Tinker

[Eldaah Aderyn]

She sat at the small work bench she had as an acolyte, her visor allowing her to zoom in on the components she was working on. She had decided, before she began her full training in the ways of the Sith, she wanted to build something. Three somethings to be precise, to be eyes and ears for her.

Information was power and she would gain that power over her fellow acolytes by any means necessary, something to stand out from the masses and attract a true Master. She was powerful, she knew that, she had been told that, but she wanted to be something even greater.

Sparks flew as she continued to solder and make the necessary connections within the droid's brain. They would be loyal only to her, the information they gleaned sent directly to her. They would need a role in combat as well, make them durable enough to take hits.

As she finished the last touches on the droid brain for probe one, she would prove why she carried the name the First Daughter ... to everyone.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Droid one whirred around now, testing its miniature repulsorlift while she worked on getting droid two working. None of the other acolytes had even noticed that she was working on some project, too concerned with petty backstabbing and watching those thugs parading around and proclaiming they would be the ones to attract the attention of the One Sith masters.

She remained silent during these displays, just watching from the shadows and biding her time. The first lessons for the crop of acolytes she was in were due to begin soon, that would be when the true tests would begin. Sith were not known for suffering fools and braggarts, or those who let their emotions run them. Cold calculations, precision, knowledge, and a store of emotion tightly under control made a truly powerful Sith.

With a small bit of static, the red photoreceptor of droid two lit up and the droid gave a small electronic sound as it stood up on the table on its three legs. With a wave of her hand, the droid also began to run a test of its repulsor systems, lifting gently off the table so she would have space to work on droid three.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

All three droids were now floating around her, their repulsor systems all working that was good. Now time to test the connection they had with her visor so she could stream real time video from them when required. Blinking her eyes, she shifted from feed to feed and smiled as the connections were working just fine.

Waving her hand, the droid zoomed off to different corners of the room and she continued to switch through the feeds, noting where blind spots on the droid's camera were. She would need to make adjustments to make sure those were eliminated, it wouldn't do if her rivals had a place to hide from her eyes.

Blinking twice, she began cycling through the droids' different vision filters. Infrared worked fine, x-ray was glitchy and would need a software fix before it was fully ready, zoom features worked just as calculated. All in all, she was pleased with that and continued to have them shift around to appraise the room.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Snapping her fingers, the probes immediately moved to different areas of the room and nestled into shadowy corners, their sound surveillance systems now being put through the test. Tying their sensors into the earpiece built into her mask and helmet, she started to walk around the room, a sound emitter in her hand.

Going through different frequencies and volumes of beeps, she noted where the droids picked up clear sounds and where they didn't. Switching to captured voice samples, she cycled through male and female, different languages as well. The droids were programmed to take in a language and translate it to Basic, while also retaining the speaker's voice patterns. It had taken some clever programming, but it seemed to be working so far. Most of the standard languages used by the denizens of the galaxy were translated well, context was needed in some places as the translations were a little rough.

Another snap of her fingers, and they flew back to her. One settled onto her shoulder, while Two and Three floated around her like she was a planetary system.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

She had temporarily deactivated her probes, she didn't need them floating around while she needed to activate the next layer of their systems. So far, they had proven reliable for surveillance, both audio and visual, but they needed to be more than that. They needed to serve her in other ways as well, durability and weapon/capture systems were slated next for her.

Durability could be covered by the fact she had designed the droids with a thin layer of turadium, roughly five millimeters thick, but with a durasteel skeleton and underlying plates. It would give them more protection than typical probe droids, which was roughly what she was aiming for. A few blaster bolts wouldn't destroy them or a swing or two of a lightsaber or blade weapon for that matter.

Reaching over for a piece of the metal alloy, she wasn't going to risk the probes in the durability test, she set it up in the middle of the room. Before commencing the test, she stopped for a moment as she heard voice outside. Two acolytes chatting excitedly about the lessons coming up, from the sound of it anyways. Scowling behind her visor, she waited for them to move away before taking a training blade to the metal.

After was a blaster pistol, different powered shots, and the metal took the punishment she wanted it to. That was good.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

The probes whirred around her again, their weapons and capture equipment now online for testing purposes. Gesturing with her hand palm out, the three probes deployed the concealed blasters from within and open fired on the practice target, switching between lethal and stun rounds for several minutes until she closed her hand and they stopped, hiding the blasters again.

Next was the silenced slugthrower, which worked rather well as the slugs tore chunks away from the practice target with nary a sound to make detection possible. That would be useful for assassination, when the time called for it of course. It wouldn't do to kill her rivals right now, that would be frowned upon until lessons began and the culling of the unworthy would commence.

She did not intend to be culled, it wasn't her destiny to be weak.

Flicking her hand out, the droids disengaged the slugthrowers and activated the third weapon system they had ... though it hardly qualified as a weapon. The droids flew around, clamping onto parts of the target and sending electrical shocks into it. The arms of the droids would also create a magnetic field so they would stick to any metal surface. That would be able to pin an enemy's arm or leg to a metallic surface so they could be properly interrogated or capture, or if need be, the droids could drag them with their repulsorsif they latched onto the metal a person wore.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

She still felt like something was missing from her probe droids, something that would really make them useful to her and her missions that she would do in service to the One Sith and the Dark Lord. That was when she hit upon the idea that something to make them harder to sense and detect was the key thing missing. They were already painted a matte black and they could mute the light of their photoreceptor so it would appear they were off, but ... that would work quite well.

Procuring some reflec, she applied a light coating to each of her probe droids. Now they would be able to stop sensors from picking them up, as the old Storm Commandos could do with their armor, but the coating wasn't as thick as it could be. She only needed them to not reflect light and negate sensor scans, even ones performed by the security of the Sith academy.

She could potentially spy on everyone in the academy, including the instructors if the need ever came over her. Not that she expected to glean much from that beyond information to use on and against them, the true teachers of the Dark Side kept their collections hidden and locked away so they didn't have to share their knowledge with the unworthy.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Shining a pencil light on different parts of the droids, she made sure the coating was equal in over all areas. Any reflection of the light, and she would apply a little bit more of the coating to that spot, until she finally saw no light flare coming off any part of her probe droids. Switching to a larger light, she smiled behind her visor as no light bounced back at her.

Flicking her hand, the probes whizzed away into shadowy corners of the room. Picking up a handheld scanner, she started looking for where they had gone without using her visor's connection to them. So far, she was not getting any readings on the probes ... excellent start. Switching intensities of her scans, and the type, she still could not find where they were hiding.

Happy with her work, she called the probes back to her and settled into her chair. Tomorrow, she would be sending them on their first little mission. A particularly irksome acolyte had been pestering her, belittling her and calling her a coward for always wearing her mask. Nevermind that many Sith wore masks at most times. She had only replied with silence, the fool not being on her radar enough to warrant a verbal response. No, she would destroy him through other means.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

The next day, she deployed her droids to watch the pest. Going about the day normally, mainly just going through simple weapon exercises under the eyes of the academy instructors, her droids provided her with a constant stream of information on their target. Nothing that she could really use ... yet, but it would only be a matter of time.

Once the day's lessons had ended, she retired to the library that the acolytes were allowed to peruse and started to read. That was when her video feed icon from One flashed and she switched to that camera. A smile broke across her lips as she watched the fool assault a fellow acolyte, not even trying to be subtle about it. Logging the video files away, she continued to read. A cold and satisfied smile graced her lips, but no one would know that at all.

Over the next few days, she continued to catch videos of the fool trying to intimidate other acolytes or going about other activities that were subtly approved of ... as long as you didn't get caught. That was ultimately what the instructors would punish a rule breaker for, getting caught was a great offense.

Finally, she decided she had enough info and sent the respective files to the headmaster's personal data terminal, making sure to scramble the info on where the data would have come from. No need to bring undue attention upon herself or her probe droids from the teachers ... but she would enjoy the coming punishment towards the idiot immensely.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

All students had been gathered into the central courtyard to witness the head instructor of the academy and the disciplinary punish the rule breaker. She watched with cold satisfaction as the annoying idiot screamed as he writhed under another blast of Force Lightning, all of which her precious droids were recording. It would be something she would enjoy in the future, the first rival to be destroyed by the simple gathering of knowledge.

"Make a note of this," the head instructor proclaimed to the assembled acolytes. "Rule breaking will not be tolerated, and no greater offense is higher than harming a fellow acolyte outside the dueling ring."

Another scream, another crackle of Force Lightning. None of the students looked away, they were enjoying it just as much as she was.

"Whoever revealed your wrongdoing has learned an important lesson you all should learn," the head instructor continued. "Knowledge is power, power that can be used to eliminate those in your pursuit of the Dark Side and the ambitions of our Dark Lord. Get this piece of sniveling worthlessness out of my sight and to the med bay, he might be still useful for the Sith Order."

Yes, her probe droids had worked perfectly, and she had started her quest to gain prestige here. One day, she would gain true power and the attention of a Master ... and then she would rise above all others. She was a Sith after all, the Dark Side encouraged ambition and she was filled with it.