Forge (Mando'ade)

[Juno Wren]

-- Aela Betna's workshop; Manda'yaim

Aela's workshop table was a mess. Utterly absent of icky dirt, yes, but still messy.

Circuits, power cells, generators, insulators, emitters, stabilizers, and more riddled it's surface. Several jet packs stood in a corner, and there was Miri in her nutrient tank beside them.

The wall opposite Aela was covered with guns, from light blasters to heavy slugthrowers and grenade launchers, as well as a bunch of new toys she'd ordered. Namely, an autographed pair of Kitty Kat Stompers, a M.E.A.D. glove, and a few other goodies.

The table to her rear held a rather impressive array of grenades and ammunition. Another table was set up with equipment for melting, molding, and sculpting Besk'ar, and a final table held various materials, substances and chemicals, like microfilament, durasteel, paralytic toxins, and more of the like.

First order on the menu? Shape the armor.

For that, she'd had a set of molds made to fit her armor design, specifically structured to accommodate her slight build. The Besk'ar and Ciridium were already melted down to the perfect balance, with forty four parts Besk'ar for every one part of Ciridium. The end result would be an alloy that was 98% Besk'ar and 2% Ciridium.

Right now, the mix was just molten metal. The heat would have had her sweating rivulets if not for the environmental stabilization systems. They kept her workshop clean, cool, and comfortable.

She tilted the vat of molten metal over into the molds, and when they were full, she sealed the device shut.

 

[Juno Wren]

There was a loud hiss as the cryo systems cooled the superheated Besk'ar alloy. She pressed a sequence of buttons that elicited another hiss, coating the alloy in high-grade Force resistant resin, enough, perhaps, to kark with slash no sell padawan to knight level ability.

That was the idea anyway. In truth, it was a redundancy she'd worked into the design, as Miri's force bubble was much more powerful than some crappy resin.

She entered a second sequence for the sealant that would keep the resin bonded to the metal. The third set of buttons applied the color. In this case, a matte gray primer. She wasn't quite sure what color she wanted her armor to be..

Second on the list was coupling the numerous diatium power cells. She had added quite a few of them to the design, anticipating that her intended loadout might be overly energy intensive. She'd made them as slender as she possibly could.

Then there was fitting magseals to her hybrid bodyglove so she could easily attach and detach her armor, if she first managed to combine the ENVC-370 with the Thermoguard. Maybe she'd just wear both of them?

All three of her personalities had been trying to incorporate inert power insulators into the design, so as to better insulate herself against electricity, but so far, she just couldn't get enough coverage. A rubber underweave would have to do. That, though, would only protect her from lightning; her systems would still get fried.

Then there was all the stuff she had to piece together for the helmet, the circuitry for the whole thing, to say nothing of all the little goodies she had to add to the armor itself! She'd repurposed all sorts of tech for her armor -- repulsorlifts most noticeably -- all in the pursuit of Clan Betna's ideals and specialties.

All in all, it was a sight more than a day's work. More like three or four. Less, possibly, if she had some help, and that Mr. Munin fellow had volunteered. Mando'ade didn't have to make their armor alone, she figured, and most, as far as she knew, didn't. And why would they, with so many brothers and sisters to offer help?

This was the most excited she'd felt about something in a long time. Probably since...no. She wouldn't think about that. About them. Just the same, her excitement could have been Go-Go leaking through. She had been getting stronger since Aela became an active Hunter.

She hoped Nono never got any stronger. Galaxy beware if she did.

Aela shook her head, rolled her shoulders, grabbed her omnitool, and got back to work. The power cells weren't going to couple themselves!

[member="Vilaz Munin"]

 

[Juno Wren]

She arranged dozens of resistors, transistors, capacitors, inductors, and diodes in a clear space on the table, and got to soldering. She made a circuit for each forearm bracer, upper-arm plate, thigh-guard, shin-guard, boot heel, and extras, just to be sure. It was her intent to use them to power her repulsorlifts, as well as the tiny, pressurized air canons that would allow for quick evasion. Powered by the coupled diatium power cells, she'd be able to power ever little gadget in her suit, and then some!

She unspooled more copper and gold wires, working them into the circuits, essentially attaching one circuit per power cell. She'd have a main powerpack attacked to her back, but in the event that it malfunctioned, overheated, or something else even more improbable, all her stuff would still work.

She'd read about some special bracers she might be able to incorporate into her own forearm bracers, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what they were called. Oh well!

After the circuits were done, she set about combining the ENVC and the Thermoguard. Both had complex wiring systems; it would take hours to combine the two! Really, did she even need to? Besk'ar was tough enough to stop blaster bolts.

But every little bit counts, her father always used to say, Force rest his soul. She brandished her omnitool, and set to stripping the wiring from the ENVC, to add into the Thermoguard. It, more so than the ENVC, required the material it was made off to no sell thermo sensors. The longer she worked, the more she doubted the necessity of combining the two. It was bloody tedious...

 

[Mel'sivlal Huedain]

Shiv walked into the workshop, making sure not to make any noises to disturb the craftsman, (Or woman) at work. He had just signed up to a raid on Echoy'la and he was expecting to be coming into a surplus of Beskar'gam. Shiv was planning on reinforcing his armor with it so he'd either need some training in forging or someone to forge it.

Shiv slowly peeked around the corner and saw [member="Aela Darkstar"] working on a half finished suit of armor. He stepped into the room and cleared his throat. "'Scuse me? I'm looking for a crafts... woman." He said, glad that his helmet hid his wandering eyes.

 

[Juno Wren]

Combining the two systems didn't work. The metrics were off. The ENVC circuitry utterly destroyed the purpose of the Thermoguard; the wiring was all wonky, and the conjoined wiring ran super hot. And instead of the suit matching the temperature of her surroundings, and thus camouflaging her against thermo scans, the stupid thing fluctuated wildly, going alternatively hot and cold.

Oh well. She'd save the ENVC-370 for a different set of armor. For this one, she was sticking with the Thermoguard.

A yellow light above the door started to blink. The proximity alerts had been triggered, Aela realized. Someone was nearing the lab. She paused her working to take a gander at the corridor cameras.

Hm. It was just some guy. Maybe he knew something about gyro magnetic stabilizers, commonly called repulsorlifts? That was the next tech to assemble and integrate into her suit. She'd taken the components from a few speeders. Her goal was to make the stabilizers small enough to fit into the slots she'd designed into the thigh plates and segmented cuirass of her armor.

She grabbed her omnitool and started replicating the components, streamlining the design as best she could. Then the door was opening, and the guy was there. He said he was looking for a craftswoman. Aela didn't know any craftswoman. He certainly couldn't have meant her; she was still a girl.

Besides, Aela didn't really like to talk to people. Like, at all. Go-Go was the outgoing one. Nono would've rigged the door to fry his brains to goop. "Don't know any craftswoman," she mumbled, keeping her focus on the stabilizers. "Next corridor, maybe." She could almost feel Go-Go pushing to take over. It hurt to resist... but she didn't want to be Go-Go right now. She wanted to be herself. Aela.

And Aela needed to open up. Just a little... "You need something?" She still didn't look at him though. And she realized in her haste to work on the GM stabilizers, she'd forgotten the magseals.

She figured she probably didn't need them either. The only time she would be out of her armor was when she was home, and no one was stupid enough to attack Manda'yaim, so she wouldn't need any sort of armor plate deployment. Maybe she'd incorporate them into another armor, like the ENVC?

[member="Mel'sivlal Huedain"]

 

[Mel'sivlal Huedain]

At closer inspection, he realized the woman... girl's age and dismissed any thoughts of "romance." Perhaps she had a sister?

"I'm looking for someone who can help me improve my armor, or teach me to improve it myself."

He gazed about the cluttered workshop, "And you seem to be an appropriate choice."

[member="Aela Darkstar"]

 

[Juno Wren]

"..." Aela didn't know what to say to that. She sighed, and finally spared him a glance.

He was big. Not just tall, but... big. Tall, big, and red. Really red, like fresh blood. She focused on the armor -- not Besk'ar, her mind supplied. Something lesser. Probably like her old armor.

"M'busy," she said. She immediately regretted it. Wasn't she trying to open up a little? Be a little more outgoing? She couldn't keep relying on Go-Go to deal with people. Even if she didn't really like them. This guy was different though -- he was a fellow Mando'ade, a brother, in spirit if not in blood.

She sighed. "Just lemme finish this, 'kay?" She focused back on her work on making the repulsorlifts smaller.

She didn't weigh nearly as much as a speeder bike; so far, she had reduced the gyro magnetic stabilizers by nearly 20% on that fact alone. She didn't need so much distance from the ground either. That allowed for a further reduction in size by roughly about 7%. If she got the wiring the way she wanted to, she could possibly shave another eight, maybe nine or ten, if she was especially meticulous about it.

And if she could configure a couple power cells to the specific energy frequency the stabilizers gave off, that'd be another four or five, maybe. More than small enough, then, to fit where she wanted them too, and with minimal bulge at that.

She started on the wiring. She laid them in an almost circular pattern throught the entire casing, insulated, of course, and structured in such a way as to reduce clutter and focus power.

Getting the right gyro-metrics was harder. Too far in either direction, high or low, and she would be pulled in every direction, or pulled to the ground. Killed gruesomely, in other words. She had to get the array just right, with the gyrometers set to read, match, and exceed the gravity of whatever planet she might find herself on, and the emitters tweaked to release the electromagnetic waves in steady, even strokes. Else wise, if the stream came out too fast or slow, instead of a gentle float, she'd bob and jerk and rattle instead of a level float.

She'd be hours tinkering. Probably best to see exactly what the guy wanted. "So... what did you want, exactly?"

[member="Mel'sivlal Huedain"]

 

[Mel'sivlal Huedain]

[member="Aela Darkstar"]

Shiv leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms.

"Sure squirt," he said in a pleasant tone hoping she wouldn't take offense. He looked around, eying the tools and strewn parts.

"Like I said, I'm needing some reinforcement, specifically along the spine of the armor, can't have the forcies cutting my in two. I"m Mel'sivlal by the way, you can call me Shiv, most everybody does anyway."

 

[Juno Wren]

[member="Mel'sivlal Huedain"]

He called her squirt. Squirt. Just like her father used to. He even used the same gentle, almost teasing tone of voice, for all that her father's voice had been more gravelly, and uniquely accented from all his time spent offworld. Shiv couldn't have known, but her heart lurched all the same, a dull, familiar ache that had never really left her. The anger came after, as it always did. She hated feeling sad. She hated feeling anything.

She couldn't deal with this. Not right now. Maybe she'd just let Go-Go take over for a while. Try again later with someone else... someone from the clan, maybe?

Her thoughts ground to a halt, and their flavor changed, shifted, even as her body language changed and shifted. Slumped shoulders lifted and drew back, slightly ducked head rose proudly, and she stretched, cracking her back.

She was Go-Go now. Unafraid of feeling emotion. Bubbly. Friendly. Murderous, of course, and somewhat tactless, but friendly. "Much better!" she exclaimed. "The name's Go-Go, pal. You said your name was Shiv? Like a knife? Go-Go likes knives!" She started back in on Aela's work, or their work, rather, laying wire and tweaking various emitters, stabilizers, and modulators. Aela was a more meticulous, thorough tinkerer, but Go-Go just let things flow naturally. And really, the repulsorlifts were streamlined enough, she thought. And the gyrometers were closer to the correct reading for matching the gravitic knots than she'd realized.

"Soooo," she started, holding the long o, "you want to reinforce your spinal plates with Besk'ar, right? What about the rest of it? Go-Go could shoot through that stuff with a .44, easy; a lightsaber would carve right through it, and then you'd be in pieces!"

 

[Mel'sivlal Huedain]

[member="Aela Darkstar"]

Shiv blinked. Okay, he was in a workshop full of sharp utensils with a teenager that has multi-personality syndrome. He didn't know either to be shocked by the situation or shocked that this wasn't the first time he'd been in a situation like this.

"Hi... Go-Go," he said while looking for possible escape routes. Well, on the other hand, the kid was Mandalorian, and it wasn't too weird, well, it wasn't too... abnormally freaky for a Mando kid to act like that.

"Um, I don't know how much I'm getting so I'm planning on the spine for now... Go-Go or not. Crazy little girl aren't ye?" he said half serious half jokingly while ruffling her hair.

 

[Juno Wren]

A stray thought from Nono drifted through her mind like a whisper on the wind. Carve out his eyes and see who's crazy then. Go-Go ignored her. Nono was always thinking such things; she was stronger in Go-Go than in Aela.

The molding chamber across the room pinged. The plates were officially done, coated, painted, and ready to be fitted with gadgets.

Go-Go smiled up at Shiv. She wasn't a little girl, not really -- she liked bunnies, sure, and cuddly plushies, but she liked blood and guns and guts too! Not as much as Nono... But all the same, there was nothing quite like pumping a meat-target full of smoking holes. Or opening them up to see how they worked; the holobooks just didn't match the real thing.

Still, it was a nice sentiment. "You're lucky you're Mando'ade!" she said with a smile. "Go-Go usually shoots people for touching her hair!"

She turned back to her work and gestured to a tall display screen in a wall panel in the far corner of the room. "Go stand in front of the sensor. It'll read your metrics for your armor." She pauses her tinkering and turned to look at him. "You sure you don't just wanna make your Beskar'gam? Go-Go can help you, and the refineries will give you however much besk'ar you need..."

[member="Mel'sivlal Huedain"]

 

[Juno Wren]

Go-Go finished the inlay of the casing for the gravitic knots she'd repurposed from a couple speeders. Each micro-array would be fitted into slots in her armor, arranged in such a way as to keep her balanced while floating. One for each limb, essentially, and one for her torso.

She ventured over to the cryo-molding unit and unclipped the magnetic fasteners. The top half of the unit popped open. And there it was... her armor. It was beautiful. There were two segmented shoulder guards, and plates to fit on my upper arms, elbows, and lower arms. The chest and back plates were separated and segmented, but would be sealed together with magnetic fasteners. Then there were thigh plates, knee guards, shin guards, and a sort of segmented skirt that would hang to about mid thigh. The thigh plates and greaves/shin guards had holsters designed into the side piece, the upper two for my automatic pistol, the lower two for Verpine pea shooters.

Then, there was the helmet. She'd made it angular, and yet, their was a sort of swooping smoothness to it, more graceful than the standard design; it was vaguely avian in appearance.

I admired the armor for a while, and then took the plates, piece by piece, to the only half clear table in the room. She'd fit the power cells in first, then the repulsorlifts, the micro air-cannons (to propel her, in bursts, while floating), then the dart guns, net guns, flamethrower, plasma torch, omnitool, and a mess of other toys, if she could fit them in.

The helmet would be easy; all the tech she intended for it was standard, pre made universal components that could be modified to fit various systems.

She settled into her new seat at a slightly less cluttered table, grabbed her omnitool, and started in. This part wouldn't be so tricky as slimming down the repulsorlifts. And after fitting everything in, she'd have to seal all the pieces together, to keep out any nasty contaminants and survive, for a time, in space.

The whizzing whir of her omnitool filled the room.

 

[Juno Wren]

Aela fitted the power cells into the slots she'd designed for them, then fitted in the main mass to a little pocket in the back half of her torso armor, in the spinal plates, protected by segmented layers of besk'ar. The Repulsorlifts went next, slotted and sealed into the appropriate plates to facilitate a nice, steady float. Then she welded in the various mechanisms that would serve as her many gadgets. She fitted a net gun to the inner workings of her right forearm bracer, and a knife shooter to the other.

Then came the datapad w/holoprojector that fit into the left braver, beneath a panel that could flip open. Next was the tubing and gauges and other mechanisms that would serve as a filtration system, and another separate set for hydration and nutrient intake, and tiny little pressurized air tanks that fit along her arm and leg plates. These were linked to micro gas emitters attached to swivels, to propel her in small bursts -- distance measured in feet --while her repulsorlifts were engaged. She'd borrowed the design from the propulsion systems of similarly weighted spacefaring suits. The emitters couldn't sustain vertical flight, and would be commanded through biometric sensors not unlike the sixaxis readers in a rather popular gaming system.

Then she fitted an ionic pulse cannon to her left shoulder, linked in to the power cell array beneath her spinal plates. She fixed the remote for her Clusterkark Sniper System into her left bracer, opposite the datapad. Then came sonic emitters, a plasma torch, flamethrower, and two tanks of a mix of force breaking/tranquilizing gas to run through a second set of gas emitters and come out through a tiny little slot in the chest plate. She'd gotten the idea from clowns.

A lot of tech, but nothing ground breaking, or even particularly unique. Then, of course, there was the power shied, which she added to the front of her "skirt" and linked to her complex circuitry.

Then she sealed it all together with the body glove using magnetic fasteners, backed by rendundancies incase of failure. Her helmet was next. Then?

Testing. She couldn't wait.

 

[Juno Wren]

She'd just started in on her helmet when she remembered her gloves and gauntlets. She needed her Crushgaunts to shoot her heavy slugthrowers. But she'd purchased a pair of phantom fingers and a M.E.A.D glove, and she needed those too. Well, not needed, exactly, but she certainly wanted then. Her crushgaunts were an old pair with little to no amenities, outside of the power grip they'd been named for.

There was nothing to it. She needed a pack -- resistant to tampering -- to hold her precious gloves whenever she switched between them. There was enough space to slot them into her jet pack...

That'd have to do. She paused working on the helmet and gathered a hunk of besk'ar to drop into the My Little Eopie Molten Metal Maker. The molds wouldn't fit, but that didn't matter. She had shaping tools in here somewhere...

Task complete, she returned to her helmet. There was the three hundred and sixty degree viewing display, the HUD, photo chromatic visor, macro binocular attachments, thermal and infrared imaging, targeting systems, motion trackers, night and low light imaging, Pretty in Pink earbud sound nullifiers, sound amplifiers, vocal emulator, encrypted com link, and a video/audio command interface incase the biometers malfunctioned.

Oh darn. She'd forgotten to install the oxygen tank. Wouldn't do to suffocate in space, would it? Environmental filtration systems needed something to filtrate!

 

[Juno Wren]

After dealing with Aela's frustration with the ENVC-370 and the Thermoguard, and her near obsessiveness with micro-izing the repulsorlifts, Go-Go was happy to tinker with her helmet, given that the attachments and installations were fairly standard. Every step closer to completion made her all the more happier. Soon, she'd be out killing in this suit. Though it might grow and change, it would be with her for life. It would never leave her, never abandon her, never die...

She sniffled and rubbed frantically at her eyes. She cursed Aela for bottling all this feeling up, and allowed the encroaching wave of sadness to wash over her. She took caution not to drown in its depths.

Tears blurring her vision, she worked all the harder, taking extra care with the tracking system and motion sensor. Omnitool whirring, she installed the voice emulator, tested it, and moved on to the sound amplifiers and nullifiers, then to sharpening up the viewing display. The Zoom on the macro binoculars, in conjunction with the targeting system would work wonders when sniping. Combined with the tech she'd gotten from the Great Triam Akovin?

She couldn't wait!!!

Her tears were quick in drying. Her mum and dad wouldn't have wanted her to feel bad. They'd have wanted her to kick ass and collect corpses, to follow the Resol'nare. Bounty hunting, fighting, killing... it was in her blood. In her spirit. In her mind...

She put the finishing touches on her helmet, then disappeared into a backroom to get dressed. She could already hear the sweet sound of billets hissing, the loud crack of gunfire.

Her grin sharpened, turned feral, and danger danced in her eyes. Universe, look out.

 

[Juno Wren]

Go-Go was a slight girl, but there was strength in her long limbs. She'd been training for this since birth; when she was old enough, her father Boom-Boom had had her running obstacle courses in increasingly heavy armor, had her hunt game, and later, himself. She hadn't just learned how to move in armor -- she'd learned how to live in it.

Her Beskar'gam was like a second skin, if a second skin weighed 12 kilograms. With all her gear in her -- guns, grenades, and the like -- it'd probably be a good deal heavier, but she figured she'd be able to manage. Especially if she used her repulsorlifts right.

She jumped around, spinning, twirling, laughing, hopped up on the balls of her feet and through a few punches, gave a command, and heard the room full with the familiar him of Gravitic knots. She clenched her muscles and leaned -- the pressurized air propulsion activated, pushed her in the direction of her lean.

She turned off the repulsorlifts and tried it again, to make sure she'd wired the systems right. Nothing happened. Good, she thought. The propulsion didn't activate unless the repulsorlifts were engaged.

She went out to do a field test.

 

[Vilaz Munin]

It was encouraged for the Rally Masters to have some sort of relationship with the Mandalorian Initiates. To be their guide to a path that would lead him or her to be a successful son or daughter of Mandalore and to be a mentor for them to learn knowledge and become a better Mandalorian and teach to upcoming generations. A good way to construct a bridge of was to randomly come up to someone and converse with them. A location where there were many Initiates was a forge. Many would be determined to have their own set of True Mandalorian armor.

“Armor, Initiate?" the Redneck asked to Aela who he saw working hard for her own, personal beskar'gam. Such dedication was admired and praised when shown to the ranks of the Mando'ade.

[member="Aela Darkstar"]

 

[Juno Wren]

She'd just finished a brief field test and was putting the finishing touches on her Beskar'gam when a rough voice rang out, "Armor, initiate?" Startled, her hand snapped up to shoot, but when she squeezed, she realized that not only did she not have a gun in her hand -- they were all hanging on the wall -- but this was a Rally Master standing in front of her. She knew his face; all the youngsters knew his face, just as they knew the faces of all the populate Rally Masters and Field Marshalls.

Her eyes widened, and she dropped her arm, cheeks reddening. "Go-Go is sorry!" What if she'd had a gun? She might've shot him! Her mind finally registered his question. "Oh, yes, Go-Go is making -- made -- her Beskar'gam! It's beautiful!" She smiled wide, eyes screwed shut, imagining all the bounties she'd complete in her wonderful armor.

[member="Vilaz Munin"]