George Lucas - you are awesome, not only for bringing Star Wars into the world, but not suing us fans for playing in your universe.
A/N: Edited to include Sgt Fury's proper name which I came across on some concept art when researching Chapters 4 and 5, and the helpful pointers from Darkwinter999.
Just as a reminder, all of Endurance's data feeds are shown in italics. Internal feeds are in square brackets [ ], ship-to-ship is shown in { }. Still with me? :)
"Admi..l, …. a…. pl….. to ….."
"Excuse me, General; your signal is very weak. Number One - see if you can't increase the signal strength… there we go. We're receiving you loud and clear, General."
"Admiral Kilian. I've just received your response, and frankly, I am not sure what to say. This is highly irregular."
"I'm aware of that, General. However I feel that assigning me to another ship would be a waste of my time and effort when I've just become comfortable with the Endurance."
"That ship was never intended to be a long-term command for you. We need your experience in other areas of the fleet, Admiral. The Jedi Council feels it would be better if a more… junior officer commanded the Endurance."
"Master Jedi, I don't expect you to understand, but there is a bond between a ship and her crew. She's not just a ship, she's our home, our community. And that kind of bond doesn't take kindly to change."
"Other admirals have voiced no objections."
"That may be so, but this is my ship, and I will be staying with her. If you'll excuse me, General, there are things I must take care of before your arrival. Kilian out."
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The frigate with the cadets arrived perfectly on schedule, popping out from hyperspace with a shiver. Endurance's scanner leaped to identify it, eagerly informing her: [Frigate, Consular-class, Republic Code C3G8-47UJ]! She soothed it, assuring it that it'd done a good job and it settled, curling up in a ball again until the next alert.
A gentle tingling against her comm relay signalled the frigate's request for a line of communication. She obliged, reciprocating with a gentle brush against the other ship's delicate hull.
{Green Astaire acknowledges Endurance. Request dock, passenger transfer.} The smaller ship sounded weary and matter of fact.
{Endurance acknowledges Green Astaire. Request granted. Green Astaire status? Maintenance required?}
The frigate replied sluggishly, {Negative. Reject offer. Status – operational.}
Endurance disagreed. {Recommend diagnostic. Slow response time increases risk. Maintenance crew will be assigned.}
{Appreciate offer Endurance, unable to comply. Scheduled for immediate departure once passengers disembark.}
Endurance was once again reminded that most ships in the fleet didn't get the same luxury of care that the destroyers did. She'd just come out of space dock; she wasn't sure when the Green Astaire had last been looked at. {Passenger status satisfactory?} she asked.
{Fully functional. Wait one.} The Green Astaire sent her an audio snippet from the pilot cabin. {"Wow…..It's the Jedi cruiser!"}
Endurance was mildly flattered by the cadets' obvious awe and their enthusiasm. A thrill ran through her circuits at the thought of their imminent arrival.
{Acknowledged Green Astaire. Doors open – cleared for docking.}
On the bridge, her crew had only just confirmed the Green Astaire's identity. Softies were so slow sometimes. She watched the Generals leave to greet the cadets, making their way slowly through her corridors.
Outside, the Green Astaire slowed, trying to match its velocity with hers. One of her subroutines piped up with a steady stream of updates on the docking process; [Velocity match estimated in 30 seconds, tractor beam engaged]. She shut it out, ignoring the indignant response of the program as the Green Astaire was slowly drawn into her lower hanger. Then the Astaire was docked; the telescopic bridge making contact with the frigate's exterior hatch.
A compressed data burst transmission came from the Green Astaire. {Passenger transfer complete. Data package for Generals Skywalker and Windu. Delivery status: Urgent!}
{Acknowledged.}
Endurance inspected the data package. The outgoing data tags came from General Kenobi's flagship, the Negotiator, automatically making the recording a Level Four priority. She routed the data package to the bridge crew. They'd know what to do with it. In the hanger, the Green Astaire was preparing to leave.
Endurance sent one last transmission. {Fly free.}
{Acknowledged Endurance. Sentiment returned.}
The tingling in Endurance's comm system cut off abruptly as the frigate closed the connection.
A whistled inquiry interrupted her. Her bridge master-program, the most complex of all the programs she had designed, wanted her attention. It reported that her main communication system was experiencing problems with some of the recent upgrades. The program sounded panicky – it wasn't used to having to troubleshoot. Endurance spared a few tenths of a second to placate it before she bent her attention to the comm system.
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It took forever to sort out the communications system. She'd managed to ensure that the crew could still send and receive transmissions, but the new security scramblers were having difficulty integrating with the rest of the system. For all her hard work, Endurance wasn't one hundred percent sure that outgoing transmissions would be properly scrambled. The system itself had seemed almost… sulky, responding sluggishly to her directions. It seemed to be behaving itself now but Endurance planned to keep an eye on it. After all, it wouldn't do for something to go wrong and not be able to call for assistance.
Wrestling with the errant comm system had been draining. It had taken longer than she had expected and Endurance felt a touch sluggish by the time she'd finished. Am I getting slow? She ran a quick diagnostic: [System response time: 71 mgcf]. A fourteen percent lag? This was troubling. She obviously needed to go offline to allow her cleaner programs time to do their job.
She debated going into a maintenance cycle - she was well overdue for a clean-up, but her Admiral was talking with the cadets in one of her portside gun emplacements. He had been so upbeat about the cadets' arrival that she wanted to see he was pleased. She tasked the bridge master-program to take over and went to see what the Admiral was up to.
He and a trooper, Sergeant Fury according to her databank, were busy showing the cadets the importance of the gun emplacements to the ship's safety. She liked Sergeant Fury; he had an impressive vulture kill rate, and always seemed to take it as a personal victory whenever he stopped a vulture droid from slamming into her. He had a certain disregard for mechanical life-forms that she wasn't too keen on though.
After a short pep talk, the Admiral finally authorised the cadets to try hitting skeet drones. "You there! Take the gun!"
Endurance watched eagerly to see how the troopers-in-training would perform. Fury sent a skeet droid sailing into the velvet-black. She watched the skeet's trajectory with her sensors. The cadet fired! And missed spectacularly! Endurance felt a twinge of disappointment. The next cadet did no better. It seemed that the targeting aptitude in troopers took a while to develop; the cadets simply weren't finished yet.
Her Admiral didn't look too impressed either. "Training's no match for experience, and it's the one thing none of you have."
Endurance was temporarily puzzled by the Admiral's distinction – surely training and experience were similar enough that one could substitute for the other. But the Admiral wasn't done with target practice.
"I know that look…"
Fury fired off another skeet. The last cadet rushed to the gun and lined up the drone. He fired! The skeet dissolved into a fiery blossom. Endurance perked up.
Three more skeet drones shot away, their paths spiralling around each other as they soared away from the ship. The cadet paused only momentarily before dispatching each of the unfortunate drones. It seemed that this cadet would be handy to have around during a Separatist attack! The Admiral shared her conclusion. His smile was at 72.3% of maximum as the cadets filed out of the room.
She tried to tag the cadet's file with a note. Perhaps when he graduated he could serve aboard her alongside the Admiral, but she couldn't seem to find the cadet's file in the passenger manifest that the Green Astaire had sent her. Her diagnostic warned her - [System response time: 84 mgcf], her processing had deteriorated further. The file was probably there, she decided; it must just be that she was just getting sluggish. Endurance transferred the ship's functions to the bridge master-program and put herself into a maintenance cycle.
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Suddenly, something was wrong.
The clamour of alarms and howl of klaxons jolted Endurance out of her maintenance cycle. She could feel her corridors twisting, strained metal warping. A wave of heat and pressure had erupted in one of her corridors. Endurance struggled to think; to cancel maintenance mode.
Her cleaner program grumbled at her, unhappy with her actions. [Warning - system response time: 87 mgcf. Recommend resumption of maintenance cycle]. She was processing 40.3% slower than normal. Definitely sub-optimal!
Her bridge-master was almost hysterical. Endurance mobilised her sub-routines; demanding that they send her any status updates, sensor alarms, and information from the long range scanners. Her decks rang with the sound of boots as her crew readied themselves for a Separatist attack.
Something was odd though, she hadn't felt any ripples from ships exiting hyperspace – her over-eager scanner would've brought it to her attention. One by one, her subroutines reported back, carrying the requested information with them. Rapidly she compiled the data, building up a picture of what had happened, and sent the data package to her tactical computer on the bridge. After what seemed to be an age, Tactical finally gave her an answer: it was not a Separatist attack, [Localised explosion – Gen. Windu's quarters. Structural and fire damage].
Endurance sped along her circuits to the affected region. Cameras in the corridor were undamaged, showing a clear image of black smoke curling through the corridor, warped bunks, and wires torn from the ceiling. Power to her fire suppressant systems had been cut off, and the nearby navigation computer was damaged. Forwarding her findings to the bridge, Endurance searched for life signs in the inferno and found none. She closed the blast doors: hopefully that would keep the flames confined to this section of the ship. Sparks flew from severed cables as she rerouted all systems past the damaged areas, triggering fire response systems, and alerting her repair droids.
She had just finished routing power to emergency systems when her least-favourite subroutine chimed nervously, wanting her attention. The sole purpose of this program was to monitor the status of her crewmembers, informing her as they became damaged or non-functional. During her last encounter with the Separatist fleet, the damn program had kept piping up stridently every minute. She still remembered the almighty clamour it had made when three decks had been blown open to the vacuum of space. Her snarl had frightened the program into timidity; now it volunteered updates in an almost apologetic tone.
The casualty program chimed again, [Crew status update: 1 unit non-functional. CT-27/5790, clone marine, Open Circle Fleet - assigned to the Endurance].
Endurance raced back to the guest quarters. For a horrible moment she was the corridor, straight lines, blistered grey paint, and twisted searing hot metal. In front of the closed blast doors, General Windu was crouched on the deck, cradling one of her troopers in his arms. "Are you alright? Trooper? Trooper!"
The trooper didn't respond. He never would. There was nothing more she could do for him. Endurance fled back down her circuit relays, away from the corridor, away from him, and plunged headlong into the nav computer. That, at least, she could fix.
I hope you enjoyed the latest update of the Endurance's story. All reviews are more than welcome.
Next Wednesday: Things go wrong in the reactor room...