The Founder: Part 1

[Soeht]

After the tributary beams had been connected to amplification crystals, they were supposed to go through a series of focusing lenses - including the one that Daella had retrieved with the Elite Four at an earlier time.

Daella wondered how long it would take before the superlaser would have been in a testing condition. The supervisor informed her that it was likely to only be at a testing point once everything had been assembled. Daella thought that it would suffice for now.

The supervisor did warn Daella of the possibility of the superlaser overheating. He said that there should be no more shots for a full day after a fully charged blast. This was due to the fact that just the fully charged blast by itself contained the energy equivalent for a galaxy for but a second. Despite the superlaser being estimated to be nine-three percent efficient, that seven percent of wasted energy became an unimaginable amount of heat.

 

[Soeht]

Daella understood that the firing limit meant that destroying a planet would likely have to be a hit and run tactic - at least if any other enemy forces remained in the system after the destruction of the planet.

The engineer then went on to tell Daella that the laser should also not be shot for a full day after using two thirty percent charged shots. That much energy would have been enough to crack a planet - thus totally devastating all life on it. Daella knew that they also would have used this to crack open planets with valuable minerals deep within the planet’s core.

Again, this made sense to Daella. In fact, she would prefer two shots at thirty percent power just due to saving a little extra time. It also allowed for easy mining of the planet’s resources after the battle.

 

[Soeht]

After hearing that, there was little reason for Daella to stay and look at the superlaser’s construction for the moment. She went back to her quarters for the evening and spend several hours asleep. It was possibly the most amount of sleep that she had since the beginning of the project.
On the next day, Daella received a call from Jason Kolyat.

“Hello, Lady Apparine,” he said as Daella picked up the call, “It is great to see you again. How fars the development of the Reactive project?”

“Fairly well,” commented Daella, “There were a few obstacles in the beginning, yet construction is underway now. It should take a bit before the starship is at a testing condition.”

“That’s understandable,” said Jason, “Also, I have some news about the project.”

“Go on,” said Daella.

“Well,” continued Jason, “It has to do with the budget related to the project.”

 

[Soeht]

Thinking of the worst, Daella immediately asked, “Has less funding been allocated to the project?”

“Actually,” began Jason, “It’s the opposite. We’ve heard word that your Dark Lord wants the starship to be larger so as to allow for it to house a larger hypermatter reactor and charge the superlaser quicker.”

“Alright,” began Daella, “I’ll have the construction teams notified immediately. We’ve already begun building the hypermatter reactor and the frame for the hull is about to be constructed. This is a rather late notice - especially considering that I did not hear word of this from the Dark Lord himself.”

“I too find it strange,” continued Jason, “Yet I verified it with my boss and other Sith. The request was legitimate. But I agree, this makes things a little difficult now. Could you go to the construction supervisors and get the changes enacted?”

“Yes,” replied Daella, “I’ll get it done as soon as possible.”

 

[Soeht]

Then, Daella hung up on Jason. She immediately called Velkoz.

“My Lord,” said Velkoz as his holographic form bowed to Daella, “I am ready to serve.”

“There have been some changes requested by the Dark Lord himself,” began Daella, “The hypermatter reactor needs to be expanded to generate more power.”

Immediately, Velkoz asked, “Does this mean that the frame has to be expanded as well?”

“This is true,” said Daella.

“Then we need to notify construction immediately,” said Velkoz, “I’ll get in touch with the supervisors now. I suggest that you go to the hypermatter supervisor and tell him of the change of plans.”

After that, Daella hung up on Velkoz and prepared a shuttle. It took her toward the shipyard that was constructing the hypermatter reactor. Once again, Daella got to see the monstrocity that they were creating on Copero. It took only a few minutes before she reached the control room for the shipyard.

 

[Soeht]

It did not take long until Daella found the supervisor of the hypermatter reactor’s construction. in fcat, as soon as they heard that Daella Apparine had arrived, they rushed to get the appropriate people to her before - what they believed - she harmed anyone.

“What can I do to help?” asked the supervisor once he met up with Daella.

“There has been a change requested by the Dark Lord,” Daella told him, “The capacity of the hypermatter reactor must be increased by a wide margin.”

Confused, the supervisor asked, “This… this change is going to be extremely expensive. Do you realize this?”

Daella answered him with, “Yes, I know. Yet, it is my master’s will. I suggest that you abide by it.”

The supervisor begrudgingly accepted the demand. He knew that there would be a lot of work ahead of him.

 

[Soeht]

“If that is the case, is size an issue at this point?” asked the supervisor.

Then, Daella pulled out a datapad and transferred some information to the supervisor’s own datapad.

“This is how much the hypermatter should increase its capacity by,” said Daella, “There’s also the accepted increase in size for when you do the expansions.”

“Roger,” said the supervisor as he began to look over the new requests, “Well, at least we have enough hypermatter batteries capable of storing the energy right now.”

The supervisor then went to work in getting engineers to help design the appropriate expansion to the hypermatter reactor. It would take a lot of time as well as money in order to get this right. However, they were already on the ball with this project and would have been able to deliver sufficient results for the new demand that the Dark Lord had.

 

[Soeht]

Meanwhile, Daella had to quickly move on to the next group. She traveled back to the shipyard that was about to start construction on the starship’s frame. She eventually caught up with the supervisor once she reached their control room.

“My Lord,” said the supervisor, “It is a pleasure to see you here. How may I help?”

“The size of the ship is going to have to increase,” said Daella.

“By how much?” asked the supervisor.

Just as with the supervisor with the hypermatter reactor, Daella pulled out her datapad and quickly transferred from information into the supervisor’s own datapad. Once she had done that, she pocketed her datapad and the supervisor pulled out his own. He began to read through the new demands set forth by the Dark Lord.

Intrigued, the supervisor said, “I assume you wish to keep a similar design to the ship as what you created?”

 

[Soeht]

Daella replied with, “Yes, just simply larger.”

“I understand that,” said the supervisor, “We might need to also install some method of quickly traveling around the ship. At this size, it would be impossible to just travel across it by foot at a reasonable time - especially if there is battle.”

“Do what you can about that, then,” added Daella, “You will be compensated greater for hard work.”

“Also,” began the supervisor, “You might have to go to the hyperdrive experts about this. They might need to hear about the drastic increase in the ship’s mass.”

And so, Daella bid her farewell to the supervisor and got on her shuttle once more. She took a shot trip to some orbital offices - where a lot of the hyperdrive experts would be. Since the ship was no where near completion, there was no need for them to be out in the “field” trying to install the hyperdrive.

 

[Soeht]

It took a bit of time before Daella found the division in charge of the hyperdrive. The offices were extremely ramped as well as not intuitive to navigate.

Once Daella found the supervisor, she politely introduced herself to Daella. This was the first time the hyperdrive supervisor had met the Sith Lady - she wanted to try to impress Daella as much as she could with a good first impression.

“What brings you here today?” asked the supervisor.

“The mass of the starship is going to increase,” Daella told her.

And yet another time, Daella pulled out her datapad and transferred the details to the one that the hyperdrive supervisor had. Daella pocketed her datapad as the hyperdrive supervisor pulled out her own. The supervisor gave an extensive look at the new information related to the Dark Lord’s requests. Her eyes perked once she saw how much the mass of the ship was going to increase.

 

[Soeht]

“I don’t think we will be able to keep the Hyperdrive below a Class One point zero, now,” claimed the supervisor, “This is just too much for the model that we had quoted for the starship.”

“Not only that,” added the supervisor, “But there is already so much power being consumed by the superlaser that I don’t think the model that we have is going to help push the starship faster than a Class two point zero.”

Daella took a few moments to think about what this might mean. Sure, the rest of the fleet could slow down their hyperdrives to match what the superweapon would have. Yet, she saw the opportunity for this to create some needed deception that the superwepaon would require for effective use. She imagined that by having the majority of the fleet arrive to a scene first, the ycould successfully distract an entire Republic fleet before the superweapon even arrived.

 

[Soeht]

All in all, this meant to Daella that the reduction in the hyperdrive’s speed was within tolerable values.

“A class two point zero would be acceptable,” Daella told the supervisor, “You believe that there would be a way to make this happen?”

“Yes,” replied the supervisor, “This can be done with ease. There are other details related to the hyperdrive that you must know, however.”

“Such as?” asked Daella with a tone of curiosity.

“Well, I think you already know this,” said the supervisor, “But the ship will be unable to launch into hyperspace after firing its superlaser. Also, vice versa. The ship will be unable to fire immediately after dropping into realspace. The reactor would have to…. well, stabilize in one sense before we even attempt to feed the tributary shafts with the reactor.”

 

[Soeht]

“I understand,” said Daella with a nod.

“Other than that, there should not be any unusual things with the hyperdrive,” said the supervisor, “It’s very typical for a capital ship. The navcomputer should keep the ship from destroying itself while enroute through hyperspace. I am fairly sure that microjumps with the ship would be inadvisable, though.”

Once again Daella nodded at the supervisor and agreed with her advice. There was nothing else of value that Daella could get from being with the supervisor, though. So, they bade farewell and Daella went on her way once again.

This time, Daella was going to go to the weapons specialists. These people were not going to be in charge of the design of the superlaser. Rather, they would be busy dealing with the other weapon systems of the starship. In particular, it would be the defense guns that would play a vital role in protecting the starship form starfighters.

 

[Soeht]

Eventually, Daella met with the weapon specialist in charge of that side of the project. He was a tall Duro man that seemed to have a lot of years of experience.

“Greeting, Lady Apparine,” said the weapons specialist.

“Do you have any news of the weapon systems?” asked Daella, getting straight to the point with her meeting.

“Of course,” said the Duro weapon specialist, “As you know, most of the extra weapons on the ship will be quadlasers meant for point defense. They should be adequate in dissuading starfighters from recklessly flying near the starship.”

Continuing, the weapon specialist said, “One big benefit of using quadlasers is that it allows us to keep the deflector shield up- entirely - as the quadlaser fires.”

“I already know this,” Daella told the specialist, “Is there anything that you have about the weapon system that I have not heard yet?”

 

[Soeht]

“Well,” began the weapon specialist, “The distribution of the quadlasers is fairly even along the surface of the starship to provide for maximum coverage. Of course, there are none on the aft side of the starship where the engines are. Yet for ever other side of the starship, there are enough quadlaser turrets to repel the average starfighter.”

“Is that all?” asked Daella, as if she was wondering why she even came to meet with the weapons specialists.”

“Our targeting systems for the quadlasers are also going to be a mix of manual input as well as automation,” continued the specialist, “Most of the turrets can run via automation, yet I imagine that the human touch can be far more effective against skilled pilots than a program could.”

Daella and the weapon supervisor continued their discussion for a little while longer until there was nothing else that Daella could obtain from the meeting. She then soon departed.

 

[Soeht]

At that point, it was getting late. Daella was exhausted from the traveling and talks of the day. Just after Daella boarded her shuttle, she contacted Velkoz to see how things had been going on his end.

“My Lord,” said Velkoz as his hologram bowed to Daella, “I trust that things went well on your side.”

“Yes,” replied Daella, “The crew knows what to do from now on and make adequately adapt to the changes that the Dark Lord requested.”

“That is good to hear,” said Velkoz as he rose to stand up straight, “Things have been well on my end as well. All preparations are complete for continuing with the construction of the Reactive project. I trust that you are finished for the day though, correct?”

“That is correct, Velkoz,” said Daella, “Keep up the commendable work and you can consider your punishment forgotten.”

 

[Soeht]

Once Velkoz heard that, he perked up a bit. The prospect of being able to escape a gruesome punishment at the hands of a Sith for his failure to keep a focusing lens secure was just as providence for him.

“I will do so, My Lord,” said Velkoz as his hologram bowed once more out of respect for the apparently benevolent Sith Lord, “I will do my best not to disappoint you.”

Then, Daella hung up on Velkoz. The call served no further purpose. She continued to travel on her shuttle back to her quarter for another night of rest. Once she got there, Daella quickly refreshed herself with a sonic bath and retired to bed. Her sleep lasted only a few hours - no more. She got up and got dressed before heading out for another day in making sure everything was being constructed properly.

 

[Soeht]

Going down the list of stuff to check up on, Daella decided to go see how the helms specialists were doing. This again took her to an orbital office that housed a lot of the technical experts that had yet to begin help construction in the field. She navigated through the cramp and confusing building once more until she was able to discover the person in charge of the helm systems.

“I was not expecting you, Lady Apparine,” said the helms specialists, “How may I serve?”

“I am looking for an update on the helm systems of the starship,” said Daella, “Is there anything that you could tell me about them?”

“Yes, My Lady,” said the helm specialists, “First off, I’m sure you know that the ship will be able to move laterally and rotate with ease. At least, assuming that it is not under heavy fire at the moment.”

 

[Soeht]

“This I know,” claimed Daella, “What else do you have?”

“Well, there will be several consoles required for the helms,” said the specialist, “Movements in three-dimensional space are quite complex when dealing with an extremely large ship. There are also safety systems in place to make sure that the helmsmen do not attempt to make maneuvers that would otherwise tear the ship apart. “

“Care to explain some more?” asked Daella, interested in what else the helms expert has to say.

“Oh,” said the helms specialist with a jump, “Well, there are plenty of sensors available on the helm consoles that can help warn the helmsmen whenever engines and thrusters begin to overheat. I am not particularly sure of how efficient the engines are, but due to how large of reactor that we have I believe that moving the ship will be very stressful in general.”

 

[Soeht]

The helm specialist and Daella spent a little bit more time with their meeting. There was little else that Daella required to know. They eventually gave their farewells and Daella got back on her shuttle.

While in transit to the main station of the shipyards, Daella received a message from Velkoz.

“My Lord,” said Velkoz, again he bowed profusely to the Sith Lord, “We have a development.”

“Explain, now,” said Daella, her tone was extremely harsh. With how Velkoz gave his greeting, it was easy to suspect that something terribly wrong had occurred.

“Nothing terrible has happened so far, My Lord,” said Velkoz with a uneasiness in his voice, “Yet there is someone from Titan Industries wishing to talk to you. Not Jason Kolyat… I don’t think he is even human, or Near-Human.”

“Understood,” said Daella, “Forward me to him and I will speak to this individual.”