Modifying Billy - Open - On Syvris

[Gilbert Skolnick]

"Call that a supply chain... 6 million credits and I have to pick it up myself... We'll see about that when I get you up and running baby!"

The last was directed at what had once upon a time been a Trident-class assault ship, but was currently hardly more than so much scrap. Not that you'd know it from the way the grumbling young(ish) man lovingly addressed it, giving it a pat as he circled, furiously jotting down notes.

"Well, at least you've got all your parts. Got a couple major hull breeches though, definitely have to fix that. Adding a life support system won't help me much if you look like so much swiss cheese! Don't worry though, it'll be you, me, a stack of metal and a welding torch until you're up and purring, I have this hangar rented for.. Until we're done!"

It had cost a pretty penny, not so much the hangar. You could rent an empty hangar for quite cheap. Of course you'd fill it up with whatever you wanted, go home, and just like magic when you came back it would be empty again. A fantastic way to get rid of anything you didn't want any more or if you wanted to get something on the Black Market anonymously, not the best way to store an ongoing project that you actually wanted to keep and invest significant time and money into. It was the security that cost. Eventually he'd be able to handle that himself of course, but for now, he paid. He'd better work fast though, he couldn't afford to pay like this forever, he needed to get up and profitable asap!

Which brought him back to the ship..

 

[Gilbert Skolnick]

First things first, the rust had to go. You couldn't weld on to rust, and in any case no ship of his was going to fly about looking like a scrap-pile, a person had to have a little pride after all. Besides, the ship, on top of being his current baby, would be almost like a flying advertisement. Look at the work I do! I'm brilliant! Give me credits! Not that he intended to do much starship modification, but a man who could fix an entire ship and re-purpose it, that was a man who could be trusted with your fiddly projects. After all, a mistake in a ship could kill you! Which was another good reason to make sure everything was done properly now that he came to think about it...

He programmed his mag-grinders and watched them hover off to begin their job with satisfaction. Well, mostly satisfaction. One of them sputtered and fell out of the air.

"Darnit Patches, every time! I just recalibrated you!"

Just as he reached for the machine, it came back to life with a growl of machinery and rose into the air once more. Gilbert jerked his hand back just in time to avoid losing part of a finger.

"So help me I will melt you down and turn you into paperclips."

He turned back to his workbench and grabbed his smaller hand grinder. The mag-grinders were good, and the project would take forever otherwise, but there were some smaller areas and joints that they just didn't reach very well.

"Safety first!"

He pulled on his safety goggles and gloves, and set to work, sparks flying.

 

[Gilbert Skolnick]

Well. It had taken about six straight hours (bathroom breaks not withstanding) and Gilbert could no longer lift his arms over his head or hold anything over about a pound, but his beautiful ship was rust free. She still had giant holes in her, and one of her arms had apparently only been attached by rust, but these were minor details. The rust was gone and the real work could begin.

"Wow, I'm starving."

But not immediately obviously.

"I won't order calamari in front of you baby, don't worry."

After failing to lift his hand held comm up to his ear, Gilbert set it to speaker and dialed.

"Ziznip's All-Day Take-Away, what you want?"

"Uh hi, can I get theeee.. uh.. the baked dru'un slices in fish sauce, the fambaa delight, a pickled zog and a side order of sufar greens?"

"One order Dru'un, one delight, order of zog, side order of greens. How you pay?"

"Um, just one pickled zog, not an order please."

"One zog, one zog, okay."

"Oh! And actually can I add a Svivreni treat?"

"Add Treat, okay. You want drink?"

"Do you have an Graling Juice?"

"No, no Graling. Have Mupple. You drink Mupple Juice."

"Oh, okay, uh, sure."

"How you pay?"

"Can you transfer the bill to this number?"

"You want delivery to location of comm?"

"Yes please."

"We send when you pay."

"O-"

*Click*

"-kay."

He glanced down at the bill that arrived shortly.

"Huh, that's not as bad as I thought."

With a half shrug he keyed in the code to transfer the required credits and provided his address. Now to wait.

 

[Gilbert Skolnick]

*Snnnnnr-kt!*

With a jerk, Gilbert awoke and fell out of his chair. Blinking owlishly from where he lay sprawled on the floor, he saw mostly empty take out containers covering much of his work table. Based on past experiences he could only assume that after devouring way too much of Ziznip's 'best' he'd fallen into a food coma. Well. That was all right, it meant he was refreshed and ready to get back to work!

"It's probably still good right? It only sat out over night.. Besides, breakfast is the most important meal of the day!"

Ready to get back to work soon in any case.

"I can honestly say this tastes just as good as when it was fresh. Not sure if that's good or not..."

Finishing off the leftovers, Gilbert dumped the containers into a garbage bin before turning back to the project at hand.

"Alright baby, time to patch up those holes and get you vac-proof again!"

Pulling on his welding helmet, fire resistant coveralls and gloves, Gilbert hooked the first piece of metal onto chains ending in magnets and manoeuvred it until it was hanging roughly over where he wanted it before turning on his welder and getting to work. It was tricky business. Welding well always took some skill, and to do it well enough that it would stand up to the pressures of atmo entry and ext as well as the vacuum of space.. Well, you certainly didn't want any cut corners, especially when you were going to be the one trusting your life to your welds.

It took several days before the holes were all patched to an acceptable standard and the fallen off arm was reattached.

 

[Gilbert Skolnick]

The next most important part was installing the life support module. The Trident-class had originally been designed to transport droids, not organics, so it was missing a few of the comforts of home, like say, breathable oxygen. Gilbert didn't really want to cut down on transport space, or make it too claustrophobic on long jaunts, but that was all right, as a fair amount of room was being taken up by the weapons system which he didn't foresee himself needing any time soon.

"My dreams of becoming a a feared space-pirate and getting lots of booty will have to wait I suppose. Can't do much with booty if you can't breathe, either kind!"

As he chuckled at his own joke, he removed a piece of panelling and began the process of stripping the ship of it's laser cannons and all the accompanying tech and controls. That took one day, including welding a few more panels on to cover where the cannons had protruded. The next day was spent installing and testing the life support system. There was only one small fire started by a short in a faulty panel, so he put the whole thing down as a success.

"There! Now you won't kill me."

He gave the ship an affectionate pat, before heading over to the refresher to shower before falling into the cot he'd dragged in to save time and keep him from having to commute every day.

"That's it! A 'fresher! Definitely good to have for those long trips! Buckets not going to do it when you're stuck reusing the same air..."

 

[Gilbert Skolnick]

The next day was given over to redesigning the interior of the ship, and the two days after that to bringing it to life. The cockpit was now outfitted with a comfy, over stuffed leather arm chair bolted to the floor that no droid had ever been privileged enough to sit in, not that most would care. As a nod to safety a seatbelt had been added. A last second thought had seen the addition of two other seat, rather more traditional, though they did at least swivel.

"Just in case I need to rescue any damsels in distress or anything."

The Captains cabin as he thought of it, was a prime example of efficient use of space. Both the cot and the desk folded up into the wall when not in use. The chair was a stool that extended rather like a telescope and could be stored as a flattish circle of metal when not in use. He'd briefly considered outfitting his cabin with a waterbed, but having tried one in the store found that they made him nauseous. The closet was built into one wall and numerous drawers and lockers were built into the others.

He'd created a second 'room' which also had a beds in two of the walls, though it was primarily a storage area. It was one of those just on case moments. The refresher was in a common area as he couldn't see installing more than one since he didn't really expect to have anyone else on his ship. It was supposed to be top of the line, the shower alone had both sonic and sanisteam settings. What water was used was recaptured, meticulously purified and sent back to work. There was a small break room, that was rather cramped with seating and a small round table. It was also the food prep area, with a counter top that folded down, a fridge/freezer set into the wall and a cooking surface that slid out of the wall at the touch of a button. The rest of the space was given over to storage. Not that there was a lot of space, but what there was, was used efficiently.

Going back over his work, checking wiring etc, he added a few last minute touches. The drink holder by the Captains chair that could be set to heat or chill for one.

 

[Gilbert Skolnick]

The next day was fiddlier. It involved work on the two central 'beaks' of the ship. There was the one that allowed the ship to make long distance voyages by housing the hyperdrive, and the drill that was used to attack other ships. The ship could only have one active and equipped at a time. The hyperdrive beak didn't really need to be modified, it was merely a matter of running tests on it, making sure everything was up to code, and repairing or replacing anything that was not.

The drilling arm however.. He still wanted it basically the same, the main difference was that instead of drilling into other ships offensively, he wanted it to actually be able to drill for minerals and ores. This wasn't particularly hard, but it was time consuming. Especially since he needed to make sure that what it mined up was deposited in either the lowest storage room, to which it was connected, or into an outside container, which he didn't own yet but intended to in the future. After all, that was simple logic. If you wanted to mine something, you had to have room for what you picked up to be deposited. Eventually he got it working though, or at least, figured he did. You could only run so many tests though, he wouldn't know for sure until he tried it in the field.

Next he welded a cradle onto the hull of the ship where the unused piece could be stored. Which again, ought to have been easy except he didn't want it to just stay there, that wasn't enough. He wanted the more mobile arms of the ship to be able to swap the beak itself, either in space or on the ground. This was much trickier, and he earned a few scrapes and bruises throwing himself out of the way of the arms before he got it programmed and working properly. You still could switch them manually if you had the right equipment of course, but it was easier and quicker this way.

"You'll soon be able to do your work without me!"

 

[Gilbert Skolnick]

The next day was mostly clean up, with a little work thrown in. He integrated a tractor beam, made sure the shields were up to snuff on case of asteroids. Fueled and stocked the ship. Moved over some of the things he wanted for his own comfort, no one wanted to wake up and put their feet on a cold metal floor so slippers were an obvious must. He moved a fair bunch of his redundant tools into the spare room. He added a generous supply of anti-nausea medication to his stock.

He was almost ready to take it for a test drive. He got all the proper clearances, keyed in the code to open the warehouse ceiling, strapped himself into his armchair and started running pre-flight checks.

"All right Captain, all systems are a go! Thank you Ensign, fine work! Thanks Cap, and may I add you're looking very handsome today? You may. Now, hit it!"

The engines fired, and the ship lifted evenly and easily into the air. Once he was sure he was well clear off the warehouse, he pushed the throttle forward, sending the ship zooming towards the upper reaches of the atmosphere.

"All right! This is great! We did it baby!"

Gilbert turned slightly green at the turbulence that accompanied breaking atmo, having forgotten to take his meds in his excitement. This was exacerbated by the fact that the only thing keeping him in his seat was his seatbelt.

"I forgot to install the gravity generator! Shoot!"

With some badly hidden relief, he took the ship back down, managing to land it back in the warehouse without further incident.

As soon as the engines were offline, he unbuckled himself and headed for the refresher, where his most recent meal made an unwelcome reappearance.

 

[Gilbert Skolnick]

The rest of that day was spent curled up in a small ball of misery, waiting for his stomach to decide it didn't hate him any more and was done trying to mutiny.

The next morning he rose bright and early, before noon in any case, and started installing the artificial gravity generator. It was made much harder because he'd already done everything else and made such an efficient use of space that he was now trying to squeeze the generator into areas where it technically did not fit. He was truly a genius in some ways though, and managed it, though if anyone else ever had to make repairs to the generator they would likely be hopelessly confused. Running a few diagnostics, he made sure that it worked and that he'd not unintentionally altered anything else.

After that was done he reprogrammed and re-outfitted the mag-grinders to be mag-painters instead, replacing their grinder components with spray paint and set them to work.

"Well Patches, you managed it again, but I kind of like it.. Good work buddy."

He's wanted it to be orange and back, so that it was both manly and intimidating, because he could at least be a pirate in his head, and also highly visible. Who knew how Patches had managed to turn his paint electric blue, or why he'd only sprayed within the black marks. The overall effect was rather gaudy, but it worked.

 

[Gilbert Skolnick]

The ship was left alone for two days so the paint could dry and chemically bond to the metal. During this time, Gilbert moved all his remaining equipment either into the ship, or back to his shop. Finally on the second day Gilbert returned, cradling a bottle of champagne.

"I got this just for you baby, this is the most important part. You need a name."

He squinted at the ship appraisingly.

"I've been thinking really hard, and I think you'll love it."

He grinned, pushing his glasses back up his nose, clearly pleased with himself.

"Your new name is Billy, Billy the Squid!"

He broke the bottle of champagne over the ships hull. Or at least tried to. It was a fairly solid bottle and took a couple tries. When it finally did break, glass and champagne flew everywhere!

"Holy geeze! Who started this practice! It's really unsafe!"

He examined his hand, making sure it was free of glass shards.

"Maybe I bought the wrong kind of bottle.. "