Power over Matter

[Laira Darkhold]

Benji is having trouble getting the Shielding I wanted. It keeps frying up pretty quick trying to run both the Particle Shields and the Ray Shields at the same time. I compromised with him for sake of progress and suggested that rather than both being able to be active at the same time make it to where I had to swap back and forth between the too.

“Well it will take a few seconds to power on the shields if you swap them out, and during power up they will be vulnerable. You might have to go without Draco.” Benji said, looking up from his work bench.

“If I wanted to go without, I wouldn’t be here buddy. Come on, you’ll think of something, you always do.” I smiled at him and he nodded his head and stood up, his back cracking as he stretched.

“If I am gonna pull another all-nighter for you, you are gonna have to do me some serious favors when I’m done.” He joked as he poured himself a cup of caf. “I guess I can add a powercell directly to the shield generator to assist in its activation time, but there is no way those circuits aren’t gonna overheat without a serious coolant system.” Benji was already lost in his thoughts, talking to himself. He knew better than to expect me to contribute anything worthwhile with all this techno mumbo jumbo.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Benji called me into his workshop in the morning; I guess he did pull an all-nighter for the second time this week. “What you got old man.”

The elderly duros stood up and presented a technical schematic for a shield projector. It had lots of little notations surrounding it and looked like something some big time engineer would fawn over. “I figured out how to get the shields working, at least I think so. I added a pair of dedicated powercells to the shield projector to draw power from. Their easy to recharge and the Internal generator can do that if need be. But they do decrease the activation time down to about 2 seconds, give or take.” He motioned at a pair of normal sized batteries he had prepared as he was getting ready to work on a prototype.

“Now for the coolant system, I decided to place the Shield Projector and the power generator adjacent to each other so they could both benefit from this Liquid Krypton Coolant system. The system will keep them from turning your back into a rump-roast, and will keep the generator from overheating.” He showed me the tubing and coolant system sitting on his desk. “You will need to replace the liquid krypton about once a week, or after every major use, but it will do the trick.”

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Benji was bustling about still, digging through old boxes full of junk I suppose. “With the krypton kept at -155° C it will keep the heat down and should keep the generator from cooking all the wiring.” He pulled an old generator one might connect to a T-21 Light Repeating Blaster out of a drawer and began fooling with it. He kept pulling stuff off of it and throwing random pieces of I don’t know what away.

“As far as energy output, unless I strapped a 4T3 to your back it can’t sustain running both Particle Shields and Ray Shields. I am working on slimming one of these down for you to put in the back plate to be concealed by the jetpack, but its probably gonna add some weight.” The old duros looked at me to approve the change.
“We’re already at like thirty or so kilos. It can’t get much heavier or I won’t be able to run in it, much less fight.” I know he has a plan, I just gotta work him to get me there.

“I can get the whole thing down to about forty kilos, generator, armor, jetpack, but that’s the best I can do. “

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Forty Kilos, ugh that’s gonna be rough. Even with it spread over my body, any fight that expects me to be mobile for longer than six or seven hours is gonna leave me comatose. Then again, I shouldn’t be getting into fights like that. “Forty kilos sounds fine to me, just make the thing work bud.” I step out of the workshop to take a seat in his den. I ain’t much help, so I just try to stay out of his way.

“I’m working on getting it to run for about three hundred seconds of continuous use. Even if I manage that taking hits from bigger weapons will drain the power quicker and might just overload the whole thing.” He winced as he tried to heft the still heavy generator pack. He slid it into place where he wanted and ran the cryogenic coolant tubes around it like he wanted. Then he placed the shield projectors two sides around it and the jetpack atop that appartatus.

“The only way I can get the generator to run that long of use is to overclock it, which because of the coolant system won’t cause it to combust, but it will seriously slow down the recharge time. You would normally be looking at about thirty minutes out in the field, if you overclock it closer to an hour. So what do you want to do?” He said as he slid into his comfy chair, exhaustion across his face.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

“Let me guess, its decide now hope for the best later?” I said with a grimace. How was I supposed to know whether to run the thing for four minutes or five minutes at a time. Back when I was with the Eriadu PDF I remember being told the average fire-fight is only a few minutes long. “Kark it, go with the standard setting. I would rather it be shorter recharge time.”

“Alright, scrap the overclocking the generator. In that case we just need to focus on cutting the system’s weight down. I pulled out all the bells and whistles and all the aesthetics from it, and its right about the correct weight. You should now about half this system’s weight is gonna be all on you back. I adjusted the back plate so that the weight sits between your shoulders, and is spread over as much area as it can be comfortably. I think we are almost done. All I have to do is get the Shield Projector set and it will be all peachy. Assuming it works,” he almost burst out laughing at that last line. He always fancied himself a comedian. Wouldn’t surprise me if he programmed half of the weapons to launch confetti.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Benji spent the better part of a week working on the shield projector. He had it mounted the way he wanted and connected to everything else the way he wanted, shielded and protected properly and everything else, he was just having trouble programming it to work properly. It kept turning both projectors on, or flicking between the two constantly.

“If I cut the energy from the powercells I can find that short that’s causing all this ruckus and we can test the karking thing tomorrow.” He muttered to himself. Benji rarely cursed, so he was in a mood already. I keep quite watching him work as patiently as I can manage. It had already been a month of working on the whole set and we had finally hit the first real bad snag. Unfortunately is was a game ender, not a game changer. “Alright so that will allow the manual switching.” He said soldering the complex computer system that controlled the projectors. “And that is the short I have been looking for.” Smoke rose from the work bench as he finished. What he was working on.

I raised my eyebrows and stood up from my seat. “Well, you think it’s ready to test out, or should I go get us some more caf?” I said calmly as I approached his work bench.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

“Well I have installed a cryogenic cooling system to keep the two shield projectors and the power generator cool, shaved off all the extra stuff on that generator to get it to a reasonable weight, set the switch for the manual control of the shields, particle or ray, not both, cut the power up sequence on the shields down to about two seconds, set the controls of the shields to allow you to move. They won’t stop anything under forty or fifty kilometers an hour, and they can’t run during flight. I installed a fail-safe that will switch off the shield before it overloads to prevent short circuiting, assuming it doesn’t get punched through in the first hit, and clearly revolutionized the concept of being a shut-in. Those losers over at BlasTech think they can power through a job. Ha, showed them.” He was absolutely beaming with pride and accomplishment, all smiles and big eyes today.

“Alright lets try it out and then go for drinks, on you of course.” I say waiting for him to install the system into the armor.

“How are you gonna test something like this without at least have some risk on the line. Strap the thing to your back as is, power it on, and let me shoot you with the DC-17 you got.” He said smiling.

“Sure, as a Token of my great trust in your abilities I will.” I pull the apparatus over my shoulders, yep heavy as a bantha, and power on the ray shields. I close my eyes and hear a blaster shot.

“Well it works, and I don’t get to keep your stuff. I guess it’s a win loose today.” He said grinning. About ten minutes later we had headed off to the local cantina to celebrate.