Make the Maker

[Laira Darkhold]

Concordia
Clan Fortress

The hall of the mountain king was gloomy, the lava that flowed from the mouths of the fortress, to either side of the great gates as slow moving and thin today, the fires of the mountain let die low and the hammering on anvils unheard in the darkness of the fortress. Hewn stone, turadium doors, and durasteel structures buried into the mountain sat quiet as most of the warriors were off, spread throughout the galaxy as bounty hunters, assassins, mercenaries, and private security. With the turmoil of the Galactic Republic's Prime Minister's coup d'etat still roiling and the several groups of the Mandalorian warriors deployed at ATC stations on Brentaal, there were only a handful left in the Fortress.

And its king sat quietly in an office looking over schematics of a ship. His people had designed the damned thing, but in the end they couldn't figure everything out. They were having trouble combining the numerous systems that made up the Guardian into one. It was slow, it was bulky, it was expensive, but they couldn't figure out this or that about it. Vulkan had always been one to hire outside help when inside workers couldn't get the job done, and this was no different. When his people continued to draw blanks about the design of the craft, he sought help from outside. When building ships there weren't many places to turn. Mon Calamari, Yag'dhul, Kuat (if you wanted triangles with cannons), and of course Corellia. And Corellia had been where he had turned. The old Corellian Dreadnaughts had been one of the inspirations for the shape and design of the ship, so why not hire one.

"Gorran, when my guest arrives bring her here, to my office." Vulkan said, setting the schematics down in front of him. The big wookiee he had spoken to growled out a response and left the room to go locate the contractor.

[member="Allyson Locke"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

Climbing off her ship, she looked around. Working for a Sith Lord wasn’t something she was totally down for, but the credits would help her get some new pants or something. Looking down she noticed another hole she needed to patch up. Cursing, she slung her little tool bag over her shoulder and headed down to the office being lead by the man’s goons. It was always something with these Sith Lords, they always had people around them to do their bidding. Allyson thought quietly as she scratched the side of her chin for a moment. In her mind the Dark Lord Vulkan was probably a chunky fellow - since he didn’t have to do anything and these guys always did everything for him.

They continued down and she was lead to an office. The slender woman frowned as she was somewhat manhandled and forced into the office. Nearly dropping her bag she was able to sling it smoothly to the ground at her feet. Feeling a bit too Han Solo with her vest, she placed her hands on her hips and pulled up slightly the first class corellian blood stripes. Folding her arms in front of her she introduced herself.

“Allyson Locke, heard you needed some help with a ship.” Grinning slightly, she nodded. “‘Course for the right price eh?” [member="Darth Vulkan"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

When the pretty young woman was brought in, Vulkan raised an eyebrow. Despite what she might think, Vulkan was tall and athletic, currently dressed in casual clothes ready to finish this and move on with his life.

Vulkan looked her over, giving her a good once over with his eyes, lingering around her waist with a subtle nod for only an instant. "Miss Locke, I am Lord Vulkan. Yes, we are having a little trouble and of course you will be compensated. I'm sure if you can help me, I can help you, somehow." Corellians weren't his thing, but he didn't mind them or have anything against them.

He walked over around the desk to lean against it from the other side. "If you wanna take a look at what we have going on there are plans and designs for it right here." He gestured at the papers on the desk behind him. "We have a prototype running around, but my people are having trouble with the rest of it."

[member="Allyson Locke"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

So she was proven wrong, the Sith Lord was a really strong looking fella and she could pick up on the force aura he had around him. Which meant two things, he was really darn strong and that he was a whole lot stronger than her. Her best bet was to just cooperate and listen to what he wanted to have done. Wandering over, she looked at the blueprint and nodded a few things making note of different aspects of the ship.

“She’s a beautiful one, good work on your design team. But if you notice here the power source’s wiring seems a bit overly complex than it should be.” Smiling her sweetest she turned and faced the Sith Lord and grabbed her bag slinging it over her shoulder. “With that issue being fixed we can work out the other ones. From my understanding of just seeing her naked like that – it’s a wiring issue.” Heading towards the door of the office she continued to ramble on. “Though we’ll have to see what she has to say for herself. There could be a whole lot more going on.”

Waiting by the door she somewhat struggled with the heavy tool bag. “Uh you have the prototype here right? Like we don’t have to go on a wild goose chase just to find it?” [member="Darth Vulkan"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Vulkan nodded, "Yes the Guardian is here. We keep it nearby just in case we need it. We based the design off old Mon Calamari ships, pulled most of the guns off it, and used scaled down Iso-five reactors to open up hangar space." Those really expensive, really well developed Iso-five reactors didn't really do anything. No design had ever benefited from them in the slightest, but ArmaTech had made them so they slapped them into every ship after the original intention fell through.

"I can get you on the prototype in a couple of minutes and you can look it over along with the skeleton of the next wave of the class." Vulkan nodded at the designs and the woman. "Let me know if there is anything you need in the meantime."

[member="Allyson Locke"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

“Anything I need?” Which was probably not the best question to ask an 18 yr old drop out engineer. She pondered the question for the moment and then remembered she had missed lunch. “Uh, if you guys have it, can I get a number five combo with extra cheese, yoda sized from McYoda’s? Oh and one of those apple pie tart things they have, those are the best. If they have the combo deal the two for 1 credit I’d love to have two, oh oh and a Dr. Calamari soda would be great too.” Grinning happily, she pulled out her data pad to pull up the old blueprints of some Mon Calamari ships to go over and refresh her memory over.

“Isotope 5 reactors eh? So the fuel is pretty light, that’s nice.” She had only heard a few things about the reactors, they were mostly flashy things that people used to they could sound high class when they talk about their ships. Though to Allyson, there was a benefit to it all. The fact that the fuel was so light it allowed for more weight to be put on the ship, weaponry, cargo and other things. Shrugging, she could pick up mildly at the man’s dissatisfaction with the reactors.

“If you trust me enough I’d like to gather the work files that you have on the ship itself, maybe we can work through what the issue is that way. I really wanna help you Mr. Sith dude, but you gotta trust me okay?”

Remembering how heavy her back was she looked back and gave him a sheepish smile. “If you could be so kind, have one of your minions carry the bag? It kinks my back and I’d like to be able to crawl into the small spaces of your ship without any strain ya know?” Looking around, she had no idea where she was going. “Let’s check out the Guardian and her siblings.” [member="Darth Vulkan"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Vulkan nodded his had, waving a hand at one of his aides that was present, sending the man to go bring the young woman what food she requested. It would have been much easier to find legs of meat from recent hunts into the wilderness, the To Vhin in this region had a fairly large population and were hunted by small groups of Clan Vereen warriors regularly, but the settlement on the other side of the mountain spine certainly had modern establishments like McYoda's and Yum Bunnies. "It might take a while for them to fetch it. We don't have such a place within the Kranak."

He took her bag and slug it over his shoulder, walking beside Allyson as they walked towards the drydock where the Guardian was currently parked. "We can arrange for such datalogs to be made available off our server. Just don't go downloading them and selling them off to the highest bidder. We've been careful not to include the schematics to the only thing on the ship that matters." Mainly the Transfer Array, which worked perfectly for what it did.

[member="Allyson Locke"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

[SIZE=10pt]Hearing that it was going to take some time for her food to arrive, Allyson groaned and nodded. It only made sense that it would take time. Places like McYoda’s wasn’t something that usually ventured too deep into certain planets and territories. Still, that knowledge didn’t fend off her growling stomach. It was going to be difficult to focus, but either way, she was going to have to function until the food arrived. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]The Sith Lord took her pack, maybe she was wrong about the Sith. There were generally some decent ones in there. Lucky for her, she found one of them. Flipping the tablet in her hand she showed it to the man that hired her. “Roger, I wouldn’t do that not even to a Sith Lord. If it eases your mind sir, You can always confiscate the tablet and burn it. Work tablets never have anything important on them – for this sort of thing anyways.” Remembering another sith lord she had worked for she frowned. “I did work for another Sith, can’t put my finger on his name, but he made me burn twelve tablets. Was seriously the worse. The credits he paid me literally just paid for the lost tablets.” Shaking her head, she had hoped the man wouldn’t make her do something to that extent. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]“Anyways, when I get the basic prints of the ship I should be able to get to work. Nothing too complicated or secret is needed, no worries.” Allyson waved her hand as they continued towards the Ship. She was pretty excited to meet it, to hear its stories and dreams. Though she kept her excitement in check. Looking towards the man, she questioned casually, “So what got you into ships? Hobbies? Ma and Pa? Good pay?” [/SIZE][member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

"Ambition, but mostly, I liked designing neat things, and the most neat things that get used besides rifles and armor are ships. I'm a builder, a tinkerer, so ships made sense to get into. And the pay doesn't hurt, people will pay egregious amounts of money for a good ship, and luckily enough, I make a couple of good ships. They're no Mandal Hypernautis, and certainly no Titan, but they do what I want them to, and they do those things very well." Draco didn't much care about money, he had shiploads of money in raw non-sequential credits, aurodium, and other valuable materials. Thanks Republic. But he mostly just liked doing neat things, thats why he was a beskarsmith, an alchemist, and now a shipwright.

"The basic blueprints of the ship are available on this," he held out a small datacard to the girl that walked beside him. "Let me know what you find to get it working at the cost effective rates I'm looking for. And your food should be here shortly." The door to a small workshop opened and Draco set the back of tools and junk down on a bench. "I'm not as well versed in engineering as I might like, so I will leave you to it. Ping my comms if you need anything."

[member="Allyson Locke"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

“Ambition eh?” Allyson smiled as she followed the Sith Lord to the little office and work bench. He seemed to be well prepared for her, which was impressive for the most part. She took the little data card and waited till they got to the workbench to put it into the data pad. The last thing the girl needed was to try and put the card into her datapad and then drop it or something along those lines. As skillful as she was with the tools in the bag, she had her moments of clumsiness. “Mandal and Titan they make good stuff, but nothing beats a Corellian ship in my opinion.” Smiling, she knew her bias was because her father had helped design some of Corellia’s best ships some that even flew under the command of Ayden Cater with the Omega Protectorate.

Good times.

The basic blueprints loaded up and Allyson started to stare at them, though her concentration was broken when he mentioned her food was close by. “Oh good! I’m about to eat my data pad. The build is nice by the way. From this I don’t see anything that would be causing the issues you’re having, but when I hook it up to the projector I’ll be able to have a better view of things.” Mid thought she had remembered the little projector she had brought along with her. Using the only connection she had to the Force, she tweaked the lights to dim slightly allowing the projector the necessary light to really show its talents. A few wires hooked up to the datapad and she placed the small triangular shaped tool onto the ground between her and Draco.

Who stated that he will be available by comm. Tilting her head, she had expected to work under his thumb, but with this it seemed that he trusted her. Nodding, she spoke and pressed the button to transfer the data to the holoprojector. “Alright Boss man, you know for a Sith you’re pretty cool.” She focused on the large projection of the ship, walking through it and using her hand to gesture for parts to open up and allow her a better look into the ship. “I’ll take notes here and then I’ll call you to go down to the ship?” [member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Draco noted her bias, but it mattered little. He preferred Mandal Hypernautics, someone else probably like Mon Calamari, and KDY would always draw some people's preference. Her personal bias wasn't concerning, especially considering her Corellian Heritage. "Well, this one is based on stripping out the weapon systems of an old Mon Calamari design and using considerably smaller power reactors. The only thing actually special about the design is its ability to donate its shields to other nearby ships or squadrons."

The Mandalorian smiled at her, and the door opened, a droid carrying in her food, setting it on the work bench beside her, bowing and backing out the door. "It appears your food is here, so take your time, eat, and when you are ready ping my comm and we will meet at the ship in the docks and discuss your notes." And then he took his leave of the room, leaving her to her work and meal.

[member="Allyson Locke"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

Allyson grinned happily as she saw the food arrive. She had been starving since the moment she came into the atmosphere of the planet. The young mechanic did find it odd that they didn’t have something as common as McYoda’s but the functions of the Sith was beyond her basic understanding. Still, the food was still slightly warm and that was good enough for her. Continuing to eat she examined the ship on a smaller scale hologram. Fingers moved to rotate the ship and she focused more on the reactors.

From her notes on the ship and what she researched on the isotope 5 reactors she figured it had to do something with them. The Isotope 5 was something special in itself. It was only found one place and deep inside of the caves of that planet. It was light and durable, it distorted electromagnetic fields and gravity – which of course made it the perfect starship fuel. Allyson wiped away some of the ketchup from her face and she pulled up any and all notes she had on Isotope 5. Nodding, she figured it was the reactor not processing the fuel properly. It was a quick fix and wouldn’t’ take long – unless of course the reactors weren’t going to cooperate.

After some time, she looked at the basic blueprints of the reactors and buzzed the Sith Lord. “Hiyo! I think I found the issue, but I won’t know how bad or whatever it is until I see the ships! Locke out~!” [member="Draco Vereen"]