“It’s been awhile, father.”
The screech of metal being cut by nearby plasma cutters overwhelmed the older man’s response. Shaking hands, the other man nodded and pulled him over to one of the soundproof offices. The door shut behind him.
“Take a seat son,” motioned the aged man, “we have much to talk about.”
Corise nodded, pulling up an antique hardwood chair to the desk just as old.
“Business first.”
The other let out an exasperated sigh. “You’ve been gone for months, galloping across the galaxy and nearly getting yourself killed. Are you really that selfish?”
The two men stared at each other, their lips started curling upward. In a matter of seconds, both bursted out laughing. Corise smiled.
“Well, my father hasn’t seemed to have changed too much while I was off galloping across the galaxy.”
The other man offered a coy smile and tilted his head. “I’ve been too busy to change much of anything.”
The Commodore nodded to KDI’s CEO and founder. “There have been a lot of orders recently.”
“Yes,” agreed the man, “it’s a pity that the Cavalier-class was cancelled.”
“Not cancelled for sure, but we need the shipyards for other things first.”
“I know. Rebuilding those frigates has taken up more space than we originally thought. The next Resolve-class on order is going to be delayed by at least a few weeks.”
Corise leaned back. “Not that we need many of them, the Seraphs are fine vessels.”
“That they are, but they can’t do everything; I’ve seen the battle data from your adventures.”
The Kashan Commodore straightened up and frowned at the breach of security. “How?”
“I managed to get a look from the computer of the Steadfast when she was getting her lateral thruster repaired.”
Corise’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t be angry son; I needed to see how my creations turned out in battle.”
The younger Lucerne couldn’t fault the man. For years, the man’s design team had designed and built the craft. They had run simulations, both digital and live-fire against other Seraphs, but the ships had never truly been tested in the heavy combat they were designed for. Some would point out of the first pirate attack on Kashan tested the craft, but that criminal fleet consisted of a few corvettes with a rather large escort of starfighters; nothing that was exactly threatening to a ship the Seraph’s size. Seeing the ship in action was probably important to him, as well as seeing how his son had performed.
“I understand. I-”
The other raised his hand in protest. “I know why you’re here; the Pro-Consuls have been pressuring you to pressure me to get the ships and the two bases finished; I realize that. The ships are ready, the bases are not; we’ll need some time, we’ve never designed an asteroid base before.
Corise raised an eyebrow. “And this isn’t an asteroid base?”
Kashan Defence Industries facilities were mostly based in space. Aside from a venerable cargo platform orbiting Kashan itself, the space-bound factories and shipyards were built inside asteroids hollowed out by the company’s mining projects. Currently, the two men were on the Kashan Legacy, the largest space-going shipyard of Kashan (the original ground yard was bigger). The Legacy was a small yard by galactic standards, but at roughly nine hundred meters long, it could still build two Seraph-class Cruisers at a time.
The other man sighed.
“Yes and no. It is, but these bases aren’t shipyards. Look at the Legacy here; over 60% of the yard is sheer empty space for the slips to hold the ship. That other 40% is offices like this or machine shops. You don’t see lines of retractable turbolasers or large hangars. This is a civilian operation. The bases requested are military defence stations; the design philosophy is completely different for those things. Besides, we’re not quite finished mining one of them yet.”
Corise nodded.
“You tell the Pro-consuls that the ships are ready though, all of them.”
The Commodore blinked.
“The Resolve, the Pandora, the Serpentine, the three frigates; they’re all ready.”
Corise knew what the man was saying; the above vessels were all conversions for existing ships, which meant that the construction should be simpler in theory. However, the amount of reconstruction done, particularly on the frigates, was considerable. He had estimated it would take at least another week before this for first to be ready.
“How?”
The other man smiled. “We didn’t do the work here.”
“What are you saying?”
“Our space yards are still producing Seraphs. We took them all down to the old Fyre facilities and rebuilt them. We found that it was faster to rebuild them on the services, as the Fyre yards were designed to repair ships, not completely build them from scratch like up here. Moreover, I managed to acquire an EVS Construction Droid several weeks ago that has expanded and modernized those yards. I bet we can build ships faster down there now.”
“Are you using the EVS to build the ships as well?”
The other man halted for a second. “We’re working on a way that could concieveably do that, but not yet at least. Although we have managed to get it to produce Ultrachrome plating for all of the ships down there. But I have something for you.”
The man reached underneath his desk and pulled out a few disks.
“And those are?”
“Data files and a short documentary for the new ships, as well as their testing clips. I want you to show them to the Pro-Consuls. They might persuade them to understand that we are rather busy right now.”
Corise dubiously took the disks. “They had better be what you say they are.”
“You will never forget that, will you.”
“As they say father: once, shame you, twice, shame on me. It would be a rather bad prank to say that these are disks regarding KDI ships and instead playing ... rather embarassing videos of me.”
“Bah; that was ten years ago at the academy.”
Corise glared at the other man. “It wasn’t very funny.”
The other man shrugged. “I thought it was, and so did Commander Fyre; I have some fan-mail about the-”
“Dad…”
“Fine, I won’t. Look them over first if you don’t think so.”
------------------------------------
Seraph, Kashan Flagship, in orbit around Kashan
"Any popcorn?”
Corise turned to look at Christina, who blushed. “I’m joking.”
"It actually might be good idea. Corise, is this like those Academy films your father sent?” asked Commander Fyre.
“Hahaha. Let’s hope not,” sighed Corise, picking up the remote.
“What films?” asked the Pro-Consul, taking a glance at the other two.
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, actually-”
“Commander…” reminded the Commodore.
“Yes sir. I’ll shut up now.”
Shaking his head, the blond-haired man pressed a circular button on the remote. While they were in the Captain’s quarters of the Seraph, to Corise it was reminiscent as being a teenager and watching films at the local threatre with the cabin’s lights dimmed. Adding to this effect, the tight confines of the room had forced the chairs to be armrest to armrest, just like in the theatre. The holo-projector sent out a hazy blue blur that slowly resolved itself into the KDI corporate logo before fading to reveal a menu showing a list of names of the ships. Commander Fyre frowned.
“We have another new starfighter?”
Corise nodded. “The S10 Stormfire.”
“Play it.”
Corise selected the starfighter and hit play.
------------------------------------------------
S10 Stormfire Test Flight…
“One, tighten up.”
“Yes ma’am.”
The other Stormfire drew closer to the lead craft. Lieutenant Avril Torres shook her head. Despite using the simulators for the S10s, both pilots were still geared towards flying their venerable S9 Deathsabers, and it showed. The S9’s stick was somewhat heavy, and as such, it took a deliberate pull to make the fighter move. On the other hand, with the sensitive controls of the Stormfire, it barely took any force to send the starfighter in any of the various loops, rolls, and dives that characterized dogfighting. I suppose it we will finally be able to outmaneuver or outrun an enemy starfighter. That will be nice. The S9s were noted for being somewhat slow and less maneuverable than many of the current starfighters in use by the major factions. That was a drawback that dampened their effective use as dogfighters, hence the development of the S10 which was as fast and maneuverable as the Tie Avenger. The two atmospheric starfighters continued to surge forward as they pushed their craft’s speed to the limit.
“I’m at 141 MGLT. Not quite up to the top speed.”
“Two, it’s probably because the mechanics aren’t use to fine-tuning the craft. Give them some time. I’m 143. That’s good enough. Let’s hit the range.”
Veering off, the Stormfires moved in at the target range, which had large stationary targets to simulate capital ships and smaller space junk, manipulated by tractor beams, to simulate starfighters and enemy missiles.
“Let’s keep it simple. Lasers first.”
Each pilot pulled the trigger of their craft, sending translucent bolts at a large durasteel slab. And while the pilots couldn’t see the bolts, they could see the minor explosions that they had produced. Using nearly invisible laser bolts is a double-edge sword; they won’t be able to see where the bolts are coming from, but neither will I, which means that I can’t follow the bolts light to make angle adjustments; which in turn increases my reliability on the targeting computer. I don’t like that. Of course, that's probably a knee-jerk reaction.
“Looks good so far boss.”
“Let’s try the Storm.”
She flipped a notch on the trigger, switching the vessel’s primary weapon to the Storm Assault Cannon, which was more or less a charging railgun. She hit the trigger a few times, sending a pair of the fusion slugs at another durasteel slab. What the? Aren’t there suppose to be explosions when they hit?
“Control, do we have the right ammunition? I’m not seeing any explosions.”
“Stormfire One, your ammunition has detonated inside the slab. You would be able to see the detonation if the target had shields that the slug could impact on. Sending you the sensor data for that now.”
“Much obliged, control.”
So they did after. I suppose the velocity of the projectile would overcome the structural strength that the durasteel supplies. That might be a neat trick against unshielded targets, but shields would immediately detonate the slug. Ah well, at least we won’t have any problems with Ties then.
“Are we going to use the missiles, boss?”
“No need to. The system is the same as on the Deathsaber.”
“I know, but still…”
“Fine, you can launch a couple of missiles.”
The other Stormfire banked in on a pair of the moving targets, acquired its target, and sent a pair of the dark Kashan missiles streaking forth. They collided with their targets obliterating them in explosions from the galaxy. Two’s ship sped through the minute debris they had caused.
“Ready Two?”
“For what?”
“Tag.”
“Tag” was a game taught at the Kashan Defence Academy in which pilots attempted to maneuver their craft to get a target lock on their opponent and hold it for as long as possible. The object was to get the longest lock; this not only encouraged accurate targeting, but was more successful in teaching pilots to maneuver for fire locks and to find ways out of them as well. Both ships began a frenzy of rolls and loops in an attempt to get a targeting lock. It is a lot easier to get targeting locks with a S10. But so is getting out of target locks as well. “Tag” had been included within the trials to test the maneuverability of the craft, and the observers present noticed that they would be a fair match for the Tie-series which seemed to dominate Imperial fleets.
“Stormfires, the testing is complete. Return to base for debriefing.”
And just when I was getting the hang of it…
------------------------------
Christina shook her head as the first clip ended. “Boys with toys.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted the Commander, “but I believe that Stormfire One was piloted by a certain female officer of the fleet.”
She rolled her eyes. “True, but Avril is something of a rariety within the Starfighter Corps.”
“That’s true enough,” stated Corise, handing a glass of Cambrian wine to the Pro-consul, “if a woman joins one of the services, it is usually as a navy crewmember, and typically as a nurse.”
“Like Captain Evas of the Resolution?”
“She’s another exception.”
“What about you, madam Pro-Consul, are you an exception?” asked the Commander.
The room’s two other occupants glared at the man.
“So, where’s the drinks, Commodore?”
“Where they always are, at the wet bar,” sighed the fleet leader.
“And you got one for her, but not me?”
“Do you look like anything remotely like a lady?”
“Errr…no?”
“Definitely no.” stated the Pro-consul.
“I suggest the Chandrila Rum, it’s a little more suited for you.”
“Are you saying that wine is too sophisticated for me?”
Christina's eyes met those of Corise. “How did he become your second-in-command?
The screech of metal being cut by nearby plasma cutters overwhelmed the older man’s response. Shaking hands, the other man nodded and pulled him over to one of the soundproof offices. The door shut behind him.
“Take a seat son,” motioned the aged man, “we have much to talk about.”
Corise nodded, pulling up an antique hardwood chair to the desk just as old.
“Business first.”
The other let out an exasperated sigh. “You’ve been gone for months, galloping across the galaxy and nearly getting yourself killed. Are you really that selfish?”
The two men stared at each other, their lips started curling upward. In a matter of seconds, both bursted out laughing. Corise smiled.
“Well, my father hasn’t seemed to have changed too much while I was off galloping across the galaxy.”
The other man offered a coy smile and tilted his head. “I’ve been too busy to change much of anything.”
The Commodore nodded to KDI’s CEO and founder. “There have been a lot of orders recently.”
“Yes,” agreed the man, “it’s a pity that the Cavalier-class was cancelled.”
“Not cancelled for sure, but we need the shipyards for other things first.”
“I know. Rebuilding those frigates has taken up more space than we originally thought. The next Resolve-class on order is going to be delayed by at least a few weeks.”
Corise leaned back. “Not that we need many of them, the Seraphs are fine vessels.”
“That they are, but they can’t do everything; I’ve seen the battle data from your adventures.”
The Kashan Commodore straightened up and frowned at the breach of security. “How?”
“I managed to get a look from the computer of the Steadfast when she was getting her lateral thruster repaired.”
Corise’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t be angry son; I needed to see how my creations turned out in battle.”
The younger Lucerne couldn’t fault the man. For years, the man’s design team had designed and built the craft. They had run simulations, both digital and live-fire against other Seraphs, but the ships had never truly been tested in the heavy combat they were designed for. Some would point out of the first pirate attack on Kashan tested the craft, but that criminal fleet consisted of a few corvettes with a rather large escort of starfighters; nothing that was exactly threatening to a ship the Seraph’s size. Seeing the ship in action was probably important to him, as well as seeing how his son had performed.
“I understand. I-”
The other raised his hand in protest. “I know why you’re here; the Pro-Consuls have been pressuring you to pressure me to get the ships and the two bases finished; I realize that. The ships are ready, the bases are not; we’ll need some time, we’ve never designed an asteroid base before.
Corise raised an eyebrow. “And this isn’t an asteroid base?”
Kashan Defence Industries facilities were mostly based in space. Aside from a venerable cargo platform orbiting Kashan itself, the space-bound factories and shipyards were built inside asteroids hollowed out by the company’s mining projects. Currently, the two men were on the Kashan Legacy, the largest space-going shipyard of Kashan (the original ground yard was bigger). The Legacy was a small yard by galactic standards, but at roughly nine hundred meters long, it could still build two Seraph-class Cruisers at a time.
The other man sighed.
“Yes and no. It is, but these bases aren’t shipyards. Look at the Legacy here; over 60% of the yard is sheer empty space for the slips to hold the ship. That other 40% is offices like this or machine shops. You don’t see lines of retractable turbolasers or large hangars. This is a civilian operation. The bases requested are military defence stations; the design philosophy is completely different for those things. Besides, we’re not quite finished mining one of them yet.”
Corise nodded.
“You tell the Pro-consuls that the ships are ready though, all of them.”
The Commodore blinked.
“The Resolve, the Pandora, the Serpentine, the three frigates; they’re all ready.”
Corise knew what the man was saying; the above vessels were all conversions for existing ships, which meant that the construction should be simpler in theory. However, the amount of reconstruction done, particularly on the frigates, was considerable. He had estimated it would take at least another week before this for first to be ready.
“How?”
The other man smiled. “We didn’t do the work here.”
“What are you saying?”
“Our space yards are still producing Seraphs. We took them all down to the old Fyre facilities and rebuilt them. We found that it was faster to rebuild them on the services, as the Fyre yards were designed to repair ships, not completely build them from scratch like up here. Moreover, I managed to acquire an EVS Construction Droid several weeks ago that has expanded and modernized those yards. I bet we can build ships faster down there now.”
“Are you using the EVS to build the ships as well?”
The other man halted for a second. “We’re working on a way that could concieveably do that, but not yet at least. Although we have managed to get it to produce Ultrachrome plating for all of the ships down there. But I have something for you.”
The man reached underneath his desk and pulled out a few disks.
“And those are?”
“Data files and a short documentary for the new ships, as well as their testing clips. I want you to show them to the Pro-Consuls. They might persuade them to understand that we are rather busy right now.”
Corise dubiously took the disks. “They had better be what you say they are.”
“You will never forget that, will you.”
“As they say father: once, shame you, twice, shame on me. It would be a rather bad prank to say that these are disks regarding KDI ships and instead playing ... rather embarassing videos of me.”
“Bah; that was ten years ago at the academy.”
Corise glared at the other man. “It wasn’t very funny.”
The other man shrugged. “I thought it was, and so did Commander Fyre; I have some fan-mail about the-”
“Dad…”
“Fine, I won’t. Look them over first if you don’t think so.”
------------------------------------
Seraph, Kashan Flagship, in orbit around Kashan
"Any popcorn?”
Corise turned to look at Christina, who blushed. “I’m joking.”
"It actually might be good idea. Corise, is this like those Academy films your father sent?” asked Commander Fyre.
“Hahaha. Let’s hope not,” sighed Corise, picking up the remote.
“What films?” asked the Pro-Consul, taking a glance at the other two.
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, actually-”
“Commander…” reminded the Commodore.
“Yes sir. I’ll shut up now.”
Shaking his head, the blond-haired man pressed a circular button on the remote. While they were in the Captain’s quarters of the Seraph, to Corise it was reminiscent as being a teenager and watching films at the local threatre with the cabin’s lights dimmed. Adding to this effect, the tight confines of the room had forced the chairs to be armrest to armrest, just like in the theatre. The holo-projector sent out a hazy blue blur that slowly resolved itself into the KDI corporate logo before fading to reveal a menu showing a list of names of the ships. Commander Fyre frowned.
“We have another new starfighter?”
Corise nodded. “The S10 Stormfire.”
“Play it.”
Corise selected the starfighter and hit play.
------------------------------------------------
S10 Stormfire Test Flight…
“One, tighten up.”
“Yes ma’am.”
The other Stormfire drew closer to the lead craft. Lieutenant Avril Torres shook her head. Despite using the simulators for the S10s, both pilots were still geared towards flying their venerable S9 Deathsabers, and it showed. The S9’s stick was somewhat heavy, and as such, it took a deliberate pull to make the fighter move. On the other hand, with the sensitive controls of the Stormfire, it barely took any force to send the starfighter in any of the various loops, rolls, and dives that characterized dogfighting. I suppose it we will finally be able to outmaneuver or outrun an enemy starfighter. That will be nice. The S9s were noted for being somewhat slow and less maneuverable than many of the current starfighters in use by the major factions. That was a drawback that dampened their effective use as dogfighters, hence the development of the S10 which was as fast and maneuverable as the Tie Avenger. The two atmospheric starfighters continued to surge forward as they pushed their craft’s speed to the limit.
“I’m at 141 MGLT. Not quite up to the top speed.”
“Two, it’s probably because the mechanics aren’t use to fine-tuning the craft. Give them some time. I’m 143. That’s good enough. Let’s hit the range.”
Veering off, the Stormfires moved in at the target range, which had large stationary targets to simulate capital ships and smaller space junk, manipulated by tractor beams, to simulate starfighters and enemy missiles.
“Let’s keep it simple. Lasers first.”
Each pilot pulled the trigger of their craft, sending translucent bolts at a large durasteel slab. And while the pilots couldn’t see the bolts, they could see the minor explosions that they had produced. Using nearly invisible laser bolts is a double-edge sword; they won’t be able to see where the bolts are coming from, but neither will I, which means that I can’t follow the bolts light to make angle adjustments; which in turn increases my reliability on the targeting computer. I don’t like that. Of course, that's probably a knee-jerk reaction.
“Looks good so far boss.”
“Let’s try the Storm.”
She flipped a notch on the trigger, switching the vessel’s primary weapon to the Storm Assault Cannon, which was more or less a charging railgun. She hit the trigger a few times, sending a pair of the fusion slugs at another durasteel slab. What the? Aren’t there suppose to be explosions when they hit?
“Control, do we have the right ammunition? I’m not seeing any explosions.”
“Stormfire One, your ammunition has detonated inside the slab. You would be able to see the detonation if the target had shields that the slug could impact on. Sending you the sensor data for that now.”
“Much obliged, control.”
So they did after. I suppose the velocity of the projectile would overcome the structural strength that the durasteel supplies. That might be a neat trick against unshielded targets, but shields would immediately detonate the slug. Ah well, at least we won’t have any problems with Ties then.
“Are we going to use the missiles, boss?”
“No need to. The system is the same as on the Deathsaber.”
“I know, but still…”
“Fine, you can launch a couple of missiles.”
The other Stormfire banked in on a pair of the moving targets, acquired its target, and sent a pair of the dark Kashan missiles streaking forth. They collided with their targets obliterating them in explosions from the galaxy. Two’s ship sped through the minute debris they had caused.
“Ready Two?”
“For what?”
“Tag.”
“Tag” was a game taught at the Kashan Defence Academy in which pilots attempted to maneuver their craft to get a target lock on their opponent and hold it for as long as possible. The object was to get the longest lock; this not only encouraged accurate targeting, but was more successful in teaching pilots to maneuver for fire locks and to find ways out of them as well. Both ships began a frenzy of rolls and loops in an attempt to get a targeting lock. It is a lot easier to get targeting locks with a S10. But so is getting out of target locks as well. “Tag” had been included within the trials to test the maneuverability of the craft, and the observers present noticed that they would be a fair match for the Tie-series which seemed to dominate Imperial fleets.
“Stormfires, the testing is complete. Return to base for debriefing.”
And just when I was getting the hang of it…
------------------------------
Christina shook her head as the first clip ended. “Boys with toys.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted the Commander, “but I believe that Stormfire One was piloted by a certain female officer of the fleet.”
She rolled her eyes. “True, but Avril is something of a rariety within the Starfighter Corps.”
“That’s true enough,” stated Corise, handing a glass of Cambrian wine to the Pro-consul, “if a woman joins one of the services, it is usually as a navy crewmember, and typically as a nurse.”
“Like Captain Evas of the Resolution?”
“She’s another exception.”
“What about you, madam Pro-Consul, are you an exception?” asked the Commander.
The room’s two other occupants glared at the man.
“So, where’s the drinks, Commodore?”
“Where they always are, at the wet bar,” sighed the fleet leader.
“And you got one for her, but not me?”
“Do you look like anything remotely like a lady?”
“Errr…no?”
“Definitely no.” stated the Pro-consul.
“I suggest the Chandrila Rum, it’s a little more suited for you.”
“Are you saying that wine is too sophisticated for me?”
Christina's eyes met those of Corise. “How did he become your second-in-command?