Star Wars belongs to George Lucas and LucasFilm.
I hope you enjoy the chapter. A small note of clarification - all speech that the Endurance hears comes through her microphone/speaker system, so it's italicised the same as any other data feeds she recieves. Let me know if this format is annoying or breaks up the flow.
"Do you ever get the feeling that this ship is different, Forr?"
"Of course she's different. She's ours."
"Not that. It's just… sometimes, things go smoother than they ought to."
"Let me get this straight, you're complaining that Republic tech is working better than it should? Ner vod, are you sure they didn't spike your nutrient solution on Kamino?"
"Laugh it up. I'm serious."
"So am I, Sev. Leave it alone. That's the Admiral's worry."
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The Endurance thought that the tour had gone satisfactorily: both Generals had seemed suitably impressed by the her upgrades, which had seemed to mean a great deal to her bridge crew. She'd listened, bemused, as the Primary Weapons Officer had babbled on about General Skywalker's aptitude with ships and machines, and how his stamp of approval carried weight. It struck her as a very organic thing to say: after all, approval was an intangible thing, it wasn't possible for it to have mass. Perhaps the 'stamp' had the mass instead… She tagged a subroutine to investigate the matter further.
The best part of the inspection had turned out to be General Skywalker's astromech. Unusually chatty for a droid - or at least compared to the ones she had on board - R2-D2 turned out to have more than a few interesting 'off-record' tidbits of information. He certainly seemed to find himself in a sticky situation more often than not, be it on the ground or in the air. Apparently the General seldom went anywhere without his R2 unit, which was interesting in itself. She'd noticed that most wets, non-mechanical beings, tended to ignore those who came with circuit relays and processors rather than flesh and blood. Skywalker was proving to be more interesting than the average general, it might be worth keeping tabs on him.
One of unexpected outcomes of the inspection was that not only were both Generals keen to stay for the remainder of the shakedown cruise, but that they had invited a Clone Youth Brigade to join them. The mention of the Youth Brigade had been so enthusiastically seconded by Admiral Killian, that Endurance had gone digging in her databanks to find out what this brigade was, and why her Admiral was so pleased. The answers had proved most enlightening.
She'd never considered the possibility that her troopers were once children. She was aware that softies tended to start out as juveniles, and remodelled themselves over a number of years until they were complete – a fairly inefficient process in itself – but putting the process in the context of her crew was… strange. For all of the hundreds of beings that had crossed her decks, troopers-under-construction, cadets, were something entirely outside her normal operating parameters.
The Youth Brigade's frigate would be docking in approximately six hours. The cadets would be onboard for two standard days and receive a tour of the entire ship. Endurance idly logged the necessary paperwork into the ship's log and assigned the cadets a section of the barracks. On the bridge, she heard Admiral Killian and Commander Ponds sorting out details of the tour. It was so handy having microphones on the bridge. Her crew did often inexplicable things in the heat of battle, and although she complied with all their orders, understanding their overall aim was sometimes difficult, and made it hard to be helpful. Hearing what they were saying and finding out what they thought was invaluable.
Speaking of difficult-to-understand softies… it was shift change for the troopers; CT-1477 should be coming off-duty. He was usually on guard duty near the reactor core. She kept tabs on a few specific crew members who had a habit of livening things up. CT-1477 had come to her notice when he'd converted her observation deck into an impromptu paraan ball court on the sly, accidentally setting off the damage sensors. The censure of his superiors hadn't slowed him down; instead he'd proven most innovative, shifting the court around the ship to avoid detection. His audacity had been most entertaining. It was 64% probability that he would try the ward room on deck three this week.
Endurance slipped away from the bridge and went roaming through the ship. It was marvellous to skim along unscorched circuits and relays. All her systems responded eagerly as she brushed past them, offering seductive glimpses of cool logic and gleaming linear landscapes of light. Later perhaps. She could wait to immerse herself in the heady flow of calculations and code. Right now she wanted to spend time with her softies.
In the mess hall, the second watch was eating their last meal of the day. The snippets of conversation that filtered through the microphones were overlain with the chink of cutlery on plates and the faint clatter of activity in the kitchen. She lingered enough to hear the usual grumbles about the food, the vagaries of this officer or another. She perked up when she heard some of her maintenance technicians talking:
"Karking waste chutes have backed up again on deck eight. Guess who gets to sort them out next watch duty."
"Oh that's rough, Three-Six. The eight-chute always seems to be getting gummed up with all kinds of junk."
She assigned one of her droids to scour out the chute in question. She liked her maintenance techs, they tended to think the same way she did even if sometimes they had a most peculiar way of doing repairs. If anyone decided to query the droid, she could always cite it was a health and safety issue.
The next stop was the war room, where the Generals were debriefing with Master Yoda. All of them looked fairly grim. She upped the transmission quality, smoothed out the sound, and strengthened the signal. Skywalker's R2 unit noticed her changes, toodling a query, but the organics hushed him. She'd always wondered if having a vocabulator would make communicating easier, but she'd come to the conclusion that softies tended to want to figure it out themselves in their own maddeningly slow way. R2's stories backed up her hypothesis. She'd stick with her current routine of putting the data on a console for her crew to find. Endurance tarried while the Jedi dithered, idly crosschecking information in their conversation against her databanks, and updating her files as needed.
One of her trackers chirped, wanting her attention: CT-1477 was busy playing paraan ball with another trooper in the shower block of one of unused barracks. 64% probability and he'd still managed to surprise her. That was why he had earned a tracker program. She scanned the ship for other spaces suitable for a game of paraan ball, [38 suitable activity areas identified], and anonymously sent a copy of the list to his helmet's Heads Up Display for him to discover. She was curious to see how he'd react and amused herself by calculating the probability of him using each space. Watching CT-1477 play was no fun; the game was simply a matter of applied force and angles, so she left him and went wandering again.
Her Admiral was in his room watching a holodisk from his family. A smiling blue image of his wife and children hovered in the air above his desk. The children were energetic, jumping around and talking excitedly.
"Daddy! My tooth is getting really wobbly! I can almost bend it right over with my tongue!"
"Daddy, daddy! We made cookies with mommy yesterday! Not from a packet, Daddy! I made a circle cookie and a square cookie and a triangle cookie and..."
She closed down her data feeds from the Admiral's cabin. Normally she had no qualms about keeping tabs on her Admiral, but this was... different somehow. Proper softie stuff. Endurance withdrew, immersing herself again in the icy flow of logic and the chatter of her computer nodes.
Reviews are always welcomed - how else am I to know if you enjoying the time spent with the Endurance, or getting confused and frustrated by paragraphing/spelling/characterisation etc :)
The story starts picking up pace next Wednesday with the arrival of the cadets...