Need for Theed: Panaka

[Ashin Varanin]

Another day, another ten meetings. She’d been looking forward to this one, though. With the Apailana’s development wrapping up, the shipwrights informed her they were finalizing another longstanding project: the modernization of the ancient Naboo royal starfighter. There had been, she knew, a good deal of strife on the question of whether to make and sell this particular vessel. It was, to the Naboo people, both iconic and closely linked to their monarchs. The design had never been sold to anyone but a king or queen of Naboo -- at least not by Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps. But that particular nexu was out of the bag. Damage done, Theed Hangar had forged ahead with the Amidala-class.

The context, of course, was the extrication of Theed Hangar's intellectual property from that of Nubia StarDrive. To that end, the meeting began with a background briefing for Alec, from Legal, with commentary by the shipwrights and the firm historians (of which there were several).

Of all Theed Hangar's historical designs, some blueprints were extant:

G-1 starfighter - A collaboration with Gungan BullbaBong. Virtually identical spaceframe to the N-1, less capable in most respects. No Nubian involvement.

H-type yacht - Designed by Nubia, customized by Theed Hangar. Unusable, apart from some of the modification innovations. No rights to Theed.

J-type 327 royal starship - Designed and built by Theed Hangar, components by Nubia, copyright Theed Hangar. Unimpeachable rights. Root of the new Amidala-class.

J-type diplomatic barge - Designed by Theed Hangar, built by Theed Hangar and Nubia. Unimpeachable rights. Root of the new Apailana-class.

J-type star skiff - Design and manufacture shared by Theed Hangar and Nubia, records damaged, rights uncertain, room for contestation. Manufactured and sold by Nubia for a pittance.

Mantaris-class amphibious colony transport - Design and manufacture shared by Otoh Gunga Bongameken Cooperative. Rights uncertain, room for contestation.

N-1 starfighter - Designed by Nubia, manufactured by Theed Hangar. No rights to Theed. However, the G-1...

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Alec's education continued as Legal and the shipwright historians went back and forth.

N-1L light starfighter: An N-1 predecessor, provenance uncertain, records damaged, rights tied up between Theed Hangar and Nubia. Unsellable at the moment.

N-1T starfighter: An N-1 successor, provenance uncertain, records damaged, rights tied up with Nubia, unsellable.

N-X police cruiser: An N-1 airspeeder/combat cloud car derivative, designed and manufactured by Theed Hangar. Unimpeachable rights.

Royal Lifter: A transport with aesthetic similarities to the N-1, provenance uncertain, records damaged, rights tied up with the Royal Naboo Security Forces (who'd once played a role in their production). Probably sellable.

NB-1, NB-1S, NB-1T: A line of bombers. Designed by Theed Hangar; manufactured jointly with, or solely by, Nubia. Records iffy. Almost unimpeachable rights went to Theed Hangar.

Royal Air Cruiser: A combat cloud car/airspeeder boasting a full-power turbolaser. Designed and manufactured by Theed Hangar. Unimpeachable rights.

Of the archaic Republic-era designs, that left Theed Hangar in full command of the designs to the J-type 327, J-type diplomatic barge, N-X police cruiser, NB-series bombers (three designs), and Royal Air Cruiser. It also left Theed Hangar with very good prospects on the Royal Lifter, Mantaris-class amphibious transport, and G-1 starfighter.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

The challenge, she now understood, had been to design a starfighter that hearkened back to the iconic N-1, while remaining fully within the realm of Theed Hangar intellectual property -- and avoiding any Nubian entanglements. However, Theed Hangar had done its due diligence to acquire unlimited manufacturing rights from its former Gungan partners: Bullbabong and Otoh Gunga Bongameken Cooperative. OGBC was still extant, barely; it confined itself to bongos, though it had designed and constructed at least one line of coral-hulled starships in recent years. OGBC retained its share of rights to the Mantaris-class, and Theed Hangar retained a friendly collaborative relationship with the venerable bongowrights. Bullbabong, by contrast, was utterly defunct, one man's project long before the Dark Age. Tracking down the heirs hadn't been easy -- even though the corporation still existed on paper -- but Theed Hangar had acquired comprehensive rights to the G-1 starfighter design.

From there, it had been relatively simple, over the course of a couple of years, to make a derivative, modernized design that included design cues from the N-X and NB-series. Both vessels were well within the realm of Theed Hangar's production rights. The idea was not to step on Nubian toes overmuch, while still hearkening back to something iconic. Some of the sharper points and fins had evened out, a few of the Nubian flair-touches stripped away from the G-1 spaceframe. All subtle changes.

Alec wasn't the 'verse's biggest fan of the old Hangar/Nubia design aesthetic. Even she had to admit, though, that the upcoming starfighter, the G-1X Panaka-class, took her breath away. Legal and the shipwright historians had timed the big reveal well. She went from boredom to intense interest in moments, telegraphing like crazy.

Spoiler

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Now came the bad news. A side point, but a crucial one. The Apailana's systems had proven incompatible with the Saiba molecular shield modules, and the shipwrights were 70/30 in favor of the Panaka having the same issues. Though a much smaller vessel, the Panaka had too many similarities with the Apailana. Advanced, overlapping deflector shields would have to do for both ships. Probably not Saiba's fault, but even so, Alec found herself leery. Of course, she wasn't a designer, and she wasn't here to interfere with design choices. She was here to learn. In other contexts, that had often meant asking challenging questions of the instructors, a strategy that had made her friends and detractors at the Levantine Astronautical Academy. Here, surrounded by faded pomp and circumstance, she found that strategy unwieldy. Appropriate at times, but generally unwise. Truth be told, she did know a thing or two about ship design; it was part of the family business, and the LAA had offered courses on it, and she'd spent her life on ships. But it was one thing to grasp the principles as their execution was presented to her, and quite another to grasp every implication of a subtle shift in this or that component or structural element.

That said, she recognized several implications of the molecular shielding failure right off the bat. They'd counted on the Saiba modules to save room, relative to redundant deflector shield generators. That room had to be made up elsewhere, hence tighter quarters for crewers and guards on the Apailana-class. In a spaceframe as compact as the Panaka, harsher sacrifices would need to be made. It was clear, too, that net combat power expenditure would be fractionally but significantly higher.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

A breakthrough, now -- an embarrassingly quick reversal. The Saiba modules had been successfully mated to the rest of the vessel; the pre-change Apailana and Panaka schematics could go through. Alec tried to be gracious as all this unfolded, right there in the meeting. The shipwrights were exultant at having figured it out; something about Mon Calamari. She didn't catch the specifics. The meeting, blissfully and finally, moved forward.

To her. She'd become familiar with this phase of the average meeting. The phase comprised asking the quasi-silent-partner-slash-new-boss-slash-student-slash-outsider what she brought to the table. It was rarely so general. Normally it was phrased something like 'we've been looking for just the right countermeasure module, so we saved this chunk of space in the aft fuselate...', plus a significant look. They had rafts of connections and options of their own, but her connections were generally new to them. So when they pulled that routine by talking about hull strength and hypothetical acceleration changes with denser materials, it didn't take long to realize that they wanted something from her. It did, however, take a couple of minutes to realize they had a specific answer in mind, like a professor asking the wrong kind of open-ended question.

"As it happens," she said, "yes, I might be able to net us some beskar."

Electricity. Tension. Interest. Center of attention. Alec folded her arms and sat back in her chair, grinning and thinking. Clan Rekali's stocks of beskar had generally been accumulated the hard way, by pickaxe -- orders of magnitude less productive than Clan Dem'adas. That said, Clan Rekali didn't use all that much beskar in general; most Rekalis' armour was made of other metals. Heck, Alec's was mainly duraplast. Getting ahold of enough refined beskar to skin an ultra-small production run of elite fighters might not be all that difficult. Skin and internal supports, they hastened to add. They knew what happened when a proton torpedo hit a Bes'uliik straight on. Skin intact but deformed, like denting or crushing a pop can.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I can get that much together. It'll cost us, but you've got it all costed out already, haven't you."

As it turned out, they had.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Another meeting, radically different venue: she'd taken most of the exec team out for a jaunt to Rekali territory, specifically a station in the Roil. Decorated with a melange of cultural references -- Mando, Dathomiri, Vahla, Keetael -- the Clan boardroom here was an altogether less urbane and civilized experience. More impressive, in its way. There were serious trophies on the walls, everything from Sith armour to rancor heads. The boardroom was large.

It also looked out over a manufacturing floor. Down there, some of the Clan's beskarsmiths worked at the forging of the Panaka's armour. Ore to plate and every step in between.

"I brought you here," said Alec, "because I wanted you to understand that, while I'm happy to provide beskar, every bit of it is just as handcrafted as any of your best work, with just as much history and identity behind it." She turned away from the view and rested her shoulders against the glasteel, folding her arms, then gestured at the door across the way. "Also so you could meet my grandfather. This is Field Marshal Ember Rekali, Aliit'buir Clan Father of the Rekali. Call him Field Marshal."

A tall old man came in, offering nods to all and sundry. They rose to shake his hand, politely.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Ember had the measure of the room before they opened their mouths. It wasn't just emotion, though apprehension and interest played a role; he could sense that much just from watching them. His Force senses had never been all that good. For people this cloistered, they didn't need to be. He was dealing with executives and shipwrights from effete Naboo. They'd never met a Mandalorian Field Marshal; they'd never met a Clan Father, unless they'd run into Vereen. Vereen was probably their main point of reference, which at least partially explained the apprehension. The rest had to do with the trophies on the boardroom walls, and the constant sound of beskar forging. The hammer-noise percolated through the transparent wall, filling the room at a low level. Low, but impossible to ignore. The shipwrights, at a guess, were curious. Ember offered to bring them down to the foundry floor. They acquiesced. Pretty simple, straightforward -- a trained striil could have filled any given role in this meeting, his own included. This was just about being in the same room until everyone was slightly less uncomfortable. Not a lot to it. He did, however, look forward to leaving and returning to the Lost City of the Jedi. A little odd for a man who ran one of the galaxy's largest conglomerates, Ember was something of an introvert. Fortunately, so were the shipwrights. And the beskar smiths.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

On a quiet level -- all right, not so quiet when she got tipsy and hung up on details -- it amused the feth out of Alec that she was probably the better beskar-worker than her Aliit'buir grandfather. She'd spent a good portion of her life prospecting, mining, melting, refining, and working with metal in all its forms. An asteroid miner at heart, she'd knocked rocks off Concordia and Echoy'la like anyone else (or at least anyone with access). She'd gotten the hang of the Clan's beskarsmithery, at least in a limited sense. Being a true beskarsmith was a life's work, and she had a life already. That said, she understood most of what was going on down there on the factory floor, right up to and including the point where the smiths joined the beskar plates to the spaceframes and polished them to a mirror sheen. There weren't many things prettier than the gray-black of well-polished Mandalorian iron, so far as she was concerned. The end result wasn't exactly a Naboo starfighter, but it was close. The hull was based on the spaceframe of the G-1, the N-X, and the Naboo bombers -- all of which were owned by Theed Hangar. The G-1, in particular, was virtually identical to the N-1, which Theed Hangar didn't own. There was sordid history there, not all of which had survived. After the Gungans became a spacefaring race, not long before the Battle of Naboo, they were given the opportunity to purchase things like the G-1, a less capable version of the royal starfighter. There were colonial overtones and suchlike things.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Alec followed her grandfather and the executive team down onto the factory floor, and helped explain the basics of the beskar process. There were trade secrets, Clan and culture secrets, to be found here. She knew well that the Clan, derived from a host of sources, had paid a steep price to masker beskarsmithing. And even this level of skill couldn't match the handcrafted precision of Ijaat Akun or the mass-produced quality control of Mandal Hypernautics. In many ways, Clan Rekali's relationship with beskar was still young, still growing. Ambitious projects like this helped stretch the Rekali beskarsmiths' horizons and pave a way to future projects. Before now, she well knew, anything Rekali and beskar-related had been unique. The Panaka's small production run was still an order of magnitude greater, across several metrics. And frankly, it was taking much longer than Mandal Hype would have taken for the same job. That was the result of needing to do certain processes by hand; Mandal Hype had proprietary mass-production techniques that Clan Rekali couldn't match. There were implications for quality control as well. A certain percentage of metal had to be re-forged, which was a problem with dealing something that could shrug off concentrated plasma fire.

She and her grandfather soft-shoed most of that. Just like the Theed people couldn't know how beskar was actually forged, they didn't need to know that the process could be faster. For all they knew, this was completely normal. And perhaps it even was. Mandal Hype's operations were historically exceptional.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Not a bad gladhanding expedition, all told. The Theed executives and shipwrights had emerged with a new respect for the Clan, beskar, Ember, Alec (mainly by association), and even the Tion Trade Nexus. Alec coveted the Nexus. Its ownership was complex, comprising an awful lot of the biggest names. Acquiring it would be a bankruptcy-level mistake. She would have to settle for the trade centers going up on the intersections of the Gordian Reach and the Daragon Trail, which weren't doing too badly these days now that ATC had moved in.

ATC -- now there was a market. Danger Arceneau had a known fascination for shiny things (being one herself). One of the Apailanas had gone to her, which was a moment of pride for Theed. More than a moment, really. It was likely that the Panaka-class would go primarily to high-wattage collectors. Draco Vereen, for one, had expressed interest. Then again, despite Vereen's taste for all things shiny, he'd probably put the Panaka through its paces. So it was a good thing that the ship had above-par technical capabilities and was built for combat at a deeper level than the beskar plating. Like the Apailana and the Amidala, the Panaka was built for function, not just appearance. Facile statement, facile statement, nobody ever reads these things, the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.