Training Day

[Ashin Varanin]

Lianna

The shipyard complex, one of many, orbited the retrograde Lagrangian point of Lianna's singular moon, drawing little circles in the sky while chasing the planetoid around the world. Plenty of open space, undisturbed by planetary traffic. Plenty of room to grow.

Mile-long transports carried in raw materials and finished parts from other places, other systems. The skeletons of gigantic destroyers took form here.

"Some Sith Lords ask their apprentices to put their heart and soul into lightsabre construction," said Ashin. She stood at the window of one of the stations, looking out across this part of the shipyards. "Me, I don't care. You're destined to be a mover and shaker, not a duellist. Build a blade on your own time. Your project for Knighthood, and for the maturity to rule the world below us, is this. This ship, to be granted to the Grand Marshal of the Perlemian on the quest to expand our territory and bring us face to face with the Republic. This will be Sirella Valkner's command ship, for as long as she holds that position, and you will see to its creation."

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha nodded, it was an important task. "It's not so large as many," she said. It was true. Her family has a reputation as one of the greatest engineer and shipwright companies in the universe. Normally however they focused on smaller ships, instead of the larger ones like Kuat Drive Yards. They conceptualized the Death Star though, so they could do this. "I've already studied the designs," she said to her master. "There are some flaws that should be corrected now. I'll verify them with my support team." She stared and smiled at the great hulled vessel with a smirk on her face. She had only met Sirella Valkner once. "The design is relatively old and we've since developed larger reactors." Turning she then looked to Ashin.

"This is what you desire of me my master?"

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"It is, and more. This is where you prove your abilities in management. Bring me to your support team. I wish to see you in action as a leader and a starship designer. I want to see the quality of your intuition."

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha bowed as the two made their way toward the conference room. Today was here day. The doors opened and Sasha smiled. There was all the human engineers of course, they were Santhe employee's, but there was also new editions to the team. There was a Mon Calamari, his people were only not beginning to modify their shipyards to create warships once more. She didn't have the prejudice against aliens that many did, indeed many aliens lived in Lianna despite what most people thought. "I hope the renovations of your transports into warships is going well." She said nodding at the Mon Cal. He stood up and lowered his head in a show of respect. Since their inclusion into the sith they had started equipping a number of their smaller vessels with weapons provided by Sienar Fleet Systems. Next to him was a Tionese noble, not unlike herself. He was in charge of getting resources from the plentiful Kingdom of Cron. She grimaced knowing that her lay about cousin Luc Tion would one be King of Cron and Lord of Tion. "And from Cron we'll have the resources we need?"

"We will mi'lady" the man said with a bow. "We've arranged for a few new shipments of metals to come."

"Good." Sasha said. Everything was going too well. "And the new composite generator?"

The next man didn't look so confident. "In order to make them as small as you wanted, we lost nearly a full percent of power output."

Sasha glared at the man. "The problem is not with the generators, but how they are linked."

"As you say mi'lady, but we haven't figured out what it is yet...."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"Linking the generators? Bring up those schematics over here."

They hastened to obey their Empress, and Ashin suffered it. The Mon Cal engineer, in particular, regarded her with mingled fear and...well, maybe grudging respect. She'd personally conquered Mon Calamari, after all, in ways that had endeared her to a certain segment of the Mon Cala population.

"So this is how the linkage simplifies out...and show me your options, here...All right, Sasha, show us your workaround. I suspect that, since this is a unique ship, you would be able to suit up and go down into the ship's framework to strengthen and refine the connections using the Force, as with a lightsabre."

 

[Sasha Santhe]

"I did not," Sasha said. He frowned, "There may not always be a Sith capable of that on board, it is better that the procedure to repair and maintain the ship is able to be performed by the local technicians."

The Mon Cal brought up a technical readout. The team stared up at the entire thing. Sasha closed her eyes, she wasn't the best at this sort of thing, that is why she had experts. She concentrated and let the force guide her hand as she hovered over the schematics. "Here," she said. "Why do we have a signal trap here?"

"It is to maintain the suppressor unit." One of the techs said. "The generators put out alot of power and without the trap they would overload local systems."

"I know what it does, what I'm asking is why is it here?"

The Mon Cal spoke up, "If we put it closer to the local systems and further away from the generator the power it will allow the generators to be more effective." His jowls moved as he talked, "That is a good catch mi'lady Santhe."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"Let me expand your knowledge of the Force then, Sasha. I may not have your extensive background in ship design, you pretentious teenager, but I daresay I've still got a few lessons to teach you." The Empress's voice was utterly flat, and the room full of sycophants flinched. "When I speak, you do more than consider and discard. You ponder. You ask questions.

"When a Force-user constructs a lightsabre, everything is brought into greater alignment. An individual component may be removed and replaced without re-working the entire machine, and certainly any Forcer who melds everything into one continuous circuit is a fool. The process requires considerably lower tolerances with something as large-scale as starship generators, and the components would remain fully modular. It's not as if your machinery is being designed to an inoperable standard, as a lightsabre is inoperable without Force preparation.

"Considering I'm handing this ship over to Sirella Valkner, I suspect there will indeed be a Sith aboard often enough, though I daresay this process wouldn't need much in the way of repeating. This is an old Jade Empire technique, from the Unknown Regions. They understood craftsmanship there, and commitment. Carry on with the design, but by the end of the day you will be in a worker's spacesuit, floating through the superstructure, improving welds with the Force. I intend to see if you're capable of doing more than poking at plans while surrounded by yes-men. If you're serious about this project, get some designers who will stand up to your pretentious flights of fancy."

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha bit her lower lip. "Clear the room," she said. The technicians and other staff looked between the Empress and their CEO. "Now," Sasha's voice was firm and and in control. It took a few minutes for the staff to clear out and leave the two women alone. "You are an Empress, you command an Empire. I own a company, I command my employees. I have the respect to not argue and demean you in front of your subjects, I would ask for the same respect. My family has been design the most sophisticated ships in the galaxy for generations. We know how to pick the proper technicians for the job. Have you ever considered that these men were agreeing with me because I was right? Why would a Mon Cal be a simple yes man like you suggest? With all due respect, you are out of your element here. You are not a technician, you do not have the experience to comment on the soundness of the design."

She stared at the Emperor. It wasn't the first bad decision the woman made. Spencer Jacobs came to mind and a searing ball of hatred swelled up inside her. "I promise you, I know what I'm doing my master..."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Ashin blinked slowly.

"With all due respect, I'm due more respect than that. Not for myself, but because of the chair. Thank you for respecting the office enough to clear the room. That said, 'Master' is not a word you should speak lightly.

"You're right. I am not a technician; I am not a starship designer. What I am is the Dark Lord of the Sith. I can sense the souls, the fears, the follies of a room -- or else I have no business being in the job. I can feel when they're amplifying their praise, when they want to make you look good in front of me, or when they want to prove their loyalty to me -- that, incidentally, is why the Mon Cala was so quick to praise you. I could sense he approved of your solution professionally, but that's simply not enough. You need geniuses, and geniuses can't have been worn down by deference.

"Nor made useless by arrogance. Do you know why I've trained Spencer more than I've trained you? Because she values what I have to teach her. Because she's not in love with the sound of her own voice. She's a Knight; you're a child. I'm more than half tempted to give Lianna to her just to watch you tumble down the mountainside, knocking off your rough edges.

"But I would rather make you into something useful. I don't care what your family is capable of, or what you've been born to do. If you want to be a Sith, submit to me. Bow. Abject yourself utterly -- and mean it. On the other hand, if you want to be exactly what you are now, with a couple of Force tricks thrown in, I will be more than happy to assist you. But until you make that choice, one way or another, you aren't worthy to be called my Apprentice, and certainly not my First Apprentice. You have no standing among the Sith until you earn it. How are you going to earn it?"

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha wasn't pleased, but then again it was very hard to please such a woman. "My master," she bowed down to the ground, hiding her contempt as best she could. The girl wanted to be sith, wanted power, true power. It was her greatest desire. "I meant no insult to you. You are my Empress, my master, and the Dark Lord of the Sith. You have proven your power and wisdom." Her form bowed lower now, she had to get her point across. "I am willing to learn all that you have to teach."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"I said you had to mean it. You think I can't smell contempt in the spirit of a Sith apprentice? Contempt." Ashin shook her head, almost sorrowfully. "That's a special kind of arrogance, to kneel before your monarch and your Master and still consider yourself above her -- to the point where you expect transparent flattery to succeed. I see I'm going to have to take corrective measures.

"As for what those measures are, well, we'll come to that in time. Tell me, o expert of starship design. If the Force can do anything, and if you could control the Force, what would you do to improve this ship's construction, guide its design, make you better able to deal with the problems incident to this task? What do you want to learn -- what do you need to learn, for the sake of this project?"

 

[Sasha Santhe]

"I want to learn everything," Sasha said firmly. "I want all your knowledge, all your wisdom and skills." The girl looked up now and stared at her masters face, her heart racing with excitement. A smirk crawled over her face. "I need to be able to rip the knowledge from peoples minds, learn their secrets and use it to our advantage on this project. I want to summon storms of lightning and fire bolts of my hatred. I want the skills to be the greatest sith that ever lived, the smartest, the most cunning. I want to see my enemies crushed beneath my feet, their bones carved into toys for future generations of the Santhe family. I want the universe."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"Those are great powers indeed, and I can give them to you...eventually. To steal the information from a living being's head, that's a skill few can handle. I've done it -- Force, I've done it on more than just people." She left the enigmatic statement hanging in the air and strode over to look out the huge window at the shipyards.

"I told you once that you would have to sacrifice for power. That's one of the oldest principles in the Sith codex. If you're truly serious about this course of action, there will come a time when you have to sacrifice the thing that means the most to you." Ashin's chin lifted. "I sacrificed the love, the strength and the life of my apprentice. Let that put a chill in your bones. I sacrificed the greatest friendship of my life, I sacrificed my dignity, I sacrificed my good name, I sacrificed an empire. And now I am the best."

She whirled on Sasha. "I won't ask you to make that kind of sacrifice now. You're not ready. The sacrifices I would ask of you would break you. Once you've passed that threshold, you'll be strong enough in the Dark Side to begin learning the powers you seek. For now, we'll begin with the things you're capable of learning.

"If you wish to learn people's secrets, if you wish to learn how memories work, you first need to control your own memories. There's an old skill, a lost art almost, that the Sith forgot millennia ago and the Jedi forgot decades or centuries ago. With it, you can walk back through your own short-term memory, re-live it, and pick out details you didn't notice before. Smells, sounds, background noise."

She explained the process.

"Now," she said, "consider going into the greatest, most secure library of the Dark Side, and conversing with an enemy while flipping through his books too quickly to read them. Then, upon reaching safety, you go back and read the pages you only glanced at. I've done that twice, to two Dark Lords. It's only one of the many ways in which this power is useful. Now -- walk back through your short-term memory and tell me something. The Mon Cala had a personal datapad when we entered the room. Its screen was oriented towards you at one point, showing system design details. Tell me about those details, and how you would improve them."

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha closed her eyes ans focused. She did as her master said and focused on the fishy smell of the Mon Calamari. Her mind wondered at first associating the smell with various other incidents. Finally she grasped onto moments ago. She could see the meeting playing out, hear Ashin berating her. No, she'd gone too far. Like a bad holovid she rewound her memory back to when she could see vaguely the datapad sitting next to her. It was only out of the corner of her mind. She could read the contents, barely. "It's a report," she said aloud. She examined it contents and smirked. "It is examining the super structure and the interaction between it and the shield systems. He points out several flaws in the design, one of which I noticed, and suggestions solutions. One of which probably won't work." She continued to examine the document, "it depends on the next page..."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"Accurate. See how simple it is when you're actually receptive to my instruction?"

Ashin gestured, and the doors opened. She beckoned the design team back inside.

"Now, all of you, I want to hear your options for loadout. A ship at this stage can be made into many things. What's the gun-starfighter balance? What mission profiles have you chosen? What will this ship do?"

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha shot them all a look like Medusa on the rag. They had better give the Empress good answers. The Mon Cal was imediatly kowtowed by the stare, perhaps Ashin had been right about him. Finally one of the technicians stood up. "We've already hulled her," he said. "It's hard to reconfigure a ship once we've started that, at least externally. The main weapon battery turrets are designed to fit into slots you see...."

"The Empress asked for details on the configuration and what is possible not what is impossible," firmly Sasha said. "You," she pointed at the Mon Cal, "options now."

The Calamari stood up obediently, "Instead of a single large generator like on most Star Destroyer models we have dedicated many smaller generators scattered to the task of powering the ship. It should give us considerable room for both fighters and weapons. I believe that a firm balance should be struck between weapons and fighter compliment, with emphasis on shielding defense." His voice quivered a little, "You don't build a big ship to be a dedicated carrier, a number of smaller vessels would be more economical for that role, you build a big ship to intimidate and power through any situation. I'd focus on heavy weapons, and shield to absorb damage from other live vessels."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Ashin smiled faintly. "I once saw a six-kilometre carrier deploy two thousand starfighters. It was a thing of beauty. Of course, the ship was horrible at everything else...

"So you're pumping up shields, weapons and fighter compliment, going for a thorough middle-of-the-road posture. It's a safe play for a ship this size, there's no question about that. Now, when it comes to small craft, where does the balance lie between fighters and landing craft? Am I right to expect this command ship to be able to deploy a proportional amount of ground forces when compared with your standard Star Destroyer?"

 

[Sasha Santhe]

The Mon Cal nodded, "All large ships of course can carry both." It was a firm statement meant to reassert his authority in the subject matter. "The ship will be able to carry ground troops or fighter compliments as the mission requires. Space needn't be dedicated solely to or the other but a general and modular space provided. Standard configuration would be up to the military commander, but I would suggest an even mix. This ship should be good at everything, and at the size we're making it it can be."

"For a price." Sasha said. This entire project was making her a load of money. "For the right price and we can do nearly anything."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"And that's the real issue, isn't it. The cost. This ship will be the largest in the galaxy. How, exactly, are you keeping my costs sufficiently low that this is feasible?"

 

[Sasha Santhe]

Sasha laughed a little bit, "I'm giving you the best deal in history for one." The girl said, there was a slightly unpleasant tone to her voice. "A token of good will and support, I'm barely making money off this vessel." That was technically not true, she was making a good deal of money, but normally she would be profiting twice as much if not more. "But we have a man to discuss this in more details."

She nodded to the Tionese noble who stood to continued the discussion. "As you well know the King of Cron and Lord of Tion has passed away, and the heir is missing. We have used this to temporarily take direct control of government resources. The Kingdom of Cron as I'm sure you're aware is poor in industry and indeed wealth as a whole, but it is vast with plenty of mineral wealth. We've begun strip mining in that region. Even still resources are hard to come by and costs are expected to skyrocket." He looked at the Empress attempting to size up a reaction, "Perhaps a tax initiative on those worlds who are nor supporting this effort, a slight increase no one will notice across the board." It was a simple political ploy and Sasha rolled her eyes.