Lamentation of Woe

[Xevek Nekonis]

The Phasma-Class Interceptor that Darth Lykos called his home for most of the time, especially since, with the fall of the One Sith and its holdings, the Sith Assassins had no homebase in which he could return to - leaving every member to scatter into the shadows, was by no means a large ship, hardly being suitable for him to spend his time in, yet, he did none the less, keeping on the move constantly. To make do with the small amount of space, the cabin that served as his quarters also served as a training, meditation chamber and more, what with it being the largest room on the ship; in accomplishing this, his bed ended up being a simple roll out mat and pillows, not that the Zabrak minded, preferring such spartan accommodations over extravagance. However, these was one function that his quarts did not also serve, that being a function that another room was dedicated to, a personal study.

Within the small room, a desk had been placed of to one side, a plain, metallic, polished desk in a monochrome grey. Next to the door was a thin cabinet that reached up to the ceiling. Off to the sides were shelves containing sheaths of flimisplast, datapads and even stored hardrives that the Sith Lord would use as an offline database of information, accessed only by actually inserting the hardrives into a computer of some sort. The desk itself was scattered with even more flimsiplast and datapads, a holotransmitter and numerous writing utensils.

Currently, it was behind that desk that the Zabrak sat, his head resting in his hands (one cybernetic, the other a mess of scarred flesh), mindful of the horns that adorned his forehead, eye closed in thought. Off to his side, sat next to his desk and proper up against the side, was the sniper rifle that Lykos have been using and that was serving as the cause for his thoughtful mood.

After all, he had just realised, upon cleaning and caring for the blaster rifle so as to keep it maintained and ready to use, that despite the claims of independence that he and his fellow Assassins followed, many still relied on One Sith tech, pillaged from its corpse during its latter years, to equip themselves. Himself included in that number. As such, he was resolute that, in his position on the Sith Assassins Council as the White Assassin and Aspect of Conquest, he should look out for his Assassins and make sure that they were equipped with what they should need, equipped with weapons for the Sith Assassins made by the SIth Assassins.

His focus at that time was on creating a weapon that would serve to replace the very weapon that had spawned such thoughts, a sniper rifle for both himself and the Assassins higher up in the hierarchy of the group. At first, just a simple design was what came to mind, however, before he could send it off to Kalor Tech, the business aligned with the Assassins, he had researched deeper into rifles and now sort to improve upon the basic design that he had first thought of.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

Tapping his stylus against the sheet of flimsi upon which Lykos was recording his thoughts as they came to him, notes on what he should study and look into to determine if they were possible or not before passing along his designs to Kalor so that they could be brought into a usable and tangible form, the Zabrak slowly read through what he had already come up with. The dimensions of the length of the barrel, stock and overall rifle itself were scribbled at the top of the page. Off to the side, a short list of materials was scratched out, making all but one illegible: Plasteel, his choice of material for the body and frame of the weapon to be made out of. Rough sketches of the design of the rifle itself could be found at the upper right of the page, only one of them surrounded in a drawn circle. Bellow those sketches were the numbers 15 and .338, the capacity of a single clip and the type of slug that Lykos had settled upon and, accompanying those numbers, were dimensions and a quick scribbled design of the clip itself, captioned with a description of where on the body of the rifle the clip would sit along with methods in which the clip would be protected and removed so as to be replaced.

As well and good as what he had already came up with was, for he understood that it would be able to serve its function well enough and within desired parameters, the enthusiasm for this creation that had grown within his two hearts the more he studied what he needed to learn refused to die out, pushing him to do more, make it more, even as his mind was currently desperately searching for what that more could be.

Sighing as he lifted his head from where it was cradled in his hands, Lykos leaned backwards, his one eye staring straight upwards as his back arched within the confines of the seat. Pushing himself to his feet after a resounding crack rang out and the tense muscles along his back relaxed, the Zabrak wandered over to cabinet next to the door to the room. Swinging open the cabinet revealed a collection of alcoholic drinks, bags of tea, bottles of water, glasses, cups and a small, metal cylinder designed for heating water.

Calmly running through the practiced motions of creating himself a cup of tea, ignoring the alcohol by reminding himself of the fact that, at the moment, he needed a clear and focused mind, Lykos let his thoughts speed away from him, paying no mind to pulling them in, simply letting them jump for spark of an idea to a different spark of an idea, waiting for himself to stumble across the one idea that would ignite his mind and break himself of this block on what to do. Sure enough, as he closed up the cabinet, a warm cup of tea held within his cynernetic hand, and made his way back towards his desk, a spark took hold and a grin would pull at his lips, exposing pointed teeth, a fire igniting within his eyes.

"Two in one. Long range and short." His words would come out in a breathy whisper as he immediately set about diving deeper into that idea.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

Lowering himself into his chair with a slight groan as the not-yet-healed scar tissue along his right leg was pulled slight, Lykos took a single mouthful of his tea, savouring the taste for a moment, before setting it aside and pulling one of the datapad atop the desk to him, uncaring of the fact that a few sheets of blank flimsi would flutter to the metal flooring. Pulling up as much information as he could, the Zabrak started to pour through documents relating to the barrel structure and positioning for assault rifles as well as sniper rifles. Every now and then, he'd tear his eyes away from the datapad before him to scribble a few notes on a fresh sheet of flimsi, the already note filled one set off to the side slightly. As he would jot down his notes, he would occasional mutter his thoughts under his breath.

"...way to switch between long and short barrel..."

"...temporary scope..."

"...reinforced body, comfortable to be held in differing ways..."

Finally setting down his stylus and pushing the datapad off to the side once more, uncaring of where it landed, he focused his gaze upon his new notes, humming in consideration. Already, he was mentally poking holes in his idea, but, rather than letting that deter him, the Sith simply resolved to fix those holes, removing them entirely. Picking up a few more blank sheets of flimsi, he scribbled the name of his current problems along the top of all but one sheet. That one sheet instead had a outline of the rifle copied over from the very first sheet of flimsi.