Fresh Off The Production Line [Omega Pyre]

[Qae Shena]

Fondor

"It's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful."

The first gleaming bomber. The silver-trimmed, ebon-hulled vessel dedicated purely to the art of warfare was completed. Omega Pyre's newest creation. She'd even had a hand in its design and it showed. There she was - the Inimica-class heavy gunship. And the first one was hers.

Allaina Mare was a simple woman, really. Give her a starship, point her in the direction of the enemy, and let her have at. She'd be happy for quite some time. Give her a sleek, top-of-the-line piece of military hardware and a target-rich environment and she'd love you forever. She'd been told to report to Fondor for a reason - now she knew what that reason was. This ship was the most glorious piece of weaponry she could possibly lay eyes on, short of the Star Destroyers sitting outside. And even then? It was a close decision.

Two black-gloved hands ran along the cold durasteel hull, quietly worshipping the workmanship that went into the creation of this delectable gunship. How she wanted to fly it. But, no. People would be here to see it, to witness it. She'd brought her talents here for a reason and people were going to want to know the brains behind the vessel. Parades were never her thing, but being in the redhead brigade (as Omega Pyre was apparently affectionately known) was something she'd have to get used to, as opposed to Imperial rule.

Besides, what could possibly go wrong?

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

"It's a pretty thing, isn't it," a voice came from behind @[member="Allaina Mare"]. Tegaea stepped into the room wearing a casual set of fatigues. "So you're Allaina, huh? You've got a reputation as a pilot, and as a designer, which is why we wanted you to work for us. And I must say, the Inimica is one nice piece of hardware. I'm Tegaea, CEO or Colonel. Whatever suits the moment. Pleased to meet you."

(@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] is welcome to show up too.)

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

"Yeah, a real marvel," another voice tuned in, coming from Siobhan Kerrigan, who followed Tegaea at a short distance. Said distance was totally out of respect for her superior and not because it gave her an enticing view of her rear. After all, Siobhan was a respectful person! "I prefer to hit things real hard or telekinetically throw real heavy objects when it comes to my brand of mayhem, but there's something to be said for a bing bang from above."

Now one remembered again why Siobhan was a bad driver. She kept wrecking her vehicles in crazy feats of destruction. "Name's Siobhan Kerrigan, Major." That rank still sounded a bit odd to her. It sounded almost like responsibility, which was a dreadful thing, but so far her attack and hit the enemy real hard method had worked. "Nice to meet you, welcome to Omega," she said with a smile.

 

[Qae Shena]

A reputation indeed. Reputation enough that she knew how to make anything blow up with the right amount of application of missile and turbolaser technology. That said, it was best to reserve judgement of the people around her for later (even if she knew it was going to be... positive.) It was work time. And apparently meet the new boss time, which was also important.

"Allaina Mare," she said, by way of introduction to Tegaea and Siobhan. "Not the Force-using kind, admittedly, but chaos and mayhem happens to be my speciality They sort of drill it into you at Sith flight school." Which, if anything was to ever be believed, had been the best place to learn to fly because things tended to blow up there. A lot. "So what brings you down this way other than 'meet the new kid'?"

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

"Well, I always like to meet the most promising people we hire in person. Especially those who have just provided us a new bomber prototype...." Tegaea smiled. Though she wouldn't admit it like @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"], she also liked checking out the ladies they recruited, especially the red headed ones. However, her words and tone were all business.
"Would you like to test it out?" she asked enticingly.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

Siobhan's jaw tightened a bit when Allaina mentioned Sith flight school, but she clamped down on it. They were in a business, they wanted to attract talent. Besides, the redhead was cute. "Oh, yeah, we're hands-on down here," she quipped. As multiple instances had shown, subtlety was not one of Siobhan's strengths. Nor was finding original lines. "And we can always use someone who delivers us a big bang."

 

[Qae Shena]

Okay, yeah, she couldn't hold back a snerk at that one. Was this good cop bad cop? Or was this a total lack of military discipline? Either way it was a better change than 'be interrogated every five seconds'. She was used to super-strict discipline, not... this. She liked this.

"Test it? Sure. Can either of you navigate a gunnery console or navigate a ship? Saves us having to scrounge up a flight crew." Piloting her baby? No problem. If she wanted to deliver a show, she'd need help. Unfortunately, for weapons to fire, both weapons stations needed to be crewed to get all the weapons out of it.

"And besides, if you're asking me to provide a big bang, you'd better strap yourself in, because you're going to want to ride it the whole way."

Damn, gurl.

 

[Cira]

Cira stood inside the observation center, waiting for the demonstration to begin. The length of her red hair was pulled severely back in a high tight pony tail at the crown of her head, drawing back her eyes a bit and making her look far more exotic than she already was.

The test pilot was a new recruit; from her files a Lieutenant Allaina Mare.

"Alright Mare," came Cira's voice over the intercom. "Let's see what you got."

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Tegaea raised her eyebrow. "You heard her, Ms @[member="Allaina Mare"], let's get going. We've got some targets out a little way in the desert where you can target. I'll take navigation, @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] can take gunner. I know she likes big explosions as much as anyone!"

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

In case of Siobhan is probably was lack of discipline. Well, Tegaea was quite good at making Siobhan act disciplined as a soldier should, but this was a family-friendly plot. "A big bang always lights up the mood," Siobhan quipped happily when she got told to handle the guns. She was, to put it bluntly, only an average pilot and probably would be little use a as a navigator, but she had a penchant for explosions.

"Let's take this baby for a little test run and cause mayhem."

 

[Qae Shena]

A sudden voice from the loudspeakers was almost enough to startle Allaina, but she didn't appear too phased by it all. "Aye aye, ma'am," came the instant response, very Navy-like in its tone. "Let's load up. Boarding ramp is between the engines."

A strange place, but it made the most sense. The hatch was already down as the Inimica-class sat on its landing skids, where Allaina could board the massive gunship from behind and go through the single corridor down the ship's centre. Access hatches to engines and other engineering spaces dotted the hallway at even intervals, followed by the crew bunks, the cargo spaces, and finally the cockpit in the fore of the ship.

Allaina checked her surroundings and started all necessary preflight checks like they were nothing, performing the preflight for the co-pilots and gunners as well, fooling with the vast majority of the ship's toggles, switches and yokes. Every control needed to be checked in the absence of a crew chief to do it before a pre-planned mission. Finally, she took her seat, pulling her flight helmet off her seat and latching it over her head. Her inbuilt comm jacked directly into the ship's controls and systems came to whirring life. Crash webbing latched over her and, once sure everyone else had buckled up, she keyed her comm and brought the ship up on its repulsorlifts.

"Inimica One to Tower. Taking pre-approved departure now."

The gunship rocketed out of the hangar at the expert hand of Allaina's touch, pushing its limits by driving its twin ion engines to their absolute maximum. With a grin she looked over to Siobhan and Tegaea. "Is this your first time in a ship like this?"

 

[Cira]

A soft curve of pleasure drew over Cira's lips at their quick response; a deep sense of pride. This is what she pushed her company towards, innovation. She personally was involved in every bit of new tech that came across Omega Pyre's assembly line, a common sight at the labs where the techs knew she was always all too eager to test out the prototypes herself.

"Good luck Inimica One," she said, and while stern of voice, the encouragement was there. Footsteps then drew her over towards the simulated holo-array that would relay all of Inimica One's actions in 3D display.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

"I've never been in a bomber before. I know how to navigate though, so as long as you can fly this elegant crate...."
She headed up the ramp and took her seat behind and to the side of @[member="Allaina Mare"]. @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] sat behind her, controlling the targeting.
"Okay, take us up, Allaina. I've put in the coordinates you need to fly to. Most important thing is to make sure we don't accidentally drop a bomb on the city. That might be...bad."

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

"Never been in a bomber, just normal gunships," Siobhan responded, casting a fond look at Tegaea and smirking. "The Colonel once jumped on a gunship with a lightsabre and hacked it down." She tactfully did not mention that subsequently Tegs had almost fallen into an abyss. Wait, Siobhan and tact? Tatooine must have really frozen over. She had a short look around the ship, taking her place behind Tegaea to handle the targeting, smirking as the craft was pushed to maximum speed.

 

[Qae Shena]

"You'll find the bomber is a kind of power you just can't trade in for any other ship. The ability to pick a target and break it with precision and stand-off weaponry no fighter could ever mount is incredible. And this kind of bomber could, say, take out a Corvette or two solo."

That was an interesting call, but valid; it carried sixteen heavy rockets and four was enough to decimate a Corvette if you parked it in the rear quarter, behind the turrets' blind spot. Maybe throw in a proton torpedo or two to be sure. The Inimica-class was designed for the big targets, not the little ones. Allaina had specified in the design that it needed to be a battlefield dominance multipler. A full squadron of these things... Star Destroyers, with ease. Maybe even two.

Piloting the ship itself down towards the practise range, Allaina called up vectors and the terrain-follow settings that allowed limited autopilot and a slight tone in her headset when they got too low to the ground.

"So, you guys are both Jedis or something then?" she asked, considering they both used lightsabers and Force powers between them and whatnot. It was an interesting discussion to have on the way there, at least.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

"Haha, I'm no Jedi. I just borrowed Siobhan's lightsabre. She used to be a Jedi, but they didn't approve of her drinking, fighting and womanising. She's joined the proper side now; the side paying money to fight. Me, I've got no magic powers, my only superpower is that I got to the gym!"

"We're closing in on the target. Should be in range in one minute...."

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

"They also had anti-smoking regulations. Bloody prudes need to get a life and get out of their ivory tower. They also like sight-seeing in old ruins on planets where battles are going on," Siobhan said with a smirk. No, she was not going to stop mocking that little incident on Anaxes for a while. There had been a comedy about it on the HoloNet some time ago, though alas it had not been that good. "Omega makes so much better use of my talents."

As the bomber flew across the desert at maximum speed the target soon came into view and the terrain rushed under their heavy gunship. Out here in the desert they could blast targets to smithereens at their leisure. Siobhan's hand moved over the console as the old tank dumped in the desert came into her sights. The tank was locked in the targeting mechanism and at the press of a button a missile was fired from the bomber, flying straight towards the vehicle and putting it to the flames as it exploded in a small fireball. "Nice."

 

[Qae Shena]

"Understandable," Allaina said in response. "I've seen it in action but I haven't actually had a reasonable discussion with a Jedi or Sith or whatever before. Sith are too interested in tying you up by your entrails. Being a reasonable person is better than being a stuffy monk or whatever anyway. I never did understand that whole thing. I'd rather be me."

Allaina's attention shifted as she watched the tank detonate, approving very much of carnage of any sort. It was her favourite. "Let me run you through the basics: two dual heavy laser cannon turrets under the nose. One twelve-round proton torpedo launcher under the cockpit. Two dorsal nine-round concussion missile launcher turrets. One proton bomb dispenser underneath and the eight heavy rocket tubes with two rounds each topside. Have we got a hardened bunker around here that needs killing? By the sounds of it, you two need to see something die."

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

She shrugged at Allaina's words. "Most people need rules and regulations to keep focussed enough with the Force, I've heard. The Jedi give them that I guess."

"Sadly not. We don't build bunkers just to blow them up. But feel free to blow up the desert a bit. As you can see we've already done that. There's a ten mile exclusion zone around here, so blow up things to your heart's content. Also, what's the controls like on this?"

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

Siobhan nodded at Tegaea's words. "Only half the time they can't make up their mind about what their rules should be. 'There are Sith there, we must combat oppression!' 'No, we can't fight fire with fire, aggression will lead us to the dark side'. 'We serve the Republic.' 'The Force has a will and we must follow it.' 'Relationships aren't bad.' 'Passion turns you evil,'" she gave a casual shrug. She wasn't really ranting, rather she sounded amused. "But, hey, whatever rocks their boat. Omega rules work splendid for me."

Siobhan acknowledged that the Jedi did some good. They were useful to fight Sith scum, when they actually got their act together and put their mind to it instead of procrastinating. But then the trouble was probably one of perception, since she had seen herself more as a soldier with powers than as a mystic monk. Moreover, Jedi were expected to trust in the accumulated wisdom of a Council, but having gone through the school of hard knocks she thought herself superior to persons who in her opinion had been educated in an ivory tower.

A perhaps rather stereotyped position, to be sure, but she gravitated to those who had earned her respect through strength and had fought to get where they were. In the past that had been Adril, now it was Tegaea.

Nonetheless, although she had been quite eager to discard her attachments to the Order, she didn't want to see them destroyed.

Concentrating on far more interesting matters, Siobhan fired off another missile aimed at an old tank that conveniently stood around. This model was of a more modern, sturdier design than the last one. Nonetheless, when the missile hit home it got got blown to pieces just as easily, causing a fire that spread to an old building that had been built at a dried-out oasis.