Admiral Burtch
Newly Reinstated Admiral
"I guess the Dorneans must really like you, eh?" Commented the Devaronian standing a little behind and to Burtch's right.
"Some of them owed me a favour, yes." Burtch admitted, not taking his eyes off the shimmer of hyperspace beyond the viewport.
Then, without turning his body away from the viewport, he craned his neck to look over the Devaronian appraisingly. A well-built man standing at about 6'3", Lune the Devaronian had been "gifted" to Burtch as a sort of assistant by his friend
General Antio Way’lurr
. Burtch wasn't quite sure what Lune's story was, but he didn't want to think that Antio would have given him an incompetent assistant. Burtch had wanted to get to know the man better, but the hyperspace jump from Dornea to Mahporeem had been an extremely short trip.
Lune gestured sheepishly around at the bulkheads around them, "Well, for them to give you one of their gunships isn't exactly a small favour."
The pale Chiss bemusedly cocked an eyebrow at the Devaronian's soft attempt at interrogation before returning his gaze to the viewport, "Well, they're not 'gifting' it to me. They just wanted to help me give a good first impression for my little… job interview, I guess? They're just giving me a ride."
"Oh," Lune said sagely, "like 'you have powerful friends'?"
"Kind of like that, yeah," Burtch admitted. Not wanting to focus too much on himself, he again looked at Lune, "So why did Antio send you with me?"
The big man shrugged, "same as you. I needed a job. I used to work with Antio a while back as his crew chief… the Bosun." He explained.
This time, it was Burtch's turn to nod philosophically. Bosuns were primarily tasked with aesthetic and sanitary care of navy ships, but their real strength lay in their ability to dole-out discipline and influence morale amongst non-commissioned crew. Next to the Captain, the Bosun was culturally speaking the second most important member of the crew.
Burtch smirked,"so, basically, if I don't get the job, then you'll remained unemployed too."
"Antio seems confident you'll get it." He said with lightly forced confidence.
Burtch nodded assuredly, "If Antio gave me a Bosun, then he must expect me to need one. I suspect that this opportunity is all but a sure thing…"
Just then, as if to illustrate Burtch's theory, the Braha'tok Gunship snapped back into realspace. The gunship was pulled out of hyperspace next what looked like a remnant imperial checkpoint. This checkpoint was tended to by a lone, janky looking capital ship.
Both men looked at the ugly monolith with slack jawed disbelief. Lune commented, "I… definitely think they might have a job opening…"
"Oh dear god…" Burtch murmured in despair.
The ship before them appeared to be some kind of hack-job fusion of an ancient imperial class star destroyer and a rebellion era mon-calamari cruiser. How exactly anyone had managed to stitch the two dissimilar space frames together was well beyond Burtch's comprehension. Disjointed add-ons, like emplacements and turrets had seemingly been adapted to mismatched mounting points, suggesting that the whole ship had been assembled using pretty much whatever was "laying around" at the time. Many hull plates appeared to be of dissimilar colours and texture, suggesting that the ship was extremely old with replacement parts having been accumulated throughout the centuries.
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that they have a hard time signing on good officers…" Lune speculated. Then he risked a look at Burtch, "Do you wanna call Antio and tell him we're turning back?"
Burtch shook his head in a short jerking motion, and then controlled his breath to focus. His innitial shock subsided as his once-practiced Admiral's eye scanned the ship over more carefully this time. He noticed little subtle things this time: the gun turrets tracked smoothly on their mismatched gun-mounts; the engine plumes were smooth and stable; the mismatched hull plates, while janky, were still clean and free of corrosion. For a composite capital ship like this, it seemed to have maintained remarkable upkeep. During his time with the Elysium Empire – and later, the Nomadic Peoples Coalition – he had become intimately familiar with the logistics of maintaining proper, conventionally purpose-built warships. It was a perpetually monolithic task that consumed immense resources. To achieve similarly proficient upkeep with such a… unconventional design like this was nothing less than an impressive accomplishment.
"No," Burtch finally said, opening his mind to unusual possibilities, "go ahead and tell the captain to set the gunship down in their combat hangar, if it can accommodate us. I'm assuming that this is our host, come out to meet us. I'll rather see the condition of their fighter bays while we meet."
Burtch would guess that his host was expecting them to arrive in the janky ship's guest hangar. So, naturally, that hangar would be spotless and prepared formally. Burtch didn't want to see that. He wanted to see the what the flight deck where combat sorties took place, where the real work took place and real crews did their jobs.
After all; this was a job interview…
Ronhar Tane
"Some of them owed me a favour, yes." Burtch admitted, not taking his eyes off the shimmer of hyperspace beyond the viewport.
Then, without turning his body away from the viewport, he craned his neck to look over the Devaronian appraisingly. A well-built man standing at about 6'3", Lune the Devaronian had been "gifted" to Burtch as a sort of assistant by his friend
General Antio Way’lurr
. Burtch wasn't quite sure what Lune's story was, but he didn't want to think that Antio would have given him an incompetent assistant. Burtch had wanted to get to know the man better, but the hyperspace jump from Dornea to Mahporeem had been an extremely short trip.Lune gestured sheepishly around at the bulkheads around them, "Well, for them to give you one of their gunships isn't exactly a small favour."
The pale Chiss bemusedly cocked an eyebrow at the Devaronian's soft attempt at interrogation before returning his gaze to the viewport, "Well, they're not 'gifting' it to me. They just wanted to help me give a good first impression for my little… job interview, I guess? They're just giving me a ride."
"Oh," Lune said sagely, "like 'you have powerful friends'?"
"Kind of like that, yeah," Burtch admitted. Not wanting to focus too much on himself, he again looked at Lune, "So why did Antio send you with me?"
The big man shrugged, "same as you. I needed a job. I used to work with Antio a while back as his crew chief… the Bosun." He explained.
This time, it was Burtch's turn to nod philosophically. Bosuns were primarily tasked with aesthetic and sanitary care of navy ships, but their real strength lay in their ability to dole-out discipline and influence morale amongst non-commissioned crew. Next to the Captain, the Bosun was culturally speaking the second most important member of the crew.
Burtch smirked,"so, basically, if I don't get the job, then you'll remained unemployed too."
"Antio seems confident you'll get it." He said with lightly forced confidence.
Burtch nodded assuredly, "If Antio gave me a Bosun, then he must expect me to need one. I suspect that this opportunity is all but a sure thing…"
Just then, as if to illustrate Burtch's theory, the Braha'tok Gunship snapped back into realspace. The gunship was pulled out of hyperspace next what looked like a remnant imperial checkpoint. This checkpoint was tended to by a lone, janky looking capital ship.
Both men looked at the ugly monolith with slack jawed disbelief. Lune commented, "I… definitely think they might have a job opening…"
"Oh dear god…" Burtch murmured in despair.
The ship before them appeared to be some kind of hack-job fusion of an ancient imperial class star destroyer and a rebellion era mon-calamari cruiser. How exactly anyone had managed to stitch the two dissimilar space frames together was well beyond Burtch's comprehension. Disjointed add-ons, like emplacements and turrets had seemingly been adapted to mismatched mounting points, suggesting that the whole ship had been assembled using pretty much whatever was "laying around" at the time. Many hull plates appeared to be of dissimilar colours and texture, suggesting that the ship was extremely old with replacement parts having been accumulated throughout the centuries.
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that they have a hard time signing on good officers…" Lune speculated. Then he risked a look at Burtch, "Do you wanna call Antio and tell him we're turning back?"
Burtch shook his head in a short jerking motion, and then controlled his breath to focus. His innitial shock subsided as his once-practiced Admiral's eye scanned the ship over more carefully this time. He noticed little subtle things this time: the gun turrets tracked smoothly on their mismatched gun-mounts; the engine plumes were smooth and stable; the mismatched hull plates, while janky, were still clean and free of corrosion. For a composite capital ship like this, it seemed to have maintained remarkable upkeep. During his time with the Elysium Empire – and later, the Nomadic Peoples Coalition – he had become intimately familiar with the logistics of maintaining proper, conventionally purpose-built warships. It was a perpetually monolithic task that consumed immense resources. To achieve similarly proficient upkeep with such a… unconventional design like this was nothing less than an impressive accomplishment.
"No," Burtch finally said, opening his mind to unusual possibilities, "go ahead and tell the captain to set the gunship down in their combat hangar, if it can accommodate us. I'm assuming that this is our host, come out to meet us. I'll rather see the condition of their fighter bays while we meet."
Burtch would guess that his host was expecting them to arrive in the janky ship's guest hangar. So, naturally, that hangar would be spotless and prepared formally. Burtch didn't want to see that. He wanted to see the what the flight deck where combat sorties took place, where the real work took place and real crews did their jobs.
After all; this was a job interview…
Ronhar Tane
