A Ship, Worthy of the Name--Angel's Glory

[James Justice]

James strode across the hall to the luxury lounge. In a rare moment, James was more concerned with work than pleasure. His gate was long and choppy as he ate the ground between him and his destination in a third of the normal time. He strode through the doors and burst in. Sitting on one of the plush red leather couches was Tony, one of the best weapon, ship, and speeder designers that money could buy. The spacer had hired her on a number of works, almost keeping her on an exclusive payroll.

"What the fething hell do you mean you haven't got it completed?" the spacer roared angrily.

"Well hello to you too," Tony said, never loosing her cold disposition.

James grabbed a glass bottle and hurled it across the room, shattering it on impact, "What have you done with the millions I sent you? Sat on your hands?"

"I need more money," she said simply, "or the research will not be complete and you will either be flying a half finished ship or the design will be far less than you ordered. Its that simple."

"And what the hell have you been doing with the money, huh? Shooting up on spice?"

"For information, Justice, R and D isn't as simple as pointing a rifle and pulling the trigger, its extremely complex," she half-snarled.

 

[James Justice]

The spacer glared at her for a very long moment before relenting, 'Fine, but this time your not working alone. I want to be sure me money is going to a ship, not spice."

The woman gave a harsh nod, 'Fair enough, so long as you do not slow me down.'

The spacer sidestepped the statement, it was pointless to feed anymore bitterness into their horrible relationship, 'What do we need to do first?'

'The Engines,' Tony said simply, 'The S-75S, we finished their re-design and were going to finalize the testing for their maneuverability and speed.'

'Did you bring her?'

'Naturally,' Tony said rising to her feet, 'I anticipated your lack of faith in me.'

She led James to a shuttle on the landing pad outcropped from the building. A short flight led them out into orbit to a massive bulk freighter that had been temporarily re-fitted into a mobile workshop for Tony and her crew. When they had landed in its bowls, the spacer was awestruck at the beautiful vessel before him. Its sleek design was even better than he had envisioned. The work, the money, seemed a lot more worth it now.

 

[James Justice]

It didn't take long for the crew to assemble; thanks to the ship's state of the art designs and layout, the skeleton crew to keep it running was only five; the pilot, a pair of mechanics, and a comms array/navigator. James took his spot at the pilot's chair and did a quick pre-flight check.

"Are you sure you are alright with running this, Captain?" Tony asked in a slightly barbed tone, 'After all, your time pushing papers may have made your piloting skills rusty."

The spacer shot her a glare, "Shut up and prepare for launch."

The ship rumbled to life with a soft purr and James eased the ship out of its place into orbit. His hands began to move over the console with surprising speed, flipping switches as his eyes watched the dazzling array of readouts and info superimposed over the view port. This way he could watch the engine's heat without taking his eyes off the battle, or space.

"Chart me a course, Navigator," the spacer ordered.

An orange dotted trajectory superimposed itself across the screen, "Course charted."

 

[James Justice]

At first, James babied the ship, easing it along the slowly arcing curve, letting it barely work. The ship was smooth, but calm sailing did not an expert make. He quickly jerked the joystick left as his other hand shut off the left engine. The coravette, and its passengers lurched as it arced in a wild fish-tail for its size.

"Captain!" Tony shouted in protest as gravity pulled at her stomach.

But James, of course, was not listening. His hands rammed the engines to full blast, sending the ship shooting forward like a dart. If it had been on land, James was sure the smell of burning rubber would have filled the air. Once again, the spacer pulled the ship in for a tight arc, marking its angle at 45-Mark-45, the ship's maximum turn vector. More G's kicked in as the ship pulled in an tight loop. The spacer grit his teeth, fully expecting to hear the sound of popping metal or screaming alarms, but none followed.

"Captain, you need to stop this, your going to--" But James wasn't listening. If he was going to put this ship in combat, he wanted to know ahead of time that it could do what he needed it to do.

The spacer rammed the ship's engines to 180% of max capacity, the ship's body shuttered with protest. 1 Soceras... 2 Soceras... James began to quietly count the seconds in his head. At ten seconds the ship's warning lights began to blink, at fifteen the alarms blared. At twenty the lights went red, its engines were threatening to melt down in a thermal reaction of pure death.

 

[James Justice]

James instantly lurched the engines back, shutting them off and sending the ship into a coasting slow roll. He looked to Tony as she pulled herself off the console, anger burned in the fiery woman's eyes. James gave a smirk, 'That was for suggesting I couldn't fly.'

"Is everything alright?' asked one of the mechanics over the comm, 'Whatever you did, you almost blew us to death.'

'Fair enough,' she said, squaring her shoulders, she flipped on the comm, 'We are fine, sir, thank you, over.'

'For a Corrie, it moves like a dream,' James admitted, 'So, did ye manage to get the stealth involved?'

'I did,' she agreed, 'Though I am going to ask that you not pull those kinds of stunts in stealth mode. The energy required is substantial.'

'Of course,' the spacer agreed, pivoting back to his controls, 'Let's get this done.'

The spacer looked over the console and began the Stealth activation sequences. His hands flurried over the controls, shutting off the main drives, activating the baffle drives, powering off the primary generators and activating the secondary stealth units. He watched as the guns dimmed to off-line, the sheilds lowered to a tenth of their power, and the max speed was reduced to a third of its prior capacity. The air itself got cooler and the lights dimmed. He nodded, notating the vast weakness of the stealth. His eyes looked to the counter on the edge of the screen, the secondary generators could hold out for a full three hours--any longer and they were goners.

 

[James Justice]

"Let's put this baby to the test," James whispered.

"Oh gods," Tony grumbled.

James eased the joystick forward, moving the ship at a slugs' pace. He tried to pull a turn, its maneuverability was halfed, he noted. While that was a pain in the butt--well, when you were quiet, it was a lot easier to get where you wanted to. The spacer smirked, plotting a vector for the heavy cruiser. "You sure you tripple tested the stealth package?"

'Of course,' Tony sniffed, 'The Cloak is my personal creation, made for this vessel alone. You are completely invisible.'

"Let's find out," James muttered as the Corvette inched close to the carrier.

After several minutes, he was almost touching the ship, barely banking in time to dodge it. The ship, however, didn't even nudge. The spacer smirked. He toed another vessel bound inward towards Dal'Bor. Again, no reaction. He checked his timer, he still had two hours and thirty minutes. After a quick flip of the switch, the ship powered back up to full mode. A notifcation on the edge of the viewport notated that power was being redirected to the secondary power, recharging it.

"Good work,' James admitted begrudgingly, sitting back.

 

[James Justice]

"Thank you,' Tony said with a slightly smug look.

James held out his hand, 'Let me see the blueprints, call in a gunner team so we can test the guns.'

'You really wanna go for the full deal right now?" Tony asked, quirking a brow.

"Might as well, no need to stand by and let us do nothin."

Tony sighed, handing over the datapad. As she got to work calling up the rest of their crew, James looked over some of the other plans. She had worked in some of his wild demands. And yes, he was willing to admit they were wild. The luxury lounge he had asked for was there, with the plush seats and ultra sound system. There was room for a single ship--a fighter, and it was small, but there was room, a single shuttle, and two Swoop bikes. A room stood by for droid storage, 100 SLAM droids powered down and standing packed like sardines. He thought back to the time he had ordered from Sanya Val Swift so many years ago. Ah, what memories.

He looked back over the blueprints. There was room for 50 more people, passengers to sleep in bunks and in two mass rooms. It wasn't pleasant, but James knew that the Cardinal Company Second Rangers would feel less comfortable in less. They were a team, virtually a family. He hated to break that bond. He frowned, noting the lack of cargo space. At all. Well, he thought tossing the 'pad aside, something had to give.

 

[James Justice]

The ship resounded with a clunk as the shuttle secured itself in the bowls of the Corvette. James walked down the halls of his ship towards their entrance. He wanted to see the crew himself as they walked through. The doors slid open with hiss and the crew spilled out, moving with the precision of a well-trained team. And that they were. The spacer recognized each as his most trusted and longest standing workers.

"I hand picked the crew," Tony said from behind James, "Your best, your most faithful. It seemed to fit your desire, after all."

James gave yet anther admitant nod. Part of him was eating his words inside, the other part---was way too proud. The twenty five crew members moved into place, most of them were gunners manning the weaponry, though a few were officers who made their way to the bridge; a co-pilot, a Head Gunner, a secondary comms officer, and computer slicer.

James shot Tony a questioning look.

"Not all war is with weapons," she said loftily, 'with this ship's sophisticate design, you can never be too careful. Anti-slicer and anti-hacking with a ship like this, vital."

"I trust you thought of a Faraday cage then?" James countered.

"Of course," she said with a sniff, "Only a series of direct hits from serious ion cannons could take this ship's computers down."

 

[James Justice]

James took his seat at the head of the ship. His eyes looked down at the control console memorizing the list of weapons scrolling past his eyes; a series flak repeater turrets, an ion cannon, twin turbo lasers, a blaster cannon, proton rocket launcher, a mine launcher, a concussion missile launcher, and twin plasma electromagnetic cannons. The spacer nodded, satisfied. "You have targets for us, Tony?'

"Of course," the weapon maker pulled her comm to her lips, "We are go for target practice, John."

A series or probe droids launched themselves from the belly of the heavy fighter, each the size of a fighter. The Spacer immediately seized command like a life fire situation, 'I want flacks on full assault, take them down.'

A quartet of larger drones, the size of equal corvettes pulled themselves from the ship as flack began to hiss from the turrets onboard the ship.

The spacer pushed his joystick ahead, firing the engines up and taking them head on with a course to attack.

 

[James Justice]

The spacer looked to the shields. The ship came with the standard package, ray shields, and advanced deflectors. The spacer smirked, rising each to maximum, sliding them to their edge. "Tell me when we are in range, gentlemen."

"Yes, sir," the gunner said, his eyes glued to his datafeed.

The spacer felt adrenaline flow through his veins as a fighterlike drone crossing the veiwport went up in ball of flame. Another to his left went down in smoke, and a third to his right burst into flames. It was actually more enjoyable than he had anticipated.

"We are in range, sir," the gunner reported.

James nodded, pushing the engines harder, "Tell them... on my mark.... fire."

"Yes sir."

False ionized bolts wizzed past the viewport. James blinked the light away. A few bounced off the deflector sheilds. He eyed the levels for the shields with each shot. They would do no damage, but still, these bolts challenged the shields, stunning or overloading them. "Now," he ordered as they were meters from the vessels, "Take them now."

The Ion cannon slammed into one corvette, stunning it for a moment before the concussion missile tore into its hull, blasting it into shrapnel. The twin electromagnetic pulse cannons fired, one overloading a Corvette's shields, the second tearing it in two. As the halves fell, the blaster cannon and turbo laser shredded the vessel behind it.

James gave a chuckle of relief, "How'd we look, Gray?"

[member="Gray Raxis"]

 

[Gray Raxis]

Gray had heard that his boss, friend, and clansmen [member="James Justice"] was working on a new ship. So of course he had to show up to make sure things went smoothly. James had a habit of making things worse for everyone involved whenever he was enjoying himself. That wouldn't be such a problem if the man didn't always enjoy everything he did so much. So Gray needed to be there to play nurse maid and keep him in check. He was use to it and seemed to do well at it. He had hit the man with a stun bolt and punched him repeatedly in the face in the past, and after all of it hired into the company and promoted to one of the Directors of the Board. That likely meant something was wrong with one of them, but it was impossible to know whom. Honestly they both were probably messed up. Either way, Gray was there to keep an eye on his boss and to act as an observer to the tests.

Gray watched James fly around and then tear up another ship with the weapons. It had all been impressive honestly, and it was making him want to pilot the ship himself. Now if only he didn't crash every ship he got his hands on the controls of he might have been allowed to. Course no use crying over wrecked, burning ship debris. He said in reply to James' question, " Looks good to me right now. I'm honestly impressed by it. What else can this thing do or is suppose to do? Shoot out a raindbow beam that destroys everything in its path?" He smirked a bit as he finished speaking. He knew it sounded stupid, but who wouldn't want to see that happen to some ship in the sky?

 

[James Justice]

James rolled his neck, easing some of its tension out before looking to Tony, 'Well, tell me what else this can do, did you add the bar that I asked for?"

Tony rolled her eyes, 'Of course. I know how you need your booze."

James pushed off the chair, he had to inspect it of course, to see that it was up to code. The spacer made his way through the halls into the luxury lounge. It was everything that he had wanted and more. A series of plush red leaher sofas lined one corner, a bar sat not far from it, and of course there was the surround sound and the HD holoprojector on a boxy stand that would serve as a stage for--well dancers if the need called for it.

He looked it over with a satisfactory sigh before moving past it into the mess hall and rec room. It never hurt to be ready for when boredom struck, which was sadly more often than not on space voyages. Speaking of, "How fast is the hyper on this thing?"

"Two, back up is five," Tony said, who followed him from the control room. "You gonna sit here and oogle at the couches or you gonna see what this baby is really able to do?"

 

[James Justice]

The spacer followed the spunky dar'manda through the mess hall and rec room into a a medical bay. He hadn't gotten an idea of how much the scope of this held. A dozen bacta tanks stood together on the long walls of this rectangular room. A series of medical cabinets lined the smaller walls. Medical droids looked at the duo with questioning, almost kind photoceptors.

"As you can see, I maximized space here, and all of course the as you requested," she said, "The wall space was given full use, and if there is need for more then more gurneys can be laid out in this open area," she explained before usuring James through another series of halls past the personal quarters, crew quarters, and passenger quarters.

James felt a chuckle rise from him as he looked over the massive armory he was in. The walls and room was lined with lockers; rifles, blasters, armor, frags, and vibroblades lined the shelves behind protective casings.

"This room, as all, is protected by an intensive security system," Tony explained, "Biological scanners allow only those who are pre-determined as crew to access most of the quarters, failure for clearance results in lock down."

"What does lockdown entail?"

"Heavy blast doors, atmos removal from the area, total lock down, the place cease to exist," she said coldly, "Lifesupport ceases to cover temperature, the room becomes space itself."

 

[James Justice]

"Come on," Tony said, motioning away with her head, 'This way.'

James looked over the massive super computer before him, part of him was in awe but--"What am I not seeing here, Tony?"

"This is all of it, mother computer, nav, scanners, comm, all in one," she explained, "saves on space. All of it here. And, the anti-slicer droids, all of it in here."

"What do we have in the manner of scanners?"

Tony shrugged, "A high def package; optics, infared, ultra violet, gamma, the full electromagnetic spectrum. Heat, gravitational, the works. The comms have a lot of sexy secrets."

James quirked an eyebrow, "That's the first time I heard someone call comms sexy."

"Its earned," she sniffed, "Not every ship has comm scanners, hackers, scramblers, encrypters, and a high-powered tight beam transmitter, like that old A-24."

James whistled, raising his hands in deference, 'Alright, alright, I am sorry I doubted you. You proved your point. This is the only one?"

"I had a secondary," She said with a smirk, "In case you broke this one, as a back up."