Ves trusted in Lucky's ability to remain hidden. The cat had become way too good at sneaking into places where he shouldn't be in. While the Scarlet Rose was much more advanced than all of the other places he had broken in, the cat possessed too many advantages in this regard!
For now, Ves did not dare to instruct Lucky to hack the Scarlet Rose's network or tap into its quantum entanglement node to send a message to Gloriana and his people.
The moment Aisling found out that Ves possessed the capability to communicate with the outside galaxy, she would surely strip him of his privileges and throw him straight into the brig!
Though Ves wanted to take it slow, he knew that delaying his hijacking attempt would only increase the difficulty of returning home!
Taking over the Scarlet Rose was just the first step! He still had to leave the Friday Coalition, so it would be best if he escaped before the ship crossed into its borders!
That meant that his actual time limit was much less! Ves estimated that the Scarlet Rose would probably enter into Coalition space in around two weeks!
If he failed to hijack the ship until then, then he would have a lot more problems on his hands!
He needed to do everything possible to hasten his preparations. Aside from waiting for Lucky, he also resorted to other means to increase his understanding of the Scarlet Rose.
One example of this was by taking advantage of the library in his quarters.
"These books are quite good." He murmured as he leaned back on his chair while flipping page after page.
He currently studied an advanced programming textbook. While its contents were most relevant to mechs, the programming language it taught just happened to be common enough to be used in many ships as well!
Learning how to hack or subvert the programming of the Scarlet Rose was essential to taking it over! Though it was impossible for him to access her systems on his own, so long as he had Lucky, he was confident he could circumvent most of the safeguards and tap into her core systems!
This wasn't enough to guarantee a successful takeover, though. He dabbled in other textbooks as well. For example, he deepened his understanding of power reactors in order to find some way to sabotage and disable the ship's central power reactor.
As Lucky occasionally came back and covertly displayed the data he gathered, Ves ascertained what he needed to do in order to subvert the ship.
He identified three core areas which he needed to control.
First, he needed to lock down the bridge and prevent the captain and the bridge crew from controlling the vessel.
Second, he needed to secure the engineering compartment in order to grasp the crucial power reactor and FTL drive.
Ves could not afford to allow anyone to damage these two critical ship components! As long as the engineers thrashed either of them, the Scarlet Rose would become stranded in space!
Therefore, Ves not only had to take control of engineering, but also neutralize the engineers before they could do any damage!
The third area that Ves needed to control was the security compartment, which also served as the armory. While the Scarlet Rose did not employ a lot of spacers, she still possessed a crew complement of fifty people, of which fifteen of them consisted of guards and security officers!
Ves not only had to grasp the entire security compartment, but also neutralize the armed personnel before they could take up arms and launch a counterattack!
Of course, that did not mean the rest of the crew were harmless. Each of them posed a risk to his takeover attempt. With their expertise and access to the systems of the ship, they could easily cut off his access by sabotaging crucial communication lines or something.
Aside from taking over these three areas, Ves also had to disable every independent safeguard. Lucky's surveys revealed that each compartment contained an independent security system that would automatically activate as soon as something went wrong!
Ves could not afford to ignore these small and isolated security systems! He had to sabotage or tamper with each and every one of them lest they blew up when he walked through a corridor or something!
"What a headache!"
Yet the more formidable the ship, the more Ves wanted to claim her for himself! The Scarlet Rose would serve as an excellent mobile workplace for him if he was on the move! She was pretty much a miniature version of a factory ship but in a much smaller and more convenient package!