"I've received an update from the supply officer. The next shuttle is full, they're going to deliver the components onto the Chimaera and return once they are offloaded." Brex said, hunched over as far as his servos would let him, knees bent at an L-shape as his head scraped against the ceiling.
The interior of the Narivan stations were less than ideal, to say the least. Most of the corridors were fairly low, owing to the Narivans' shorter stature, a factor which had necessitated Ormyn to constantly watch his head and for Brex to crouch as he did. The air had a stale quality to it, the refined elegant interfaces of the Chimaera replaced instead with primitive curved monitors and large mechanical keyboards that clacked loudly under the talons of the Narivan crewmen. Compared to Ormyn's last visit aboard an alien craft, however, this was certainly an improvement.
Below the porthole, Ormyn glanced through the glass to see the Gamma-class shuttle which had ferried him over, docked facing upwards with its underside connected to an airlock, although typically used for boarding operations and supporting Spacetroopers it could service as a good enough cargo ship with minimal work. The Narivan had no force-field technology, it was impossible for them to make the pressurized hangars the rest of the galaxy took for granted, their fighters had to be either launched from pressurized chambers or docked to the larger vessels via external airlocks, a fact which had significantly hindered the movement of repair materials.
"This would be going a hell of a lot faster if we could just transfer the materials directly. Ask the station commander if he's sure there's no way to dock the Chimaera directly with this station."
The RA-7 unit turned and looked down at the commander. He shook his head and squawked back at the droid.
"The commander is afraid these facilities were never designed to accommodate a vessel as large as a Star Destroyer. Prior to our arrival, the Narivan did not fully believe building ships of such size was even possible."
Outside the porthole, just above the station, the Chimaera drifted among the network of repair stations, drydocks and small orbital defence emplacements. The Star Destroyer's bow pointed directly at Neriva like a dagger ready to strike, the elaborate illustration of the creature from which the vessel bore its name swirling along the bottom of the ship. Sparks lit up the ship's hull as repair droids and engineers in vac suits dashed across the grey surface to weld off damaged panels and attach on new armor plate. The Imperial-Class Star Destroyer truly was a remarkable feat of engineering, Ormyn thought to himself, a fact which years of running around repairing the damn things had made him take for granted. It dwarfed its predecessors, being more than twice the size of both the Victory-Class and Venator-Class Star Destroyers of the old Republic. Sure, the Clone Wars had seen far bigger ships than even the ISD, the Mandator, the Subjugator, the Praetor class and the Geonosian Dreadnoughts, but it wasn't the size of the ISD that made it impressive, it was the fact that such a large ship could be built in the quantities the Empire possessed. The Dreadnoughts of the Clone Wars were the exception to the rule, rare juggernauts that dwarfed the smaller cruisers that made up most of the Republic and Separatist forces. The ISD was a mainline battleship almost two thousand kilometers in length, with enough firepower to annihilate an entire pirate fleet and enough Stormtroopers, Army Troopers, and Imperial walkers to subjugate an entire planet. It contained more than enough fighters, bombers, and firepower to match almost anything any force in the galaxy could throw at it. It was a mobile siege platform mass produced in the tens of thousands, a true galactic apex predator, only a ship like that could have survived the hell it had been put through these past few months.
The Narivan certainly seemed impressed, even across the language barrier the impression the Star Destroyers had made on the new laborers' faces made it obvious. When shown an ISD's schematics for the first time, some of the Engineers did a visible double take. Narivan would frequently stop by the portholes and clamber to get a look at the vessel.
"Heh, if the Narivan think that thing's impressive, I wonder what they'd think if they could see what we're building for Lord Vader back over Fondor." Ornym thought to himself. A brief thought, but thinking of Fondor lifted his spirits slightly.
The view only served to remind him just how far behind the Narivan actually were in comparison to the wider Galaxy, the Chimaera dwarfed even the largest of the dozens of stations that dotted Neriva's atmosphere, the miniscule Narivan cruisers flying around like a Mrrlisi moving around a Herglic. The Narivan did somewhat resemble the more squat avians from his native Tapani Sector, now that he thought about it. The ships were armed with no turbolasers, no shielding. They were built with heavy armour plating, armed with autocannons, a few of the larger ships possessed rail gun mechanisms, and several missile tubes whose most devastating armament appeared to be some primitive fission warheads.
Ormyn heard a squawk behind him, turning and looked down to see a Narivan engineer looking up at him. Beside him, Brex took notice and put aside the manifest he was reading.
"You must be Ormyn, the Chimaera's Chief Engineer"
The droid translated for Ormyn to which he nodded and replied.
"That I am. You the new logistics chief?"
The Chief nodded. "The name is Kereeyak, offworlder, I'm the Engineer designated to oversee provisions for your ship's repairs."
"Nice to meet you, this is Brex," He pointed a thumb back at the droid. "Techs gave him your language so he'll be acting as our go between. So tell me, how much do you think we can realistically do?"
"I have examined the schematics you gave me, and I must say, it is an honor to study such a magnificent starship. Production on the new materials goes well, this Durasteel and Transparisteel of yours, we have enough for the Chimaera, with the designated supplies for the rest of your fleet at varying sets of completion. Thank you again for your advice, by the way, we plan to incorporate such methods into our own shipbuilding practices eventually."
"Glad I could be of help."
Upon arriving at the repair station, which he was assured was the most advanced installation the Narivan possessed, the native engineers greeted him with a full selection of available materials. Hull repairs were the first priority, and the easiest, the Narivan had a plentiful selection of alloys with which to patch the beating the Chimaera's hull had taken. Unfortunately, the more advanced subsystems of the Star Destroyer were well beyond the capabilities of the relatively new spacefarers. The Narivan had not yet mastered interstellar communication, for example, meaning there would be no restoring contact with the bulk of the Empire just yet.
When the Council handed their industrial survey over to the Grand Admiral, he had found the Narivan simply did not possess enough material to assist within any expedient time. Thrawn went to Ormyn directly, consulting him on how to rectify the matter. Being a ship builder for most of his life with experience in this field, Ormyn quickly devised a solution. Apparently, the Narivan's rapid industrialization had been supported by a set of subterranean manufactories built into the mountain ranges of the planet, powered by the geothermal energy generated by Neriva's abnormal amounts of volcanic activity.
Ormyn had advised the Grand Admiral to make a request to the Narivan, that they allow the Imperials to convert one of their subterranean factories to be used for expediting the repairs. Once the council had approved of the plan, converting the factory had been an easy task, thanks largely to the Seventh Fleet's abundance of labor droids that had been used in excavation on Lothal prior to their displacement. Planetary scans had revealed that Neriva had possessed everything needed to produce and refine durasteel. There was some controversy with some of the Narivan isolationists over turning control of such a large facility over to the Imperials. As an Engineer, Ormyn had decided that the local politics wasn't his concern, his only goal was the same as it had always been, getting everyone home.
The plans to build a rudimentary refinery were easily located within the Chimaera's database. With aid from some crew with experience in construction and with droid labor, the modifications to a single Navarian processing center had made it possible to easily process the durasteel needed with its accelerated production speed and efficiency thanks to droid labor removing a lot of the risk. Orbital scans from the Imperial ships had identified pockets of durasteel across the planet and large quantities in the system's asteroid belt. They were quickly being mined up by labor droids and carted onto shuttles moving back and forth from space to the processing facility where they were then shipped back up to the station and distributed to the various ships. If all continued on schedule they'd have the fleet patched up in a month at most. All the while the Narivan had seemingly looked on at the Imperial progress with a mix of awe and envy, protests in the council over the mining of their world;s were calmed by the Grand Admiral's and the Narivan President's attempts to keep the peace.
"I'm afraid your communication systems are beyond our reach." Kereeyak's voice interrupted his thoughts.
"That's fine, we suspected as such. There's another more advanced civilization nearby that can help us with those systems, we just need enough of a boost to be able to reach them."
"The engineering teams on the ground tell me the new reactor components will be ready soon. You'll have to bring them up with your own craft, we simply don't possess ships that can carry machinery of that size into orbit."
Ormyn nodded, subtly pondering on the realization that something as rudimentary as a Star Destroyer's reactor components was literally too heavy for them to even carry into orbit, and realizing just how far they had come in a relatively short time. Ormyn smirked, these Narivan could certainly be resourceful when they wanted to be. They still had a ways to go but if they kept moving at the speed they were going they would be zipping around in hyperspace in no time.
"That's no problem." Ormyn confirmed.
Beside him, Brex tapped his shoulder
"Chief, Gamma Shuttle is on final approach. The pilot says they're coming in for the next shipment of components. We'd better get ready for it." Brex said.
Ormyn nodded, the droid was as pushy as ever with all this extra work.
"Tell them we'll meet them at the docking bay in five."
"We'll have to finish this later Kereeyak," Ornym said.
"We're back on the chrono."
"You handed over our manufactories to the no-feathers and you didn't even ask us!?"
Skirk immediately froze in place as he opened the door. His eyes centred on Reelak and another Narivan, the Prime Minister of the Senrik Republic himself, clearly having a heated argument. Kreel sat at the table drinking tea from a tall glass, ignoring the heated debate.
"Your representative signed the deal!"
"Signed deal without notifying us first, my flock are outraged!" The Prime Minister cawed back.
Reelak grumbled.
"Your ambassador must have made some mistake."
"Manufactory Kraw-3 is within Senrik territory. My government funds it and provides almost all employees and workers income. Now it has all been taken! Our largest foundry! You would have us under the oppression of a foreign power with such recklessness!"
At that, President Reelak's feathers ruffled and he raised his head higher as his eyes burrowed into the Ministers. The Minister shrunk back, caught off guard at seeing Reelak's feathers and his icy tone.
"The No-feathers are a matter of planetary concern, your government agreed when they joined Federation, matters of extra-terrestrial nature are the concerns of the Federation. Manufactory is being used to build ship components, and I do not believe your Republic's territory to stretch past our atmosphere."
The Prime Minister clicked his beak, looking away then turning back to Reelak with a glower on his face.
"I will confront my ambassador for his failing. After that, you have not heard the last of this."
Skirk stepped aside as the Prime Minister trotted out, seemingly oblivious to his presence and almost bumping into him.
"Internal resistance, President?" Kreel asked.
"Do not provoke me, Professor. How goes the research?"
Kreel perked up, eagerly seizing on the opportunity to discuss his research, a subject he always preferred to politics.
"Wonderful! I have been very busy dissecting their weapons technology! No-feathers were kind enough to give me a sample and schematics of the weapon their soldiers use, the 'E-11' I believe they call it. It works in much a similar manner to Vagaari technology recovered during their invasion, a power source attached to the weapon ignites internal gas container and produces a bolt made of plasma. Overall, weapon is far more potent than any of our current chemically propelled ballistic firearms."
"You failed to reproduce Vagaari weapons."
"Because I wasn't able to deduce composition of the gas. Imperials say the gas they use is called 'Tibanna', though might be difficult for us to refine some. Imperials say gas giants in our system would be best place to look."
"You can build us energy weapons?"
"Not necessarily. Other big hurdle remains, largest so far, will have to ask No-feathers about it. Power sources. I could build blaster, yes, but a blaster with yield of the No-feathers weapons would require power source almost big as this table. Will need to discuss power sources with no feathers. Skydaggers' power supplies far exceed our own. If my calculations are correct, just one of their ship batteries would require more power than our entire present fleet combined."
Reelak turned to Skirk.
"And you, what of translator Kreel tells me about?"
Skirk reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a small recording device.
"Not much in way of progress, I am afraid. I have recorded much of No-feathers' dialogue, as much as I can without making them suspicious. I have listened to no-feather's speech patterns and vocabulary, it is nothing like our own language. Fundamentally different, most of it probably unpronounceable to our own vocal chords."
"If it is so difficult how did they translate our language so quickly?"
"If Galactic Empire is truly as big as they say it is, they may have been able to cross-reference it with some other similar species, a galaxy that big, likely to be at least one similar species."
"Well, back on my home island, there was species of primates with very primitive form of verbal communication. Not much but it might be something."
"It is a lead worth following." Reelak acknowledged.
"But, you have another idea?" Kreel inquired.
"Spit it out, Hatchling."
"President Reelak, I respectfully request access to Vagaari archives."
"Those are top secret! What could you possibly want from there!?"
"Vagaari came to our world in search of slave labour, correct? Wouldn't they have need of some method of communicating with their slaves? For giving orders?"
"Excellent idea Skirk! I support this!"
"Not sure I like idea of giving your student top secret access, Professor."
"I'll be looking over his wings the whole time. Mr. President, Skirk is gifted, I would not have brought him here otherwise. If he believes something of value might in archives. I say it is worth looking."
Reelak paused, before nodding.
"If anything goes wrong, Professor, I am blaming you."
"Admiral Carala, wanted to see me?"
Admiral Resh trotted out and sat down beside Carala. The youngest of the leading Admirals in their still burgeoning space fleet, Resh's feathers still bore their brown colouring. Resh himself viewed the aging war hero with a mixture of awe and reverence.
"Been thinking, I have."
"Cold out here, should go inside. Blistering winds not good for health."
"Not much life left in me, Admiral. Let me spend little I have left how I want."
Resh took a seat across from the grizzled veteran.
"For all my animosity. Kreel is not idiot. He understands danger outsiders pose. But, also, very tempted by what they offer. Playing with fire, him. Thinks he can exploit outsiders, use them for our gain."
"And you think he cannot succeed?"
"No, maybe he can, maybe No-feathers will outsmart him. Regardless, would be good to have a safety net in case Kreel bites off more than he can chew."
Resh waited a moment, letting the wind blow across his feathers and taking in the silence for a moment before speaking his mind.
"Why tell me this?"
"You do not like letting No-feathers set up mines on our surface?"
"I voiced my concerns to Reelak."
"As I suspected you would not. You are in agreeable company. Neither do I. But may be necessary."
"I also do not trust no-feathers to live up to their end of bargain. You saw the size of the No-feathers' Empire, one does not build Empire of that power by being nice. Fact of the matter is we do not have much bargaining power here."
"I will let Professor play his game for now. If Kreel thinks he can swindle no-feathers, I will give him a chance."
"Then, why did you wish to speak with me?"
"There is... precedence, for situations where President unfit to govern. Situations where military must act accordingly, for sake of Narivan people."
"You suggest we overthrow President Reelak?"
"Reelak is my friend, and capable leader, despite my previous outbursts, I do not envy his position. What I am saying is that Kreel's machinations require safety net. If he fails... we may have to take drastic action..."
Another scout ship exited hyperspace, one of many flying back and forth along almost every hyperspace route in the Miskarate's archives. It flew and swung between the larger vessels of the Prime Vagaari Fleet before docking at the nearest tanker ship, a large cylindrical vessel almost completely covered by a swarm of similar scout ships. The vessel nestled itself among the myriad of identical scout ships as the docking arm extended and the ship began to drink in as much fuel as it could take.
And like all of the rest, it beamed a single transmission to the flagship, containing the same disappointing result of its survey.
"Ill news, Sir."
"The scouting party have reported another failure?"
Supreme Commander Veltosh grumbled with both of his mouths aboard the Mothership's bridge, cursing under his breath as the bridge officer relayed another bout of bad news.
"I am afraid so, Sir."
Veltosh sighed and stood up from his command chair.
"His Eminence requires a positive status report, pray the next scout brings better news."
The Commander walked to the back of the bridge, and then entered the turbolift and punched in the code for the Miskara's throne room.
The Throne Room had been brightly lit in a feeble attempt to cover the aged and worn down vessel with some shred of opulence. Dozens of Vagaari ships flew overhead as the stars shone down through a large transparisteel dome on the ceiling. The creaky rusted walls were draped in the purple insignia of the Vagaari Miskarate. A number of slaves of species Veltosh didn't recognize were eagerly working to maintain the old floor, at the center of which was a long red carpet leading up a set of stairs to the large throne upon which the Miskara had planted himself.
Again, he silently grumbled, being old enough to remember the days when being a Vagaari meant something.
Veltosh despised Miskara Pesh, although he would never be caught dead saying it out loud. As Supreme Commander he was honour bound to serve the Miskara with his life, and even if the Miskara would not take any of his duties seriously, Veltosh did. That being said, it was the Miskarate itself, and everything the position represented Veltosh respected, not the overweight buffoon currently lounging on the throne at the top of the steps. Short even by Vagaari standards, with a noticeable paunch draped in thick burgundy robes topped with an extra large ceremonial mask sticking out behind his head. The overwhelming urge to crack this creature's skull filled Veltosh. The urge to pull this mockery of the Miskarate from his throne and throw him down the steps flared up inside the veteran warrior.
But as the Supreme Commander, honour bound to serve the Miskara, his sense of duty subdued his anger.
And so he knelt.
"I hope you bring me good news, Commander."
"I am afraid I must disappoint you, your Eminence."
"You've still failed to locate the warships?"
"None of our scouting vessels have located any sign of them."
The Miskara grit his teeth, and then slammed his fist into the arm of his throne.
"The Voidlord still has my treasure! The longer he continues to possess my collection, Commander, the more you try my patience with your lacking results."
"We are doing everything we can, Sire. But I am afraid I must inform you the prime fleet is rather short on resources at the moment. Flotilla Beta is nearby, perhaps we should retreat and rendezvous with them, strengthen our forces with a supply raid."
The Miskara shook his head, his face redolent with displeasure.
"Double the number of patrol cycles and expand the radius of the reconnaissance sweeps. Those ships were clearly damaged; they couldn't have gotten far!"
Veltosh rose to his feet, his head bowed out of reverence, but also so the Miskara would not notice the glare of hatred Veltosh desperately wanted to give him.
"Your Eminence, if I may offer my counsel. We are chronically short on resources, and these endless reconnaissance missions are draining what little we have left for the fleet itself." Veltosh said, his tongue withholding the rising rage.
The Miskara waved his hand aside, "We can raid for more resources when we are done."
"Sire, with all due respect we are chronically low on resources! That raid on Hargath the Voidlord deprived us of has set us back almost fatally! Without the supplies and slave labour that planet would have provided us our fleet is on the verge of becoming unsustainable! We need to launch another raid before we all run out of fuel and starve to death in the middle of the void!"
"My word is final Commander!" The Miskara said.
"We will continue to search for the unidentified warships! I will hear no more of this until the matter is concluded."
If it was Veltosh sitting on that throne, if it was him leading the Vagaari and listening to the Voidlord's petty attempts at extortion, he would have simply ordered the treasure ships to ram the Voidlord's accursed flagship and shown that glorified pirate how the Vagaari respond to threats.
Instead, the fat oaf atop that throne had simply let the Voidlord bully him into a wild Ebruchi chase across the stars.
"If you continue to act as the Voidlord's puppet then there won't be a Miskarate left!"
The Miskara blinked, taken aback by the sudden insolent outburst. Even the two guards standing beside the throne were caught off-guard by Veltosh's temper.
Before anybody had a chance to react, a slave master entered and bowed before the throne.
"Your Eminence, Supreme Commander, I have news to bring. One of the mechanic slaves came fourth and claims he recognizes the warfleet we encountered over Hargath."
"And does he?" Veltosh asked.
"He would not say to me, though I did attempt to pry the knowledge from him, it requested an audience with the mighty Miskara and will only give the knowledge to you your eminence."
Veltosh glanced back up at the Miskara, still glued to his chair in shock, before nodding to the steward.
"Send him in."
Two guards dragged in a small, diminutive furry creature covered in grease, stained in oil and wearing tattered rags and an explosive collar. The slave was thrown to Veltosh's feet and looked up at the Commander.
Veltosh addressed him in Minnisiat.
"The Steward tells me you know of the warships' origins?"
"Yes, yes I have seen them before, elsewhere." The creature croaked and coughed.
"But first, why should I tell you?"
"Insolent whelp!" The royal steward yelled from beside the throne.
"How dare you try to bargain with-"
Veltosh raised a hand, stopping him.
"What are your terms, creature?"
"Big time doubling of the rations and halving of the job shifts per septuarotation and also potentially lifelong tickets to not join the meanish bubble ride would be very koovy if his Eminent Vagaarishness could be so kindest."
The steward grited both his mouths.
"Do you seriously expect us to-"
Veltosh again stopped him.
"I accept your terms. Now tell me, what is the origin of these ships?"
"And if you lie, I will have you thrown out the airlock for wasting our time!" The steward warned.
"They have Imperialness, your Eminenceness." The slave explained.
"Imperial?" Veltosh asked, confused.
"Stars in Space, you don't mean they're from the Spireworld do you!?" The Miskara gasped.
"No, no, Galactic Empireness, where I'm from." The creature shook its head.
"Good, we already have the Voidlord breathing down our necks, the last thing I want is a war with them."
"The Galactic Empire?" Veltosh asked.
"Yes yes, over past the big hyperspace wall, they rule most of the Galaxy. We call this side Unknown Regions but over there most everything has Imperial spaceness"
"I recall most of that area was ruled by a Republic of some kind?" The steward asked.
The slave shook his head. "No, no Republicness anymore. Lots of systems thought having Republicness wasn't koovy so big armies of men and machine warred made the Republic go bye. Then his Chancellor Palpatineship started calling himself Emperor."
The steward leaned over to Veltosh.
"Do you have any idea what this miserable creature is even saying?"
Veltosh nodded.
"Thank you servant, you've been very helpful." Veltosh nodded to the guards, who moved to grab the creature's shoulders.
"We'll be sure to find you a particularly koovy bubble."
The slave's eyes widened with disbelief.
"But you said-"
"I am well aware of the haggling nature of your species, Squib. Your kind make particularly good mechanics as your small size lets you squeeze into otherwise unreachable crevices. If word got out we were willing to make deals with our servants there would be no end to you rodents coming to bargain with us for leniency."
The Squib seemed to be shocked into inaction as the guards dragged him, eyes blank, towards the turbolift.
"If you'll both excuse me." Veltosh said, bowing then turning towards the other turbolift.
"I have the fleet to attend to."
I'll try to get the next one out faster, but I'm not abandoning this story anytime soon.
I hope the heavy emphasis on worldbuilding and Narivan politicking wasn't too off-putting. Personally I think it's the part this franchise suffers with the most at the moment, though I may have overdone it. If anything, view it as a test run for some of the stuff that'll come in the Chiss Ascendancy later.
The phrase "Wild Ebruchi Chase" caused a lot of discussion with the two people who help me write this story. The usual substitute used in-universe is "Wild Bantha Chase" but we realized very quickly the Vagaari would probably know nothing about a creature from a tiny outer rim desert planet. After doing some research, we found funnily enough that Banthas aren't native to Tatooine and are in fact incredibly common all across the Galaxy. (one guy theorized some Rakatan involvement). In the end, I chose the Ebruchi because in the lore they were a species of nomadic pirates that were shattered by the Vagaari sometime in the past and are now mostly just a nuisance to most military powers in the UR. I imagine they still bother the Vagaari from time to time but are too small and disorganized to provide much resistance.
Squibbish is a painful dialect to write in. Yes, the Squibs really did talk like that in the EU.
Oh and uh, I watched Bad Batch, did not care for it and I kinda just hate the whole idea of clone microchips now.