Mandalorian Mystic
"No Shia, this is insane."
Her elder sister stared bluntly at her clan leader as Shia neatly stepped around the taller woman and hurried to the viewport.
"Ssssh. They're coming into visual range now."
Outside, the immense globe of a gas giant floated - the system it was in was nameless, charted on astrogation charts only so that vessels might avoid it. But here, today a particular kind of vessel had come to call it home.
"You see the blue-white banding?" The ex-Hypernautics employee - now Heraz Kryze, Chief of the informally named 'Project Space Squid' said with a didatic tone. Shia nodded in affirmation. "High energy particle content from exotic elements in gas giants atmosphere, they'll cluser there to feed. But you won't see them until we're up close, although your bridge crew have them on gravitic array - that was always something we could never fix."
The ship swept closer, under power but barely producing any thrust. Shia seemed slightly annoyed by the way the man discussed creatures as if they were a thing. She'd found him - and the records of this decade old Hypernautics project in Sundari, working at the shipyards. She'd even heard of the so-called 'singing ships' - but until she'd studied them, their potential for Mandalore - no, for Mandalorians - had never hit her. Her people, her clan, could live free of a gravity well without having to rely on the endlessly failing freighters and warships so many Mandalorian Nomads were forced to use.
"And you say these are... wild?"
"Yes, the original Prowler-class incorporate massive cybernetic modifications. I doubt Hypernautics has more than ten grown, even if the project is still running. But the Marauder-class of the Mesen'loras can reproduce, defend themselves and exist wholly without human influence. I don't know how the wild pods came about, but I suspect either a bio-engineer felt that engineered slavery of even a semi-sentient was cruel, or someone in the company wanted to test how well they'd beed on their own. Much easier to harvest from a herd after all."
Shia held up a hand.
"They need a new name."
"Sorry?"
"Y'see, 'Iron Beast' is cool. Flesh ship... I don't mean to be critical of your marketing department, but... no wonder they're not popular. How about... Tra'uliik?"
"Starfire Beast? I... huh. They're not good with languages, but if you got the imagery across..."
"I've studied your proposals, these could free the nomad clans, but we'd need to refine their genome and des..."
Shia stopped dead as a fifty meter wide, tri-bodied... something rose from the dark void, rolled gracefully and then buzzed the ship, sending the internal gravity rocking and pushing her off course. Her hands slammed onto the viewport as she craned for a better look, then she actually yelped and stepped back as two more similar sized bio-ships raced past.
"Are they..."
"Juveniles. They're trying to... uh... like when you rock someone with your wake on a boat."
"We're being buzzed by juvenile starships. I've lived to see it all. Can we hail them?"
"Yes, but they can'... oh."
Shia, her sister and the man formerly from MandalHypernautics all fell silent as a tri-hulled bioship the size of a medium corvette rose silently out of the deep void, it's hull glittering with patterns of red and the refraction from the gas giant. It pulled level with the slightly larger human frigate, almost seeming to look over the vessel, then every comm unit let out a keening burst of something like whalesong, and Shia clutched her head. Almost in response, the ship seemed intrigued and slowed it's flight, dropping back until one immense multi-range occular array (which looked more like a black glass sphere than an eyeball) was precisely level with the viewport.
For long, long minutes, no one could find their voice, then Shia quietly said.
"Uh, tell the others we're here."
Her elder sister stared bluntly at her clan leader as Shia neatly stepped around the taller woman and hurried to the viewport.
"Ssssh. They're coming into visual range now."
Outside, the immense globe of a gas giant floated - the system it was in was nameless, charted on astrogation charts only so that vessels might avoid it. But here, today a particular kind of vessel had come to call it home.
"You see the blue-white banding?" The ex-Hypernautics employee - now Heraz Kryze, Chief of the informally named 'Project Space Squid' said with a didatic tone. Shia nodded in affirmation. "High energy particle content from exotic elements in gas giants atmosphere, they'll cluser there to feed. But you won't see them until we're up close, although your bridge crew have them on gravitic array - that was always something we could never fix."
The ship swept closer, under power but barely producing any thrust. Shia seemed slightly annoyed by the way the man discussed creatures as if they were a thing. She'd found him - and the records of this decade old Hypernautics project in Sundari, working at the shipyards. She'd even heard of the so-called 'singing ships' - but until she'd studied them, their potential for Mandalore - no, for Mandalorians - had never hit her. Her people, her clan, could live free of a gravity well without having to rely on the endlessly failing freighters and warships so many Mandalorian Nomads were forced to use.
"And you say these are... wild?"
"Yes, the original Prowler-class incorporate massive cybernetic modifications. I doubt Hypernautics has more than ten grown, even if the project is still running. But the Marauder-class of the Mesen'loras can reproduce, defend themselves and exist wholly without human influence. I don't know how the wild pods came about, but I suspect either a bio-engineer felt that engineered slavery of even a semi-sentient was cruel, or someone in the company wanted to test how well they'd beed on their own. Much easier to harvest from a herd after all."
Shia held up a hand.
"They need a new name."
"Sorry?"
"Y'see, 'Iron Beast' is cool. Flesh ship... I don't mean to be critical of your marketing department, but... no wonder they're not popular. How about... Tra'uliik?"
"Starfire Beast? I... huh. They're not good with languages, but if you got the imagery across..."
"I've studied your proposals, these could free the nomad clans, but we'd need to refine their genome and des..."
Shia stopped dead as a fifty meter wide, tri-bodied... something rose from the dark void, rolled gracefully and then buzzed the ship, sending the internal gravity rocking and pushing her off course. Her hands slammed onto the viewport as she craned for a better look, then she actually yelped and stepped back as two more similar sized bio-ships raced past.
"Are they..."
"Juveniles. They're trying to... uh... like when you rock someone with your wake on a boat."
"We're being buzzed by juvenile starships. I've lived to see it all. Can we hail them?"
"Yes, but they can'... oh."
Shia, her sister and the man formerly from MandalHypernautics all fell silent as a tri-hulled bioship the size of a medium corvette rose silently out of the deep void, it's hull glittering with patterns of red and the refraction from the gas giant. It pulled level with the slightly larger human frigate, almost seeming to look over the vessel, then every comm unit let out a keening burst of something like whalesong, and Shia clutched her head. Almost in response, the ship seemed intrigued and slowed it's flight, dropping back until one immense multi-range occular array (which looked more like a black glass sphere than an eyeball) was precisely level with the viewport.
For long, long minutes, no one could find their voice, then Shia quietly said.
"Uh, tell the others we're here."