Chapter 334: New Alien Species
Jace waited until they were moving toward the exit and the two guards had moved to either exit in the room. Guarding to no doubt make sure the dwarf did not make a run for it. They did not have to have one for the main door since there were a number of guards already gathered there.
Jace stood and moved over to the Dwarf while still invisible. Jace then grinned when he saw the Dwarf glance over at him as he walked over. So he leaned against the railing while looking at the Dwarf. Jace then turned his external volume down to a whisper. "How can you see me? Some type of special sight or something else that normal humans cannot see?"
"Aye, Dwarves are an underground species, our eyesight adapted to see things in the dark. These bright lights are actually pretty annoying. But a bonus is that we can see when something is shimmering, like say for instance a cloak of invisibility. What are you using reflective plating? We Dwarves usually use gravity for invisibility cloaking. Never thought to bring it down to a person’s level." The Dwarf answered with a quiet whisper.
"Shielding adapted to absorb and reflect light. Reflective plating is flawed because it requires too much power and even then our wiring causes it to flicker infrequently. We have only begun to play with gravity based invisibility cloaking." Jace informed the Dwarf with a chuckle.
"Hmm... shielding tech huh... we have been struggling with finding a suitable power source for years. But the trick with reflective plating is to just have it over a metal source so the electricity naturally spreads out. Interesting but it is not useful for combat and still gets the shimmers." The Dwarf nodded. "How did you figure you could use gravity for an invisibility cloak?"
"There was an ancient Xenar outpost that had accidentally been turned invisible because of a collapsed star. I figured out it was because of the reaction between gravity." Jace informed the Dwarf.
"Ha... lucky. Dwarves had to collapse a whole system by accident to figure that out." The Dwarf chuckled.
"We did that too." Jace answered, causing the Dwarf to blink and then roar with laughter.
Which caused one of the guards to walk over and call up to the Dwarf. "Is there anything wrong?"
"Nay, ye overbearing pansy!" The Dwarf called down while holding his midsection while calming down. "I just thought of something funny. Now bugger on back to yur door!" The guard grunted and walked back to his position. "Now what brings you here? Sabotage?"
"Yes, but it sounds like you owe the new pilot of this mech your life." Jace pointed out as he moved around to the other side of the Dwarf. Looking for a good spot to start.
"Indeed. He is a good lad, he is. Hopes to turn the Republic around, apparently has no qualms about nonhuman races. Hates slavery and I saw his file by accident once. He has been reprimanded throughout his short military career because he won’t fit the mold. Hell. They even fought me when I told them I would only make a mech for my savior." The Dwarf quietly chuckled. "But they needed a new Titan-Class and I knew I could key it so only the kid could pilot it. Are you planning to kill him?"
"No, just sabotage the mech. Hope you do not mind. It sounded like you did not like this thing to begin with." Jace pointed out as he found a potential weak spot on the mech.
"Aye, I do hate it. Hell, I will give you the Schemies if you want them." The Dwarf agreed.
"No need, I can just get a more exact one by touching the mech." Jace told him as he moved to the other side of the railing preparing to jump onto the mech. "Now you may want to run off. I have to sabotage this and then sometime tomorrow I will probably be coming back to this base in a much bigger fashion."
The Dwarf grunted and almost waved as he walked away but instead decided to shake his head. "What a waste of good metal."
Jace grinned under his helmet as he quietly moved to the mech and began reading the schematic in his mind. Once he saw it he moved to the weak points he found. Being careful to make sure the pilot’s cabin would not be destroyed by his sabotage. After a few minutes he had planted the explosives on the mech.
Most of the bombs were hidden inside of the joints of the machine. All so they would not be found unless someone did a thorough search of the mech. It was clear that the mech had some weak points that were unavoidable. Which is why the Dwarf was upset with the design in the first place.
The Dwarf had probably realized that Jace was part of an enemy nation. But he likely did not care which was why he did not point him out. It was a risk for Jace to trust the Dwarf whose race Jace had never heard of before. But it was one that Jace was willing to take. Jace had some good luck with meeting new races so far. Hopefully his luck continued to hold out.
Once Jace was done the majority of the guards had cleared out so he walked to the front hanger door where a pair of guards were still stationed. They were the last people in the building. But they were too relaxed as they looked around lazily.
Jace walked right past them. The street had already gotten much quieter and was not busy in the least. There was a vehicle coming by every few minutes now. So he walked across it and arrived at one of the other warehouses. He focused for a moment and saw the electricity. Now that he was close enough he could check without worrying about the stray electricity in the air.
Unfortunately this warehouse did not have the mech. Instead it had a number of parts and pieces of machines. Jace looked to his right at the last four warehouses. Hopefully it was still here and had not yet been moved.