A Little Less Conversation... A Little More Hyperdrive, Please!

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

THE PLANET
V O S S
VOSS-KA SPACEPORT

She may not look like much but...

Yeah, she was a piece of chit.

He'd scalped her off a card shark in a game of sabaac on Lothal, after crashing into the planet on the run from the Empire. No, not the Sith Empire. THE Empire. He'd made it all the way to Ossus before he'd discovered that then was now now, and now was... well, nine hundred years from when he thought it was supposed to be. It was a Corellian ship, the kind so ordinary that Sor-Jan had boarded it on Lothal without ever thinking he was centuries into the future.

Maybe that was why he liked it, why he'd kept it. It was like going back in time. Oh, she'd been modified through the years. After all, this was a Corellian ship. And, after enough time, the modifications were like a domino effect. You weren't sure exactly what one did, but when it stopped working so did half the other ones.

The lattice work of jerry-rigging made the ship unreliable. Too unreliable for what he intended to do with it, which was sail it clear off the map. And that voyage alone was going to be a couple of months. Which meant the ship needed a complete overhaul. A labor-intensive task for which the boy had been procrastinating from the start.

Now, he had an aftermarket hyperdrive developed by Lucerne Labs, and a navicomputer branded by some kooked-out Mandalorian witch. Pairing just those two was likely to be the marriage from hell, and that was without integrating them into the native Corellian framework.

Squeezed into a maintenance compartment barely able to fit him, the small Anzat worked at connecting some of the basic electronics. Power. Emergency batteries. Diagnostics. Overhead, the BB unit could be heard wheeling around as it worked on translating, formatting, and then transferring data from the old navicomputer to the new.

With luck, the boy had some mates around. Because this was certainly more than a one kid job.

[member="Judah Dashiell"] | [member="Matsu Ike"]​

 

[Matsu Ike]

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

The Botany Bay was docked down at the temple, the ship was an impressive thing with some of her attention. She had developed the ship for several things but was here on Voss getting a few of the crops they few in it put into the storehouses. For food and all of the thing they had as she walked around. Some attention when she felt a familiar presence in the distance. The port where they were working until she came to the front end of the Alderaan Queen. She clasped her hands behind her back and spoke with a small looking at it while reaching out. "Knight Sor, are you inside?" She was working on some of the things but didn't want to bother him if he was busy or meditating.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

A dirty, disheveled brown head jutted up from out of the floor.

The whites of his eyes stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of him, the blue irises blinking as the boy found himself peering over the deck plates at a familiar Atrisian outlined in the doorway. "Oh, hey, Master Ike," the boy remarked by way of greeting.

Any other time, he'd have scrambled out to offer a proper welcome, except he was up to his elbows in power transfer conduits, data filament cabling, and a dozen other things... only half of which he could claim to have any understanding of. Had someone put a compressor on the back-up hyperdrive? Who the feth did that? Why the feth would someone do that?

...and how the holy terentatek poop was he supposed to UN-DO it?

"Come on in," the boy offered from beneath the floor. "I'm just workin' on the Queen's hyperdrive."

[member="Matsu Ike"]​

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The young clone had his arms full of wires and tubing.

He was trying to keep hold of the shifting mass while walking, carrying the trash pulled from out of the overhead toward the ramp so that it could be disposed of by the spaceport recycling authorities. A trail of springs, wiring, and plastic littered the ground behind him as the articles in his possession trickled out from his hands like sands in an hourglass. The result left an easy trail for anyone to follow, clearly mapping out the boy's path from the port side of the ship to the loading ramp on the opposite end of the small freighter.

People probably thought of Clone Troopers as just soliders, but actually sanitation was a big part of security. Trash left laying around gave an enemy potential places to hide, or resources to steal. Plus, a dirty ship wasn't very military. So while [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] was tearing the stuff out of the ship and discarding the old parts, Three was coming behind him and sweeping up.

Plus, Three only knew how to field strip and clean blasters. He didn't know any of this eng-a-man-eering stuff. He was a Clone Trooper. It was other people's job to know how to fix stuffs. Three's job was to shoot things, break things, and then shoot more things.

And keep a neat ship. Because a sharp military appearance was important to a Clone Trooper.

The load in his arms actually felt a lot lighter now, for some reason, but Three thought that he might be nearing the loading ramp. He wasn't actually sure, because he couldn't see. There was this big piece of opaque plastic tubing that was flopping up in his face and smacking him in the forehead every time he took a step. But, Three had patrolled the inside of the Queen enough that he could do it blindfolded.

A necessary skill in case the ship was blacked out and Three needed to get to the armory or some other part of the ship in an emergency.

Just as he was coming to the foot of the ramp, the boy encountered an wall. It was rather small for a wall, but bigger than he was. And squishy, so that it was more like running into a person than an actual wall.

Landing on his butt, the trash he was carrying spilling everywhere, the boy looked up to find himself staring up at some Jedi lady.

[member="Matsu Ike"]​

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The youngling fumbled with a connector in one hand, and a coupler in the other.

Did the coupler marry into the connector? Or did the connector go into the lower port? For that matter, what was this upper port? And what the hell was he supposed to do with this coupler?

One thing was certain, he wasn't doing anything without a J-type flange. Which, he thought he had another J-type flange in the parts bag that came with the new hyperdrive. But instead he had two K-types and a self-sealing stembolt that he had no idea what its purpose was supposed to be.

A muffled thud could be heard overhead, followed by the echo of a million things hitting the deck.

He knew because, being that he was down in the crawlspace, he got to hear each one in high-definition stereo surround sound. And then small bits of metal started raining down on his head. "Hey!" the boy protested, not entirely certain if it could be heard over the clang and clash of stuff dropping.

Seriously, people, he was trying to get some work done! [member="Matsu Ike"] wanted to talk and [member="3X744"] was making a mess, as per the usual. Shifting around in the small space, the young Anzat positioned himself to where he could stand up on his tip-toes, so that his head jutted out above the deck. He opened his mouth to give the two Noisy McNoisemakers a piece of his mind, when another part rolled from out of the stuff that Three had dropped toward the hole in the floor that Sor-Jan was standing in.

A J-type flange dropped from over the edge, right into the boy's waiting hand.

Beaming, the boy perked his head up to say a quick, "Thank you!" before it disappeared back under the floor so that he could get back to not knowing what he was doing.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Finding himself at the bottom of a wildly arrayed pile of trash, the young clone picked himself up.

Pulling a mass of cables and wiring to him, the youngling stood with a much more manageable pile of trash in his arms. Craning his head back, the boy looked up at [member="Matsu Ike"] as he said, "Sorry!"

Did she had authorization to be here? Was she cleared to access the Queen? What was her operating number?

These were the types of questions that the young Clone Trooper would usually have asked, along with demanding some identification. However, since he'd just plowed into the woman, he was willing to let it slide. This time.

If she tried to access his character files for World of Build-a-Bear Knights though, there'd be hell to pay. That was super top secret classified information. Plus, he wasn't finished leveling his Woobiee Berseker and was still playing around with specializing the talent tree into Czerka Arms. It wasn't ready for prime time yet.

Walking around the woman, the boy continued down the ramp so that he could deposit the trash into the container at the foot of the loading ramp. Then the boy could get back to the task of picking up all the other stuff that SJ was tearing apart.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Attach the J-type flange to the upper port.

Connector into the lower port.

Coupler into the J-type flange... Oh wait, how was he going to put a seal on that?

The boy snapped his fingers. Self-sealing stembolt. So THAT was what it was for. Except, now he had a bunch of litter covering the floor. Kneeling down, the young Anzat shifted through the debris until he'd uncovered the extra part that he'd been looking for. Standing on his knees in the crawlspace, the boy fitted the part over the coupler and the port it was married to, then watched as it clamped and closed the seal on its own.

At the same time, the equipment around him lit up as it was suddenly energized. Power from the main batteries bringing the hyperdrive core on-line for the first time. And, notably, without any explosions, flames, smoke, or other such indications that the boy had plugged the power into the wrong input. This bode well.

Jumping up, the small Anzat's palms hit the deck as he pushed him up so that he could crawl from out of the hole in the floor. Standing up on the deck, the youngling knight was a sight to behold. A walking pile of soot with a layer of grease smeared on him for good measure. As he looked up and smiled at [member="Matsu Ike"], the whites of his teeth stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of him. "I was just thinking about you actually," the boy offered by way of pleasantries. Crossing over toward the main computer interface, the boy looked over the parts that he'd set aside for the installation of the Clan Rekali navicomputer.

"I was thinking about putting one of your hushed caskets in the Med Bay," the boy remarked in explanation, turning to look back at the woman. "I think it would be a huge improvement over the current state of technology."

Especially since his 2-1B medical droid had quit after that little maneuver at Skye...

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

"Hushed casket?"

From the entryway off the ramp, the young Fett was looking at the small Jedi. His head tilted to one side, the expression on his face was at once both skeptical and confused. Putting anything in the Med Bay called a 'casket' just seemed... like... BAD. Major bad. Like bad idea, bad. And when SJ had a bad idea, it was a really bad idea.

Like, let's make a blind hyperspace jump with a leaking hyperdrive. What's the worst that could happen?

Nine hundred years. That's what.

In any event, the young Mandalorian made his way around the small Atrisian woman and leveled an accusatory finger toward the Beverage Buddy that was plugged into the autochef. "I dun care 'bout the Med Bay, but can we get rid of that?"

Seriously, who thought installing that was a good idea?

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Picking up the main body of the navicomputer, the boy had been about to start the install when the voice of the young clone caught his attention.

Get rid of that?

Get rid of what? Was it so hard for clones to speak clearly? Craning his head, the small Jedi leaned forward so that he could follow with his eyes just where the clone was pointing off to. What? What was that? The autochef? Why would they want to get rid of the...

...oh.

Oh, yeah. The Beverage Buddy. That totally had to go. Who in their right mind thought that putting that on the ship was a good idea in the first place?

Probably the same jackhole who'd put a compressor on the back-up hyperdrive.

"Yes," the youngling knight stated. Quite firmly as a matter of fact. "Yes, we can."

And then the boy went back to putting the navicomputer together. As in, in one piece. With the ship's main computer, preferably.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The clone's shoulders slumped, as though a great weight had suddenly been lifted from them.

"Thank the Force," the young Fett blurted aloud. That Beverage Buddy was his nemesis. Every morning, Three got a bowl of Toastios cereal from out of the autochef for breakfast. And what did you drink with a bowl of Toastios? Blue milk. That's what.

But did the Beverage Buddy give him blue milk? Nope. Caf. Black. Bitter. Disgusting. Caf.

Every morning, like clockwork.

He wanted a glass of Kool-Aid? He got water. Just plain water. Not even some lemon!

Soda?

We don't want to talk about what the Beverage Buddy had come up with when Three had tried to get a soda. It had been viscous, foul, and he'd poured it straight down the refresher. And then the refreshers on the ship had clogged and they'd had to blow out the entire septic system at a stopover on Ithor. And they hadn't had a bathroom to use for the entire jump. It had been seriously bad.

Making his way over to the black flimsiplast casing that marked his personal nemesis, the young clone applied his hands and contemplated ripping the device from out of the autochef. Except he was little. And ripping it apart didn't seem like it was something that was gonna happen, even if he drop kicked it with all his twenty-something kilos of weight.

Venturing back to the armory, the boy returned a moment later with one of Sor-Jan's lightsabers. As the weapon came alive in the clone's hands, his coppery complexion for accentuated by the golden light of an amber blade. Glancing from the lightsaber to the Beverage Buddy for a moment, the boy seem to contemplate how this was going to go down. "Hmmmm," the child mused aloud, before shutting down the lightsaber. "Nope."

Performing a sharp about-face, the youngling again ventured back to the armory.

He was a Clone Trooper, and there were just some ways that Clone Troopers had for handling situations like this that a lightsaber simply couldn't do justice to.

Rack back the chamber. Insert the tibana gas cartridge. Close the bolt. Rifle in one hand. Energy cell magazine in the other. Slide it in firm, and tap it hard to lock it in place. Prime the capacitor. Safety off. Weapon hot. Take the butt into the groove between the arm and the shoulder. Bring it up. Sight the target...

A blaster bolt echoed loudly through the interior of the ship. The black casing of the Beverage Buddy coming apart in a gout of smoke, flame, and circuits dissolving in a burst of superheated gas.

Then a second blaster bolt caused a small explosion, as the Beverage Buddy was reduced to a carbon scoring that marred the back wall and countertop of the auto chef.

That's what he thought of your damn caf, Beverage Buddy.

 

[Matsu Ike]

There was someone who bumped into her as she looked and it was a kid... more then that she was moving and looked towards the ship offering a small look with a raised eyebrow. She wasn't exactly certain who the young one was but he seemed to know his way around as she moved in. "Well hopefully you aren't going to break anything... though if you did it would give me an excuse to replace the part with a new dilator we have been working on to match a charon drive." She siad it while going on and offering a look to the young looking but surprisingly older then her jedi knight... Most seemed to be younger and masters or higher. "You look well and still have prettier hair then me master [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]." She looked at the one who had bumped into her and.. "And I am sorry that I do not know your name." [member="3X744"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Ordinarily, the thought of a 4 year old with a blaster carbine would be a little concerning.

A lightsaber? Not so much, no. SJ had grown up in the Jedi Temple of the Old Republic. Kids of all ages used lightsabers then. But, having lived with Three since his arrival in this time period, a kid with a blaster was suddenly nothing new.

He hadn't even batted an eye as two blaster shots echoed through the ship.

Now, hyperdrive tech? That got his attention. "Dilator?" the boy asked, looking back up from where he was working on the navicomputer. It was months to the Kathol Outback. If there was a faster way to get there, then Sor-Jan was all ears. Tipping a spanner toward the hole in the floor, the boy noted, "She'll make point-eight past lightspeed. But that's not enough for where we're going."

Not without cabin fever rearing its head for weeks or months at a time.

"If you've got something faster than that, believe me, I'm all ears."

Shifting directions slightly, Sor-Jan pointed the spanner toward the blue uniformed boy that Matsu had asked the name of. "Master Ike, meet the Grand Army of the Old Republic."

[member="Matsu Ike"]​

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

He put the weapon on safe, then ejected the energy cell before popping the gas cartridge out of the chamber.

The weapon was still potentially lethal. Left over gas residue and static build-up could produce an unexpected, and often nasty, range misfire when someone pulled the trigger on a blaster they thought was clear and safe. Securing the DC-15A back into the weapons locked, the small Fett returned to find that the Jedi lady was asking for his name.

"Three-Ex-Seven-Four-Four," the youngling supplied dutifully, before adding, "But everyone calls me Three."

At the cryptic remark about Three being the 'Grand Army of the Galactic Republic,' the youngling chirped, "I served with General Xantha in the 432nd Clone Expeditionary Unit."

Okay, so he hadn't actually served with the 432nd. He'd been in a Clone Youth Brigade observing the 432nd for training purposes. But that totally counted, right?

[member="Matsu Ike"]​

 

[Matsu Ike]

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] [member="3X744"]

"well I didn't say faster... possibly... maybe." She was looking at him. "See the problem is testing things is really hard when you are a jedi. Those ethics that help us be good and protect people also mean we don't risk others. So the initial tests of the dilator show it is more stable and able to open up smoother windows. We've been working to improve upon that instead of just punching a hole through hyperspace. The information we got on hyperspace travel from the Gree devices on the Nirvana have greatly improved our understanding of it despite the technology being several thousand years old it is still tens of thousand years more advanced and then there is the biotechnology we were able to work with from the Aing-Tii and the one Imperial lab. We understand their traveling a lot better. Between it we did make the nirvana's which can make point three and if our simulations are correct this should boost the nirvana's hyperdrive to point one." But the Nirvana was also designed specifically from the ground up to have the superior components built into it. "By the time you get back from wherever you might be going we may have a working prototype."