It took Caleb longer than he would've liked to find his ship. He took a couple wrong turns, ending up in the food court and a gigantic rental-speeder showroom among other places; he decided at the last minute not to ask a loitering Republic Security Bureau officer for help, because Caleb Dume might not know his way around this spaceport, but Kanan Jarrus certainly would. And he was Kanan Jarrus now, right?
Kanan Jarrus finally took a hike when Caleb rounded a corner and nearly crashed into an enormous Besalisk staggering, drunken, out the back door of a cantina. Hoping no one would ask what he was doing, he located the nearest information kiosk and searched up berth Besh-243/Aurek. Caleb downloaded the resulting map to his datapad and set off - in the proper direction this time - at a smart clip, but not before pausing a moment to glance around self-consciously, fiddling with the collar of his coat.
Some pilot you are, Caleb. A freight runner, even a rookie one, needing a map of Coruscant's busiest spaceport? Ye Force.
Berth Besh-243/Aurek turned out to be one space of two in the enormous room, open to the sky, with "Besh-243" painted over the door. The other berth, which he supposed was Besh-243/Besh, sat empty. But the closer one, Aurek, held what was clearly his ship. He could tell the thing was Kuati, and would therefore get decent fuel economy, but it wasn't much to look at. Neutral gray with a bit of green trim here and there, cockpit in the blunt nose and living quarters in the underbelly delineated by a few small viewports. Name in Aurebesh painted on either side: Ferocity-3, probably pertaining to whatever wing this ship was usually part of. The entire dorsal side of the ship looked like a metal version of the shell on a Naboo swamp tortoise. That would be the cargo hold, then. Enormous, as he'd suspected.
Caleb dug his datapad out of the satchel and tapped around on it until he found the code Green Gundark had sent to some commsat array at the Temple, thinking they were sending it directly to him. He entered the code into a keypad on the Ferocity-3's side; the boarding ramp descended, pressure pistons hissing. Caleb walked aboard, then lifted the ramp again with the remote key hung on a hook on the wall. He looked around the ship that was to be his home for...well, he didn't rightly know. A few weeks? Maybe more?
He'd come out into an oval-shaped lounge, with curved benches like restaurant seats attached to the walls and viewports above them. There weren't any other furnishings, but a glance upward soon explained why: half the ceiling looked exactly like another boarding ramp, which, when lowered, would slant up into the hold. The center of the room would need to be clear to accommodate it. With both ramps down, hover-palettes could easily be guided up or down them. A clever arrangement, really. Caleb suspected he might find some form of movable furniture aft, in the living quarters.
He had time to explore those later, though. Caleb headed forward, through the single door on that end of the room, and nearly tumbled flat on his face. He hadn't noticed there was a step downward into the cockpit, only twenty or so centimeters but still enough to make him lose his balance. Regaining his footing with Jedi ease, he plunked himself in the left-hand pilot's chair and inspected the controls. They looked fairly standard. Decent comm set and holodisplay, several autopilot programs including evasive maneuvering and docking with another ship, purely electromagnetic grav compass– maybe a tad antiquated, but he could live with that. The ship was lightly armed at best, possessing only a couple turbolasers and weakish shields, but the lasers could be fired from either seat, pilot's or copilot's.
Caleb reached over and started the automated preflight checks, taking a moment to familiarize himself with the layout of all the most important buttons and switches. "Preflights, primary stabilizers, repulsors," he said to himself, going through the oft-practiced list. "Retract landing struts when you're in the air, thrusters when preflights are finished, sublights when Coruscant Air and Space Traffic Authority gives the go-ahead, secondary stabilizers when you leave atmosphere, calculate the jump – no astromech, Sithspit, so that'll have to be manual – one final check on compass calibration, then you're clear for lightspeed."
He patched a transmission through to the droid at the spaceport authority, which advised him to belay taking off until a truly gargantuan yacht passed overhead. Upon receiving the all-clear, Caleb guided the Ferocity-3 up through the roof – or lack thereof – and into a holding pattern. Where he waited for what seemed like a couple hours but was actually only thirty-four minutes according to his shipboard chrono. Finally, finally, the incoming-transmission signal buzzed, and he patched the C.A.S.T.A. through. "Ferocity-3, please confirm flight plan for Denon via Corellian Run, refueling stop Duro," said a cybernetic voice through the comm.
"Copy that, Traffic Authority. Flight plan confirmed," Caleb replied. "Standing by for exit vector and jump point." The information came up on the holodisplay; he plugged the jump point into the navcomp, and watched as a route out of atmosphere showed up in blue. Caleb took the helm, soaring into the ionosphere along the prescribed route before entering his exit vector and calculating the jump. With that done, he made sure every last system was in order, then pulled back on the lever and eased the Ferocity-3 into hyperspace.
Hera found quickly that it was difficult to stay mad when you were looking around your very own ship for the first time. The ramp led directly to a large cargo hold, with a ladder up to an observation platform and what looked like a gun turret. The ladder continued upward to another level. Hera climbed it, and found herself just outside the cockpit. Four seats, typical control configuration for a vessel that was originally Corellian. Nothing special– except, of course, that this cockpit was hers, which made it more special than any other cockpit she'd been in to date.
A whiff of fried flatbread and Rylothean spices from the food box made Hera's stomach rumble. That would have to wait until she was in hyperspace, though. She set the box down on the copilot's seat. With the ease of long practice, Hera ran through the preflight checks and powered up the repulsors, getting a feel for how they handled before switching on primary stabilizers and thrusters. The landing struts folded in of their own accord – how nice, that's automatic, Hera thought – and she rocketed up and away.
She was about to shift to sublights for the flight out of atmosphere, but something stayed her hand. Banking gently enough to not upset her supper, she took the Ghost in a wide arc, back over the Syndulla residence. Her dad, appearing no larger than a flutterwing from this height, waved. Hera almost waved back, but realized that he couldn't see her and settled for turning the forward floodlights on and off, on and off, until she was too far gone and her home was a dot on the horizon far away.
Cham had warned her once that space would be lonely. She'd scoffed at the time, since getting out on her own had been her dream since childhood, but now…
Hera shook her head roughly. This is what you wanted. Get it together, focus on the flying. You have a rendezvous to make.
Her sublights ignited with a subliminal hum, higher and rougher than a hyperdrive but less like a whir than thrusters. She'd learned how every type of engine sounded a long time ago. Once out of atmosphere, she played around a little, testing out every system she could think of that applied directly to her piloting. The steering yoke handled marvelously for a freighter; the secondary stabilizers worked like a charm; disabling the grav compass did exactly what it was supposed to, which was send her into a wild corkscrew, the ship having lost track of which way was "up." The compensators did their best, but Hera still felt her center of gravity shift around a bit. If they couldn't even handle a grav compass failure, she'd have to upgrade them soon.
Despite the slight jostling, however, the food was none the worse for wear. Good.
Hera had to reach all the way across the panel to hit some of the buttons involved in calculating her first jump, along the Hydian Way. It was no short stretch– Hera nearly toppled out of her seat trying to get to the furthest one! Clearly this ship was meant to be flown by two...but that didn't mean Hera would be taking on passengers anytime soon. The Ghost was her ship, hers and no one else's.
Space might get lonely eventually. But for right now, Hera was fine the way she was, alone and free.
The stars smeared into starlines at the bidding of her hyperdrive lever, and then to swirling blue.
A/N: Sorry for the incessant lack of updates! I was dumb and decided to write a scene from smack dab in the middle of the story last week...so that's done, but it'll be a while 'til I can use it. Force be with everyone!