NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This thread is CLOSED. It is assumed that ND and Godular are aware of events in this thread. They may MSN for invite if desired. Closed to all others.

Sequel to Trial Runs: Immortal-II Star Destroyer (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=533854). Technical specifications may be found in the OP there.

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Several months faded into the abyss since the Great Embarrassment. Oh, sure, the ship had received repairs since...replacement armor, replacement turrets, replacement vector thrusters...practically the entire dorsal starboard quadrant of the ship had been rebuilt. The engineers responsible for the insufficient power coil, that could not handle the stress of the ship's most powerful weapon firing, resigned in disgrace...though they were spared from further punishment reminiscent more of Vader than a democracy.

With recent instability in Coredia such as the Kokkai coup, gettting new technology into the hands of ship captains remained a paramount concern. Assured that such little technical fault had been corrected, and desirous to launch this project so construction on the second generation of Immortal Star Destroyers could begin in earnest, Admiral Makaryk had gone ahead, summoned the poor widdle Jedi Kevin Bailey (who had been the Coredian delegate to observe the tests the first time around) back to White Diamond, in spite of the anti-Jedi sentiment that entrenched itself since the Kipper Fall, and scheduled the trial runs for the prototype ship.

Again.

Still, Admiral Makaryk had to accept that things sometimes went wrong with prototypes...

Quickly and efficiently, Admiral Makaryk and his crew went through the power-up checklists. He had a feeling that the first bit of testing would encompass a strong sense of deja vu. What he really needed to know: Would his ship's most powerful weapon fire properly? There was also the bit about shaking out the FTL systems. The tests had never gotten that far the first time.

With the ship all but ready to power up, all he could do was to wait for his Jedi friend...

And without further ado, Admiral Makaryk's Jedi friend boarded the ship and arrived on the bridge after going through the gruelling amount of Customs. It saddened him that because of recent events, the trust that the Woodians have formerly placed in the Jedi has shattered like weak transparisteel. Still, life must go on and things must persist.

Like testing the Immortal-II a second time and ensuring that all was perfecto, even if there was an air of suspicion about him-as-a-Jedi still.

"Admiral, Jedi Knight Kevin Bailey reporting to the Bridge." He said, snapping a salute.

Admiral Makaryk returned the salute, even as half the bridge crew eyed the Jedi suspiciously, fully expecting him to start picking fights. After all, he had picked a fight with the Admiral last time. What was to say that he would not just start killing random crew members now? After all, rumors abounded that Jedi hunted petty criminals in Coredia to 'practice their skills'...and for sadistic entertainment. Maybe that was where people like Bailey Kipper came from? Still, there was a task to be done, a task that required doing regardless of rampant suspicions about the Jedi...

"Bring Reactor One online." The imposing figure of Admiral Makaryk cast an eerie shadow as sunlight warped around the bridge, lit artificially only by emergency lighting, provided by the Alternate Power Unit, one of the tethers still remaining between shipyard and completed ship. The figure spoke for the first time since stepping onto the jet-black prototype Star Destroyer fifteen minutes ago. There had been no need for speaking up until this point, and the Admiral was not one to waste his breath. Nor, unlike Coredians, was he the one to get too attached to the ships that he commanded. Especially unproven ones.

"Aff." The ship started to vibrate slightly as the reactor (one of them, anyway) rumbled to life.

Keys to Apollo. Check. Apollo...literally the same vector-thrusting technology on the 1960s Apollo lunar modules, scaled up, of course, to deal with the size of the craft, used precisely because it functioned during the prolonged power austerity measures on the Apollo 13 mission. Translation: it functioned manually, while everything onboard that craft that had to do with electricity was shut down. Doubt the Coredians would've thought about that.

Sextant. Check. Woodians had some crazy contingency navigation theories.

Roll of bright packing tape. Check. More craziness.

Solar-powered, battery backup datapad. Check.

Flashlight. Check.

He continued to run down the checklist until finished. Satisfied, he looked up, and glared at the primary engineer. "Disengage the APU. Engage Reactor Two." He heard a clicking noise as something demagnetized underneath him and the APU retracted back into the shipyard. One less umbilical cord from shipyard to ship. More belly rumbling ensued as the second reactor came online. Lights came on, computers booted, and numbers started flashing on screen. Numbers that indicated some slight semblance of where the ship was, reactor capacity versus power use, how quickly the ship's main capacitors were charging, and other random unimportant things like that. Also, something not quite so useless: a handy little utility to monitor where every joule of power on the ship was going, extremely useful for getting data to streamline the prototype's electrical systems, as well as those of the ships after it.

"Engage Reactor Three."

Another curt "Aff" followed, followed by more rumbling. The vessel seemed restless, very restless, to leave its berth.

"Demagnetize the ship." Several loud clicking noises echoed throughout the Immortal II as shipyard controllers cut the electric current running through various magnets up to a hundred meters across, and disabled all tractor beams holding the ship in place, releasing the ship into free fall over White Diamond.

"Captain Burke. Ten percent thrust. Slingshot us around the planet such that we exit orbit headed for the farthest moon. Let us stretch her wings."

As if three reactors weren't enough to generate a noticeable vibration, the engines fired only a couple hundred meters behind and below the bridge, giving everyone on board a gentle jolt. The blue jewel beneath them seemed to rotate slightly faster...but everyone knew that it was simply the ship picking up speed.

It wasn't lost on the Jedi that the bridge crew were suspicious of him. He figured that if he were in their shoes, he'd feel the same way. He hoped that none of them would try the foolish deed of trying to make an example of him. He really didn't want to have to deal with that on top of everything else. As the Star Destroyer began to move, he made notations in his notepad on the performance so far. So far, so good, but it was only the beginning.

"Admiral, we have reached escape velocity and cleared White Diamond's orbit."

Admiral Makaryk nodded sagely as White Diamond seemed to drop beneath the vessel's black superstructure, slowly, only drifting at first, then more rapidly until it was out of view. "Run engines at half power for five minutes, then burn them to capacity and cloak after a further five-second delay."

"Aff." The ship seemed to lurch a bit as the engine rumbling increased. The turbulence wasn't anywhere near as bad as a combustion-powered DropShip, but by now even the Coredians could tell that this thing was designed for function, not comfort. I'm sure if they had their way, inertial dampeners would require a reactor all unto themselves for a ship like this, Admiral Makaryk thought to himself, even enjoying the turbulence a bit. They are soft. Admiral Makaryk knew that some of the Coredians, like the Jedi, had suffered through the first trial run, so he was not quite as harsh in his thoughts on them. However, he was pretty sure that there were some newbie Coredians on the ship, too. Outwardly, he gave no hint of his judgmental thoughts, instead closely watching the various displays that indicated the multitudes of capacitors still charging, including, most importantly, two massive 1500-meter-long ones that ran lengthwise along the port and starboard sides of the ship. The smaller capacitors, such as the Hyper-X weapons capacitors, seemed to charge almost immediately, but the large ones seemed to take forever...but that was probably simply due to the massive amounts of reserve power they were supposed to hold. Their power draw alone managed to push all three of the ship's reactors right up to the edge of the redlines.

When five minutes came and went, the vessel's vibrations increased from "a little bit of turbulence" to "almost as bad as a Saturn V rocket for the uninitiated, yet still no big deal to those who had ever been on a DropShip during its landing cycle." The ice moon known only as WD-IV, because no one had come up with a name for it not already taken by some other landmark somewhere, started to bounce around a little in the viewport, at least for a few seconds before the ship forced some semblance of stability upon itself. Five seconds after that, the black superstructure visible from the bridge, and the lights upon it, seemed to vanish into the emptiness of space as the cloaking device engaged. The crew could see stars through it...

The ship diverted electrical current from charging those massive capacitors to the engines and cloaking device, and their ability to charge slowed to a trickle, at least compared to how quickly it had been charging. It was probably a wonder the reactors hadn't blown up yet.

Ah, the usual discomfort. The Jedi thought as the ship rumbled like a giant chemical rocket. At least he was used to it, unlike the Coredian engineers that came along with him. Getting down to business, he made more notations on the notepad as the cloaking device was engaged, especially noting the power distribution channels. The Woodians were experts at power redistribution and the Coredians would do well to make notes on improving their own skills in that area...

It was not long before the crew's suspicions of the Jedi were confirmed. "Hey Jedi," Captain Burke addressed him brusquely. "I heard rumors that Jedi hunt petty criminals to 'practice their skills' and for general entertainment, and the Order approves as a crime-reducing practice. True, quiaff?"

Meanwhile, as the Immortal rounded the icy WD-IV moon, something else came into view. A tiny, yet bright disc of light some distance away...one of the two modified Sovereign Star Destroyers in the Evil Woody Thoughts Navy.

Looking at various holographic displays and whatnot, Admiral Makaryk noted acceleration rapidly dropping as the engines finally started to strain against the devil of sublight space travel known as relativity. Relativity also happened to be something that Coredians could thank the Force for as the Admiral ordered, "Cut power to engines." As abruptly as it began, the rumbling, noise, and vibrations of the three slightly-oversized engines stopped. Conservation of momentum would suffice for propulsion for the time being.

However, relativity wasn't the only reason behind the Admiral's temporary return to sanity (at least in view of the various Coredians milling about the bridge). "Raise shields to twenty percent. The Star Destroyer about fifty million kilometers out has orders to 'light us up' with a turbolaser shot...if they can find us." A wry smile crossed his countenance. "If they do not find us...we find them, to do our combat trials. Helm, two degrees to starboard please." He wanted to sneak up behind the SSD's engines.

"Aff." The Coredians had a chance to enjoy a little more than a half hour of blissful peace and tranquility. Until the Immortal stealthily closed to within ten thousand kilometers of the backside of its mock adversary, that is...

Approximately 68m kilometers from White Diamond Drive Yards

"All hands to battlestations! Decloak in thirty seconds!" Time for the live-fire combat exercises...time to scare the Coredians shitless. A slight grin probably betrayed his thoughts to the Jedi...granted, this was a regularly scheduled exercise, but the Admiral seemed to take special pleasure in "breaking in" the "soft" Coredian military. Of course, he wasn't the only one, either.

He looked at the faint ion exhaust trail of the SSD right in front of the bridge, twelve o' clock in front of them. They hadn't been detected yet. This probably would've been a good time for Coredians to wonder if the Admiral planned on blowing up his own navy's ship. The Woodian crew acted as if nothing was unusual...they would much rather ascertain their new toy's combat capabilities (and limitations) now, rather than the hard way in combat against the Empire.

"Raise full shields!" At this point, part of the reason why those huge capacitors existed became crystal clear. Admiral Makaryk watched as the various power displays which monitored and recorded where every joule on the ship went showed a massive drop in the charge stored in the two mega-capacitors and the shields raising themselves from twenty percent to full strength in a matter of a couple of seconds. However, he remained cognizant that in full combat conditions, the vessel would not easily replenish such a charge...it would be hours, if not a full day, before that could be done again under constant combat conditions.

Then the black wedge in front of the bridge suddenly reappeared, like a privateer emerging from a cloud of fog, just off the stern of a Spanish Main treasure galleon. If this at all seemed familiar to the Jedi, he had been through this before. Almost time to find out if the problem had been fixed...

It was not long before the crew's suspicions of the Jedi were confirmed. "Hey Jedi," Captain Burke addressed him brusquely. "I heard rumors that Jedi hunt petty criminals to 'practice their skills' and for general entertainment, and the Order approves as a crime-reducing practice. True, quiaff?"
"I do not believe the Jedi would do such things...although sometimes I have to wonder." Kevin could only reply.

Meanwhile, as the Immortal rounded the icy WD-IV moon, something else came into view. A tiny, yet bright disc of light some distance away...one of the two modified Sovereign Star Destroyers in the Evil Woody Thoughts Navy.

Looking at various holographic displays and whatnot, Admiral Makaryk noted acceleration rapidly dropping as the engines finally started to strain against the devil of sublight space travel known as relativity. Relativity also happened to be something that Coredians could thank the Force for as the Admiral ordered, "Cut power to engines." As abruptly as it began, the rumbling, noise, and vibrations of the three slightly-oversized engines stopped. Conservation of momentum would suffice for propulsion for the time being.

However, relativity wasn't the only reason behind the Admiral's temporary return to sanity (at least in view of the various Coredians milling about the bridge). "Raise shields to twenty percent. The Star Destroyer about fifty million kilometers out has orders to 'light us up' with a turbolaser shot...if they can find us." A wry smile crossed his countenance. "If they do not find us...we find them, to do our combat trials. Helm, two degrees to starboard please." He wanted to sneak up behind the SSD's engines.

"Aff." The Coredians had a chance to enjoy a little more than a half hour of blissful peace and tranquility. Until the Immortal stealthily closed to within ten thousand kilometers of the backside of its mock adversary, that is...

Approximately 68m kilometers from White Diamond Drive Yards

"All hands to battlestations! Decloak in thirty seconds!" Time for the live-fire combat exercises...time to scare the Coredians shitless. A slight grin probably betrayed his thoughts to the Jedi...granted, this was a regularly scheduled exercise, but the Admiral seemed to take special pleasure in "breaking in" the "soft" Coredian military. Of course, he wasn't the only one, either.

He looked at the faint ion exhaust trail of the SSD right in front of the bridge, twelve o' clock in front of them. They hadn't been detected yet. This probably would've been a good time for Coredians to wonder if the Admiral planned on blowing up his own navy's ship. The Woodian crew acted as if nothing was unusual...they would much rather ascertain their new toy's combat capabilities (and limitations) now, rather than the hard way in combat against the Empire.

"Raise full shields!" At this point, part of the reason why those huge capacitors existed became crystal clear. Admiral Makaryk watched as the various power displays which monitored and recorded where every joule on the ship went showed a massive drop in the charge stored in the two mega-capacitors and the shields raising themselves from twenty percent to full strength in a matter of a couple of seconds. However, he remained cognizant that in full combat conditions, the vessel would not easily replenish such a charge...it would be hours, if not a full day, before that could be done again under constant combat conditions.

Then the black wedge in front of the bridge suddenly reappeared, like a privateer emerging from a cloud of fog, just off the stern of a Spanish Main treasure galleon. If this at all seemed familiar to the Jedi, he had been through this before. Almost time to find out if the problem had been fixed...
Now was the time to see if the modifications have worked! The Jedi prepared to experience the Woodian side of combat for the second time, scribbling furiously as he went along...

"I do not believe the Jedi would do such things...although sometimes I have to wonder." Kevin could only reply.

"I will take that as a yes," Captain Burke answered gruffly. "A shame your culture prohibits investigations. The truth might reveal itself otherwise." If only Admiral Makaryk was not standing over me, he thought to himself, uncertain if the Jedi was reading his mind at that particular moment...but then again, he didn't really care. Half the crew felt the same way, he knew...

Now was the time to see if the modifications have worked! The Jedi prepared to experience the Woodian side of combat for the second time, scribbling furiously as he went along...

The Sovereign-class vessel fired first, as had been previously arranged. A various assortment of turbolasers, particle projector cannon, and ion cannon splattered across the Immortal's front shield, some of the energy from said splattering getting recycled into the Immortal's own power systems. As if she needed more power...Admiral Makaryk didn't think he would have to issue the "HOLD" order...the order customarily given during combat stress testing to indicate his ship's limits had been reached...anytime soon.

Two competing needs crossed his mind: the need to deal with the Super Star Destroyer's shield quickly, and the need to preserve the ship intact, lest he get into deep shit. "I want one of those beamlasers fired twenty meters to port of the conning tower. Whomever misses faces a Trial of Position. Follow this five seconds later with a slightly overcharged PPC blast to the same spot. That should evaporate their shield without damaging the ship. Quiaff?"

The affirmative response given, the gunners fired exactly where the Admiral had indicated. The Super Star Destroyer's shields flared uncomfortably close to the bridge. A gunner two thousand meters in front of, below, and to starboard of Admiral Makaryk's position on the bridge moved to follow up with the PPC blast as ordered...

...Admiral Makaryk could not help the flashbacks to Teh Great Embarrassment. It did not help, either, that a klaxon went off, it seemed, the second the gunners actually fired the weapon.

However, the six-million-degree burst of energy actually stayed coherent this time, rather than flaming out into some grand, visible-from-surface solar flare. The bridge shields of the Sovereign Star Destroyer before them fell precipitously, but they survived. One more shot, however, would end the exercise. The klaxon, as it turned out, shut off after a few seconds, as it happened to be a heat warning, indicating nothing more than the fact that attempting consecutive firings was probably not a good idea.

"O-PPC should be ready to fire again in 45 seconds, Admiral," a random weapons officer reported from his station. "It fired perfectly. That klaxon was a heat warning--not the panic moment that everyone thought. Recommend that be switched to a warning indicator light, sir."

"Noted," Admiral Makaryk growled, even though he was visibly relieved at not having to repeat Teh Great Embarrassment. "Fire all weapons emplacements at that point--individually. Yep, all 320 of them, less the two just fired. I want to be sure EVERYTHING works. For the aft weapons that cannot acquire the target, just fire them off randomly."

"Yessir." This part might perhaps be tedious, but one by one, turbolasers, ion cannons, the typical capital-grade PPCs found on the first-generation Immortals, pulse lasers intended more for point defense, and torpedoes...all released, one by one, aiming to graze the target's shield. It only took a few potshots for the shots to skirt the SSD's bridge, and pass beyond into empty space, a clear visual indication that the beamlaser/overcharged PPC combo had brought the bridge shield, in absence of any special preparation, down to only token strength.

OOC: CW, check your TGs. Also, for readers, since he did not show up when he said he would, and I will be on holiday by the time I expect him to return, I need to do what I need to do to finish this RP.

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Admiral Makaryk, though relieved, still was not in any mood to waste time. The weapons all actually worked this time, and that was a good thing. However, the shields had yet to be tested.

Ignoring the Jedi for now, he started spouting new orders almost as soon as the engineers reported proper functioning of all weapons. "Raise full shields and continue to track every joule on this ship, from reactors to final expenditure. When the shield stress test commences, you are to begin firing all weapons at empty points in space, so that power throughput, efficiency, and regeneration under full combat conditions can be accurately measured."

After the obligatory acknowledgments, the good Admiral flipped a switch to speak with the entire White Diamond Defense fleet. "Commence shield stress test on mark." He linked the fleet comm switch he had just used to his own commlink, so he could walk over to the shields engineering bridge station and observe the decline of the shields personally. This test became uncomfortably more dangerous if he had to rely on an intermediary to relay news concerning the shields, and reaction time at the point of imminent failure meant the difference between testing the shields, and testing the armor as well.

"Mark," the Admiral spoke coldly into his commlink, and behold, the experimental craft was sundered with fire from all directions, from flotillas of other Woodian Navy ships lurking in predetermined locations. Every ship in the Woodian Navy participated in the shelling--including the Sovereign Super Star Destroyer that the Immortal-II had tested its own heavy weapons against moments earlier. The prototype shook as the shields broke hundreds of Gauss Rifle rounds fired in the first few seconds into particulate matter, and the combination of energy fire--ion cannon, particle projector cannon, turbolasers, pulse lasers, et cetera--immediately became blinding. Some crew members turned their heads away from the bridge viewport, as the brightness of the fire, both inbound and outbound, strained their eyes. One midshipman who could not take his eyes off of the brightness started rubbing his eyes, literally blinded. A medic immediately recognized the signs of blindness, and quickly escorted him by touch to sickbay, where he could have new eyes, and if required, new optic nerve tissue, grown from his DNA and transplanted within a few hours.

For his part, Admiral Makaryk nodded approvingly, mentally counting off the seconds, as the shield strength readings fluctuated wildly. One second, the shield dropped by multiple percentage points; the next, the molecular layer component that Coredia had contributed to the project, and thus was slated to receive half of future production, kicked back a bunch of absorbed energy to regenerate the shields. However, Admiral Makaryk knew that not even the Woodians could achieve 100% efficiency, nor could they engineer a perpetual energy machine. Physics could be a pain in the ass. He knew that eventually the shield would fail, which was the point. Despite the volatility of the readings, the overall trend was a slow decline, though the combination of the ship's energy-recycling shield and its own reactor output prolonged what would have been a fifteen-second decline to failure for the infamous Imperial Star Destroyer by a couple of orders of magnitude.

Admiral Makaryk also knew that, if he ordered his own ship to stop firing its own weapons into empty space, the energy saved would redirect into further shield regeneration. However, that was not the scenario prescribed by the procedure for the shield stress test, which sought to measure strength under FULL combat conditions.

As shields dropped below 50%, nonemergency ship functions such as lighting shut off, shunting more power into the shields, buying a bit more time before the inevitable. Admiral Makaryk did not care, and he did not say a word as the shield slowly declined further and further. He only glanced at his own stopwatch.

Slowly the particulate matter from the Gauss Rifle shots grew to birdshot-sized pellets, as the deteriorating shield started to slowly lose its effectiveness against kinetic rounds. What remained of the Gauss Rifle rounds pinged harmlessly off the prototype's thick, black armor, leaving nary a scratch. It did, however, add a noisy backdrop something like the sound of small hail pellets striking a car's roof. However, the shield had still not reached complete failure, and the test wore on...

"HOLD!" the Admiral ordered the fleet, anticipating the imminent failure by about a second, which coincided precisely with the reaction time of the rest of the fleet. The fire that had sundered the ship for the last several minutes ceased immediately. Other militaries were loathe to do this test...but then again, other militaries could not trust their men with it. Admiral Makaryk looked at his stopwatch. "Sixteen minutes, forty-eight seconds. About six times as durable as the first Immortal, once the improved regeneration is accounted for. This ship exceeds its ratings by a bit." For the first time ever, Jedi Kevin Bailey could actually see the Admiral smile, had he been paying attention.

As the shields started to utilize the breather to regenerate, the prototype Star Destroyer received a transmission (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14246291&postcount=3). The Admiral quickly read it, and handed it off to the nav officer. "Calculate a course for hyperspace to that system, and jump after the shield is done regenerating," the Admiral ordered. "Time to break in the hyperdrive."

"Yes, Admiral."

Admiral Makaryk then went to his private quarters to send a few internal transmissions of his own. He had to have everything ready, after all...