Back on Raxus Prime, the lads had returned to the dealership with their cargo in tow. All three presenters were covered in varying degrees of grime, elbow grease, and headlight fluid from their dumpster-diving adventure. At this point, they set about cutting up and upgrading their Pinooks. As expected, Janson began by employing his vast collection of hammers. The sounds of clanging soon filled the polluted air.

'Oh yes, here we go!' Wes said as he smashed the Pinook's genuinely awful canopy. 'You see, viewers, I believe that visibility is key to a good starship. The Pinook's canopy is too flat and too low-keeps you from sitting up and seeing things coming at you from lower angles of attack. Poor cockpit visibility also happens to be a problem with the Rebellion-era Y-wings, incidentally. As great as they are, Koensayr really screwed up when they decided canopy armor was more important than being able to look up. Of course, the new experimental BTL-X5s have snazzy frameless bubble canopies, so they clearly learned their lesson.'

With the thin transparisteel canopy smashed, Janson set to work breaking the canopy frame. Taking it off the normal way was a no-go since the lock was gummed up. Again, this required the use of a hammer. Janson picked up an inexplicably gold-trimmed repulsor hammer encrusted with decorative skulls and wings.

'This one cost me 40k,' he said to the holocam.

While Janson went ape on his poor starfighter, Hobbie was busy attempting to splice the Delta-7 wreck's sensors and guns to his Pinook. Raised up on a magnetic crane, the Pinook hung over Hobbie, who was elbow-deep in an underside access hatch.

'Now, there's a bit of a problem here,' he said. 'The Delta-7's systems are top-of-the-line, but the Pinook's power plant is a weedy little thing. To make things worse, its wiring and engineering is not exactly milspec. It's so bad that power efficiency is actually hindered by the way the power is routed through to its systems. I'm going to see if I can fix that by fiddling with the power converters and flux capacitors If you're an engineering major, what I'm about to do is not advisable under proper maintenance conditions.'

He pulled out a fusion cutter and monkey wrench and set to work fixing up the power distribution systems to improve the performance of the newly installed systems.

'Now, cut that, redirect that, link those two, clean out this supercharger, aaaaand there we go. Time to test it.'

Climbing onto his starfighter, Hobbie held his finger over the ignition switch. A bead of sweat ran down the side of his head as he shut his eyes.

'Okay, here we go,' he said nervously. 'Don't blow up.'

Click. Hum of engines, the start-up noise of the Pinook's outdated operating system, but no boom yet. Hobbie opened his eyes and calmed his breathing, slumping back in his seat.

'Wow. Can't believe that worked.'

Hopping back out, he shut the access hatch and covered it in a generous layer of duct tape. The lock was broken. Tycho, meanwhile, was busy taking an arc welder to his starfighter's external hardware, splicing a set of Sienar twin-ions to the aft end.

'As you can tell,' he said to the camera, 'I've done this properly. My Pinook's original engines and guns were nonfunctional. Instead of those, I've chosen to work with these twin-ions and a set of mangler cannons. Since the wings were rusted and falling apart, I've also gone and attached a pair of Clawcraft wings, complete with autothrusters. If the wiring and cooling systems in those do hold out, my Pinook will have achieved passable mobility.'

Unfortunately for Tycho, his talking had distracted him from his mechanical work and he accidentally severed a piece of armor plating from the Pinook's aft.

'Oh cock. Um. Edit that out, yeah?'

The presenters' work lasted well into the night, with the light of fusion cutters, arc welders, and engine tests occasionally flashing in the darkness. Sometimes, antipersonnel mines and auto-turrets broke the background noise of starfighter repairs as the dealership's defensive perimeter fended off feral droids, raiders, and the occasional horrifically mutated chemical beast. Due to their extensive military experience, the three presenters' work and sleep continued on as normal. Well, it would have if not for the baying of a wild animal.

Hobbie wearily reclined in a folding lawn chair and took a sip from a glass of brandy, grimacing as he listened to Tycho's absurdly loud snoring. 'I'd like to go to bed,' he grumbled, 'but I can't sleep with Captain Fast revving his engines over yonder.'

A few seconds later, Janson stepped out of his tent, drenched in sweat and looking quite irate. 'I've been trying to catch sleep for the past two hours,' he muttered. 'Screw it. I've got a plan.'

'JANSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!'

That morning, Wes and Hobbie awoke feeling a little bit better about themselves. Hanging from the crane arm of one of the cargo haulers, Tycho's tent was suspended high above the dealership. From ground level, Wes and Hobbie could see that their co-presenter was very, very angry. And in need of a shave.

'Funny,' Tycho said icily. 'You utter, utter pillocks. That's quite mature, really. And what's worse, you've left the speeder running!'

True enough. The cargo hauler's repulsorlift had been active since last night.

'Well, how else was I supposed to sleep?' Wes protested, spitting out a bit of toothpaste. 'Your damn snoring was keeping the whole planet awake! Now get down here.'

Tycho got down with some help from the expendable production crew interns, who fiddled with his hauler's crane until they finally managed to lower it. After a bit of freshening up, Tycho had regained his composure.

'Alright,' he said, giving his starfighter a pat on the flank, 'so here is my modded Pinook. Interceptor-grade twin-ions, PG-7 threat grid, mangler cannons, Clawcraft wings, and autothrusters. I believe that WVR dogfights are won by maneuverability and speed, which is why I've gone for a knife-fighting build on my rig. The computers were hopelessly outdated, so I tore them out and slapped on the PG-7 as a bit of an update, too. Obviously I haven't properly accounted for BVR combat, but no Pinook should be engaging anything outside of visual range anyway.'

'A solid choice, Tycho,' Wes admitted. 'Meanwhile, I've gone with raw power. SLAM drive, a pair of Event Horizons, and a turbolaser lifted from a scrapped experimental TIE. As you can see, my craft is built for boom-and-zoom sniping. I've also thrown on a Z-95 canopy with the back end spliced to a piece of an A-wing canopy so I have a reinforced bubble that lets me look around properly.'

'Hold up,' Hobbie said, 'a SLAM drive? A-wing engines? A turbolaser? How are you going to power all of that? Did you pick up a new power plant, too?'

'Mmmmmyeahno,' Wes aid. 'Wasn't enough money to update my power plant. I'll just keep the turbo charged before the flight and use it as an extra battery for the SLAM.'

'Oh, that's all well and good,' Hobbie replied, 'but that still leaves you risking the Pinook's horrid, wimpy little heart going BANG-clatter-clatter-clatter when it tries to move any faster than its stubby little legs were built to do.'

'Alright, then, Mister Bacta,' Wes said, 'what have you brought?'

'Ah. Well, I slapped on a Delta-7 Aetherspite's quad lasers to replace the front guns. Rewired the power distribution system, installed some new software for the fire control systems, and fitted it with a couple of proton bombs and spare fuel tanks, hooked up under the wings where, as you can see, I've installed both regular and wet-plumbed hardpoints.'

'Wet-plumb?' Tycho looked under Hobbie's Pinook. 'Goodness, you really have done it. Quite a smart job, installing fuel plumbing. But there's a bit of a problem with all that. Well, two big problems.'

'What would those be?'

'Well, for one,' Tycho said, tapping the wing, 'with all this mass, turning's not exactly going to be very easy. And second, you do realize that the Pinook's wings are fitted with all sorts of heat management gear, right? They're meant to radiate heat out of the fighter to keep it cool. And since all the heat is going to be passing through here, next to your fuel plumbing-'

'You've got a third bomb on your starship,' Wes finished. 'Or rather, you've strapped two bombs to a bigger potential bomb.'

'Ay, that's the rub,' Hobbie said, 'but I've accounted for that! I have installed an innovative cooling syste-'

'It's the piss-coolant rig,' Wes and Tycho chorused.

'Actually, no!' Hobbie said excitedly, gesturing at the canards hastily attached to his Pinook in front of the main wings. 'These canards are made from TIE Fighter radiator panels.'

Wes nodded with approval. Before the three could talk more shop about their fighters, though, the producers handed them an envelope. Wes read aloud:

'"Now that you have modified your starfighters, you shall participate in a general flight test. You must take your starfighters to orbit and pull up alongside Nulak Station. There, you will participate in a race. There is, however, a twist. Rather than flying your Pinooks as they are, you shall fly with additional cargo to mimic the manner in which the average Pinook customer travels."'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Hobbie asked.

'Presumably, that extra weight comes from shrapnel,' Tycho quipped grimly.

And with that, the lads took to the stars in their puttering, perfectly piss-poor Pinooks, which now looked the very definition of 'flying deathtrap.' Tycho's starfighter soon demonstrated it was slow to change speed due to a sticky throttle. Wes' juddered and twitched like it was on the verge of exploding. Hobbie's barely even got off the ground thanks to the extra weight. It would have been hilarious were it not so sad. The thing about Pinooks is that they're totally unsuited for flying in any environment. Hell, they were barely even suitable as salvage. Most of the time, the cast dropped pianos on them just to drive home how awful they were.

'Now, ladies and gentlemen,' Wes said, 'this Pinook is, erm, not the most mobile thing. Nor is it the most comfortable thing. The flight harness takes a year to do up, it smells like something died in the air conditioner, and the previous owner left behind a few gifts. Like a comm headset with a personal wax seal. Earwax, mind you. And according to blacklight scans, he also left behind certain, er, precious bodily fluids. And the control systems feel ridiculously cheap. Like the shipwright just took a joystick and throttle packaged with Space Combat 6 and bolted them to the fighter. Seriously, they're-Oh no, the stick's gone stiff! Og! No! No no no! Nyuuuuurgh!'

Wes' Pinook started rotating to starboard of its own accord as he fought to right the controls. Hobbie, meanwhile, put on a brave face and tried to make the most of his spectacularly awful craft.

'It's not so bad, really!' he said halfheartedly. 'I mean, the gyroscopes work! Sometimes! The, ah, upholstery is a pleasant shade of black and red!'

In truth, the seat was covered in char marks and dried blood the dealer had been unable to clean out.

'It's, um, snug!' Hobbie continued, wiggling his arms ineffectually. He also happened to be sweating profusely. 'And it's a nice, tropical temperature in here.'

Meanwhile, Tycho was quite happy in his Pinook.

'This is horrendous,' Tycho griped. 'I've got a fuel gauge that doesn't work, gyroscopes that don't work, a flight display that flickers on and off at random, and it smells like a Tatooine sauna. The seat adjustment is all jammed up, too, so I'm stuck here all scrunched up. My knees are killing me. On the bright side, the handling is alright. It feels like a chunky, poorly maintained Mk I Headhunter in a pool of molasses, which is a marked improvement from the original Pinook.'

Eventually, the three Pinooks reached their destination, where the production team awaited with three unusual-looking cargo containers and attachable tug rigs.

'Oh no,' Wes muttered.

'Oh cock,' Tycho agreed.

Soon enough, a message was beamed to Wes' display, at which point he read aloud on the comm:

'"You idiots. You spent all of your time and money optimizing your fighters for brief dogfights instead of improving their utility and reliability. Too late for that now. Here, you see three modified freight containers designed to hold everything you need in a traditional spacefaring weekend for Pinook enthusiasts. Tug systems will be attached to your Pinooks, which will partake in a race to the Caravan of Courage Campsite on Endor. The last two to reach Endor will be forced to remain on-planet for a full galactic standard week while the winner returns to Coruscant. Yub yub, Gentlemen."'

There was a pregnant pause as the others took in the weight of their task.

'Did you say, "caravaning?"' Tycho asked nervously.

'Yes.'

Almost immediately, the three scrambled to get fitted with their caravan pods.

'I hate caravaning,' Tycho said angrily. 'Hate it, hate it, hate it. Camping is something crazy people and infantrymen do because they think sitting in a foxhole or tent in the middle of nowhere is more fun than sitting cozy in a barracks or fleet carrier. Even wookiees, with their love of nature, would gladly set up restaurants, pubs, air conditioning, refrigerators, and wireless holonet access in their tree cities, and they live above the forest floor. Away from all the horrid things you find in a forest. I am not going to be last.'

'Nope, nope, nope,' Hobbie said in his starfighter as he slowly reversed into the tug system's clamps. 'Had more than enough of Endor during the Galactic Civil War. I am not spending more than a few minutes there again if I can help it. It was too noisy to sleep. The food consisted of nothing but nuts, berries, and roasted stormtrooper. And worst of all, the damned ewoks were everywhere. I couldn't even answer nature's call without one of those blasted things showing up to harass me. And do you know just how dangerous ewoks are when you're in a vulnerable position like that? They killed, skinned, and ate stormtroopers. Screw that!'

'You know,' Wes said, munching on a candy bar, 'I don't have a problem with ewoks. And I've been sent on enough field missions with the Rogues and Wraiths to be cool with hanging around in the wild. Funnily enough, while Hobbie was with the Rogues longer than I was, he's spent more time shackled to sickbay, which means I've technically spent more time than him getting acquainted with wilderness survival. But I'm not going to lose this either, simply because hearing Hobbie and Tycho complain about camping is far too funny to pass up. So let's do this, then. To spite Hobbie and Tycho.'

And with their starfighters converted into pseudo-tugboats, the lads put the hammer down and set off for Endor.