Looking at it from orbit hadn’t quite prepared me to see the damage caused by the wreck close-up. There was a trench that had been carved into the dusty planes 40km long and more than one in depth and width. Ending with a fall into a basin of cracked and blackened bed rock. There was more of the ship than I had initially thought. There were the two wings and their protective cowlings, what was left of them, embedded in the walls of the crater. Melted bedrock and glassed sand having entombed them more completely than just the ship blasting them into the land could have.
The engines and most of the superstructure were just gone but now that I had a clear airspace to scan, I was getting some very interesting isotope readings down at the bottom of the crater. Some 8 kilometers deep with a few fissures that went deeper, and had subsequently filled with freshly cooled magma, there were several deposits of elements unrecognized by the sensors on the lighter as well as a fine coating of new hyperdense ores where the processed metals of the ship had been forced into the bottom and sides of the crater. I made a note to get some more specialized tools to make sense of some of this, but any mining here would have to wait. We approached the far end of the crater that possessed the cored prow of the ship.
A small spur of the adamantine spine was visible, but any fine details were gone. Melted away by the heat and force of the explosion. There were a bare few kilo tons left of a vessel that had weighed nearly 20 megatons. I consciously loosen the grip my hands have on the instrumentation, pressure that I’ve been putting off building behind my eyes. Grateful I had not led any besides the servitors here to witness this I took a minute after touching down to compose myself.
Disembarking I spread the scans I had taken from orbit, overlapping the scan with the land around me in AR. I would need to get some ground penetrating scanners to double check on the possibility of the denser adamantine parts of the ship being embedded into the land around the crater but for now this would do. We were near some of the adamantine wreckage that seemed mostly whole. The security and power-fields on these things were no joke. Approaching the nearest chunk, a small crater about 2 km from the main crash site with a cube of adamantine in the middle. I pointed out where for the servitors to dig so I might be able to identify which of the vaults it was and walked around while they worked. Triangulating other possible vaults and pieces of the super structure strewn around.
The devastation to the surrounding area is immense. Volcanic ash and pulverized rock have settled now and left the environment looking like some age-old desert rather than the epicenter of a calamity. It would take the servitors around an hour to excavate so I sat on a dense protrusion in the sand. Possibly a piece of the ship unrecognizable against the dust and other debris. I decided to make the most of my time and tethered the com signal of the lighter to the signal from the Dusty Crow in low orbit, while at the same time unraveling the programming of one of the pirate’s comlinks in my vision. It was time to start puzzling their method of programming their equipment out.
I started with one of the most fundamental pieces, the hard coding on the hardware itself and muddling through how that ties into the signal’s function before moving onto audio formatting. I sent requests the R1 unit whenever I needed terms defined or couldn’t identify something. It was similar yet harshly different than the programming architecture of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The upside was I was being forced to further my grasp of the Galactic Basic as much of the architecture relied on that in the programming language in the library and comments intermixed, much like how the Admec would intersperse both bihinaric and high or low gothic hymns throughout our own. I was no Data-Smith however, so I was often stumped. Luckily the R1 had an incredibly clinical view of programming and was able to put into context much of what confused me.
One thing that the R1 iterated that it admired was my faiths veneration of the holy programs and implements of the Machine God. The first time I used an example of the vox programming on the lighter to compare to the signal receiver in the comlink it was struck by The Ode to the Eternal Wave that some Data-Smith had poetically inscribed into the work. It mentioned it might do something similar when it was next allowed to alter its own programming and I assured it that I would show it the proper method of venerating the Omnissiah and the holy methods of my order. It was nice to think that perhaps I would be able to show the xeno creation how to be properly made holy in the eyes of the machine god.
The feeling was fleeting as, with trepidation, I wondered at the reactions back on Stygies VIII to my direction of thought. I’d think that most would nod along as the xenarite faction had many sympathizers, but I knew that the eyes of the Inquisition were always alert. Perhaps I had best be sure I was the only, and therefore ranking, member of the Admec in the galaxy before jumping headlong into fully heretek actions. I had so much to do, might as well worry about that later.
Speaking of the servitors were finished at the dig site so I returned. It was indeed a functioning vault, its entry panel slagged but I could still feel some form of connection working as the power-field maintaining the integrity had not failed in light of the explosion. It took almost as long as the servitors had taken to unearth the entrance to establish a connection to the machine sprite responsible for this vault. It did not consider my credentials worthy of entrance and continued to ensure that I would not be able to cut my way in by keeping the power up. It was not the one my mentor had ensured my access to before his demise.
So, after I had marked it on the map as an explored and sealed vault, I made my way back to the lighter. We only had time for a few more of these before needing to refill our breathable atmosphere. In the next 4 hours of moving around the debris field we uncovered more than a few pieces of adamantine that had been scattered by the detonation but no other solid vaults. I was hoping that more survived in the area, but that debris field was thousands of kilometers wide, and I was sure that some pieces of the ship had been blown into the bedrock around the crater. I need thousands of servitors working around the clock to complete this task. I calculated the time it would take myself and just the servitors with me to explore just the impacts that could be detected on the surface from orbit and came up with a number that would leave me a cold corpse if I did not take the time to acquire more supplies.
After I had parked the lighter in the Vibrant, I returned to the Dusty Crow. I needed to learn Galactic basic and probably Huttese. I would need a trading partner and going with the ones where I could easily manage the first round of permitting and material acquisition made sense. I would need to get the infrastructure required for me to produce more of my own technology and would need to see about the manpower. Their use of slavery and droids would be a necessity here past the boarders of the Imperium.
Set on my task I decided to go to the galley for some caf and to see if the 3 human-ish people were there.
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Joran-Fee, or just Jor to his friends, was in the galley playing a relaxing, for him, game of fleet commander. After all the pirates had been slaughtered by the weirdo in the skull marked cloak, he Scruffy and Bedan had been worried about being borg’d like the things he had brought on board to watch them. It turned out that it had been more of a lateral career move. He hadn’t made any moves to free them, nor had he held their slavery over their heads. Merely expected the do continue their duties and had occasionally passed on commands through a com-box in binary. It had to be the most bizarre thing Jor had ever seen.
He watched as Bedan moved his Dreadnaught class heavy cruiser and fighter wings across the map, utilizing an asteroid field as cover. Bedan preferred line ships in the game while Jor liked the maneuverability of the Republic’s light assault cruisers. The Dreadnaught out sized his ships by over 6 times, but it was also worth as many more points in fleet building. Jor’s fleet held five of the cruisers, one fitted for missile salvoes, and more than tripled the fighter complement with a wing of bombers. Ordering his fleet around the asteroid belt counter to Bedan’s fleet he sent most of the fighters ahead to screen through the asteroids.
The chaos of the asteroids making it difficult for the point defense to help their allied fighters the battle began in earnest. Jor kept the bombers on the same attack pattern as the fighters began peppering the escorts and line-ship with their light concussion missiles and slowed the acceleration of the light cruisers. Ideally, they would come into range right after the volley of bombs takes down the shields of the Dreadnaught.
His line of thought was interrupted by Scruffy clearing his throat. Glancing over his shoulder at the older man he saw his new master watching the combat attentively. Distracted by the cloaked man he missed his timing as he stood up and addressed the man.
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“S-Sorry master, we’ve gotten our work around the ship done. I… hope this isn’t an issue.” He knew the pirates would have beaten them senseless for playing their game systems like this, but they had been getting used to having run of the ship themselves. He wasn’t even sure the guy could understand basic yet. Sure, they had worked on it a couple times, but it had only been a short time.
The shorter man looked and asked in binary, ++ What’s this? ++ Seemingly just genuinely curious. Jor looked back at the table. Bedan was just sweating but had also taken advantage of his distraction and had rolled the main ship in his fleet so that its turbo lasers had a fuller field of view and had begun firing at his own ships before their simulated crews had begun returning fire in lieu of orders. Giving Bedan the stink eye he grabbed his datapad.
Typing out a quick response in binary, which was getting really old at this point, he named the game and gave a quick description. A fleet-based tactics game that was able to simulate both historic battles as well as fleet point buy for hypothetical battels.
++ Sorry for interrupting, go ahead and start another. I’ll learn by watching. ++
Well, that was unexpected. He looked back as his third cruiser exploded setting off a chain reaction which damaged the closest.
“Bedan you kriffing dick.” He sighed as he sat back down and conceded the match. Utterly ruining the string of victories, he had claimed over him and Scruffy. He kicked Scruffy’s teetering seat and started a 3-way match. His master wanted to learn by watching? Okay, he pushed the point buy to the thousand mark and started putting his fleet together. This meant you could afford stations; he’d use a Golan defense platform and hollowed out asteroid base as the foundation in which a hit-and-run fleet would be based. This would give him plenty of supply for fleet repair. He expected Bedan to go a slow heavy fleet again and Scruffy was a wild card. Plenty of missile point defense just in case.
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I watched fascinated as the battle progressed. At one point an hour in they took a quick break for snacks, and I took the opportunity to observe from each perspective. The game was controlled by datapad, and they had their individual view that encompassed all of the units under their control and gave them a sensor read out. The most detailed maps were that of the old human’s who relied on a multitude of spy drones dotted throughout the system and the Twi’Leks who’s map was detailed by the massive sensor arrays that were present on his space stations. The younger human had a large fleet available to him that was kept clumped up with less information overall available to him.
The holo projector in the middle currently portrayed the system that the fighting was in and was only populated by what all 3 sensor groups could agree on. I could see the faint outlines of the largest ships and stations but most of the fighters and escorts were invisible to the greater field of view at the moment.
It was all honestly very interesting. I couldn’t read much of the information available yet but began to easily understand the units for distance as well as the relative size of the vessels being utilized by the group. The largest ships in use were just over the 800-meter mark, and escorts were typically 90-200m. A few hulls were in between but they seemed specialized and not for a direct combat role like the probe launcher or the supply ships. Fuel range and weight were fully simulated in this, and it seemed relevant because each day simulated was perhaps half an hour of our time. There had been a few skirmishes but nothing decisive. The old man playing more passive and utilizing cover to try and sneak much of his forces within easy striking distance of the two space stations of the Twi’Lek’s fleet.
Already that one had crippled two of the younger man’s escort ships through clever use of bombers and corvettes utilizing their speed, with planetary slingshot maneuvers to avoid the worst of any retaliation. It looked like it was going to come to a head with the largest fleet hitting the stations with the old mans taking part in the brawl to gain advantage.
Watching that play out was great. I think the only reason the pirates opened fire when I did was due to my own shooting. In this almost every ship got within one thousand km before opening fire with any but the largest weapons. The primary plasma cannons of one of the 800m capital ships had crippled the capacity of the asteroid base at nearly 4k km before fighters closed distance and the fight commenced. At roughly half the distance many of the ships and defensive platforms began disgorging a flotilla of fighters and missiles which inundated the large fleets defenses, and a dual ambush was carried out by the old man’s forces. It was chaos in the holo, but I learned I could zoom in and observe even from the perspective of the smallest fighter. I wondered if everything being shown here had a real-world equivalent.
Watching the battle wind down I grinned as the Twi’Lek’s infectious cheer suffused the room. His orbitals had indeed been a rock to hold his hope on, but he had fooled both of the others. Some of his ships, which seemed to have a similar design philosophy to Imperial ships, had ascended out of the nearest gas giant and had ambushed the support sections of the old man’s fleet. Taking the sensors out that had been informing his perfect ambush had led to a downward spiral for his fleet. The ships of the line that the younger man had put into his roster held longer but when the more heavily armored ships came in to take the pressure off of the more maneuverable smaller cruisers the Twi’Lek favored the mop-up was relatively swift.
Every fleet had been savaged by the end of it and if I read it correctly almost 200k crew had been killed when the ships were exploding. The young man had the worst demerit to his score due to this as the ships he preferred had the largest complement. The old man and the Twi’Lek actually had bonuses for crew saved by recovery ships.
While I had heard of simulations like these, meant to hone fleet admirals and others’ skills, I had never seen a game played like this. And it was just on some pirate’s ship being played to pass time by their former slaves. Really this underlined to me just how different the society in this galaxy could be than back home.
I grabbed the Twi’Lek to continue my basic lessons from before, this time not in the context of maintenance but general life I would need. I had him intersperse Huttese into the conversation sometimes to begin getting a hang for the sound.
We worked on this for the next several days. I frequently had to cool off my memory and intellect enhancing implants and got some odd glances when I grabbed a bag of ice from the galley in order to balance on my head while I cogitated on the language. I was relatively confident I would be fluent and planned to leave the system in a week.
While I worked on the language, I decided I would also need personal protection as I had been forewarned about Nar-Shaddaa. Regardless of which part of the moon we went to I could expect violence if any thought I could be taken advantage of. The void in the area was patrolled religiously by the Hutts security forces but they viewed the land as more of a free for all as long as they were not targeted by any but another Hutt. Very few non-Hutts were allowed anywhere near the circles of the powerful expect to swear allegiance to one Hutt or another.
Grabbing several of the smallest blasters the pirates had I took them into the work room. It was time to take the first apart to see how I could change the housing to be more useful to my situation. I was in luck. These blasters as the Twi’Lek, who I learned was named Joran, called them were built to be modified. The housing did not even need a pistol grip as that was simply so a being could hold it and pull the trigger. I removed it and left an inset button in its place and removed the outer housing. I grabbed some of the spare bits of adamantine in the workshop and through together a smaller, sleeker shell that I could attach to one side of one of my mechandrites. I put a second together so the mechandrite had two small cylinders of the dense metal above and below the manipulators of the mechandrite. I ensured the inset buttons where near enough the manipulator that could be pressed quickly and simultaneously.
Now, I new I had never shot a weapon except a lasgun. And that I had had a few weeks of field care and repair training before my mentor pushed me into more important classes like fabrication was going to haunt me here, but I had a solution. I grabbed one of the brain implants from a deceased servitor and broke it down. All I would need was a minor piece of it and one of the eyes to put together a simple weapon cognis engram to aim for me. I built it with three firing functions. Single, dual, and autofire.
I put another adamantine housing together to ensure it was protected from the heat of the blasters and made sure they could be reloaded easily with one hand before testing it on the Vibrant. It worked excellently. The cognis engram made it simple for me to mentally paint a few of the ceramite shields as enemies and use them as practice for it until it was hitting the center of each target as I’d paint them.
I also had plenty of the blaster’s battery packs. Small rectangular things that could be charged to the max of 50 shots in the workroom.
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At the end of the week of work I felt ready. My cloak over new pants and a work shirt modified to fit my back mechandrites I looked like a mishmash between this and my previous universe. I was tempted to shave my head again as my hair was growing but was told the implants would draw undue attention and my hair made it so they would stay covered if I removed the hood. It was an easy sacrifice to make but if it grew any longer it might start curling over my ears and I didn’t like that.
“R1, prepare the ship for the hyperspace translation.” I spoke. My tone much more clipped than Joran’s or anyone else on board. R1 as co-pilot with Joran and Scruffy, the janitor, on the other seats we were prepared for jump. The ship and my supplies I was bringing for trade all stowed and ready.
I had decided to bring a ton of the adamantine to see what it could be worth on the market in the Industrial or Corellian Sectors on the planet. Both leaned heavily into production, and I desperately needed the credit to get all the mining and manufacture equipment I needed. Apparently the over 150k plus I had inherited from the pirates would be a drop in the bucket for the material needed to persecute a project this size.
++ The ship is prepared for hyperspace jump to Formos. ++ the R1 unit beeped back at me. I hoped I was ready. It was time to go to Hutt space.
“Jump.”