In Blackest Day

[Laira Darkhold]

Well, Lucerne Labs had contracted Benji, and I guess technically myself, to develop a sensor negation system to go along with their new baffled ion drives. It was a good improvement on our situation, and the possibility of hiring some more help had increased since our move to Jabiim. He wanted another designer brought in, and he felt we needed an office clerk, but all that will be handled in due time. Benji had sent me on an errand to purchase some Reflec off the black market. He wanted the project kept quiet, so I wasn’t representing ArmaTech, just a lone man with money and wants, like everyone else. The swap was easy. The people I bought the crate from were your average run of the mill illegal weapons runners and all they wanted was to get the money and bolt before anybody saw them. I took my sweet time getting back to Jabiim and the shop, just in case, throwing any people who might be following me off my trail. I figure if you are going to illegally purchase tech, you might as well be careful about who knows you have it. Besides, I am sure the Galactic Republic won’t mind once they get the finished product. It’s not like I stole it from an orphanage.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Back on Jabiim, the set up was nice. Sure it rained every day, all day, forever, but the Razor Coast was accommodating for our needs. It was secluded and few people ventured out here, even more so now that we were fabricating out of a facility on the planet. Benji was real excited to be working on this project. Hell, he was tickled to death to be building stealth technology. Stealth was a strong word for what was being built, but it was not truly stealth. What it did was fool sensor technology to a degree. In the heat of battle the system would allow a ship to slip through unnoticed on passive sensors and scanners. It might even take active scanners a little more time to find the ship, especially if it was small Starfighter sized, but undetectable was completely false. Benji had decided to combine the star-flecked black matte paint job with Reflec to assist in fooling sensors, which was smart, the things would be hard to see with eye view which could really screw up enemy pilots. I guess the best thing Benji did was he planned on incorporating some kind of sensor mask into the stealth package. He was tinkering with a prototype on his work desk.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

I decided I should know what the heck the thing did and how it worked before we met with the representatives from Lucerne Labs to show off the product, so I stood up and asked him, “How does this thing work Benji?”

His eyebrows rose. “Do you have any knowledge of how radio waves react in space to solid objects, or how Reflec affects them? Do you know how a dedicated energy receptor collects and processes data it receives?” He didn’t even look up from his work to address me. Alright, he knew I didn’t know anything about it. “I really don’t have time to explain the basics of how all that stuff works Draco, but in the end this is going to fool those sensors into believing anything they would sense is just random normal space phenomena like Ion clouds, solar radiation, and magnetic fields from celestial bodies. Got it? Good.”

Well, he was a little more impatient than normal. I probably should leave him alone before he becomes more ornery. Or, I could mess with him and lift the mood from dark and grim on a deadline to happy go lucky again. Yeah, I could do that. I started by putting a small bang snap right behind his foot. When he stepped back it would pop and make a loud noise and make him jump through the ceiling.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Ten minutes of waiting, watching him shifting around, moving about right next to the bang snap to go off, he finally stepped on it. He did just about leap out of his skin, followed by a string of curses and things getting thrown at me, but after sixty seconds of really mad, we both busted out in laughter. “Expect a malfunction the next time you need your armor fixed buddy,” he said through deep breaths, tears on his face from laughing so hard. “But seriously I need to get cracking on this sensor mask system. Lucerne Labs is coming out tomorrow to see what we have, and what we have is painted up reflec and an idea that maybe this thing will work. I need to work on adding a gravtic modulator to the system as well in order to counter mass-detectors, but I have no idea where to put everything. Starfighters and freighters aren’t all that big to begin with and we are sapping space from this design already. Adding in all the stuff Lucerne might be designing and your left with a Starfighter flown exclusively by snivvians to conserve space” He said motioning back to his desk with a pile of spare parts and stifling a laugh at his own joke.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

He continued working on the project throughout the night, being very deliberate with his progress so as to ensure a quality example to show to the representatives from Lucerne Labs, however they might be. Having met the general, he seemed like a good fellow, and he struck me as a stalwart Republic soldier, but I was still cautious working for him on this project. He was being very discrete about what he was planning and though Benji and I could put some of the pieces together, it still worried me working on this high profile of a project. People tended to dislike things like this and that painted a target on ArmaTech if the system became successful.

“What do you have so far, old man,” I asked. Lucerne Labs folks should be here later today, and I wanted it to be ready for inspection.

“Well I have a standard Starfighter sitting here and I am adding the sensor negator system to it. The Reflec coating is already applied, so is the paint scheme, now it’s just the sensor mask, and trying to get this blasted gravitic modulator to work.” He grumbled to himself, lying underneath the Starfighter on a rolling palette. “These old pieces of crap infuriate me, but they are necessary in order to shield against mass-detectors and crystal grav-traps.” Sparks flew out from under the Starfighter and he jerked, bumping his head and cursing as he did so.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

I hurried over to him, to check on him, “You alright?” I inquired, a little concern in my voice.

“Yeah, just connected the gravitic modulator to the main power and shocked the hell out of myself. I hope that thing works. It’s supposed to hide the gravity signature of the ship from sensors, which would also make it invisible to Yuuzhan Vong dovin bassals, but that is neither here nor there. It works by causing sensors to miss its signature. Combined with the rest of the sensor mask and you have something that only advanced sensor packages could even hope to pick up, and even then they would have to be active and looking in the right place. I think that will do nicely for Lucerne and whatever they are planning, don’t you.” He said rolling out from under the Starfighter.

“Well do we have time to test it before they get here?” I asked relaxing a bit knowing he was alright. “I would rather pitch them something we knew worked than do the first test right here in front of them.”

He went and checked the sensors watching the skies on the monitor, rubbing his forehead as he did. “This is going to swell. Great. I don’t think we are gonna get that luxury today Draco, looks like they made it. Better give them the all clear and give them a landing beacon to hone in on.” He said typing away on the data-terminal.

[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Salmakk]

LLS-5 Concorde-class Shuttle Blue Wave, Jabiim


"We have the coordinates now," said Azira, "what do you think they'll have for us?"

Salmakk began to ponder that as the shuttle began its descent into the atmosphere of the storm-wracked world. As he gazed around the viewport, it seemed to him that the system's sun was absent, even if he had just saw it from their shuttle mere minutes ago. The atmosphere must be thick or stormy enough to block the sun's rays from hitting the surface...at least more so than most worlds. He shook the thoughts from his head as turned to face the creamy-furred bothan.

"I'm not sure," answered the mon calamari, "we'll see what they managed to develop. And we might end up refining whatever they did back at the Labs themselves, if need be."

"You sound reassured."

"They were helpful enough on the baffled drive project," said Salmakk, "but we've never seen them work by themselves. It should be interesting."

"You don't trust them yet," mused the bothan, "not until they've proven themselves."

Salmakk briefly considered his rebuttal, "It's not that. They proved themselves to a degree on the drive project. It's just that they're still an unknown value that I don't fully understand yet."

"Well, we're almost there," said Azira, "and I guess they can show you then what they've accomplished."

[member="Draco Vereen"].

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Here comes the shuttle for Lucerne. Benji had taken the sensor data taken from the test with the baffled drives and worked on fixing the problems every ship would suffer from using that drive, and how to create a system to work in tandem with the baffled drives. “Well here come our guests,” I said, still wishing it wasn’t just the two of us. I am hiring someone after this, a secretary of a clerk or something to assist us with this kind of welcoming process. “Sucks we have to do the first test of the equipment in front of them. This better work or else we aren’t gonna get another project from them.” I said, tentatively looking over the data Benji had strewn around the test area.

“Well, they’ll like the idea I have at the very least. Just that we can license to them for a profit, but yeah a working prototype would go a lot further. I rigged everything together right. I do wish I had one of those drives to use in conjuction with it to show the benefits of my design.” Benji said readying a presentation as he spoke for the Lucerne representatives.

“I’ll go meet with them outside, and give them a quick rundown of our plan of action here before we come in and you give your presentation. Good with you?” I asked the old duros.

“Sounds good, I need five minutes if you can.” He said. He was in a work jumpsuit covered in oil, grease and grime, but he knew his stuff.

By the time I walked out to the landing pad the shuttle was touching down, rain pouring from the sky.

[member="Salmakk"]

 

[Salmakk]

The shuttle's ramp lowered with a hiss of hydraulics. A brief zephyr of wind rose up to caress their faces with unusually moist air. Before they even fully made it down the ramp, rain splattered onto their faces and clothes. It felt good to Salmakk, perhaps because of his aquatic nature. But a quick glance at the bothan showed that she was not enjoying it; she clung to her raincloak tighter. The mon calamari turned his bulbous eyes to an approaching figure, who he quickly recognized as [member="Draco Vereen"] from the observation shuttle for the work on the Caecius drive system.

"Thank you for inviting us for this demonstration," offered Salmakk, turning gesture at the bothan female, "oh, and this is Azira, one of our electronics engineers. Azira, this is Sergeant Major [member="Draco Vereen"]."

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Ah they had sent the technology savvy Mon Calamari to judge the capabilities of the new sensor masks we were developing. Part of me had hoped for the general, mainly because I liked military personnel more than engineers, and partially because I thought he would be more forgiving of our performance. “Welcome to Jabiim sir and ma’am,” I said with a smile. The already wet bothan didn’t seem to be having a good time on the world. “Why don’t we share introductions and such inside, the weather seems to be picking up out here.” I offered, winking at the bothan. No reason I couldn’t be polite while I was trying to talk up our possible non-functional hardware.

I lead them inside to a small reception area, though it lacked chairs or any sitting arrangement at the moment. “Would you like a towel, Miss Azira? I know how all this rain must feel for a bothan such as yourself, it doesn’t quite agree with me either.” I asked the bothan woman as we entered the building, gesturing towards a refresher in the lobby. “We will be testing a new set of sensor masks today. The device is designed to counter all forms of passive scans and active scans at long range. If you have any questions, before we begin with the presentation, please don’t hesitate to ask.” Man I was getting good at these sales pitches, I thought, pleased with myself.

[member="Salmakk"]

 

[Salmakk]

What is it that Gir used to say as a kid? The proof is in the pudding. What a weird idiom, but entirely accurate for this occasion. Stealth technology always seems to be arcane to me. He spared a glance as the bothan appreciatively began to dry off her fur with the offered towel. Gir had once said that she smelt funny when wet, though the mon calamari himself had never noticed it before. Salmakk turned his attention to [member="Draco Vereen"].

"So what are the basic components of this system?" questioned the mon calamari engineer.

Azira offered a snort, "Let me translate. He wants to know how the pieces interact together."

[member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Well, quick and straight to the point. That sucks, I was hoping to stroke my ego a little more. “I could give you the basics, but Benji can handle this question and tell you all about the bells and whistles of the thing. Why don’t we just proceed to the workshop and let him explain.” I said, trying to keep myself professional, as hard as it was. I lead them into the workshop, which even though we had put away most of the projects we were working on, a mechanical arm lay on one table, while a stack of ammunition laid on another, and there was a good amount of general clutter. The Starfighter sat in the middle of the room with sensor dishes arrayed around it. To one side a blast shield had been set up, though riddled with burn scoring, it was still solid. Benji waited for us there.

“They would like to know how all this stuff works,” I said, turning back to the bothan and mon calamari.

“Alright, well let me see. The reflec coating scrambles the internal energy, comm, and electrical signatures from external sensors, so it does not interfere with the ships sensors own sensors. A gravitic modulator hides the ships mass and gravity signature, and finally a complex sensor mask is installed, to hide the ship properly from detection.” He said, turning on all the monitoring equipment. “As you can see from this sensor data, there is no ship, yet as you can see for yourself, there is. The passive scans detect nothing in the room.” I breathed out relieved that it worked.

[member="Salmakk"]

 

[Salmakk]

Salmakk nodded in appreciation. These are solid principles that have been demonstrated in the past. So it looks like he was able to obtain some of the devices which we could not find, or he made or modified them himself. Either way, we should be to work with this for the black box project. The mon calamari strolled over to investigate the mock-up, carefully inspecting the components of the system, while Azira went over to inspect the sensor displays. She fiddled with the controls, but could not detect the starfighter right in front of them either. Both engineers turned their attention to Benji and [member="Draco Vereen"].

"Does the system have a name?" asked Salmakk.

"Is it possible to test this in space?" questioned the bothan, "it's not a big deal if we can't, we can test it back at the Lab too..."

 

[Laira Darkhold]

"We don't have a starfighter capable of spaceflight, nor do we have a name. The one you see before you lacks proper drive units as we bought it at a junkyard." I answered the bothan woman. She was inquisitive and killing my sales pitch. "But you are more than welcome to take it with you, assuming ArmaTech gets credit for its development." I said, the world of business was full of twists and turns and backstabs, and I didn't want to be one of those people.

Benji finally spoke up, which I had been hoping he would let slide. "We have noticed that active scans from advanced sensor packages have the ability to notice this package, at least theoretically." He said turning back to the data. "As you can see, faint signatures can be seen here and here, most regular sensor packages labels them as random phenomena, but the more advanced ones are believed to be able to differentiate the two." He said looking back to the two representatives from Lucerne Labs. "If you are able to over come this weakness its on you."

Gotta always be honest. I'm sure they would have noticed before they started combat testing, I just hoped we would still get a decent deal on the system.

[member="Salmakk"]

 

[Salmakk]

Salmakk nodded in understanding. No technology is fool proof, that much we know. Still, it will need some additional testing, and possibly a little bit of refining. The mon calamari engineer looked around the place, and it reminded him of their first location for Lucerne Labs. He still missed that asteroid base from time to time, as cluttered as it was by all of their tinkering. But they got places, and he got the feeling that Armatech would too, in time. Salmakk cleared his throat.

"Your company should definitely get credit for the work they've done here..."

Salmakk glanced at Azira, whose creamy fur was rippling in emotion.

"...and I'd like to take it back to the lab for further testing, and possibly some refinement based on that testing. What would you say to a royalty agreement based on the final design? We'd pay you a set percentage of the profit for any units that we sell, as well as agree that you could market and produce the design on your own. Or would you prefer more of a straight credit transfer?"

[member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

"Royalties sound good. They can maintain the upkeep of this place when we inevitably begin work on a personal item." I said, happy with the ending result. "How about eight percent, and an agreement to continue working on development projects together." I said to the mon calamari confident and proud. Noticing the bothan I felt the need to ask her what was wrong. Normal people have that voice in their head telling them not to say things. I have that voice to, he's just always a few seconds late. "What's wrong with you sweetheart?" I asked her point blank, putting a little concern in my voice so that I didn't just sound like a jackass. That was about the point the voice in my head told me not to say whatever I was thinking. Oh well, too late now.

[member="Salmakk"]

 

[Gir Quee]

"That sounds acceptable to me," agreed Salmakk with a bob of his head, "next time, we'll have to invite you and Mister Benji to one of our facilities, or ships."

Azira shook her head and made an almost convincing smile, "It's nothing."

Salmakk hesitated. It certainly is something, but I doubt that she'll want to talk about it openly. She's probably upset that I did the negotiations without talking to Gir. But that man is busy enough that he doesn't need to know every little detail...Salmakk turned his attention back to [member="Draco Vereen"].

"Do we need to take any precautions while packing this up into our ship? Or is there anything else we should know about transporting it? I'm assuming we won't be running any power through it during transport, so I'd appreciate it if you'd show me what all needs to get disconnected..."

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Benji looked quizzically at the me. He was probably as equally confused about the bothan's behavior. "I can assist in its dissassembly. Its basically just a gravitic modulator and sensor mask packaged into the nose of the craft with reflec coating shielding its internal systems from external scans. It allows diagnostics to be properly preformed," he said to the Mon Calamari walking him over to the craft to pull the module out of it.

I decided to overlook the bothan's discomfort for politeness sake and simply prepare the crate of reflec we had to go with them. "Don't forget to take this stuff with you." I said to her, "Its rare enough that I don't want it in my shop this unprotected." I said, smiling kindly at her.

[member="Gir Quee"] [member="Salmakk"]

 

[Salmakk]

"That's very generous of you to give us that reflec. We will be sure to return a like favor when we can," said Salmakk appreciatively, "I'd appreciate your business, gentlemen. Once it's disassembled, we'll pack it away and we'll be on our way."

Both the bothan and the mon calamari began to join the other two in taking the device part. Seeing how much Azira disliked the rain, he opted go back outside to the shuttle to get the repulsorlift cart and waterproof covering. Though the cart was slightly damp from his brief sojourn outside, they all managed to get the components on the cart without getting any of the components wet. Salmakk fastened up the flimsiplast covering over the cart, shook hands, and took a somewhat grumpy Azira in tow with him back outside. Once the cart was properly secured in the shuttle's hold, the two aliens clambered into the cockpit.

"I can't believe you took their initial offer."

"It's a fair deal," countered Salmakk, "after all, you weren't able to get your hands on a functional gravitric modulator, despite your ties."

"I suppose."

Salmakk took that as acceptance that any discussion of his lack of negotiation skills was over as he began to flip the switches needed for takeoff, "Gir will be pleased at least that the project is going this well."

"From a official military capacity, or as the president?"

"Both," replied Salmakk, "I get the impression that they're one and the same for him. He'll want a test of them as soon as possible."

"Are we going to mock up the Caecius with them?"

"Might as well for the practical testing."

[member="Draco Vereen"]