Chapter 13 Chapter 13 Unlocker.

"Just received a call from the cabin. Liang and Cheng worked together and have successfully regained control of the cabin."

"The cabin is secure."

Tao Ying nodded.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

The battle for the cabin is over.

But the battle in the cargo hold has just begun.

"The outside signal is still cut off. We can't ask for help from the outside world."

"Even if the command center discovered a navigation anomaly, it would be impossible to locate the starship's coordinates in a short period of time, let alone send rescue."

"Then we can only wait here."

"Not necessarily," Tao Ying lowered his head in thought. "I remember you said before that there were several smaller tremors before that huge one, right? Where did they come from?"

"It should be the top of the head, right? What's the problem with that?"

Tao Ying quickly called up the surveillance footage outside the starship.

A matte grey ejection track slowly extended out, and the mecha buffer recovery area appeared in front of everyone.

Because this starship was a converted old transport, many of the instruments were very old and broken—the screen was covered with vertical lines. Everyone could only barely make out a huge black instrument stuck to the deck of the buffer zone.

"What is this black thing?"

"Signal jammer." Tao Ying said simply, without stopping the operation with his hands.

"Signal jammer? No wonder we can't contact the outside world even after leaving the signal blind spot. How come these pirates are so well-equipped? Don't they usually just rob and run? Why go to so much trouble?"

Researcher Che felt like she was about to grow a brain. She grabbed her hair and made it into a bird's nest.

"Forget it, I can't figure it out. Anyway, the situation on the starship has been brought under control. It's still safe now. If we wait a little longer, the control center should notice something is wrong."

But the security lady obviously disagreed with this view.

"No, we can't wait. There must be more pirates than these."

"Huh? It's not over yet, but we've searched every corner of the starship."

"I'm not talking about the starship," the security lady shook her head. "I'm talking about their support personnel outside. They must have people in the surrounding star fields keeping watch. If these pirates are sharp enough, they should have noticed that something is wrong on the starship. Once they arrive, I'm afraid the problem won't be solved so easily. We can't just wait here, we have to contact support as soon as possible."

"And the efficiency of the dispatch center... I can't say for sure. There was a recent insect attack in the Second Galaxy, and the Star Police are already short-staffed. It's better to rely on the dispatch center to call for support than to rely on observatories in nearby systems to detect something amiss."

"It seems we still need to find a way to dismantle the signal jammer first."

To dismantle that big thing, you have to go through the mecha parking area and go to the mecha launch system.

Researcher Che proposed a solution.

"The mecha docking area of ​​this starship has been converted into a cargo hold. In other words, where we are now is the docking area."

"If you put on a space suit, you can ascend through the corridor bridge, pass through the middle sealed cabin, and then switch the deck to an open state to the outside, so that you can go outside the starship and remove the shielding device."

As he spoke, Researcher Che found two sets of space suits.

Tao Ying checked it and found that it was completely unusable because it was old and had poor airtightness.

Researcher Che gnashed his teeth in anger. "How did this starship pass safety inspections?! I want to complain!"

The security lady patted her shoulder.

"It's a remote galaxy. We'll just deal with it during the inspection, but we won't bother you until something goes wrong."

"Tsk, so this small place..."

"It's the same in the first galaxy, there's not much difference." Tao Ying said casually.

"How do you know if you haven't been to the First Galaxy?"

"I just have a little understanding of human nature. The reason there's so much trash on Garbage Planet isn't because the land here naturally grows trash."

"It's because the First Galaxy produced too much garbage."

Everyone:"……"

She sounded like she had some personal vendetta against the First System.

Tao Ying immersed herself in studying it.

The location of the shielding device is too tricky to be solved by technical means.

She shrugged and concluded:

"There's nothing else I can do. I can only try to get Hengwo out and destroy the signal jammer first."

Anyway, the fuel has just been filled up and the detour program has been written.

"Who's going to open it then? We're missing an energy core, and my mental strength requirement is A."

"A second-level pilot has boarded the ship before, and he is on his way now." Tao Ying flipped through the records.

"His name is Cheng Yan. I think he can give it a try."

Just come.

A long leg stepped into the cockpit.

The young man lowered his head and entered the hatch.

Pilots always have a special temperament that comes from training. Even a second-level pilot can be seen to be different from ordinary citizens.

This person must have quite a lot of experience in operating computers.

Tao Ying rubbed her fingers on the tablet twice, as if thinking about something.

Following the pilot was a middle-aged man wearing metal glasses, seemingly exhausted from the climb. This must be the Lao Liang we'd heard from earlier.

Lao Liang wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. Facing the slightly crowded cockpit, he hesitated and asked, "Who was the one I just spoke to...?"

"I."

Tao Ying half-sat on the chair and turned around.

Her hair was wet and her face was very pale. The light brain on her wrist was still sounding the alarm, but her eyes were very calm, as if she was accustomed to her physical condition.

"You... are the one who unlocked it?"

Such a weak student?

Lao Liang couldn't believe it.

In his imagination, the pilot of the perceptual mecha, even if he wasn't very strong, should at least be a healthy person.

The student's face was so pale that if you didn't look closely, you'd mistake her for the ghost character from "Space Ghost VI." She looked frail and sickly, and the driver's seat looked like a wheelchair.

It feels like as soon as you start, you will be pushed back so hard that your bones will be broken.

Are you sure it is really Hengwo who unlocked it?

…

"What does unlocker mean?" asked the security lady.

This matter was originally an internal secret of Baishi Industry and should not be disclosed to others, but the situation was urgent and there was no time to worry about it. Lao Liang explained, "Only a specific person can activate the Hengwo. We call them 'unlockers.'"

"Huh? A mecha that recognizes its master by dropping blood?"

"This is a long story, and I can't explain the principle, but you can understand it this way... If Researcher Tao Ying were still alive, he might be able to explain it... Sigh."

Tao Ying: “…” Although researcher Tao Ying is still alive, she herself can’t quite explain it.

I do have a biometric permission restriction module, but Tao Ying did not inject any strange user data into it, nor did he lock the permissions.

She didn't know where the unlocker, SPIRAL, came from.

But since she didn't do it, there must be other reasons.

Tao Ying leaned forward and asked, "Is this the security module added by Bai's Industries?"

Lao Liang shook his head. "No. Our core technical staff is quite old-school and doesn't advocate tampering with the mental power module. So, we only modified the components damaged by the high temperature, and kept the rest as they were. This, you may not understand, if the code passed down by the predecessors is still functional, never tamper with it on your own..."

She understands this principle very well.

Tao Ying was filled with regret.

Thanks to the steady style of Bai's Industry, she was able to debug the energy core so smoothly today.

But that's even more strange. Since they didn't change it, where did this mental power module come from?

Bug caused by incomplete data transmission?

Tao Ying was still thinking, but the security lady was already getting impatient.

"No matter what the principle is, it's real as long as it works. Then who unlocked it?"

"It's her." The second-level pilot pointed at Tao Ying.

"she?"

The security lady looked incredulous.

"Does she look like she can drive a mecha? She can even get dizzy when she's riding a rocking car."

Tao Ying pondered for a moment, but didn't deny the security lady's words. "Yes, I was riding in a car at Shamat Star before. Because I looked so pale, an 80-year-old woman offered her seat to me. After I politely refused, her granddaughter forcibly tied me to the seat and only let me go when I got off the bus."

"Is this true?"

"Fake."

“…”

"I was just kidding, don't be so serious."

“It doesn’t look fake.”

"You guessed right! It's indeed based on a true story," Tao Ying nodded seriously. "I'm not in good health, and I have almost... no piloting experience. I'm not really suited to piloting a mecha. Let's let Pilot Cheng Yan take the test first."

"OK." "No problem." "Agree."

No one denied this view. Although Lao Liang repeatedly popularized the concept of unlockers, compared to the thin-armed and thin-legged Tao Ying, everyone obviously felt that Cheng Yan was more suitable for Kai Hengwo.

"Then... there's no other way."

Cheng Yan straddled his long legs and sat in the driver's seat.

Cheng Yan placed his hand on the biometric panel, and a green scanning line swiped across. Everyone held their breath and waited, but a moment later, an error window popped up on the screen.

[WARNING: SPIRAL permission not recognized.]

"careful!"

Above Cheng Yan's head, a bunch of electronic transparent tentacles hung down, trying to attack him.

Cheng Yan crawled down from the driver's seat.

The tentacles saw him leave and did not chase him, but slowly retracted.

"This? What is this?!"

"Psychic tentacles?"

"I heard that people with S+ psychic powers can condense their psychic power into tentacles to interfere with other people's minds... But isn't that just a legendary concept? I always thought it was an artistic description, but it turns out it really exists?"

"Heng, I'm a sentient mecha. Its psychic module can simulate the attacking form of tentacles. But you're also right. For humans, 'psychic tentacles' is indeed an artistic description. I've never heard of human psychic power being able to produce physical tentacles."

"What I did was actually a digital simulation. It looked like tentacles, but it was actually an attack on the human brain, a digital mental attack."

The security lady summarized the key points.

"Anyway, does that mean he's not allowed to pilot this mecha?"

Lao Liang said helplessly: "That's why I told you that you need an unlocker..."

"Why don't we try with someone else? I always feel..."

Everyone's eyes were fixed on Tao Ying, and they all had a look of distrust.

Tao Ying spread his hands.

She doesn't want to be an unlocker, okay?

Researcher Che volunteered and raised his hand.

"Let me try."

She placed her hand on the identification panel, and after a flash of light, the mental tentacles did not attack her. Instead, they slowly reached under Researcher Che's buttocks and lifted her steadily to the side.

Researcher Che was sweating profusely, with a gleam in his eyes.

"Hengwo, you really still love me."

Tao Ying: “…”

I've been told to watch less of the Spark Science series, but I still lack self-awareness.

The security lady pulled everyone into the driver's seat and tried it once, but the result was - nothing worked.

I refuse everyone's driving.

The only difference is whether they are driven down forcefully or gently.

It seems that there is no way to bypass the permissions. Although many people do not trust the term "unlocker", there is no other way.

Everyone's eyes turned to Tao Ying.

Tao Ying: “…”

She glanced at her optical computer assistant.

Heart rate:65.

Status: Fat burning.

Health advice: Seek medical attention immediately.

“…”

This matter, it’s not that she doesn’t want to go.

The main reason is that my physical condition does not allow it.

"How about you try again?"

Ten minutes later.

Several employees with B+ mental strength lay on the ground.

Tao Ying raised her eyes and looked at the culprit - the mental tentacles above her head.

She didn't know if it was her illusion, but the moment he "made eye contact" with her, the mental tentacles seemed to shrink.

Everyone's eyes turned to——

"Okay, okay, I get it." Tao Ying raised her hands in surrender helplessly.

Then she would try it first, just in case it didn't work.

Tao Ying sat in the driver's seat, put his hand close to the identification panel, and after a quick scan, an electronic voice announced "SPIRAL authority has been identified."

Three seconds, just three seconds, it passed the permission check.

The mental tentacles pushed Tao Ying towards the driver's seat, and a micro data needle pierced into the back of his neck.

【Positioning completed, scanning started.】

[Neural connection activated, please do not leave the connection. 10% - 30% - 90% - 100%, SPIRAL access has been accepted.]

[Resonance index 0.2, compatibility index 0.4, neural synchronization rate 80%, good connection.]

[Energy system, operating normally. Adjusting adaptation parameters - adjustment completed.]

[This machine is fully ready and awaiting your instructions.]

【——Welcome back, SPIRAL. 】

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Where dreams begin.