She's got you jumping off the deck (Development)

[Coren Starchaser]

The ship was finally launching off. Coren was looking forward to this test flight. He had a little bit of a mission to take on the ShortFin to break her in for her maiden flight. A quick launch from where she was delivered, the Event Horizon now in orbit around Serpena, and he’d be bringing her to the Dawn Treader after a trip that would test the ship. He had a few things he wanted to do, and one was to chase down a lead on the one formerly, or currently known as Darth Venator. An NPC before all you Sith types get up in arms of me hunting one of you down.

[member="Sage Bane"] isn’t quite enough, but I’ll come for the rest of you later.

Making his way into the ship, Coren was admiring the work. Silk engineers, along with some AEI specialty designers had done quite the number on her. Flying in and out of combat zones quickly and quietly and in style. It was good to be Coren. Sitting in the pilot’s seat, and starting to manipulate the controls, the logical marriage of a CEC freighter’s, Santhe TIE Exalt’s and Silk’s Rassilon’s controls, he felt right at home.

Being there for every step of the ship’s assembly was nice too. And right now would be a great time for a techno-excitement montage as the Mara TibX engines warmed up, the ships internal lights came on, the sound system started up and the bells and whistles came alive. Sure, Coren was flying with his dark green and burnt orange (ugly, but whatever, it’s been his for a long time) astromech known as Arby, even if the ship didn’t need it.

“Greetings, Captain.” Came the ships virtual intelligence. A system that was designed to adapt to his preferences and learn to predict him, though not work on making its own choices, it was not an artificial intelligence because Corey was too lazy to write a 1000 word thesis. Though, this thread may fill in that role.

“Morning, Lexi.” The ship did have the quirk where it named itself. The VI had a very unique voice. And she knew she was part of the ShortFin, its what she was developed for. To monitor the ship.

“Your preferences have been uploaded. Map packages from Baobab Astrogation have been downloaded and synced with the galaxy map. I’ll continue to monitor changes on the galactic scoreboard.” Because Coren watched a lot of Star Wars surfing. “And do my best to keep you up to date on changing news. But that’ll only be when I’m not helping designate targets and making sure you don’t tear us apart.” Clearly the ship had spoken to Arby about Coren’s flying.

“Much appreciated. I’m getting all systems green.” He switched to ship-to-ship. “This is Starchaser, ShortFin departing. See you in a few weeks.” He smiled as he pulled the ShortFin from the exploration vessel. He had a few things he wanted to check, first among them was the stealth systems, and he knew that the world he was going to, well, a moon that had some serious sensors. A quick raid though, just like old times.

“Alright, Lexi. We’re heading to hyperspace.” He said as he jumped the ship to lightspeed. Serepna to Aing-Tii. It’d be a little bit.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

A lot of work to be done. Corey wanted to make sure this was done right to get him all the toys and bells and whistles of this ship. And that was why he was going to take his time. And probably stop padding the posts with OOC jokes and nonsense. The pilot in question, aboard his new luxury stealth yacht that behaved like a strike fighter, set the alerts to give him a few moments before reversion to real space, especially if he had decided on a nap, because Force knows the man doesn’t meditate, that’s for the religious Force users.

Walking through the ship, there were two main cabins, one that was his, nice full sized bed, surfboards, hoverboards, BASE jumping equipment and a few holos from a variety of extreme sport professionals, and you know, his drafting table complete with holographic maps that he could modify to work on hyperspace routes, not that ShortFin was a hyperspace trailblazer like the Rising but Coren needed hobbies. Especially now that this ship was on her maiden flight, and he wasn’t working on designing her any more. Not until some new ship idea got lodged in his head.

This was the type of ship that anyone should get excited over.

He looked over, the crew bunks were there, ShortFin was built to be piloted by just Lexi and himself, hell, half the time it could just be Lexi, if Coren needed her to come in a hurry, but he had the crew bunks for the Underground members that were undoubtedly going to be accompanying him on missions using this vessel. The main chamber of the ship was an open concept flooring, thanks Property Virgins, with an open-galley kitchen, refresher off to the opposite side, and another in the captain’s quarters. But the best part? The jukebox, and the slurpee machine. Right now it was spinning something orange. Hmm, what were the Silk Engineers giving him to start of with?

Right, focus.

Music, slurpee, kitchen, right! Right, there was a gaming table, set for dejarik or sabacc, or in some cases billiards. He liked to be entertained.

Taking a seat, there was also the main galaxy map, and holographic projector. It’d be good for making holocalls and checking battle movements. “Alright, Lexi.” He said and an orange mass of code in a relatively female figure appeared. Not anything Coren was doing to be perverse, again, he wasn’t Marek, just how the code presented itself. “Tell me about your programming.” He didn’t design the system.

“I’m Lexi, obviously. And I’m here to be the ships virtual intelligence. My programming, as mentioned when you started the ship up, is to assist you. Galactic news and events will be given, I store ship identities and flight camera data for later retrieval. I assist with prioritizing targets in a combat situation. But primarily, I’ll be working to monitor the stealth systems, the ship sensors, and conducting repairs as necessary. I can learn for your preferences and can pilot the ship in case an emergency retrieval is necessary.”

“For the studio audience at home, lets go over the ship systems once more.” He wanted to make sure everything was installed. Then he’d nap, then he’d play with them.

And by play, he meant live fire testing.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

While the talking was going on, and because Corey disliked starting a post with dialogue, Coren was approaching the slurpee machine. He poured a little into a cup and took a sip – how rad was it that he had a space Lykan Hypersport with a Slurpee machine – to discover citrus. Nothing out of the ordinary. Right, the ship was talking.

“The ship boasts a number of systems that you helped design, Captain. Included in these are a radar absorbing material that covers the hull. Its not cloaking, but it does make our radar cross section much less than a starfighter, but due to our size not quite as small as a StealthX. To assist with that, our weapons systems are kept in weapons bays on our lateral wings, and the ion cannon turret on our dorsal side. These will open to allow the weapons to fire, but it does destroy our stealth. Similar to use of our SLAM engines, how they will counteract the TibX engines when active. To counter this, when we do reestablish our stealth systems and jump, the new IFF that is aboard will allow us to change through several frequencies and identities. Our weapon systems range from triple blasters to minorly turreted composite beam lasers, and of course, warheads. Countermeasures are covered by Silk, as are our decoy and cap drain systems. Additionally, we are running with an experimental hyperdrive, and sensors suite. You can access all of this information from the cockpit, especially when you plug in using your Liberation Neural Pilotting implant. The ship is designed for that.”

Coren nodded, sipping on his drink. “Also, you will need such the mod to make use of the maneuvering jets.” Right, Corey was taking advantage of some new Star Wars science and actual real science to make this an agile mother fether. “The trick to remember with the ShortFin as was programmed into me, is that we are low on shields by high on experimental stealth tech and speed. And to use them.”

Simple enough.

“Sounds wonderful Lexi. I’m going to grab some rack time, monitor the systems, and let me know when we arrive.”

“Of course, Captain.”

 

[Coren Starchaser]

The bed was comfortable. And well, he was starting to unwind from the galactic events. He had a brand new ship, Things with the Underground were going well, the whole rescue of [member="Spark Finn"] thread was kept fluid, but probably occurred before this so that Coren could be relaxed. Or after, way after, depending if he himself got captured. Or maybe he died in that thread and this was all a dream.

There’s a glitch in the matrix.

Still, sleeping was always the best way to pass the time. And the pilot woke up, either by the Force, by habit, or some form of deus ex machina, right before the alarms sounded. Good. He shook the sleep from his head and stepped from his quarters, a bit more empty than he’d like, if he had rescued Spark Finn at this point. Still, he made his way up to the cockpit, more of one than it was a bridge. Sitting down, he closed eyes eyes. “Beginning neural link.” And that was when his body made a jump, right, that was always tricky, linking in to a new ship the first time, or an old ship the thousandth time. He didn’t have the Tachyon Rising spec’d to accept the Liberation, just his Rassilon and now the ShortFin.

“Hello, Lexi. Ready for some fun?”

“I’m programmed only for fun, Captain. Engaging sublight drives.” Fun here having a pilot's definition. And that was when the ship fell into real space. Coren took a deep breath as the data streams came through, lucky for him, Lexi was filtering most of the extra data, ship names and the like, and would alert him for specific IFFs and nations. High priority targets. He was in Gold Mode, but still, a lot of extra data. “Stealth systems engaged. Reminder: Using weapons or SLAM engines will counteract stealth systems and is not advised.”

“Thanks, Lexi. Keep an eye on targets. We’re heading for the skyhook.”

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Keeping the ship at a medium speed, he knew what the Mara TibX TE-413 Fusial Engines were rated at, he designed them and was there for the construction of the ones in the very ship, not to keep his stealth systems up but so he could keep an eye on the sky and work on linking with the ShortFin. She was bigger than his fighter. He knew combat with the system was going to be all but impossible. He’d have to make sure he could disconnect fast and quickly. Was going to be a downfall.

See that judges? Weakness.

Only when the stealth systems were active and working would he be using that. And right now? He was watching the guns. The turrets on the stations, they were… ignoring him. Good. Perfect.

Don’t cause a stir, and fly casual and you were fine. That was nice, he took the vessel through a few maneuvers, simply getting a feel, avoiding getting too close to other ships, and watching what was on all sides of him. Driving a black painted ship in front of too many lights was a sure fire way for visual scans to find him. But right now? They seemed to be on low alert. Good. Just what he needed.

“Station approach being monitored.” The mission was simple, Coren was going to bring the ship up to one of the air locks, connect to the station, have Lexi hack the system, locate his former master, and any data that might be useful, and work her way out of the station, building the firewall back up, and getting away clean. Simple enough, right? Maybe a bit more of an advanced technique for Lexi, but if an astromech could do it? So could she.

She had a ship’s processing power, after all. This was still outlining the ship systems. What was coming next was practice of the maneuvering jets.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Coren looked over, not at the data stream, but visual scanning, at the station. Right, that was a good distance. “Alright, Lexi, activating Black Mode.” Dun dun duuuun.

The pilot shook his head and took a hard swallow. Right, now he was the ship. The ship was him. ShortFin was big, he was going to have a field day with piloting her in Black Mode. This was an odd feeling. He’d done it a few times, just to test it, with the Rassilon, but even Coren wasn’t going to be using this in combat. And sure as hell not with a ship the size of the ShortFin. Right, focus, Coren, the right systems, not everything. Lexi was helping to monitor the other systems and keep Coren away from everything else. Weapons were offline. Main drive units were closing offline. He could feel the ship. Feel her drifting, and that was when he started to spin her. She was rotating with the maneuvering jets. These would be fun for use in combat.

And the ship slowly started to touch the station. Docking clamp pressed to the station and he slowly relaxed. The mission was now to start breaking the firewall down. And he could feel the ship reach out through the docking clamp and start to spider invading wires into the system, to break directly into the mainframe. He could feel the ship getting to work. There was a risk here, but he was waiting for it. He slowly started to move himself from Black Mode down to Gold.

And that was when he was starting to feel better. The ship was now in his control as Lexi was working on breaking the firewalls. He took a second to center himself again, waiting. He was reading all the ships around. Nothing he recognized.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

It didn’t take long before the Lexi reported in. A location, some data stolen. Data on the Aing-Tii and some old holocron, unique construction, something not canon, nothing for Coren to destroy, but something that came from an old Starchaser, someone who was an Imperial pilot way back when. Back during the collapse of the Empire, during the time after Endor. Whatever was happening then, there were Starchasers and they were working on new techniques in the Force. That was something he was going to need. "Data regarding any cross reference of Starchaser has been downloaded."

“Any information on Venator?” He asked Lexi.

“I have the next location. Seems he’s after some ancient data. Will download it…” The VI’s lilted speech cut off. “We have a situation arising. Klaxons are on. Erasing terminal data. Restoring presets to the beginning of the week. Backing out of system. Reformating the firewall. Systems are disconnected. They will not have our data.” Lexi said, a bit of pride in the voice.

“Disconnecting docking clamp. I’m in gold mode. Manuevering…” And that was when the fighters were dispatched. Terrific.

Coren grinned as he ran his fingers over the commands of the ship. She was feeling like home, she was built to feel like home. “Stealth systems still running. Select IFF name four.”

That was Vitae Alliance Vessel Foxy Lady. Right, he didn’t put thought into the fake names on his ships. Just that they would work. Moving in with the TE engines at three-quarters speed, he kept the stealth systems active.

“Shall I warm up the weapons systems, Captain?” Came Lexi’s voice.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Yes, Corey did change the color for Lexi. That was fine. He didn’t have one for Arby and typically NPCs were yellow, but this one was more important, she had her own color. Anyway, the ShortFin now going by the moniker Foxy Lady was on her way out of the system. Coren was not one for sneaking around, and he would prefer to engage at full strength with everything he had. But this mission, this was a bit different.

This ship was made to run, she was made to be silent and sneak through. He was hoping, but he knew what was coming, reaching out to the Force, and keeping the Gold Mode active, with Lexi falling into her protocols of streaming all the data herself and not letting it interrupt Coren’s feed, it gave him a little less of the control he had in his Rassilon and the headache just hadn’t caught up yet. Before it was nothing, moving a very nimble shuttle.

Space Ferrari.

Now it was controlling it and watching fighters. He had a lot more to focus on. “Lexi, make sure to stream as much non-combat data away from the link I’ve got as possible. Give me engines and weapons. Let me know when they see me, and when shields are below a quarter.” Orders, right? This was going to work. This ship was making a move, be he could see the squadron of fighters. A flight group broke off and he tried to pull in from the Force. He was humped.

“Captain, enemy fighters are warming up weapons, stealth systems are engaged still.”

Right, confused the computer with the Force, simple. He reached right on back to them now. He could feel them. Four pilots, Force sensitive, and obviously not an empty platform. Weapons were online, shields were active and he was getting ready. The first blasts came.

“Hold on, Lexi.” Coren said, grinning, a dark grin. He missed combat.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

The first hits went wide, Coren pushed the ship into a roll, a very tight roll for a ship its size. Thank you science, no friction and maneuvering jets. He looked up at the ship systems, feeling and knowing what was coming. Between the Liberation mod and the Force, he knew what was coming. The hit of lasers on his shields left that bitter blood taste in his mouth. The kind you got from a bar fight? Yeah, that one. He shook it off. Diving the ship under a passenger vehicle, he quickly activated the ion turret, the bay door opening and the cannon rising up.

“Target closest fighter and fire. Go close to far.” He ordered to Lexi. He was worrying about the forward motion and fighting and dodging those fethers, no time to run the turret too. The sweet taste of ion cannon fire came out and he grinned. Kicking the engines to full, he was making moves to gain distance on the fighters. Looking up he started to see what he could do.

Knocking throttle down to a third, he grinned. Manuevering jets fired and the ship somersaulted while he opened his weapons bays. Triple blaster fire met the first fighter, ripping it open and causing it to glow orange as it ignited. He winged the second fighter and the third and fourth banked.

“Not so easy.” Coren pushed the ship into full throttle, right at the fighters trying to bank.
“I have target lock on three.” Lexi announced. Coren flipped the switch on the yolk and the weapons pods opened. Tapping the touch screen in front of him, he selected one missile and fired. It jumped from the shuttle, chasing a fighter while the triple blasters were firing on the fourth, though the pilot was dodging.

“Mother fether.”

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Coren knew what was going on. They were humped. “Stealth systems are voided. Recommend vacating the area.” Lexi spoke, that voice somewhere between robotic and organic. Coren looked up at the screen, the rest of the squadron was moving in. Terrific. He shook his head. Time to get out of here. Coren pushed the ion cannon turret back over to Lexi’s control. Simple, the ship’s brain could handle dropping everything.

The pilot closed the weapons bays for the warhead launchers and triple blasters. A mental nod and he kicked the SLAM engines into over drive. They were already humped, time to clear the space. Stealth systems wouldn’t be working now, they had the data and that was why they were here. As Coren was the type of pilot to knock the inertial compensator down to 95%, to really feel the ship. Still, when the SLAM engines kicked in he was thrown back into the seat.

“Plot us a trip out of here, Lexi. Rapido.” Simple, he could do it, but right now? He wanted to test the VI to make sure she could get this on the move. Once they got to the first jump, he’d coordinate another one or two jumps before getting to where they needed to go. Where was his next jump?

Underground.

“Course laid in.” Lexi announced and Coren found the mark. Time to go. Grabbing the hyperdrive, he slammed the ship out of the system.