Sunburns & Hyperdrive Troubles

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt had gone digging beneath the metal plating of the shuttles deck.

As with most ships there had been a small space for him to slip inside, not much room to wiggle around in, but enough that he could look about and shift without too great a care. Of course there was the issue of actually getting the tools he had left on the table, but for now he didn't really need those. Instead he was peeking and poking through the wires in an attempt to find the thing that mattered most right now, this shuttles hyperdrive and what class it was.

He should have searched those maintenance closets first...but after his last encounter...

Well, it was easier to say that Kurt wasn't really up to stumbling upon another half dozen Dark Troopers.

"Okay..." Kurt slowly said to himself as his fingers pulled back a small mass of wires, the cords loosely pulling to the side and revealing a large metal frame in which sat a smaller box of blue and gray. He smiled slightly, running his fingers over the drive and trying to find any sort of stamp or identifier on it. He was well versed in hyperdrives, having needed to fix the old VCX-820's more than a few dozen times while he'd owned the ship.

 

[Kaile Vera]

"Hey guys." Kaile's voice would sound off with an uplifting greeting towards the DarkTroopers. They were still pretty creepy, but at the same time, it made Kaile giggle that they were reprogrammed for domestic duties.

The stench of guano had all but disappeared, leaving instead a clean deck. No bats were in sight, but the occasional flutter of wings could be heard from the distance. With the hanger now guano free, that meant that they could close the blast doors. As she stepped out into the main hanger, the warmth of the area was noticeable.

Huh. Could it be because of the volcano? Just how dormant was it? Dormant didn't meant completely safe. It just meant resting. Something to consider for sure.

"Kurt?" she called out again, searching for the pilot. As she came to a stop, Kaile gave a roll of her shoulders. A press of the console in control of the blast doors would get them groaning and moving. The sound of metal rumbling echo'd within the hanger, loud enough for the pilot to hear under the shuttle.

"Hmm..." peering out at the closest Dark Trooper, the Lorrdian considered. Biting her lower lip, she brought up her hand. I wonder...

A wiggle of fingers and she would summon the Force. How much could she be able to manipulate them from a distance? Something to find out...


[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt heard the rumble outside the shuttle, but by now he was far too consumed with what he was doing to actually drag himself away. He knew that the noise was either Kaile, or the Dark Troopers doing something. If there was an enemy...well then it wouldn't do him any good to go running to check it out anyway, besides, he was almost entirely sure that the droids would protect him and Kaile. A frown pulled at his lips, perhaps he should have asked her about that before running off The Messa. His head shook, his moving back towards the hyperdrive.

A mesh of wires had been pushed and pinned out of the way, most of the drive now being revealed.

Kurt had already found the maker of the hyperdrive, as well as its manufacture date and when it had been first created. It came to no surprise to him that it was high quality, though not the fastest drive in the verse. The thing would be able to keep up with most shuttles of it's size, but it would also be able to do so for far longer. The drive was meant to last a long while and run on less energy than others, making it more efficient if not slightly slower. "Just what we need."

Kurt mused to himself as he began to look around the small space.

The question was...how would they get the damned thing out of here.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]



Much to Kaile’s surprise, the Dark Trooper in the midst of sweeping began to slow. An arch of her brow rose in noticeable curiosity. Could I be able to bring him over?

From a distance? That thought sparked a rush through her veins in excitement at testing that theory. I was always one for experimenting…

A narrowing of her brown eyes would allow her a measure of focus and concentration. The thought of where the pilot could be left her mind for the present time. He would be near, she was certain at least. For now, Kaile gave a slight cant of her head to the right, her heart-shaped face considering the Dark Trooper.

Her right foot took a step closer, and a fine wrinkle bloomed between her brows. Commanding the Force, Kaile would reach out to pour that energy inside. She felt the spark of power within it, the faint slow. Impressing her will within it, the Lorrdian gave a thin press of her lips.

Come to me…

One couldn’t stop the slight gasp of surprise as the Dark Trooper gave another shudder, coming to a halt. Then slowly, began turning towards her.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt ran his fingers over the edges of the hyperdrive.

"Damn." He said. "I think we're going to have to remove the entire paneling in order to get this thing out....maybe...maybe drop it from beneath?"

Could they do that?

He was almost entirely sure that they couldn't, but maybe they would find the tools they would need in the hangar. For some odd reason he doubted that Kaile and he would be able to lift the hyperdrive out of its seating within the maintenance space, especially given that they would have to remove a ton of wiring, metal, and durasteel braces. He frowned slightly, pointing his flashlight down and searching for a moment for a seam or anything that showed the hyperdrive could be dropped down.

"There has to be something." Kurt said to himself as he slowly pressed the pads of his fingers against the ground.

Perhaps a drop down latch, or maybe he would have to check the outside of the ship.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]


Kaile gave a startled jump, eyes bulging as she immediately would halt the connection.

Both hands came up to her chest, feeling the frantic palpation of her heart as it kickstarted. Adrenaline went burning through her veins; both good and bad if one was really honest. Her gaze went back and forth between her palm and the Dark Trooper.

Did that really just happen.

Yup. It did.

“So cool.” Kaile hummed to herself, fingers wiggling. She had been able to do plenty of manipulations with electronics before, even a few interesting tricks. But nothing to the capacity of a full blown armed droid. It made her wonder what else she could do.

She bit her lower lip. “Something to practice later Kaile girl.” she told herself. Panning her gaze from her earlier test subject, her brown eyes went towards the shuttle. Noticing the ramp was down and the light on, she figured that was where Kurt went.

Padding over, she ambled her way to it, weaving herself through the dozen half dark troopers as she called out, “Kurt?... You there?”

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt mused for a moment more, shifting slightly and slowly picking himself up and off the ground as he heard his name being called. It was something that barely echoed out, and he probably only heard it because his name reverberated within the hangar bay and bounced into the shuttle itself. "In the shuttle!"

The Courier yelled back.

The small pit that he had made for himself beneath the floor boards of the Shuttle was scattered with tools and lights now, completely and totally occupied by him and him alone. He was almost entirely sure that fitting another human being down here was impossible, which only meant that removing the Hyperdrive would be almost impossible. He was sure now that there had to be a way to drop the thing from beneath the ship, something that made sense to him.

"Yeah." Kurt said quietly. "Somewhere..."

He trailed off as he slowly picked himself out of the small crawlspace, clambering up and out of the engineering pit and onto the durasteel floor of the shuttle again. "Maybe there's a switch near the ramp."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

“Oh hey!” Kaile would tell Kurt as she abruptly bumped into him. She shone him a smile in greeting, noticing the bits of grime, grease and dirt on him. “Already digging through the shuttle?” she said in mild amusement.

Following his toned figured with her eyes, she kept talking, “Just wanted to see if you were alright or needed anything before I head back to check out the electronics and data.” she would explain, giving a small half yawn as she covered her mouth with her right hand. Still a bit sleepy, she’ll work through waking fully up in a few minutes.

“Otherwise, it probably will take me about an hour or so.” it was nice to see him move and amble along. Kaile always enjoyed watching people and Kurt was no different.

“Oh, do you need the droids to do anything? I can probably reprogram them to do whatever you wish.”

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

His head shook almost immediately as she offered help from the droids.

"No that's alright." Kurt said quietly. "I've found the hyperdrive, no way were getting it out of here through the top of the metal plating, we'd have to tear apart half of the shuttle just to get it through. It's a good drive though, not as fast as the one we had on The Messa but it's designed to run off of less power than our old one. It's a...well I have no idea if the brand is even made anymore, but basically instead of taking on great burst of energy to jump this one has a capacitor that stores its own energy."

Meaning it was far less dangerous. "Really smart actually."

"Means that the drive wouldn't have to spool up in emergencies." That was always the issue with most ships. "You can just set coordinates and go."

Kurt shrugged slightly, though he didn't tell Kaile that the Hyperdrive definitely didn't come standard with this type of ship. The drive was unique, or rather, it was to this ship. Shuttles like this usually came with standard drives. The fact that this ship had one made him assume that it was a get-away shuttle, or some sort of escape vehicle used by whoever owned this place in case of emergencies. Briefly the pilot wondered if it was the man who they had seen a statue of.

 

[Kaile Vera]

Interest piqued within Kaile's brown eyes, widening them in avid curiosity at [member="Kurt Meyer"]. A frown replaced her expression after, following the pilot, "That isn't standard at all." she would comment aloud the thoughts that the courier had.

"Certainly not for typical travel." she bit her lower lip as she considered the ramifications of such a fact. "A get away vehicle? Certainly not for your line and row buckethead." in reference to the Stormtroopers. Truth be told, this entire facility was beyond her initial estimates on what they'd possibly could find. It was the pot of aurodium peggets at the end of the hyperlane to the Moons of Iego.

"I wonder if it had something to do with that statue." a deep furrow cut her brow in her consideration. A second later, she cast her attention back at the toned physique of the former podracer.

"I'll go check out that data. Comm me if you need me -- you have your glasses?" she'd check first before she left.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Yep." Kurt said as he pointed to the table at the center of the room. "I'm just gonna keep poking around the ship. There has to be a way to drop the hyperdrive out from beneath the shuttle or maybe get a way towards it from the side, I can't believe the designers would make it so hard to access, especially if it never needed to be replaced or shifted around in some way. I think I'll try coming at it from below."

The Courier Shrugged.

He wasn't entirely sure how this Shuttle was all put together, after all the thing was nearly a thousand years old. He wouldn't be surprised if one of these hadn't been manufactured in all that time, especially since the design had never really been all that prolific in the first place. He mused for a second, fingers running over the scruff on his face as he tried to think about the last time that he had seen one of these ships, or if he'd ever seen one in the junkyards he'd visited.

A shrug finally rolled over his shoulders. "I'll figure it out. Have fun with your computers, nerd."

He teased her, offering a small wink.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

“Hey, you weren’t complaining about my skills when we managed to get past that sith escort!” came her parting quip, already heading out of the shuttle with a bounce in her step. Nerd! How rude!

“Queen Nerd! Get it right!” a half grin parted her face, feet steadily bounding down the ramp. Alright…. Hands went to slip into her pockets, and she paused right at the foot of the ramp.

“I’ll get more work done on the Messa.” she told herself quietly, thinking about what all she’d have to do. From there she could try and find a console here and try and get back into the system.

“Then figure out what those levels have…”

Plan in motion, Kaile headed off to the Messa.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Roger." Kurt said as he sat himself down on the edge of the maintenance hatch again and slowly slid himself down into the small crawlspace. He wanted to check out the outside of the ship as well, but there was something he wanted to see here first. He had noticed the tiny seam along the floor, but he hadn't checked the sides of the drive nor the brackets that actually held the thing in place. He frowned slightly, shifting to check on the small hinges that held the drive in place.

"Alright." He said grabbing the flashlight. "Move some of these..."

The Courier began to talk to himself as he began to explore the functions of the hyperdrive, pressing his fingers along the outskirts of small metal housing. He wondered briefly who had designed this ship, or rather, who had designed the after market hyperdrive that now sat in place. "Probably some stuck up imperial."

Kurt mused to himself as he slowly taced his fingers along the brackets.

It was bound to be somewhere.

 

[Kaile Vera]

Up in the Messa, Kaile took a pit stop at the galley to grab half of a coconut and a protein bar. At the very least she could nom on the meat while she did her work. Kaile was constantly snacking on one thing or the other. Kurt also did the same, which is why she typically kept a stock of pretzels, peanuts, and dried fruit. Food ration bars only went so far.

Shoving the protein bar in her mouth to hold it for the moment, Kaile took another stop by the sound system. With the power on, she could play some music to pass the time. "That's what we need," she said aloud, her mouth curving upwards. As her finger went sliding over the display, her finger gave a slight retract at the song that came up.

[ Hello... I waited here for you -- everlong...]

A pause. Then a memory of another ship and another galley. Of the Captain, Mai and Asmus. At breakfast and what came after. Dropping her gaze, Kaile gave a slight exhale as warmth spread again over her face. Slowly she withdrew the powerbar from her mouth. Nibbling on her lower lip, she took a couple of steps back from the console.

Back then, she didn't expect to be able to contact anyone. Not with a new mission a new alias. Things were different. A deep breath drew into her lungs.

Heavy in thought, Kaile went to her room. Using all of her gadgets, she'll start the scan of information off that prototype. Once that was done, off to the hanger databanks.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt began to poke around the rest of the ship. Eventually he found some of the small hatchways that were meant to lead you to other sections of the inside of the shuttle, small maintenance shafts that allowed one to creep and crawl through the vessel without much of an issue. The Messa had these as well, mostly to access the inside of the engines and some of the more latent computer systems. Of course Kurt had never used them, mostly because he preferred working from the outside in.

"Poodoo." Kurt said quietly.

There was no way to get the hyperdrive out through the ship, so just as he had originally thought there was likely a way to get at it from the outside.

That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it just made things more complicated.

Kurt frowned slightly, looking around for a moment before slowly crawling his way out of the small maintenance shaft and back towards where he had entered. He moved much like a trapped worm, wriggling his way through the space until he eventually popped up by the hyperdrive once more. With a slight groan, Kurt pulled himself out of the small crawlspace and back onto the inner deck of the shuttle, plopping himself down on the edge of the metal paneling and letting out a loud sigh.

 

[Kaile Vera]

First things first.

Sitting on the floor of her room, the Galactic Alliance slicer and espion agent would cross her legs under her. Set in a semi circle, she had a series of three holographic screens up, along with her small portable data computer laptop. The system quickly would boot up, running through all the processes. Meanwhile, Kaile brought her bag out closer to her.

With the soft hum and occasional singing under her breath, the Lorrdian went scouring into her bag. Now where was it? There was a curious little curious she found earlier and right now was the time to go through it.

"Ah hah!' she cried out in victory, her hands coming round the interesting little datastick. "Now... let's see what you got." Taking the hardwires, Kaile would inspect her pilfered acquisition.

"hmm," slightly tapping her foot with the music, she plugged in a hardwire and then went to work.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Alright, lets check the outside of this damned thing." It was really the only thing that Kurt felt like he could still do. The inside had proven to be completely worthless, though if he ever wanted to steal the things engines or flight sensors he at least knew how to do that. A sigh escaped his lips, he shook his head and quickly he moved out towards the ramp of the Shuttle. There was a slight echo as his boots pressed against the heavy metal, the empty hangar reverberating with the sound of his movements.

It was creepy.

The bunker was still very much empty.

The hangar could easily have fit an entire squadron of fighters, another transport or two, and maybe even a few simple land speeders. Yet it was all empty, entirely gone. Of course just a few levels below them was an entire storage area for tanks, walkers, and speeders, but...well he would expect the hangar to be a bit more full then it was. He frowned slightly, looking around himself as he tried to get a scope of the place.

His head shook one more time, and without another thought Kurt wandered beneath the Shuttle.

 

[Kaile Vera]

Well this was interesting.

Mid noming her powerbar, Kaile found herself already with her curiosity piqued. "Huh," she made a muffled sound with the snack in between her lips. Tapping through the keyboard, the diagnostic scan whizzed with data across her screen. It appeared to be little more than an incredibly advanced Computer Spike.

A designation came up. CS-X2.

"Cee - Ess - Ex - Two." now what did this little guy do? "You must be some sort of prototype..." she mulled, glancing back down at the slim black case. But what sort? For what? Did it contain some sort of virus?

Let's do a virus scan just in case. The last thing I need is some two hundred year old computer virus wrecking my databases.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt mused for a moment.

The underside of the ship wasn't really anything all that fascinating, it was the same black paneling over and over again neatly stitched together with rivets and bolts. He hadn't really expected the shuttle to be anything ground breaking, it wasn't, but he had at least thought it would be easy enough to find some sort of maintenance hatch. He frowned slightly as he placed his palm on the underside of the ship, running his fingers over the cold metal and tracing his hand along until he found a major seam.

"This it?" Kurt asked himself as he slowly began to press his fingers along the metal.

There was something funny about the way this thing was constructed, an oddity that he would not have guessed at normally. He frowned, shifting his palm so that his other hand could quickly join it at the metal paneling. There was a slight bump, a rise within the skin of the ship. He used his hand to try and pry away at it, pulling and nudging the tiny control nodule until eventually there was a slight metallic creaking followed by a loud snap.

"Oops." Kurt said as he held a small bit of metal. "That wasn't supposed to come off."

Oh well.

 

[Kaile Vera]

“Holy…” the surprise and shock that went fluttering across Kaile’s features was rather comical. Only Bobo was the single witness to her powerbar dropping from her mouth and hitting the floor with a small thud.

Leaning forward, her fingers flew across the holographic keyboard, bringing up the diagnostics and the results. Was this right? Kaile half wondered if she might be imagining things, but when she ran the data again to check, there was no ignoring it.

She found herself a socketguard hacker.

Dazed and with eyes as wide as saucers, Kaile sat back. Resting upon her palms, she let that sink in. Socketguards for as long as she could remember were a slicer’s bane. They were impossible to penetrate. Once one came up, standard protocol was to find some other route of penetration cause it wasn’t gonna be through that socketguard.

Not now though.

Giddiness ran through her body, a sudden adrenaline rush and a desire.

I want to test it.


[member="Kurt Meyer"]