The Sword of Alderaan arrives in the Mon Calamari system the morning after the memorial service for the pilots lost on the last operation.

Jorm looks over his notes, compiled from a host of datapad scribblings with Aurelia. The techs onboard the Sword lacked a single spare part Jorm could use - they wouldn't even trade for them, not after the sorry state Vandal Squadron's fighters came back in. Every resource was being poured into getting the damaged craft spaceworthy. The trip to Mon Calamari was primarily a resupply run for both personnel and parts. There would be supplies a-plenty once the Sword was back online, but 11th Wing's leave would be over. With 12th Wing decimated, rumors were that it would be a long, long time before any ACAG pilot would be seeing any free time.

Time to go shopping, Jorm sighs.

The Rusty Dagger leaps out of hyperspace, the debris fields of Tanaab stretching across the ship's sensors like twinkling holiday lights.

Step one: find a suitable frame.

The superstructure would probably have to be cut apart in order to fit into the Dagger, but you make do with what you've got. Feeling a little guilty (although he'd never admit it), Mandall's come along to look for TIE parts to appease the crew chief.

Arnae takes the freighter close to the burnt husk of a Mon Cal cruiser. Its bare skeleton is twisted and melted where turbolasers and capital ship missiles dealt lethal blows, and its decks, open to the harshness of space, are eerily preserved in the inky black. Arnae matches rotation and brings the Dagger around to look in the hangar deck. The lights can't fully illuminate the cap ship's corpse, but there's a better chance of intact components inside one of the hangar bays rather than trying to find the proverbial Quarren pearl in the Dune Sea.

She hadn't intended to come, but Calsera tends to get bored easily, and three days with nothing to do was yawning before her like a black hole. Of course, there really isn't a lot she can do on this junket, either, but she figures she can at least stand guard over Jorm and Aurelia as they do their techie thing.

Dropping out of hyperspace, Calsera instinctively begins scanning for trouble. She's had enough experience laying ambushes that she knows where to look.

Aurelia frowned, looking down at her parts list than up at the sensors. At this rate, she should just start up a shipwrighting firm. Building one ship from scratch was a challenge, building another - especially a gunboat - was nigh insane. She had avoided bringing it up, but she was almost positive that this would turn into a black market acquisition. But she wanted to put that off as long as possible.

"Look for a chassis...the parts can wait."

"I'm on it!" calls Jorm from his console. He turns his attention to the Dagger's sensors. He has a general size class in mind and does his best to program the sensors to look for likely candidates.

"So, I guess it's time I told you all my plans. By now you know that I'm going to try building a ship. Originally I was planning to build a blast boat along the lines of my beloved Sith Eater, but as time went on I realized that some of our missions required a more specialized ship. So, my goal is now to build a command and control ship. It'll pack a punch, don't get me wrong, but its real weapons will be an advanced power grid, communications array--including jammers--and sensor suite. Discuss."

Mandall shrugs.

"'s long as I don't have to fly it."

Jorm laughs. "No, Mandall, I know how much you like your starfighters. This ship is more for me. Though, I do appreciate your help in finding parts for it."

(Edited by Aihal the Silent at 8:48 am on Dec. 23, 2005)

Aurelia frowns, looking out the viewport again. She's kept her mouth shut about the EW aspect of the ship, but it doesn't thrill her. With the heavy use of capital-class Ion Cannons, parts like that are going to be expensive and hard to come by. Two things she hates.

Calsera listens to Jorm's review of their objective, and notes the look on Aurelia's face. It seems that the techies are not entirely in agreement regarding vision for the new ship. Oh well, let them work it out.

With nothing better to do, she returns to scanning the area for surprises, both visually and electronically.

The Mon Cal cruiser proves a bust, and the Vandals float their way to another wreck. And another. One of the Imperial frigates has an intact hangar with a few TIE fighters, somewhat the worse for wear but more than enough to appease the crew chief back on the Sword of Alderaan.

Jorm realizes his mistake after several hours of fruitless searching. The Empire as well as the Alliance's main battle fleets rely on the tiniest of ships or the largest of cruisers. The uncommon Skiprays, assault shuttles, and landing craft he finds are usually too wrecked to use. Jorm could strip several hulks for their frames, but the work involved wouldn't be worth the payoff - a chimera of a ship, prone to breakdown, and with the possibility that the internal components wouldn't even fit.

It's the Alliance who would probably have something closer to what they need - a private vessel, much like the Dagger itself. Something pressed into service, something that used to be a multi-purpose craft. It'd have enough room to customize. And so with some of the crew shifting out sensor duty for quick catnaps (ahem), the Vandals redouble their search.

It's hours later, but they find a few likely candidates. All have sustained heavy damage, and with the exception of one M21 Krayt assault craft (trapped in a hangar by debris), are found floating alone in the void. Along with the Krayt, there's a mostly-intact Firespray, a Nova Courier, a very banged-up Imperial Decimator, and some unlucky captain's Blastboat.

The Nova'd need to be cut apart to fit in the Dagger's hold, as would the Firespray. The others could maybe simply be disassembled in order to fit. Alternatively, Jorm and Aurelia could attempt to repair their choice here and take it back under its own power. Force knows there's enough spare parts to get some semblance of a hyperdrive going. It wouldn't be pretty, and you'd have to use astrogation coordinates from the Dagger, and it still might simply blow up, or never come out of hyperspace, or any of a hundred horrible things.

Quote:

Quote: from admiralducksauce on 11:53 am on Jan. 10, 2006
The Mon Cal cruiser proves a bust, and the Vandals float their way to another wreck. And another. One of the Imperial frigates has an intact hangar with a few TIE fighters, somewhat the worse for wear but more than enough to appease the crew chief back on the Sword of Alderaan.

Jorm realizes his mistake after several hours of fruitless searching. The Empire as well as the Alliance's main battle fleets rely on the tiniest of ships or the largest of cruisers. The uncommon Skiprays, assault shuttles, and landing craft he finds are usually too wrecked to use. Jorm could strip several hulks for their frames, but the work involved wouldn't be worth the payoff - a chimera of a ship, prone to breakdown, and with the possibility that the internal components wouldn't even fit.

It's the Alliance who would probably have something closer to what they need - a private vessel, much like the Dagger itself. Something pressed into service, something that used to be a multi-purpose craft. It'd have enough room to customize. And so with some of the crew shifting out sensor duty for quick catnaps (ahem), the Vandals redouble their search.

It's hours later, but they find a few likely candidates. All have sustained heavy damage, and with the exception of one M21 Krayt assault craft (trapped in a hangar by debris), are found floating alone in the void. Along with the Krayt, there's a mostly-intact Firespray, a Nova Courier, a very banged-up Imperial Decimator, and some unlucky captain's Blastboat.

The Nova'd need to be cut apart to fit in the Dagger's hold, as would the Firespray. The others could maybe simply be disassembled in order to fit. Alternatively, Jorm and Aurelia could attempt to repair their choice here and take it back under its own power. Force knows there's enough spare parts to get some semblance of a hyperdrive going. It wouldn't be pretty, and you'd have to use astrogation coordinates from the Dagger, and it still might simply blow up, or never come out of hyperspace, or any of a hundred horrible things.

Jorm looks over the results of the day's hunt. The long day's hunt. He yawns and stretches his arms as he weighs the options. Then he turns to Aurelia who has been looking more and more frustrated and says "I'm leaning toward either the Skipray or the Decimator. What do you think?"

Aurelia doesn't actually look up from thinking, biting her lower lip as she ponders the choices.

"Firespray's a police boat...too small, no good. Parts maybe..." she considers the other options.

"Depends on what we want. The Decimator is in bad shape...we'd need to board it and make sure its even salvagable. The Blastboat is what we were looking for originally, but it's very much a gunship...and very obviously that. The Courier we can upgun without it being clear that it's a gunship. Might come in handy, although it's not a Skipray. Patrol boat is a good compromise, but would need some digging."

(Edited by CrazyIvan at 2:34 pm on Jan. 12, 2006)

Quote:

Quote: from CrazyIvan on 2:33 pm on Jan. 12, 2006
Aurelia doesn't actually look up from thinking, biting her lower lip as she ponders the choices.

"Firespray's a police boat...too small, no good. Parts maybe..." she considers the other options.

"Depends on what we want. The Decimator is in bad shape...we'd need to board it and make sure its even salvagable. The Blastboat is what we were looking for originally, but it's very much a gunship...and very obviously that. The Courier we can upgun without it being clear that it's a gunship. Might come in handy, although it's not a Skipray. Patrol boat is a good compromise, but would need some digging."

(Edited by CrazyIvan at 2:34 pm on Jan. 12, 2006)

Jorm smiles in spite of the daunting task ahead. He's jazzed up. One of the major hurdles in his little project may well be behind them. "Well, I don't know about you, but I think I'm going to go for a little walk. Take in the sights. See which of the ships we've found qualifies for the most likely to fly award."

He stands up and offers his hand to Aurelia "I bet you a steak dinner that at least one of them can be made to limp back to base."

Calsera peeks one eye open from her catnap and smiles. The flirting techies are so cute...

Jorm talks to himself to stave off the deafening silence outside the ship. Flitting to wreck to wreck with a thruster belt and tools, he inspects each of the candidates. All are slagged to some degree, and at best limping any of them back would involve a ride through hyperspace in a ship with no life support, sitting the trip out in a spacesuit. The Nova's been stripped of parts above and beyond any damage it sustained in battle. The Firespray is perhaps the best-looking candidate. The Decimator is as bad inside as it is on the outside, and the Blastboat looks like a Sullustan street-gang had their way with it and left it on blocks. People have picked over this debris field before.

It might be quicker, Jorm thinks, to simply take the frame he wants back to the Sword in several trips.

"Somewhere," muses Jorm aloud more to keep himself grounded than anything else "there is a man with all of the parts I want and need, looking for the frame to his ship."

As his evaluation of the ships continues, Jorm comes to the inescapable conclusion that he may have bitten off more than he could chew. Most of the ships have the same feel as bantha bones on the deserts of Tatooine: stipped of any signs of life. Still...

"Dagger, this is Taban. None of these look very promising, but let's attempt retrieval on the Decimator. I think the best way is to break the frame up and transport it back to the Sword in several trips. I'll start on that now. While you guys are in transit, I'll continue to dismantle it and strip the other ships for any usable parts. Sound good?"

(Edited by Aihal the Silent at 8:09 am on Jan. 17, 2006)

The Dagger leaps into hyperspace, leaving Jorm and Calsera behind in the eerie graveyard of ships.

It would be typical if at this instant, at their weakest, some hidden foe sprang out to attack the near-helpless Rebels. Perhaps a space slug, or swarm of mynocks, or dastardly pirates. Maybe Jorm's suit springs a leak and it's a race to see if the ship returns on time. The fact is, nothing happens. Aurelia brings the freighter back and Jorm crams the rest of the Imperial ship into the cargo bay.

But it doesn't mean those things didn't cross his mind.

Spaceframe: check.

Still on the list are basic components such as engines, hyperdrive, avionics, astrogation, weaponry, etc. Some of it can be salvaged from the other debris, but it's the exotic equipment that won't be found at Tanaab. The sensor jammers, fresh proton torpedoes, transponder spoofing devices, and more. Some of it'll have to be scratch-built, but the parts for it all aren't available for free.

As she suits up for her extended space walk, Calsera makes certain to grab the most powerful blaster rifle on the ship. On sense being entirely helpless out here.

Picking a spot near where Jorm is working, but not on the same ship, Calsera settles in to watch the horizon in all directions. Minutes seems to drag on forever, but the Dagger eventually returns with no excitement to enliven the interim.

Just as well. Cat is happy to return to the Sword for a little relaxation.

Jorm spends much of his time dismantling the ship and searching for salvagable parts talking with Calsera.

"I appreciate you staying with me Cat. Even if you weren't armed, I would be happy for the company. I've always been kind of curious, what made you join the Alliance?"

"Yeah, it can get kind of lonely floating out here in the black," Cat replies.

She considers her answer for a moment. "A matter of family history, really. When I was a kid, they kept invading the planets we lived on, so we would move to get away from them. Too authoritarian for our taste.

"Anyway, my father was killed by stormtroopers trying to give my mother and I time to get away. Ever since, all I've wanted was an opportunity to strike back, so I joined up as soon as I was old enough.

"What's your story, Jorm?"