished skimming over all of the data. He breathed a little bit easier as he hadn’t found a smoking gun that signified that Gloriana intended anything nefarious to him. All the files he essed so far proved that she was really who she said she was, a prominent Hexer and a capable Journeyman Mech Designer.


    Ves nced at the time and knew that the local night was well underway.


    "It’s time."


    Ves first wiped all of the files stored in the high-capacitym before putting it away. He then changed his clothes beforeying down on his bed.


    Instead of falling to sleep, he concentrated his mind. A spiritual projection invisible to anyone but him started to emerge from his mind.


    essing his girlfriend’s files andmunication logs didn’t satisfy him. If he truly wanted to discover her true nature, then there was no better way than to ess her mind directly!