The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

The Dominion of Man continued to sputter as her crew became increasingly more confused and distrustful of each other.

The dreadnought was undeniably strong, but one of her most important flaws was that her strength came from many different sources.

Her size, her cutting-edge technologies, the huge amount of parts and systems that made up her functions, the elite spacers and marines that crewed the ship, the Brain Trust as well as two separate True Gods all combined their advantages together to form the most powerful warship in the Red Ocean.

Yet for all of the magnificent combinations, the fact that many of these contributors were individually weak or vulnerable to mental manipulation meant that they fell victim to the mirror beast's domain.

Many of the advantages that the Dominion of Man enjoyed either became neutralized or turned into dangers.

It was a sad state of affairs when the fleeters serving on the dreadnought no longer dared to trust any of their fellow comrades anymore. Too much blood had been spilled, and the worst part about it was that many of them had been killed by their fellow brothers and sisters!

While the killing subsided when Dread Captain Argile decided to adopt a more restrained approach, that still left the Dominion of Man with a very big problem.

The ship became increasingly more paralyzed!

"Contact!"

"Fire a probing shot!"

"The designated missile launcher array has failed to obey our instructions. The officer in charge… is doubting the legitimacy of our orders."

"Alert! Launcher 65B has just fired an experimental FEH-645Z torpedo at the target."

"The torpedo has struck the target… INCOMING!"

The Dominion of Man shook as a dozen of exceptionally powerful transphasic hyper gamma rays sprayed across her azure energy shields.

The amplified attacks struck with so much energy that the energy shields strained to remain intact after getting struck by the reflected beams generated by the experimental torpedo!

"Who gave those orders?!" Dread Captain Volkert Argile demanded. "Project Cooked Goose should never have been retrieved from its vault!"

"You did… captain." A communications officer reluctantly said. "According to the commander in charge, you personally issued the command and transmitted the right authorization codes over the ship's network."

The dread captain's body almost froze despite the fire energy coursing through his body and equipment.

The mirror beast was improving!

With each second that passed by, the creature became more familiar with the humans it tormented. The very thought that this alien beast somehow managed to steal memories of classified research projects and other secrets that must never spread outside human ears frightened the dread captain!

"Initiate communications lockdown! Instruct the relevant departments to follow all prior orders and instructions relating to our superweapons and our experimental projects."

"Sir, if we continue to restrict our crew, our ship will not be able to defend herself anymore! There is no guarantee that the mirror beast will remain content to harass us from a distance."

The dread captain gritted his teeth. "We cannot afford to get engulfed by chaos. We need to restore order, and we cannot do that by letting people act on their own initiative or become the unwitting pawn of our enemy."

The mirror beast was not an enemy that the dreadnought was equipped to fight. The creature was too formless and deceptive.

Its abilities were frightening, and if it was able to bring a ship as powerful as the Dominion of Man to her knees, then every other ship of the Red Fleet stood no chance against its terror!

The best way to fight against an unconventional opponent was to resort to other unconventional methods.

Yet as Dread Captain Argile turned to the three Vesses, all he received from them was confusing and conflicting advice.

Which Ves could he trust?

The answer remained unclear! Each of the three Vesses sounded reasonable, yet each of them also recommended different courses of action that completely contradicted each other.

Argile would have loved it if two of the fakes eventually turned on the crew by launching brazen attacks, but the mirror beast was too clever to end its deception.

So long as the false Vesses continued to drown out the real Ves, the latter effectively became neutralized!

How long would it take for the mirror beast to copy Volkert Argile himself?

Once multiple dread captains showed up, the cohesion of his entire crew would definitely collapse and splinter into pieces!

Even though the Red Fleet had drafted many hypothetical contingency plans in the event that a part of the crew became compromised, none of them dealt with a scenario as bad as this predicament!

As word of greater casualties, unauthorized actions and outright sabotage reached the dread captain's ears, the man was just about ready to activate an emergency measure that would drastically increase the automation of the Dominion of Man!

This was a cumbersome procedure and required the approval of many officers spread throughout the ship. It would put many crew members out of play, but it would also prevent these confused people from causing any further harm.

The only problem was that letting the Brain Trust take charge of so many vital functions was an imperfect solution.

While the Brain Trust had yet to show any signs that it had been compromised, the fact that it relied on data to guide its many actions remained a persistent vulnerability.

The mirror beast only had to project falsehoods directly into the sensors of the ship to subvert the entire dreadnought!

As Dread Captain Argile came closer to enacting this emergency measure, another True God finally rose up in resistance against the nefarious god beast!

"Enough of this!" Caramond indignantly spoke. "Children of humanity, you are better than this! The aliens have always loved to sow division among our ranks, but their plots and schemes have always failed because we are always able to unite when it counts! This god beast is good at imitating your fellow humans, but the creature cannot replicate anything! For all of its ability to copy your memories, the monster is unable to reproduce your earnest faith and belief in the supremacy of the human race! Pray to me and accept my guidance!"

One of the three Vesses lit up after the ancestral spirit chose to intervene.

"That is a fantastic idea! The god beast may be able to imitate practically everything, but I don't think he will be able to replicate faith energy produced from earnest belief in a concept that is completely alien and unfamiliar to the tribulation manifestation. We should try it and let Caramond sort out the true humans from the false ones in our midst."

Another Ves strongly disagreed with this suggestion. "Don't put your faith in Caramond. He is just as susceptible to the manipulation of the mirror beast as us mortals. He might be thinking that he is doing the right thing, but his mistaken judgment will lead to serious casualties. Trusting him is a fool's errand!"

"Maybe you should give this plan a try, but only on a smaller scale. We need to be prudent and avoid jumping the gun. There is no proof that Caramond is capable of making good on his claims." A third Ves cautiously spoke.

While the false Vesses had attempted to muddle up the advice from the real Ves, Dread Captain Argile did not need their advice to make his own decision.

Just because the Red Fleet was still new to the concept of cooperating alongside spirits and gods did not mean he was slow to adapt. He immediately opened a ship-wide communication channel.

"Do as Caramond has said! His instruction will not do us any harm, and if it works, then we can finally regain control over our own ship. Remember who you are! We are better than this! We are the spacers of the Red Fleet, and we uphold the pride of red humanity!"

Many people did as instructed. It helped that they had already prayed or thought about Caramond a short time ago. Many people looked towards the nearest artworks that depicted the hero of mankind in many different settings.

It did not matter that they were born and raised as secularists among the spaceborn clans. Each intelligent being was intrinsically capable of producing faith even if they did not engage in any explicit religious ceremonies.

They just had to be earnest enough in their devotion to bestow a tiny amount of energy that possessed the power to reshape everything to the subject in their mind.

Caramond was already harvesting a huge amount of faith from the general population, but that did not mean he lost the ability to pay closer attention to individual worshipers.

It was especially easy for the recently born ancestral spirit to focus his attention on the fleeters who were physically close. The fact that many of these men and women had formed Bloodfire Pacts with the Dominion of Man also made it easier to tap into their faith.

Even though the mirror beast had intensified its cruel and deadly games on the crew, the fleeters doggedly persisted in their prayers.

Soon enough, the most devoted among the spacers began to gain a white corona.

Each of them had proven their earnest belief and conviction in the human race to pass Caramond's test.

The ancestral spirit chose to mark the people that supplied their faith to him by lending out a measure of his power.

Aside from the lightshow, Caramond's intervention did not do anything else. The affected fleeters did not become smarter, stronger or gain any supernatural abilities.

Then again, they had no need to borrow any power beyond the reach of mortals.

They only needed to prove their humanity.

As more and more humans began to gain Caramond's blessing, the ones that looked as if they were preying, yet failed to receive a response began to look increasingly out of place.

A lot of fleeters felt increasingly more confident and in control now that they gained a reliable means to determine who was loyal among the crowd.

The holdouts who failed to follow suit started to look increasingly more suspicious. The fleeters glowing in white glared at their fellow 'humans' who tried so hard yet failed to produce any honest faith in the destiny of their own race.

Surprisingly enough, the suspicious individuals were still 'real' enough to produce actual faith energy.

Caramond was able to harvest it if he wished. The faith was also remarkably close to the ones produced by genuine humans.

Unfortunately, an imitation could never completely replicate the real deal. While the mirror beast was able to copy substances such as phasewater with so few flaws that no one was able to discern the differences, that did not take away from the fact that discrepancies still existed.

Caramond may be new at this game, but he was the very embodiment of human supremacy. The very concept that he was based upon was inherently more difficult for an alien beast to fully comprehend!

The mirror beast might be able to fool the likes of Furia by imitating belief in the power of fire. The elemental concept was a lot more universal and did not come with an annoying relation to a specific species.

However, Caramond happened to be the right spirit for the right job!

As enough time passed by for anyone who possessed even the slightest actual human bone in their body to earn Caramond's acknowledgment, the fate of many exposed decoys became sealed.

Back in the command center, Ves and Blinky stared furiously at their copies who lacked a bright white corona.

"I hope there is no confusion anymore about which of us are real." Ves stated with repressed anger.

"Mrow!" Blinky echoed.

"I believe that you are the real person that is responsible for transforming our ship." Dread Captain Argile spoke from his command seat.

"Good. Let me beat up these false versions of myself. These obnoxious bastards are annoying as hell! I won't be satisfied until I squeeze out every lie from their fake and illusionary bodies!"