Take you to the stars

[Coren Starchaser]

Kathol Outback.

This was what, the third time the Starchasers had been displaced in about as many decades? Corellia had been their home, until the warlord they worked under (a result of Coren’s past) had declared the Dawn Treader’s crew and Warbird Wing to be criminals. And criminals for what? They stood against the way the warlord was using their forces on innocents. Just because they were Imperial didn’t mean they needed to slaughter innocents. Sure, it was a very Pellaeon style of thought, but keeping people happy was the more important aspect to running them. Using the Imperial tactics on planets with insurrection wasn’t the best way to ensure loyalty, and Admiral Wigefield, of who lead the Treader and Wing, had sent the ‘Birds in under cover.

Coren had been doing SpecOps work since before some of the current members of the Alliance could walk. Of course, there was nearly two decades of a carbonite nap in there.

Then came Csilla, the ice world, home of the Chiss, the Ascendancy, and progressive Imperialism. The Treader worked to map the Unknown Regions for the Houses until the Sith came calling and Coren moved the family away from their peace in the Unknown Regions, to the safety of Laekia, in the Levantine Sanctum and Silver Coalition. Those types of people, the ones there, that Coren could respect, but couldn’t necessarily work with, were necessarily for the galaxy. Some people were soldiers, others, they helped mitigate the soldiers and the war.

Finally, with Coren being such a public member of the Alliance and their fight against the Sith, Coren moved the Treader from the safety of the Coalition to the Kathol Outback. It was closer to the nearest free port the ship could call home. Coren was currently there, in his own ship, basing out of the Treader. The pilot was hunting, in a way, he was practicing. The Kathol Rift is was an area of spatial anomalies. The Tachyon Rising was using a few new experimental modules.

Coren was working for the Monks, once again. He knew how to find them, being a student of them. Today, the next few weeks? He was mapping a few locations for the Treader to call home.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Space, it was where he felt at home, he felt free. It wasn’t so dark and lonely if you knew what you were after. When you knew how to fly, and when you knew where you were going, or hell, even if you didn’t. Space just made sense. Coren was mapping part of the Kathol Outback, and basically pinging locations for the Dawn Treader’s jump computer. If anything happened, the ship and pickets, and corvettes that were attached could rabbit out.

What he was hoping to do, as well, was to throw his presence into the Outback, especially if he knew his apprentice like he thought he did. The girl would be out here, looking for answers, and he was going to make her have to follow them. Would it be where he was? Maybe, maybe not.

Looking to his droid, Coren nodded. “Porter, wanna check the module?”

He was running a new module, one to help the ship scan real space, as well as hyperspace, but it was mostly used for mapping, and storing data. It would be one of the first products that Starchaser Enterprises offered to the open market. Smaller ships, of course. Coren looked to the navicomputer.

Right, time to fly with just the new module.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

He had a lot of work ahead of him. One thing that Coren always did though, was know his ships. He knew what most of the family was flying. His son had his old ship, the Tiburon, and one other freighter, Kaia was flying in her Turhaya, and his sister was in a custom ship, then there were the rest of the family, Audrey was in her organic Sekot ship, Kinsey was… still working on finding her match, and then there was Marek, oh Marek. Yeah, Coren didn’t care. Hell, even the other cousin, Token, was a better Starchaser, and she was only a quarter Starchaser.

But it didn’t matter right now. Coren was checking for strange anomalies in the Rift, and focusing on blocking the spiders away from his mind. And trying to measure what was where. If the Treader needed to give scatter points and safety zones for her partner ships, or Warbird Wing, where could they go? What locations would they be at and when?

Where were the Aing-Tii?

He knew he’d need something bigger to meet him soon. The Rising could go for a few weeks without a refuel, but the man was working for the Underground and the Alliance (secretly), so that meant living like a smuggler, on a shoe string budget. That was fine. But the Albatross was going to need to arrive soon.

And it would.

But first, scanning.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

To some, the grueling pace that Coren kept was going to burn someone out, but oddly enough, the pilot was always better when he was traveling from location to location. But this was how he lived his life. He loved it. Sure, it got lonely, especially with Chevu Visz being out in the galaxy elsewhere, but his student was working to prepare for a life as a Master of the New Jedi Order. That was a big step, and he was hoping to help her out here. Well, here being subjective. But he had been doing some research in the Dawn Treader and there were a few powers he wanted to speak to her about, to see what he could help her learn.

Still, he was her Master.

The pilot had a few other things on his mind, and that was why he was waiting in this holding pattern. There was a ship edit to be worked on and sifted through. The Albatross the first of the Mark Two Forerunner frigate. He was excited to get to see this one in action. When the ship finally arrived at the location, Coren pulled his freighter into the hangar. Even that, was a bit modified, not necessarily extended, but the ship situation was built different.

The hangar was built so it wasn’t using fighters, instead it was being set up to use a variant of a TIE/D, basically a TIE Predator with a droid brain strapped into it. It’d hold about a dozen of these fighters and most of its hangar space would be extended to fix a half dozen ships, with room for force tubes for two more. Simple, really, to load and unload passengers, and keep smaller SAR ships around.

Landing the Tachyon Rising in the extended ship, Coren grinned. This was going to be a powerhouse. Not a combat ship, but the go-anywhere support ship. He was ready for the tour

And that was when his co-pilot, the Chiss, Raet'eth'ane, or Teth, had greeted him. "Captain." The pilot held out his hand for the Corellian.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

It was nice to see Teth again. Coren had been away from the Dawn Treader for so long, and Teth had taken over as a primary pilot for the ShortFin, running scouting missions based off of his new ship, the Albatross. Coren was an increasingly impossible person to pin down. Add in the revolving door of starships, and insert the ability to change his ship IFFs? And yeah, he was a wanderer.

But what he was here for was to see the new upgrades to the Albatross. Shaking hands and pulling the Chiss into a hug, Coren nodded. “So, I hear you guys have been busy with a few of these. What’ve you been working on?” The pilot and his co-pilot left the hangar bay and may their way down to the engineering deck. Apparently the first thing this, and four others like her, had gotten were advanced power plants. They were being used to test new combat modules for Starchaser Enterprises, and hopefully to be used by the collective of Team Light Side in the near future.

“So, there are four? Where are the others?”