Gutting All the Wolverines (Chloe - finished)

[Jorus Merrill]

"Sooo...Omega Pyre is decommissioning the crap out of the Wolverine battle walker. It's a horrible walker."

The Gypsymoth touched down in the middle of a certain decommissioning yard. Worker droids buzzed everywhere, disassembling old or damaged equipment.

"Some genius managed to mass-produce a really shoddy cloaking device and install it as standard in some Wolverine variants. Thing pulled so much power that it only worked when the walker stopped moving. Not that you could tell the difference. A Wolverine's top speed is fifteen klicks an hour.

"Anyways. I'm here to get one of those crappy cloaking devices installed in Gypsymoth. That is the plan. Are you in?"

Jorus finished explaining this to a very small pink baby, and looked back into the ship at none other than @[member="Chloe Blake"], who had been thoroughly briefed already.

 

[Chloe Blake]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"]

A small giggle with the added bonus of series of bubbles came in answer.

"Why Captain Merrill, I do believe that is a resonating 'yes'" came Chloe's quip, who'd been leaning against the hatchway with her arms crossed, a beaming smile over her lips as amusement twinkled in her cerulean eyes.

None the less, she pushed herself off the doorframe with her boot, ambling over to the duo as she continued, "I think she's asking how you managed to get permission for gutting the Wolverines to begin with. "

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Chloe Blake"]

"Ehhh...'permission' is such a loose word. I mean, sure, there's a validated request on file to root through the decommissioning yard and beef up Gypsymoth for low-profile transport work. Technically, I've got the go-ahead, and I never really specified exactly what parts I was going to cannibalize. And whoever signed the work order didn't appear to care. It's all for the company's good.

"To tell the truth, these walkers are so disastrous that I think everyone's forgotten that some were built with cloaking devices involved. So...well, I'd hate for those cloaking devices to be lost to the company. Preservation of value. Recycling assets. Et cetera." He dug in a locker and came up with a gigantic toolbox, the kind with an antigrav plate on the bottom. It had to weigh three hundred pounds; the plate cut it to about thirty. Carrying said toolbox in one hand and the baby in the other, Jorus kicked his pit droid awake and headed down into the decommissioning yards.

 

[Chloe Blake]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"]

A soft chuckle was her response. "Mmm... waste not, want not." she said quipping behind him, her hands running through the soft blond strands of her hair as she finger combed them back to tie it up in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck.

"Getting her started early as a mech, mm?" she said teasing, wiggling her eyebrows at the baby - who should really have a name by now thought her writer - making a funny face for her to giggle at.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

Jorus descended the ramp, baby and toolbox well in hand, and selected a walker with a serial number in the proper range. He set baby Mara -- Mara Merrill, a grand old family name -- down between the feet of the walker. Sonic servodriver in one hand and hydrospanner in the other, he clambered up the walker's leg and set about detaching an inch-thick service plate. Thirty pounds of durasteel hinged out, and he dug inside the incredibly compact (cramped, even) walker. "She's already chewing on a hydrospanner when she's teething. Or a wrench -- there's this one rubberized five-eighths that's got her teeth marks all over it. You better believe I'll teach her pretty much fething everything I can.

"When it comes to the Force, though, I'm fairly useless. Think I'll ask you to teach her, when the time comes. Feth -- if you can help me get a handle on my gifts now, I'd be dang grateful." He rooted through cramped circuity. "Oh, I don't mean any of the crap they taught you at the Jedi. All I want is to be able to lock down that knack of mine for picking good hyperspace routes. Think you can boost me a little?"

The cloaking device looked like...well, actually, he'd never seen one before. It might work, it might not. He set about removing the thing.

 

[Chloe Blake]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"]

"I think I can help with that," there came a faint smirk, hearing his voice muffle a bit as he'd wiggle his way to remove the cloaking device. That's when she flashed a small wink at Mara.

"Did you find it?" she asked, referencing the cloaking device, turning to look over at the dangling legs on the side of the walker. She heard a couple of grunts. She took it as a yes. Sort of.

"As for the hyerspace routes.... I've a collection of Star Maps that might help to start out.... "

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Chloe Blake"]

From within the bowels of the walker, there came a series of distinct bangs, as if a hydrospanner had been dropped. Jorus emerged, clutching a bizarre contraption like two onions kissing through a dimensional barrier. "Did you say Star Map? You have a Star Map? The old kind?"

Lugging the cloaking device to a spot beside the freighter, he set about running power and control cables from Gypsymoth to the cloaking device.

"Like...the really old kind?"

He flipped a switch. For a long moment, he was surrounded by more featureless blackness than a Klansman's fever dream. Then the cloaking device blew up.

Just a little, though.

 

[Chloe Blake]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"]

There came the waving of her hand back and forth to clear the smoke coming from the device. She even gave a little cough. It was a good thing Mara was placed a good ways from where Jorus had placed the now smoldering clocking device.

"...Yes." another cough, "The really old kind." she flashed him a faint grin, but then gave a nod to the slow rising black plume. "I don't think that went well..." another smirk, her hands on her hips as she turned round towards the long line of Wolverines.

"This.... might take a while."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Chloe Blake"]

"Plenty of time for storytelling, then. Plus the kid likes you, so that's something. Just, uh, try and make sure she doesn't start chewing on a battle walker's ankles."

He pulled his toolbox over to the next walker and clambered up to the right hatch. Panel removed, strut unlocked, wires crossed, critical component broken as needed-

He emerged with another cloaking device. "All right. This sucker is gonna get a full spec workup." Voltimeter and stranger tools in hand, he squatted beside the contraption and began poking it. Professionally.

 

[Chloe Blake]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"]

Speaking of Mara, Chloe bent down to adjust the kid's rubberized five-eights she'd been chewing on happily. "She'll be good."

She plopped down next to him, eyeing the component. "We looking at the same energy output as that of the Gypsy? More or less could involve the sudden --" she did a dramatized whoosh and boom and pffttttttt exploding motion with her hands.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Chloe Blake"]

"Well, that's the thing. See, this bit here runs at two-twenty, and this bit here runs on three-sixty-five. Plus it needs alternating current here and direct current there, which is an issue -- and half these junctions are hidden. I'm fairly sure this idiotic contraption is designed to be deliberately confusing. So I had it right -- for this bit, and this bit, but not for these hidden bits. And the input lines looked enough like secondary coolant lines that...feth. There any where you could get the blueprints for these suckers?"

 

[Chloe Blake]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"]

"I might be able to test my luck," she said, flashing him the usual smile as she uncrossed her legs and came to her feet. "They should still have 'em in the database if I recall..." Since they were getting decomissioned, the blueprints wouldn't be considered too top secret.

She headed off to the small dataconsole not too far from them; a little information kiosk persay able to be connected to by Omega Pyre personnel. A swipe of a keycard, a couple of codes punched in and all appropriate physical what not have you scanning done, she was in.

She drew a small datapad from her hip pocket; connecting it to the console so as she could download the blueprints. With a small beep to say she was done, she unplugged the datapad and logged off after registering her use of it. A slow hip swagger brought her back to Jorus, who she then handed the datapad after pressing the 3D holographic display of it.

"There you go."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Chloe Blake"]

"Wow -- thanks, that was quick." He glanced at his task, then at a chrono, and shrugged. "Or not. I'm used to scrounging up information from people, but even with the Commander-level dress uniform sittin' in my closet next to the spare diaper bag, I'm not much good with the Pyre's infosystems."

Side by side, the blueprints and the machine still offered little hope. Grumbling, he pulled out a hydrospanner and got to work on reversing the polarity of the anterior post-flux prebendaliser.

"You know," he said, peering into the depths of the cloaking device, "it's been a while since I ran into another Warden apart from you. Like, a long while. Years. You see any of them since the Old Man dropped the bomb? That whole skirmish they called the Crusade?"

 

[Chloe Blake]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"]

Chloe gave a shrug. "I spent time going over things during long flights." she then flashed him a grin, "And I like talking to people." her easy going ways had folk naturally open up. A bit of knowledge on how to manage systems of the organization that paid her to do the exact thing she was doing anyways to begin with would be to anyone's benefit.

"'sides... they info systems keep getting updated with new discovered worlds." which was a perk for her to use to mark for future visiting.

At the question of the other Wardens, she gave a pause. "Most of them keep to themselves. You know how they want us to keep quiet of who we are. I met one down Sanctuary pipe line... but those who know each other's transponder codes can contact whenever we see a familiar ship near. They keep to the hyperlanes mostly now... pirates."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Chloe Blake"]

"Always the pirates, yeah. Always the fething-"

The cloaking device shattered in his hands.

"Uh, this isn't going...quite as well as I'd hoped. I may be here for a while."

He lugged the toolbox to the next Wolverine and went through the by-now-familiar process of removing the cloaking device. Hibridium double-spheroid under one arm, he slogged back to the freighter and hooked them together.

"Clip, clip, clip, there we go." He examined the cloaking device, double-checked it against the schematics, and hesitated over the button.

"Care to Forceify it? Do something mystical and laden with mumbo-jumbo to make my cloaking device work? And while you do it, or not, I'mma get some backup units from the next five walkers in the row."

He set to work with a hydrospanner, then paused. "Oh, and you might want this. It's the new thing. Picked one up on Lianna from a contact in R&D. I'm crap with it, but you might pick it up quicker than some." He handed her a sonic servodriver.