Chapter 26
Chapter 26
715 FNM (23BBY)
Mouth 3
Coruscant, Mandalore Tower
Tanya Kryze
Some people crack under pressure. Whether from persistent stress and responsibility, such people without intervention will work themselves to the point where they no longer have any ability to deal with their everyday life.
This usually tended to be because they didn't pace themselves correctly as they seemed to want to rush to an attempt at victory. Not realizing that they would only get more and more work from impressed superiors who saw their progress and wanted to reduce idle time and make the most out of their time.
Getting a project done is not about getting it finished as quickly as possible. It's about accomplishing it within the allotted time. If you completed it too quickly, your boss might think that they weren't giving you enough work and will give you more to keep you busy. This process would continue until you can't keep up.
This work ethic was something I employed quite often though, as I had found in my last life, my estimates of what people could take before cracking were often overestimations. During my training of the 203rd, I had assumed that the men would crack within the period I've been allotted and that the whole project would fall apart. That had been an overestimation on my ability to break them, I often wondered if that was simply due to the hardiness of mages or perhaps I had underestimated the determination of the 203rd and later my Salamanders.
Ultimately, it didn't matter if I had over or under-estimated their perseverance but it is something I think about now and again. Why would I not? They were some of the most loyal employees I think I've ever had. But that is besides the point, I had a lot of things on my plate at the moment, both as Tanya the Representative and as White Silver, the owner of the Mandal Hypernautics.
And over the last few months I have been working tirelessly to see the completion of many of these projects. My first project, the attempt to get Ithorians to help improve the Mandalore Sectors ecological recovery, is going well. The Ithorians had officially sent one of their vessels along to start terraforming a planet or two that no one cared about. It would take 10 years for them to completely repair the planets' ecosystem, but having one of those terraforming ships around was perfectly fine as that was as much as the Mandalorian government could afford anyways. The hope was that more money would slowly be generated as more worlds are repaired and start generating income that we could invest back to increase the rate of terraforming in a positive feedback loop.
Senator Merrik had stopped working on that project, completely leaving it to me. I had reason to believe he had been reprimanded for implying that he was the sole lead on the project. I really had no issue with him claiming such but I suppose you weren't really meant to do that to royalty. A bit of my mindset from my salary man days must have allowed myself to be blind to his efforts to improve his prestige. He still has his job from what I can tell, he just wasn't going to be taking part in the project anymore and I was basically in charge of the entire operation. Which I had been doing pretty much from the beginning, the meetings he was having with the Ithorians were simply to sign documents. Now that I have the power to sign those documents myself, he was no longer needed.
While he had been reprimanded, he didn't seem to hold too much of a grudge. I think he seemed perfectly fine and charming about our meetings and made a few jokes about the whole affair. Anyways, he must be a good employee to realize he'd overstepped his bounds. Must be the reason Duchess Satine had put him in that position to begin with.
Besides that, I have had a few meetings with Chancellor Palpatine and several other Outer Rim Representatives and Senators over the past few months as well. Most of these meetings had been general conversations on the issues that were trying to draw people out of the Galactic Republic and into the Separatists Government. For the most part these meetings had gone nowhere, though they had been an excellent opportunity to network with these folks. I had primarily attempted to get in contact with representatives that were members of the Mandalore Sector, those who would be between the Republic and the Separatist government who might feel a little bit threatened by both sides. I wasn't trying to create a tertiary alliance, but several of the Representatives I've spoken to mentioned that they don't want to be involved in this conflict at all for a variety of reasons, a general idea of not getting dragged into the war and getting their planet invaded something I could get behind completely, I just started down an interesting path of research on whether there was some way to withdraw from the Republic in a short-term time period while a conflict was ongoing.
The answer is a surprising yes. You would think, due to the whole Separatists being a major problem, that the idea that you could withdraw from the Republic would be a major conflict point in their government. But there was a caveat to this thanks to the planet of Corellia. This particular planet had a neat little constitutional thing where if the Republic went to war, they could withdraw from the conflict completely and declare neutrality during this period. They would close off all routes within their systems and force any trade that would have had to go through it to stop and unload at the edges of their territory, be reloaded onto ships under their planet's control and then unloaded at the edge on the other side of their territory. As long as those materials were not military in nature.
If one planet could get away with declaring a temporary neutrality and withdrawing from the Republic, could others? I probably would not go for a full withdrawal but perhaps we could declare our systems neutral during this conflict and still maintain our votes in the Republic, which does sound a lot like having the benefits of being in the Republic, without actually helping them in a war. It's like being part of a group project and not contributing at all if war did indeed break out. And like in any group presentation, those not doing the work will get scorned by those that do and would actively try to avoid associating with them if it could be avoided. While I know that those suffering from the war aren't my responsibility, my main concern is the safety of the Mandalorian Sector as that is my job. I think losing goodwill with the rest of the Republic is worth the cost of not getting invaded and putting our rebuilding efforts by decades. It was a bit of a stretch but I was thinking that this might be necessary if this conflict were to spin out of control as it seemed to be well on its way to being.
So I had sent a message along to Duchess Satine to discuss this idea of a Neutrality League. I had a feeling she would have come up with the same idea once the war had started, but if we could get the groundwork going now, that would likely make the League stronger in the long term. Of course if we were to create a new Neutrality League we would need to have a way to enforce that neutrality.
Corellia, the planet I mentioned before, is a major ship building center and has its own Self-Defense fleet rivaling that of many other Core World fleets. It was worth considering that we would need to increase not only the Self-Defense Force on land but perhaps improve the Self-Defense Navy as well. Mandalore already has two separate Self-Defense Forces already in space. The Mandalorian Patrol, an independent organization of nomadic space travelers who use ships that were often outdated and underpowered from some of the reports I'd seen. While the Mandalorian Royal Guard maintained a fleet of small yet more modern craft made by MandalMotors. If either side, the Republic or the Separatists, attempted to push into the Mandalorian Sector, we would need something bigger, stronger, and more up-to-date ships to defend ourselves.
It was something I would have to look into, that was for sure. Though my duties did not exactly push me towards military ventures, at least not as Tanya since that's White Silver role, and I might have a few interesting possibilities.
Then again, I think X4 had been doing quite a fine job leading Hypernautics in my stead for the last few months. I had started looking into it to see exactly what he'd been doing and I was slightly impressed.
X4 had managed to not only wring out all the corruption in the company that I was sure was there, he'd taken a full inventory on all of Hypernautics' assets on Gargon, and gotten the fighter production back online. We are now selling ships to the Hutts, which I wasn't exactly happy with considering the Hutts were probably the worst government in the entire galaxy. There might be a few others but they were the biggest at the very least. But the important bit is that we are actually gaining money. Unfortunately, we are getting money by selling what could be best described as knock-off MandalMotors' ships, often with bigger guns or weaker engines and sometimes not even including a shield just to avoid infringing copyrights. Frankly the amount of ships that Hypernautics produces that were of their own make were minimal to none, as far as I could tell. And due to that, the company is a knockoff brand of Mandal Motors.
And knock off brands are never as good as the original, they just produce more at a cheaper rate. Which was why I had directed the new CEO of Mandal Hypernautics, Jewyl Toza, to look into possibly working out a deal with MandalMotors to officially sell their licensed ships. As long as Mandal Hypernautics is producing second rate versions of MandalMotors ships, all they were doing was debasing MandalMotors's reputation and Mandalorian ship design.
However, if Mandal Hypernautics can officially make MandalMotors ships as a subcontractor. Not only would that give Hypernautics made ships a degree of legitimacy in the eyes of the public. It would also give Mandal Hypernautics the experience it needed to create its own ships and fighters. Which would be ten times more profitable in the long run than just making cheap knock-offs of another company's product.
The other major item of necessity was dealing with the contracts that Mandal Hypernautics had with several what could be best described as pirate organizations. The contracts involve salvaging ancient Mandalorian battlegrounds for equipment and beskar salvage.
These contracts were a little bit long-term and technically I could have canceled them completely, yet I didn't. The fact they were bringing in beskar, which is a material well worth its weight in the Mandalorian sector made me reconsider this. Over the next two years it was believed they would recover large quantities of beskar, which would replenish the lost amount taken when someone had absconded with half the beskar that had already been collected before Gerr's uprising or possibly had never existed except on paper. Considering the world was a rather bit of a crime capital, it was well within possibility that people were lying about exactly how much beskar was coming in to skim money off the top. That being said, I had issued simple orders on dealing with these pirates and that was they only got their money if their beskar was approved by local armorers as authentic.
And I also added that we would not be paying for armor at the same price as, say, hull plating. Beskar used in armor are usually ancestral property. Very culturally significant to the families that might be interested in having the pieces of armor returned. Simple fact of the matter was, if I got my hands on a piece of beskar armor that belonged to an important family and did not do my best to return it to them, it could cause a conflict. I incentivized the pirates to focus on pieces of equipment that would not have family ties and if they did bring such items I would do the most I could possibly do to return the item to the family of whatever descendant or relative was left. I knew there was a very low possibility that such a return could be possible, many of these battlefields that the pirates were apparently raiding for materials were dating back to the Neo-Crusaders era or older, but I would do the best I could.
Finally, there were my attempts within Gargon to improve the economic situation for the better, which I think would not go as well. Gargon, of course, lay right off the Hydian Way which was a prime real estate for trade. The problem was the upcoming Separatist Conflict was between the Outer Rim, at one end of the Hydian Way, and the Core, on the other end of the Hydian Way. There would not be much trade along that route while the conflict is still ongoing. Surprisingly enough, they actually would probably be visited by armies moving along that road, which considering Gargon's position could be useful. Soldiers like to gamble after all, they don't have long to live and a few days in paradise could do them good.
That being said, I don't expect a large economic output to be coming from Gargon's military industry anytime soon. Even if I was successful in not only moving the economy towards a more legitimate direction as well as getting Gargon into the Mandalorian Sector as an official member state, either would contribute to the defense of the sector, more income equals a bigger budget for defense spending.
But if it did well, I better not mix up my apparently large stockpile of funds or I guess it would be Gerr's funds that I had inherited which I used to buy some land. It's not like I could run to the planet and find wonderful spots for a hotel or anything like that. I trusted the man on the ground, Toza, to buy pieces of land that would have good vistas and to hire some local workers to clear and prepare it for construction of hotels and casinos. It might be objectively wrong to fleece soldiers who are possibly going to die of their money but they weren't Mandalorian soldiers and they should be paid by their respective governments so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. As much as I disliked the waste of human resources, I needed to be realistic on a few things since my bread came from the Mandalorian Sector. The only agenda I needed to concern myself with was the continuation of the Mandalorian sector as a free and peaceful state, if that meant I had to see that some soldiers were left paupers for a war that we were not a part of, then so be it.
On the subject of Mandal Hypernautics itself, they do have a few original designs they developed themselves. One corvette-like vessel and another destroyer-like vessel are still in the drawing board phase. But one design has passed prototyping and has entered into very limited production, the Canderous Assault Tank. This monstrosity was both the most hideously armored vehicle I had ever seen and the most miraculous that something like is even possible.
On the face of it, it was a hovering shielded bunker with dual Mass Drivers and a Missile Launcher. Perhaps my experiences were not the best, I do remember a hover tank called a Wraith that if it was struck, it would hover backwards whilst sliding like a skater on ice into friendly infantry taking cover behind it and probably crushing them. Luckily inertia is a thing so it is very likely that due to the weight of the Canderous, it will only be pushed back slightly before stabilizing itself.
This behemoth had two barrels widely set apart, which is a terrible design idea as you would need two separate sights to see what each barrel is aiming when you would only need one if both barrels are right next to each other. Any military craft that relied on Mass Drivers likely does so as a deliberate choice, considering that most armored vehicles in this day and age relied on lasers and were about the size of a modern MBT from my first life. The main reason to use a Mass Driver is the variety of different ammunition that could be used, from bog standard solid projectiles, energy shells that mimic the effects of a Blaster Cannon of similar yield, likely this galaxy's version of HEAT, burrowing bunker busters which is exactly what it sounds like, and even a heat seeking shell to take out enemy aircraft if the vehicle has a high enough barrel elevation. .
The old man with a funny mustache would have been giddy to get his hands on such a monstrosity, as it was probably larger than the Maus or at least on a similar scale. It also needed less crew to operate as it required a minimum of three, with the loader being replaced with an autoloader.
The tank is so large that everyone would see it a mile away, which for most vehicles would spell doom in the form of artillery and bombers. Not for this vehicle though, this vehicle turned out to be a solid brick of beskar, literally as it has beskar plating. I'm impressed that they put so much beskar into this vehicle, considering how rare it is, but what really caught my attention was that the main objective was to be hit. From the research notes I have read about this vehicle is not only a solid brick of beskar, it had a power generator strong enough to also power a shield and a cyber warfare suite that it could hack enemy armored vehicles in the area and direct those armor vehicles to fire on it instead of the much weaker and squishier infantry around it. I don't know why the tank couldn't just deactivate the enemy vehicle's weapon system instead of only forcing it to lock on to the tank itself.
The designer of this vehicle had literally created a taunt system in order to draw enemies to attack it. It was so outrageous that I was quite impressed with how outrageous it was. And the interesting part was there were several models already lying about in various warehouses. A few were still in one piece and one that Zum destroyed had been found and promptly scrapped since the entire thing is a burnt out husk of beskar when it was recovered after the whole False Silver Rebellion, or whatever they were going to name it.
Granted, from what I've been able to piece together, they had not gone ahead and made a beskar tank yet, merely a durasteel chassis with beskar plating. However the amount of interesting technologies in use are something to keep in mind.
One thing I had noted, both from my recent conflict with Gerr and research of conflicts in the past 50 years, was that there was not a wide use of armored vehicles in Mandalorian culture. A couple thousand years ago, there was something called the Basilisk War Droid that was used as battle mounts, but that was a long time ago. So looking at this monstrosity I was hit with several points of thought. If the main goal was for it to be a monster that drew the enemy's fire away from lighter vehicles, then where were the lighter vehicles doing other roles? This tank is likely designed to fit the role of a heavy tank, a heavily armed and armored mobile bunker, meant to destroy lighter vehicles as well as fortifications. This also meant that the drawbacks of heavy tanks from both of my past lives were also present here.
Like, how are you going to get something this heavy into combat? Most light transports did not have the capabilities to lift that heavy piece of equipment into position, and it may be necessary to have a Heavy Freighter like a Gozanti to transport them anywhere, which are fairly big targets. What are the hidden costs in spare parts, fuel, and ammunition for this tank? Something that big needs a powerful engine and that usually guzzles a lot of fuel and if they break down before they even fight because parts got worn down due to general use, then they are just a waste of money.
I remember that in the Battle of Kursk, out of the 200 Panthers sent there 6 Panthers destroyed themselves getting there and 80 of them were in the repair shops due to non-combat damage. When I heard that, I had to wince in pain at all of that wasted manpower and resources spent on building tanks that have almost half a chance of breaking down getting to the fight because the Germans adopted it before they knew if it worked. So you can see my skepticism to the concept of Heavy tanks, especially when with modern communications, bombers or artillery could be called in to take it out from a safe distance.
This assault tank on one front is a blunt instrument that can crack any defensive position or blunt an enemy offensive, but on the logistics front calling it overpriced is a severe understatement. Let's start with its weapons, it uses a Mass Driver, i.e. a gun, so it needs to be supplied with its ammunition on top of all of the fuel and spare parts and that takes up space on the logistics train that could be used for something else, as well as take up a lot of room in the tank. The risk of it running out of ammunition in a protracted engagement is another concern due to its limited ammo.
A Blaster Cannon uses Tibanna gas which can be stored in pressurized canisters, resulting in significantly more shots available when compared to Mass Driver Cannons. Even if the Mass Driver uses electric propulsion and only the payloads are stored in the tank, you can cram in more gas than solid ammunition. Blaster Cannons are also compatible with the infantry's Tibanna gas so the tank can refill their canisters at any military base/outpost with Tibanna storage not just in major bases. Finally, a Blaster Cannon may be more complex to make, but it also has less moving parts so the weapon would likely remain viable even after prolonged use, much better than a Mass Driver Cannon that may need regular maintenance after every battle to make sure it doesn't break mid-battle.
The Concussion Missile Battery felt very redundant to me. I knew that IFVs in my first life used Missile systems like the TOW on the American Bradley, but the reason that tanks don't have them is because the main gun is a much more efficient and cheaper weapon that does the same job, cause a tank shell does not have expensive electronics inside it like a missile does. I do remember an old RTS game that had a tank that resembled the Canderous, with it having 2 cannons as well as secondary missile pods for attacking aircraft, so this is not a completely foreign concept to me. If the Canderous can target air targets with its Missiles, then I suppose it saves having to deploy a dedicated AA vehicle into the field..
On the other hand, Concussion Missiles are very expensive from what I remember and if the enemy didn't bring any aircraft to be shot down or just have them conduct operations away from the Canderous, then the missiles are less than useless as it'll be a waste of money to fire them at buildings when the Mass Drivers can do the same job but cheaper. I guess if they encounter another Heavy Tank, the extra firepower of the Concussion Missile would be a benefit. However, relying on the enemy to be dumb enough to get close enough to the giant tank is a very idiotic battleplan. There is also the requirement to have sensors that can detect enemy aircraft, lock on that aircraft, and guide the missile to its target. A sensor suit like that would also take up space inside the tank that could be cut down to save space.Thus, while I can see uses for the Missile Battery, it is just unlikely for the Concussion Missile to be used that often to justify its cost. Putting the Battery in a dedicated vehicle that is able to take full advantage of the Concussion Missiles is the best solution in my eyes. Maybe instead of firing Missiles, the Canderous can launch drones for better situational awareness instead of a Battery of missiles.
Moving on to its propulsion, hover tanks are well known to be very maneuverable and can move in all sorts of terrain, even over water, mud, and sand which are usually problems for conventional vehicles. This is at the cost of having a weight limit on how heavy the final tank can be, being proportional on how powerful the hover engine is. The more powerful it is, the heavier the tank can be at the cost of being more expensive. The Canderous is clad in beskar, which is already a very dense metal, it being the size of a 2-3 story building, and then there's the added weight of a shield generator, the Concussion Missile Battery, Mass Driver ammo, and Taunt system adding even more weight. I shudder at what this thing's price tag is going to be if it entered production.
I assume that since this is a hover tank, there is no need to maintain tracks and transmissions which were present in tanks in my past lives, which are usually the parts to break the most often. But the fact that the Canderous needs a powerful hover engine to lift itself means that replacing it when it's damaged or doing general maintenance of more high tech parts is going to be an extremely expensive and time consuming procedure. I guess the benefit of having such a powerful hover engine is the fact that the tank can reach a top speed of 50km/h, which is a respectable speed for a tank that big and heavy.
Mandalore might be in a somewhat similar position to the Germans and the Empire at the end of their war. There is no chance whatsoever that Mandalore can compete with the Republic or the Outer Rim in terms of raw production when both had thousand of planets to call upon, and the government doesn't have the funds to expand its military to compete with them when most of our funds were funneled to the terraforming and rebuilding projects. Thus quality might be the only option Mandalore has to not get overwhelmed by the weight of numbers from 2 galactic superpowers. However an alternative may be present in the form of combined arms doctrine. Instead of relying on the brute force of heavy tank doctrine, we rely on all of the combat arms working in concert that requires a disproportionate amount of force to dislodge or defeat. This is what I would likely base Mandalore's war doctrine on. It makes use of our highly trained troops to outmaneuver any invader and either defeat them in detail or with overwhelming force that they don't have the chance to retaliate. This should ensure favorable engagements against a numerically superior force whilst minimizing casualties, with our relatively low population we cannot afford to get into a war of attrition. It's just a general idea for now, but when I have the time I'll refine it to be actually usable.
Thus, while I doubt the Canderous will be the Main Battle Tank of Mandalore with its price tag, it could still be a powerful asset when properly supported if we do get backed into a corner, as well as be the root of some better ideas. Instead of outright canceling the project, which I probably should have done, I sent down orders to what design staff remained on the project to produce lighter versions of it. Did it need two cannons? No, make it one barrel then. Did it need to be so large? No, not really. So make it smaller so we can make the most out of the amount of Beskar that we do have. Did it need those missiles that fired up from the rear of the turret? Not really, but I would admit an armored vehicle with Concussion Missiles to support troops in the field is not exactly a bad idea so maybe put it in a dedicated vehicle that could make full use of its missile armament.
For now, the Canderous as it is right now is too expensive for widespread use. However, having a few in reserve could be the right tool when a sledgehammer is required to break an enemy position. So I have X4 tell the designers of the Canderous to trim down the tank as well as do whatever they can to make it cheaper to build, maintain, and supply while still fulfilling its role as a heavy tank. But I also told them that I would like to have an even smaller version of it for general use as a main battle tank, capable of doing a wide range of roles instead of specializing as a breakthrough vehicle.
Other than a cheaper tank, I also wanted a missile artillery vehicle if possible, those could be rather effective in launching a volley before using their speed to escape counter-battery fire. If those missiles could target aircraft then they can double as AA protection. They would be just as profitable over the long term since artillery are always in need as the King of Battle. Finally I wanted an Infantry Fighting Vehicle to transport Mechanized Infantry that would support the MBTs in open battle as well as move them quickly on a strategic level.
The Canderous is a sledgehammer in the form of a tank and having a sledgehammer in my toolbox to hammer a very big nail is nice to have, however not every problem can be solved with a sledgehammer. It's likely that the Canderous would never be produced in large numbers as it is, but we'll see if it's viable after the designer trimmed it down a bit. Or I guess if the Hutts wanted them they would probably make a nice and easy profit for the company, the Beskar armor might need to be replaced with Durasteel for obvious reasons.
With a need for armed neutrality possibly coming up, I'm sure the Republic would have their own tank production. With big names like Kuat Drive Yards and its subsidiaries are more than capable of making their own vehicles. I also know the Separatists would also have their own vehicle production from Baktoid, I have seen some war footage from the Naboo Crisis and had seen their strangely tall hover tanks. If any conflict were to brew between this neutral state and the war participants, having our own armored vehicles that could counter theirs would be instrumental in preventing us from getting run over by their tanks.
Besides those points of interest, I left everything else to X4 to run. I trusted him to do a good job and have increased his funding on several of his own projects that I was not particularly keen on keeping an eye on. I already knew that whatever it was, it would probably produce some wealth for the company and White Silver in a way.
Leaning back in my chair I turned to look out my window at the Coruscant City skyline or I guess you could just call it the skyline at this point. Maintaining all these separate little projects were complicated but doable. Although, my most recent projects had apparently seen some unintended side quests.
Breshig was scheduled for terraforming and I had attempted to reach out to the population's governor only to find that no one really ran the place. So there was really no one to say no to. And so I thought that the situation was over and I need not worry about it.
So I had moved on to directing the Royal Mandalore Museum to start assembling teams of employees to search old battlefields for equipment and armor left behind as well as any relics so we could start archiving our history properly.
This is where things went sideways as one of my employees, who had recently come under my control, had requested a meeting and said there was a concern about the relics and equipment on Breshig. I thought it was cleared of such items long ago but I may be wrong it seems.
The possibility that the terraforming project might interfere with the collecting project was annoying to me but I knew that I needed to hear this employee out. I had had one of my Lancers pick them up and they were due to arrive from the Mandalore Sector sometime today. He should already be here and on his way up the tower for all I know. Whatever was happening on Breshig, I needed to have that settled quickly and find out what exactly was the concern.
My thoughts were interrupted as X4's voice came over the intercom and said, "Mistress Tanya, a Zoll Bresh from Breshig has arrived and wishes to speak with you."
'Ah timing.' I thought before saying, "Let him in X4."
I didn't have to wait long as a moment later the doors to my office opened. Stepping in is a Mandalorian in full orange armor. Rather surprising but if they wanted to declare themselves as having a lust for life and freedom that was up to them. I even respected that to a bit as it charmed my libertarian heart.
Standing up I greeted, "Mr. Bresh, good to see you. I hope your flight here was not too troublesome."
I smiled as the orange armored male nodded before saying, "The flight was quite nice, Representative Kryze." 'Formal', I noted as he stepped forward, asking, "Do you enforce a helmet on or off policy while on Coruscant?"
Well that's a question I did not expect to hear before saying, "I don't enforce either. Though most people do prefer to see a person's face when they're communicating with our own."
He nodded before reaching up and pulling his orange helmet off revealing a gentleman with dark hair and a darker complexion. "Then I will endeavor to do as the Coruscanti do for today."
Chuckling, I indicated the seat in front of me and said, "Well then let us get down to business shall we. What seems to be the problem that requires a face-to-face meeting?" He nodded his head and moved to take the seat across for me, as he took that seat I got a good view of the rest of his armor and besides being a Mandolorian who preferred the color orange there were some other oddities, lots of little gadgets and doodads that seemed to be designed for crafting and mechanical work hanging off various areas. Though I noticed with some pride that someone had taken his blaster pistol before he got in here as his holster was empty. Granted I knew he was probably carrying 10 different weapons hidden in his armor somewhere but we needed to put on the show of being civilized at the very least.
"My homeworld is what brought me here. I've recently heard about plans to terraform it back to something pre-swamp and though I agree that needs to be done I feel that my homeworld has been forgotten for the relics that it contains. When I heard that there was also a project to start finding those relics, well, I knew that I needed to speak with whoever was in charge."
I nodded, I was vaguely familiar with that world's history. Before the Scouring 700 years ago or so, Breshig had rivaled Mandalore and many of the other Mandalorian homeworlds of the sector and had a capital ship building industry that put everything that has existed together now to shame. But during the conflict, the polar ice caps of the planet had been blasted to bits and promptly melted, raising the temperature to the point that they did not return and the melted permafrost flooding most of the land under a foot or two of water.
Add in that there was actually no one there to clean up the bodies and most of the buildings had been destroyed and turned to rubble. There was a reason that Breshig was considered a swamp world. Nature had started to take it over but most of the ecology had been destroyed during the fighting so very few plant life types were left, besides things that could grow in shallow water. There's that and I heard rumors that the local zoo had not been destroyed during that period and released what could best be described as large freshwater alligators and crocodiles into that environment. The planet was not friendly to human life at this point.
Taking those thoughts into note I said, "Well I don't really know what there is to say about your homeworld, everything I've heard is that any and all relics are well and truly destroyed in the bombardment of the world or scavenged by the local clans at this point
Bresh nodded instead, "Understandable, our history has mostly been forgotten due to the events of the Scouring but rumors that it has all been destroyed are a bit overstated to some points. Under about 30 ft of water in the southern hemisphere lies the Breshig Museum of Space Maritime Designs, a facility containing every Mandalore design ever created for war on that planet. As far as anyone knows the archives were not destroyed during the conflict and though it is deep underwater in somewhat dangerous areas considering the wildlife, it is still accessible to those willing to risk it."
"What do you mean still accessible? If it's underwater, shouldn't the records that you're talking about be destroyed by simple corrosion or shorting out due to being underwater."
"Ah very true, under 30 ft of water most items not prepared for such conditions are liable to be destroyed but here's the thing this museum was 10 ft underwater before the conflict. It was designed so that its contents would be well protected in case of a bombardment and be preserved in the event the museum is submerged."
I leaned forward at that, a repository of knowledge secretly lost but still there? Who knows what could be there. I asked, "If this facility is designed for the conditions it is now in, how do you know it is still functional? I would have assumed a bombardment would have targeted it at some point."
Smiling, the young man said, "It's still functional because I've been there. After I repaired one of the many older ships that survived on the surface of that planet, I used it to dive down to the center and attempted to gain access. Unfortunately in order to gain access you need a special kind of connection port one that my ship did not have. And the only other way would be to cut a way in and unless this was done correctly, you'd risk flooding the facility and destroying it, something I was not willing to do at the time. I was however willing to travel all the way around this facility in the ship I'd created and confirmed that yes the facility is still intact, in fact I think their lights were still on inside in a few areas. If I had to guess, the facility was created with an energy reactor that could produce enough energy to keep it running for a couple hundred years and whoever was in it probably set everything to low power mode before escaping."
Okay so we got ourselves a bit of a treasured resource hidden on the planet, ship designs weren't exactly needed, especially designs from seven centuries ago but what other items could there be on that planet besides this museum that was an intriguing question to me. Ancient secrets lost to history just waiting for re-discovery was a tantalizing prospect no matter the context.
Clasping my hands in front of my face I asked, "I have two questions then. Are there any other relics like this museum in Breshig? And this is the most important one, is there anything else in that facility that could be useful to Mandalore."
Zoll Bresh smiled before saying, "There are whole ships still in their dry docks with some dating back to the Ancient Mandalorian Wars and most are in a rather preserved state. The water has corroded some holes but some halls I have noted are made from beskar and have not corroded at all. As for what else could be in that museum, rumors tell that it also had records for every ship ever lost that had been created on that world and their location or general location of loss."
"A literal treasure trove of information." I said rubbing my chin, the possibility of lost ships being returned to service could definitely help out with the lack of ships that the Self-Defense Force would be running into. Granted these hulls would probably be ancient but a ship's a ship. At best we could put them in dry dock over in Kalevala and see if they couldn't be upgraded to modern standards, at worst they could be salvaged and the materials be used in the construction of new ships or other items if some of these ships dated back to the Neo Crusader era. That was still a lot of beskar to salvage, considering I'd seen some indications that whole halls were made solely from beskar back then. That practice was, well, frankly abandoned by this point for obvious reasons. Having some fighters and tanks clad in beskar is a tall order but still doable since they were still insanely expensive now and no one really liked to send beskar outside the sector anyway.
I gave this subject a few more thoughts before I said, "You have convinced me, this is worth investigating." Taking out a pad for my desk I quickly wrote out a note and then keyed it with my fingerprint locking it so only the recipient of the note would receive it.
Handing it over I said, "If you don't mind getting back on a ship and heading straight from Mandalore right away, I could arrange a meeting with my brother who has a larger income for this particular project and the time to oversee it."
Nodding his head he said, "I have all the time in the world to help my homeworld, as much as it's a disaster, the chance to get it a little bit more recognition and the history of Mandalore is well worth it."
I smiled and reached across the desk to shake his hand, saying, "That's the goal of this project, go and secure your planet's history for Mandalore."
He nodded and stood up and said, "Thank you, Representative Kryze." before leaving as I leaned back in my seat relaxed. If this project was successful, it would be a potentially massive windfall for the Mandalorian historical society. Not only would it have shown that records could be saved and shared for the benefit of the Mandalore Sector but if those ships were real, it would encourage other people to start digging through their own records see if they have any information about lost vessels, armor, or other equipment it could be useful for Mandalore's protection.
I would not be surprised if as these records started to be shared, puzzle pieces would be put together about fates of certain vessels that have been lost for generations, as well as other stories that were never fully completed. And I can only hope that it would be good stories that came out of this and not start any blood feuds that have been forgotten.
Leaning back, at peace with myself I reached over and grabbed the strange box the Ordos had gifted me and tossed it in the air a couple times. I know I should probably be a little bit careful with these relics, I may have to return them to the Jedi someday but well this thing seems sturdy enough and doing this helped me improve my hand-eye coordination a bit.
Whole galaxy may be on the end of a war but things seem to be going my way for once.
Gargon, Mandal Hypernautics Office
Bo Katan Kryze
I had to say this was the sweetest job I'd ever got myself. Granted I'd only ever had three jobs: bounty hunting for a short time, mercenary work guarding supply convoys, and tutoring Tanya but still of the three this was the best paying and easiest one ever to take up.
Training the local Garrison into something that could actually fight was a simple job, most of them already had a good head on their shoulders and years of experience for the most part. There were a few who were outliers, either New Mandalorians or people who apparently were living in the Mandalorian Sector but weren't part of any of the Mandalorian Clans but they either learned to sink or swim.
And most of them seem to learn to swim, the New Mandalorians quickly taking on their old culture from the Mandalorians around them and the not so Mandalorians picking it up as well, quickly learning the language is a key tenant of this new Ranger outfit.
Tanya basically left me to do all the work on figuring out how to make this group of individuals work as a police force which was tough enough considering this planet was not exactly known for having a population that wanted a police force but I soldiered on and figured it out. Thankfully, Tanya's little silver book worked well in designing the curriculum especially for those on the not so Mandalorian side of things.
The six tenants of course worked well in trying to build a culture of what this unit should be. With enough training I think that they would be able to go one to one with the mafia Mandos, if that was needed. Thankfully they're only enforcers and were not interested in starting a fight. They seem to be keen on this organization existing to try and improve the outlook of their planet's future as well as do their work for them in keeping the peace.
No one suspected that in the next three or four months I would have the rangers trained up to a point that I was not needed to even run this organization and would just be able to sit back and relax for this job. Of course, I now have two jobs, this job which required much of my attention and a job that required me to make trips to Mandalore.
Who would have ever seen me being able to train my sister back up to combat status as an actual thing that would happen. Not me I don't think anyone would have. Granted no one knew about these meetings and our little spars but it was nice to have my sister back again. She refused to touch any violent weapons but unarmed combat was an important part of Mandalorian culture and it wasn't like she wasn't carrying around a blaster pistol specifically designed for stun mode. She may prefer non-lethal methods but she still was learning to fight which was better than what she had been doing in my mind.
And I probably would be scheduling more trips to Mandalore soon. We finally found Zum after a while, he had apparently been keeping a low profile for the last few months by hiding in his tropical island safehouse in Cheravh, just so he didn't get in any trouble. Well now that he was found, he's been building Satine her new set of armor. Once that was finished, more training would be needed, meaning I would need to make more appearances.
Oh also, the other crazy things X4 put me up to, that Droid had a few screws loose I think. One morning, the orders coming down from him made sense. There was a possibility of a galactic war about the spring into existence and he was interested in improving production of fighters and redesigning that huge tank Gerr was planning on using to something more efficient and affordable. Technically that was not my issue, that was Toza's issue but he complained enough that I heard about it, since we work together quite often. He was having to work to get production back up to pre-False Silver levels while also attempting to build a stockpile of weapons and armor for the Rangers in case something happened here. It's reasonable considering this planet was right in the direct path of both potential participants in this army.
But that wasn't too crazy no, the crazy part was the other stuff X4 got up to. Such as the current project to improve Mandal Hypernautics image and Gargon's image through hiring of talented young individuals, to be company spokespeople… or as he had informed me "Idols". What the hell an idol was? I didn't know before yesterday. But now I did and I hated every single moment of my existence because of it. Mainly because he had given that job to me to do. The pay raise was rather nice but having to go through dozens of hopefuls to find people who could sing, dance, and generally be entertaining was not something I know what to do with.
I wasn't exactly musically talented, I had fought most of my life, sure, I knew a few songs from the old days when we would sit around campfires in Kalevala. That did not make me musically talented though. If the job didn't pay so well I probably would have refused it but as it was I just had to go with my gut and hope I found what we were looking for. So far no, no it was absolutely shit, I might put up a few posters offering a position as a spokesperson in listing the requirements as musically talented and a few other things that I thought were necessary for a person to represent not only Mandal Hypernautics but Gargon. And I had to deal with three takers so far the first had been an absolute disaster.
The first man could not sing to save his life and I would not be surprised if it could likely kill someone. In fact I'm pretty sure my aide had lost the ability to hear for a couple hours after listening to the guy. The only reason I still had my hearing was I had kept my helmet on so I could keep my thoughts to myself during the whole thing and it simply turned him off at the start. The second hadn't actually read the part about musically talented and assumed all he would have to do is talk about the products I've been escorted off the property. And the third had been an assassination attempt. One of Gerr's Black Merc goons that apparently have not been picked up by the local enforcers or my Rangers yet and have just been hiding and waiting for an opportunity to strike. My aide Cylah Troa, a former Black mercenary herself, had quickly dispatched the bastard at the cost of the audition table which she used to slam the assassin's back into. Granted, I had my vambrace ready to put a hole the idiot but my aide who was standing nearby, got to him first.
Three swings, three strikes. I should probably give up on this but well a job's a job.
A knock came from my door and I looked up before saying, "Come in." Well there wasn't much for anyone that came into my office. It was not large per se but still pretty barren. A simple desk, a few pads that I needed, and for the most part a nice comfy chair. I should probably look into decorating it or something but it wasn't really a priority.
As the door opened, the aide that I mentioned before entered the room. Besides that, she actually used to be a Black Iron mercenary as well, but before that she was a former independent mercenary before Black Iron initiated a recruitment drive to fulfill Gerr's manpower requirement for his army. She's a member of the lower rungs of the organization and not a direct thrall of the former CEO. She's a good fighter though and seemed rather reliable so I made her my secretary for the foreseeable future. And thanks to that whole thing of the assassination attempt on my life, she now had a bonus to her income. Probably should give her a little bit more actually since she had been looking after the Rangers while I traveled off world to help my sister.
Cylah Troa was wearing these standard coloration for the rangers a mix of silver and brown, also she did wear red highlighting on her helmets that had existed before taking up a position in the rangers. And considering she was still wearing her helmet it's quite obvious that she learned her lesson and prepared herself to mute them in case of another terrible music act.
"Miss Katan, a trio has arrived to attempt to take the position as the company's spokesperson. Should I just tell them to leave?"
"A trio?" I asked. I haven't considered the possibility of a group showing up but hey I'd already had three failures why not have three failures at once. Out loud I said, "No no, let them in. I will give them a chance to either sink or swim."
She nodded and stepped in waving to whoever was outside to come in.
A moment later a woman in her mid 20s, I would guess, in a silver and black set of armor stepped in. Followed by two girls, both 14 or 15, I would estimate just by their size. One was wearing green and black armor, the other in pink and black. The armor looked old and beat up, which would make it obvious that they were from the nomadic clans as the style was of super commando variant but parts of it were bulky, possibly dating back to the shock trooper era armor design that had been popular about 2,000 years ago I think. I wasn't much of a history geek compared to Tanya but I had been somewhat interested in how armor developed at one point. Every Mando kid dreamed of customizing their own armor, and looking at cool armor from back then for inspiration is the usual way to go about it.
"Good afternoon and welcome to Mandal Hypernautics. I believe you three are interested in the role of being our company's spokespeople."
The silver and black one nodded before saying, "Yes, I am Miri Chour and these are my sisters, Khovi and Shomso. We heard that they were looking for someone who could sing and well one of the few skills we've acquired over years is singing so we thought we could try."
Well that wasn't much of an answer but it was good enough I figured. Indicating with my hand that they could continue I said, "Well show me what you got."
Nodding her head she cleared her throat and said, "This is a tune that's been passed down in my family for generations dating back to, reportedly, the Neo Crusader era."
She's going to be taking a moment to get her center in the meantime the two younger sisters of the trio began banging on their own chest armor with their fists laying down a slow melodic beat. The two younger sisters begin to singing first
"A world alight with WAR! A world alight with WAR!!"
Miri Chour started up then, "AS THE JEDI FELL UPON US AND WE UPON THEM!"
"A world alight with WAR! As we held the GALAXY BY THE THROAT!" The pair continued.
"A million, million souls from uncounted worlds! The force of battle shifted the very ground they charged across."
"Every soul alight, every shout for blood!"
"As the Jedi General looked on resolutely." Miri Chour sang.
"AND THE EARTH SHOOK! AND THE ARMOUR CRACKED!" sang the pair as they continued pounding on their armor.
"AND THE ARRRMIIESS OF THE GALAXY KNELT!" Miri Chour came in again "JEDI AND MANDALORIAN AND REPUBLICAN TROOPER! BOWED BEFORE A SINGLE STRIKE!"
"And the world alight with War shattered!" Pair was back "And the Galaxy took breath!" And the Crusaders beheld!"
"A WORLD SHATTERED BY WAR!" Miri Chour was back
"Ghosts of the Galaxy!" Pair came in
"OF THE GREATEST CRUSADE!" Miri Chour
"Fought on as a shattered world!" All three of them were singing at this point. "Brothers in death! And the war was won!"
"The grave of a million, million from countless worlds!"
"On a world alight with war!" Just the pair sing them out. The banging of their armor came to a slow close, as the song ended.
Well seeing as their faces were under a helmet, I couldn't tell if they were anxious or not and in turn they couldn't tell what I was thinking. But I could say one thing but three of them could sing and that was better than the other attempts. Where only one of the other attempts actually tried to sing but hey progress was progress and this had been quite a bit of progress in my mind.
The real question was had this been enough progress to hire them, which was actually a non-question. They could sing, they could sing together, and put on a rather good spectacle with their use of armor. The songs they knew were old and very centered on the ancient wars if that song was to go by. But I was sure I could probably find one of the many poets out there to write some lyrics that were less violent having to do with Mandalorian lifestyles.
Nodding my head I finally decided that yeah this could work. Reaching my hands up I pulled my helmet off and put it on the edge of the table before smiling and saying, "You're hired."
Whether they had been experiencing some sort of motion behind their helmets I didn't know but the moment they heard they were hired they were in a group hug celebrating which was a rather touching moment from the outside.
Mandalore, Royal Palace
Zum Murdoc
Things are taking an awfully strange course since I had last been in Mandalore. Heck, last time I was in the Mandalore System I would have been afraid that I was going to be hunted down by the Duchess's goons for supplying weapons to a madman. And even after I cleaned that mess up thanks to Tanya's intervention, I'd still assume that I should probably avoid the system for a while. Just in case she was in a rightfully bad mood about me being involved with Tanya's little effort to unseat the CEO.
So I decided to lay low in my favorite tropical island safehouse on Cheravh after an extended voyage across the sector selling as much equipment out of my stock as possible. Simply so that if someone came knocking it would not look as if I was running new weapons and armor as heavily as I had been doing. I had totally expected to see a call from the Duchess waiting for me. And she had sent someone to let me know that she asked me to come to her Palace, so there wasn't exactly much I could do. Sure I could run, but that would just make me look guilty in case it was something other than her annoyance at me helping Tanya. As much as that girl thought you could hide this whole mess from the Duchess, even I doubted that.
So I ended up going to the Royal Palace expecting to either be locked up or berated for helping Tanya. When Satine had ordered her guards outside of the room I knew I was not being locked up so I had braced for the inevitable lecture.
That I had not received, "I have to thank you for helping Tanya with the whole issue." Which was a step in the right direction that I'm not going to jail. The next part though, had been something that was a bit more threatening. She asked me to make her a new set of armor, a surprising task considering the fact she's been melting down more armor and I think the Republic ever got a chance to do so. But I wasn't going to say no to this demand. She had me dead to rights and she said she had admired the craftsmanship on Tanya's new green armor…the green armor of course being the set I had made for her from Satine's armor, which told me exactly what the situation was.
'Make her a new set of armor or I would be arrested for being involved in stealing her old set.' I could see the threat so here I was deep in the Royal Palace's forge, banging together beskar and Mandalorian Iron, to forge a new set of armor for someone who I had given up any idea that they would ever ask for this again. Though it was nice to actually be doing a job for House Kryze again as I thought Tanya would be my last chance at that. I wondered if Tanya's enthusiasm for armor has spread to the rest of her family. Maybe I'd finally be able to take Adonai the Second's armor and forge it for his son too in the future.
Sighing internally, I simply turn my attention back to work. Maybe I'd get another chance to build armor for the family, maybe I wouldn't, but I would do my best with this set of armor. I've been asked to make a set of armor for the Duchess to wear for political situations, not combat though. But just in case there is an assaination attempt or something, I'm not going to skimp on the defense features. That being said, I was going for a heavier style than what most Mandalorians would prefer. Most would prefer a simple plate arrangement so they could use a jetpack, some like myself go for super thick plates that didn't exactly do well under jetpack situations and turned them into more like jump packs as they couldn't maintain the thrust necessary to keep the user airborne because they were too heavy.
The one in front of me was actually kind of a mid-range armor. It's a full plate but not a half inch piece of armor as some of the heavy plates would go.
It has a solid chest piece that went all the way down to cover most of the gut and was taking every bit of skill to shape it correctly since I needed to be as perfect as possible. Building solid plates of iron is easy. Building small plates that could be put on one of the vests is simple as well, it's just very tedious. Creating a plate of iron that would contour the right shape is a pain in the ass as an error in shaping it needed to be pounded back into the right shape. I had to tweak the power of the pneumatic hammer a few times to get the right amount of power but I relish the challenge.
"How's the work, Zum?" a voice from behind me, I barely heard it over the sound of iron being pounded into the right contour thanks to the very expensive electric power hammer. Thinking about it, I turned the hammer to its standby setting while I re-insert the armor piece to the magnetic forge to reheat it back to a state that it can be hammered into shape much more easily, before turning to face the Duchess. Pulling out a rag I cleaned up my gloves and said, "The work goes well. I think I should have the sets of protective plates ready in a week or two. I'm pulling out all the stops and using every trick and technique that I know of in this project, but I think it'll be worth it."
She smiled and nodded before asking, "How much skill exactly? You said you were going to go all out on this but you didn't exactly describe some of the things you were planning to do. Remember this armor is supposed to be in line with the new doctrine where armor is meant for self-defense, no weapons on it."
I nodded and waved my hand before saying, "I know, I know. I've not gone senile yet. No weapons were included in the making of these armor. Though I do plan to include a little bit of a small shield that could be deployed from the torso. Just in case you get shot by an assassin with a beskar bullet or something. Besides, I actually kind of relish the idea of working on a defensive focused set like this, it adds an extra layer of challenge."
Walking over to the helmet I picked it up and showed it to her, "First off, we have this little neat thing." Reaching to the side of the helmet, I pressed a hidden latch and the front of the helmet opened up into three pieces that retracted to the sides and top of the helmet.
"Old tradition, very old tradition, said that Mandalorians used masks not helmets so I thought I would go back to that, this allows you to easily take the mask off and have a conversation to see a person's face or you know wear it like a normal helmet. I'm sure the designers of whatever garments that will go around this armor will love the idea."
She nodded and said, "That's splendid. Anything else I should know about?"
I nodded, putting the helmet down and pulling up a vambrace. "Although you said no weapons, I did include this." I opened the vambrace and I showed that there was a compartment that could fit something small like a pistol. "I heard from Bo that you tend to use a deactivator pistol. If you wanted I could see about getting a deactivator and integrate it into this vambrace for stun mode vambrace. If you don't want it, well you got a nice little pocket in your vambrace to store anything you want to hide in there. It also has an energy shield too for extra protection."
Satine nodded looking at it before saying, "I didn't consider that but I would prefer to stick closest to the unarmed armor doctrine as possible."
I noted that before saying, "What's old is new then." As I put the vambrace down on the table.
"Old is new?" she asked, sounding curious.
"Right, always forget that Armorer legends don't usually spread past Armorers. Supposedly long before the Neo Crusaders, back during the original Crusades, it was actually frowned upon to put weapons in your armor and it was more normal for combat between Mandalorians to happen unarmed but in armor. So going back to an unarmed set of armor is returning to the roots of what is Mandalorian in a way."
"Huh, I wonder if Tanya knows about that?" The Duchess asked absent-mindedly as she rubbed her chin.
"She was always asking questions about armor, when we were working on her set." I responded, matter of factly before I realized that might be a sore point.
If it was, she showed no visible emotions about it which was probably the scariest thing in the entire room. "Hmm sounds like you unintentionally helped create her White Silver document then."
"Did I?" I replied with a raised eyebrow. "I've never actually looked at the darn thing even after I found out Tanya was responsible for it. Is there something in there I should have been paying attention to?"
"Well the document did speak about the importance of armors to the Mandalorian heritage and their use to the economy. All those reforms I've been having over the years are related to your work and our response to that document."
"Huh, good girl then," I said with a smile as I moved over to the armor before continuing the information on the armor. "Back to the armor, another technique I've been working on, goes back to the Crusader era as well, to a point at least. Back then, each piece of armor was custom-made and often not made of beskar but pieces of bone, often from the mythosaur. Now all mythosaurs are dead and gone so their bones are hard to get but I was able to get a few pieces which I'm incorporating their ivory into this piece here will make up a shoulder collar armor. It'll be designed to basically hold a cape in place and you can easily click this joint here." I pulled out what appeared to be a solid piece of beskar with bone smoothly integrated into it. A point under the right side of the collar caused the latch to let go and the piece to fall in open.
"Not only does it quickly detach the ceremonial pieces, but it also gets rid of the cape so that it doesn't distract you if you get into a fight."
She nodded her head and asked, "Is that going to be a key point in the design philosophy?"
I smiled at that and said, "Yep, every piece of equipment that is there is simply to pretty it up. It can easily be removed by a click of your fingers, leaving you with only the important pieces of equipment that would save your life in an emergency. It may be meant for ceremonial purposes but I want you to be able to fight if you need to."
"Hmm you know that's not a bad idea. Would you mind if I send a droid down here to film this process?"
That raised my eyebrow, "I think I actually would. No armorer likes to have their secret techniques getting out there, I would be ostracized by the other armorers."
She knew that but quickly came back with a response, "What if you were allowed to edit the footage to keep your secret techniques?"
My eyebrow was still raised, but I said, "Alright, go on Duchess, what are you thinking?"
"One of the ideas in the Silver Codex was a simple idea of creating our own media for Mandalore and this is a prime example of what kind of media could be created. Showing some of the creation of non-violent armor made for not only self-defense but for ceremonial purposes."
"I don't know." This is something that I had to think it through. On one hand I'd risk losing some clients who were not exactly friends to the New Order that the New Mandalorians brought in. On the other hand, if the armor I created inspired more New Mandalorians to pick up the armor in some way or form that could counteract the loss of some of the old clientele.
Finally I nodded before saying, "All right, I would be okay with this. But if we're going to go for that, maybe we should go bigger and bolder."
"Bigger?" She sounds like she is interested.
"Right now I'm just using pieces of armor you handed me, which came from your parents and the mythosaur bone I was able to scrounge up. But if I was to be given a bit of a budget, I could get a few more glamorous items, such as those azure stones from the Draboon and maybe a few other rare materials from across the Mandalorian sector. Really go full ceremonial garb, but I'll add a quick release for a cape that would get it out of the way of a jetpack if you want to put one on for a quick escape."
Satine seemed to think about it for a moment before nodding her agreement and saying, "That could easily be arranged. I should also have my dressmaker make an appearance down here, after all she is going to be making the flight suit that would be worn with this equipment. Might as well let her have an input on it."
I smiled at that and said, "Sounds like a plan to me." and started to turn back towards the forge before I heard her cough and say something else.
"By the way, what kind of suit of armor did you give Tanya?"
"Which one?"
"My old armor."
Ah so she actually hadn't seen it yet and was just pulling my leg earlier. Turning, I said, "It's just a standard super commando style, she wanted it to be practical over being showy."
"Unfortunate," she said before continuing, "any chance that you could create similar editions that you're planning for this set for Tanya's? If I'm going to have ceremonial armor, it would probably be best if she did as well."
"Hmm, I think I could do that easily enough." I said, "Although I doubted Tanya would be thrilled with that as she seemed to enjoy the mobility."
"But we all serve the Duchess as well and maybe this would be a little bit of a punishment for the whole White Silver Rebellion."
Mandalore, Royal Academy Dorm
Korkie Kryze
The galaxy changes, that was something I was having to get used to.
Attending the Royal Academy was theoretically not a military pursuit. Self-defense was a major component of the course here but it was meant for more diplomacy between clans than actual military advancement in the society.
That being said, I'd always known that many of the students here would go on to either get careers in the Royal Guard, the Mandalorian Guard, or that Self-Defense Force would be useful and would be a stepping stone to further on their career.
I had accepted that it was a thing that was going to happen no matter how many people welded themselves to the steps of the palace. Yes, we had abandoned our barbaric ways but we need to be able to bring Justice and Law down on those who did not. Things had changed recently though, the announcement of a Self-Defense Force for the protection of Mandalore had riled up the student body quite a bit. I tried to stay out of the politics of it, which was a hard job considering I was related to the people making the policies. However, even I could see that this decision had made the Royal Academy a bit of a powder keg.
The teenagers in favor of White Silver's philosophy, of course, were all interested in joining the Self-Defense Force and I heard many talking in the halls about how they would be signing up for that instead of the Guards if they were allowed. The more pacifist aligned New Mandalorians that had not gone around claiming support for White Silver and were rather annoyed with the whole prospect that led to a couple scuffles, no real fights but it was more like debates amongst the teenagers about the future of Mandalore.
I could understand that, even though I could raise a good point as to why the Self-Defense Force was a bit of a bad idea. It did basically admit that White Silver had a point and that the goals of pacifism could not be reached through the sole pacifism of one side. Considering for the last 20 odd years, some New Mandalorians have been building this idea that if you just give up needing to fight we would be better off as a civilization. It just kind of stings to see those who are either throwing themselves into the idea fully or had been a bit coerced into the idea.
Thankfully, I had been noticing less debates in the last week so maybe this whole situation would pass and we could focus on our studies again. Summer break was coming up, which means we would have a month or two to go back home and be able to calm down about these sorts of situations.
Hopefully it would at least stop the inevitable as people would go into their military adventurous careers after their time at the Royal Academy was up. Be it at the Guard or Self-Defense Force. Personally, I didn't care about the whole military adventurism. I understood why we were looking into this whole situation now, the Galaxy seemed to be getting a little bit less friendly all of a sudden. But that wouldn't make me change my opinions on where I was going when my time in the Royal Academy was up. The civil service is simple as I'd help with paperwork and other duties required of people that keep the government running. Maybe occasionally work as a small-time diplomat between clans here in the Mandalorian Sector? Past that I hadn't really thought much about it.
Soniee, I wasn't really sure what she's going to be doing. Lagos, had mentioned about possibly going into the Guards, and Amis had been quite tight lipped about what his interests were. I suspected he had an interest in joining the Royal Guard, he had always been more action-oriented.
Letting out a deep and concerned sigh I walked the hallways and found my way to the shared co-ed room I had with my friends.
Amis and Lagos were in the corner talking about something as they looked out the one window onto the desert that was Mandalore surface, and Soniee was on her computer doing something. I wasn't a tech guy and the fact that she was wearing a pair of head glasses that allowed her to see the screen and no one else made guessing what she was up to nearly impossible.
"Hey there Korkie." Soniee called from the receipt, giving me a little wave without really focusing on me as she worked on her computer.
"Afternoon." I greeted back before taking a seat across from her, "What's up with everybody today?"
The two at the window shrugged before saying, "Nothing much, we're just planning for summer vacation."
I nodded at that before taking a seat next to Amis, saying, "Anything fun planned?" They shrugged again before saying, "Maybe go to the mall? I don't know." Amis said
Amis said, "There's not a lot to do nowadays. It feels like one of the terrible things about getting older, I guess you're not as entertained by stuff you used to be."
"That's your opinion." Soniee said, not even looking up from her computer.
I chuckled at that. I was about to continue the conversation when I heard a knock on the door. "Is anyone expecting someone to come by?" There was a resounding shake of heads all looking as confused as I so I got up and walked over to the door pressing a button to open it.
Standing there and basically full orange Mandalorian armor was a man I did not recognize. Before I could ask who he was he gave a short bow before speaking. "Good evening Mr. Kryze, I hope you're having a wonderful evening. I've come bearing a note from your sister." He held out a small pad and I took it.
It was a design that would open upon it reading my fingerprints so I quickly got to reading it and was somewhat stumped and startled by what I read.
Looking up I asked, "So if I'm reading this correctly Tanya sent you here to ask me to fund and oversee an operation to scavenge lost data and possibly ships in an underwater museum in Breshig?"
"That's the general gist of it, these ships and data represent a piece of Mandalorian heritage that's likely to be irreparably damaged during the terraforming process. Probably in the next few years as the terraforming project begins on the planet. So there's only a short opportunity to recover it before it is lost for good."
"I don't know about this." I muttered, poking around on a world that was ultimately considered a lost cause was not exactly something that I thought would work well for the whole Royal museum concept but then again Tanya had sent him along so she must believe it's possible.
Soniee from over my shoulder said, "So you're going to go to a planet that's flooded to search for lost relics of the past." Turning I saw that Soniee was smiling before saying, "You know remember that thing we were saying where we don't actually have anything to do this summer. Getting involved in a little bit of archaeological adventure sounds like a swell time for a summer vacation."
Looking at the others, Lagos shrugged before adding, "If you guys are going on an adventure to Breshig, I wouldn't mind going there. My family is supposed to be from there according to some of the oldest stories."
Soniee said, "If we're collecting data, you do need a competent slicer and I'm pretty competent if I do say so myself."
"Sorry guys, as much as that's an entertaining thought, there's no way it's just going to be the four of us. In order to get this operation going we would need to hire several hundred people, experts in their field."
"Yeah sure," Amis said, "but that doesn't mean they won't need people to just lift and carry stuff. And a trip off Mandalore to probably the wettest world in the entire Sector sounds a lot more interesting than going to the arcade again." he pointed out and I had to agree.
"Fine," I turned to the man in orange armor and said, "I'll contact my aunt and attempt to get an operation together to go salvaging on the planet. Earliest we'll be able to leave is probably within 2 to 3 weeks anyways because we'll have to get the right equipment and all that and we'll be out of school by then. That's fine right?"
The orange helmeted man nodded at his head before saying, "Perfectly fine. I am staying at a hotel in the lower sectors of the city." Zoll Bresh pulled out a card and handed it to me, "My name's Zoll Bresh, just contact me when things are starting to come together and you need my information."
"Thank you." I replied, earning a resolute nod from him as he turned about and started to leave. Sighing I turned about as the door slid shut with a soft sigh and wondered how underwater archeology would even work as this was basically what we would be doing.
We would need a local guide at the very least...
Writers note: Kept you waiting, huh. This one took a while. It happens but the important part is it out and the timeline moving again. Had some dealing with mando people, we saw what's up with Satine and Bo, and even what Tanya's older brother is up to. Things will be getting interesting next week.
Edited by: Warmach1ne32, Afforess, FallQm
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Mouth 3
Coruscant, Mandalore Tower
Tanya Kryze
Some people crack under pressure. Whether from persistent stress and responsibility, such people without intervention will work themselves to the point where they no longer have any ability to deal with their everyday life.
This usually tended to be because they didn't pace themselves correctly as they seemed to want to rush to an attempt at victory. Not realizing that they would only get more and more work from impressed superiors who saw their progress and wanted to reduce idle time and make the most out of their time.
Getting a project done is not about getting it finished as quickly as possible. It's about accomplishing it within the allotted time. If you completed it too quickly, your boss might think that they weren't giving you enough work and will give you more to keep you busy. This process would continue until you can't keep up.
This work ethic was something I employed quite often though, as I had found in my last life, my estimates of what people could take before cracking were often overestimations. During my training of the 203rd, I had assumed that the men would crack within the period I've been allotted and that the whole project would fall apart. That had been an overestimation on my ability to break them, I often wondered if that was simply due to the hardiness of mages or perhaps I had underestimated the determination of the 203rd and later my Salamanders.
Ultimately, it didn't matter if I had over or under-estimated their perseverance but it is something I think about now and again. Why would I not? They were some of the most loyal employees I think I've ever had. But that is besides the point, I had a lot of things on my plate at the moment, both as Tanya the Representative and as White Silver, the owner of the Mandal Hypernautics.
And over the last few months I have been working tirelessly to see the completion of many of these projects. My first project, the attempt to get Ithorians to help improve the Mandalore Sectors ecological recovery, is going well. The Ithorians had officially sent one of their vessels along to start terraforming a planet or two that no one cared about. It would take 10 years for them to completely repair the planets' ecosystem, but having one of those terraforming ships around was perfectly fine as that was as much as the Mandalorian government could afford anyways. The hope was that more money would slowly be generated as more worlds are repaired and start generating income that we could invest back to increase the rate of terraforming in a positive feedback loop.
Senator Merrik had stopped working on that project, completely leaving it to me. I had reason to believe he had been reprimanded for implying that he was the sole lead on the project. I really had no issue with him claiming such but I suppose you weren't really meant to do that to royalty. A bit of my mindset from my salary man days must have allowed myself to be blind to his efforts to improve his prestige. He still has his job from what I can tell, he just wasn't going to be taking part in the project anymore and I was basically in charge of the entire operation. Which I had been doing pretty much from the beginning, the meetings he was having with the Ithorians were simply to sign documents. Now that I have the power to sign those documents myself, he was no longer needed.
While he had been reprimanded, he didn't seem to hold too much of a grudge. I think he seemed perfectly fine and charming about our meetings and made a few jokes about the whole affair. Anyways, he must be a good employee to realize he'd overstepped his bounds. Must be the reason Duchess Satine had put him in that position to begin with.
Besides that, I have had a few meetings with Chancellor Palpatine and several other Outer Rim Representatives and Senators over the past few months as well. Most of these meetings had been general conversations on the issues that were trying to draw people out of the Galactic Republic and into the Separatists Government. For the most part these meetings had gone nowhere, though they had been an excellent opportunity to network with these folks. I had primarily attempted to get in contact with representatives that were members of the Mandalore Sector, those who would be between the Republic and the Separatist government who might feel a little bit threatened by both sides. I wasn't trying to create a tertiary alliance, but several of the Representatives I've spoken to mentioned that they don't want to be involved in this conflict at all for a variety of reasons, a general idea of not getting dragged into the war and getting their planet invaded something I could get behind completely, I just started down an interesting path of research on whether there was some way to withdraw from the Republic in a short-term time period while a conflict was ongoing.
The answer is a surprising yes. You would think, due to the whole Separatists being a major problem, that the idea that you could withdraw from the Republic would be a major conflict point in their government. But there was a caveat to this thanks to the planet of Corellia. This particular planet had a neat little constitutional thing where if the Republic went to war, they could withdraw from the conflict completely and declare neutrality during this period. They would close off all routes within their systems and force any trade that would have had to go through it to stop and unload at the edges of their territory, be reloaded onto ships under their planet's control and then unloaded at the edge on the other side of their territory. As long as those materials were not military in nature.
If one planet could get away with declaring a temporary neutrality and withdrawing from the Republic, could others? I probably would not go for a full withdrawal but perhaps we could declare our systems neutral during this conflict and still maintain our votes in the Republic, which does sound a lot like having the benefits of being in the Republic, without actually helping them in a war. It's like being part of a group project and not contributing at all if war did indeed break out. And like in any group presentation, those not doing the work will get scorned by those that do and would actively try to avoid associating with them if it could be avoided. While I know that those suffering from the war aren't my responsibility, my main concern is the safety of the Mandalorian Sector as that is my job. I think losing goodwill with the rest of the Republic is worth the cost of not getting invaded and putting our rebuilding efforts by decades. It was a bit of a stretch but I was thinking that this might be necessary if this conflict were to spin out of control as it seemed to be well on its way to being.
So I had sent a message along to Duchess Satine to discuss this idea of a Neutrality League. I had a feeling she would have come up with the same idea once the war had started, but if we could get the groundwork going now, that would likely make the League stronger in the long term. Of course if we were to create a new Neutrality League we would need to have a way to enforce that neutrality.
Corellia, the planet I mentioned before, is a major ship building center and has its own Self-Defense fleet rivaling that of many other Core World fleets. It was worth considering that we would need to increase not only the Self-Defense Force on land but perhaps improve the Self-Defense Navy as well. Mandalore already has two separate Self-Defense Forces already in space. The Mandalorian Patrol, an independent organization of nomadic space travelers who use ships that were often outdated and underpowered from some of the reports I'd seen. While the Mandalorian Royal Guard maintained a fleet of small yet more modern craft made by MandalMotors. If either side, the Republic or the Separatists, attempted to push into the Mandalorian Sector, we would need something bigger, stronger, and more up-to-date ships to defend ourselves.
It was something I would have to look into, that was for sure. Though my duties did not exactly push me towards military ventures, at least not as Tanya since that's White Silver role, and I might have a few interesting possibilities.
Then again, I think X4 had been doing quite a fine job leading Hypernautics in my stead for the last few months. I had started looking into it to see exactly what he'd been doing and I was slightly impressed.
X4 had managed to not only wring out all the corruption in the company that I was sure was there, he'd taken a full inventory on all of Hypernautics' assets on Gargon, and gotten the fighter production back online. We are now selling ships to the Hutts, which I wasn't exactly happy with considering the Hutts were probably the worst government in the entire galaxy. There might be a few others but they were the biggest at the very least. But the important bit is that we are actually gaining money. Unfortunately, we are getting money by selling what could be best described as knock-off MandalMotors' ships, often with bigger guns or weaker engines and sometimes not even including a shield just to avoid infringing copyrights. Frankly the amount of ships that Hypernautics produces that were of their own make were minimal to none, as far as I could tell. And due to that, the company is a knockoff brand of Mandal Motors.
And knock off brands are never as good as the original, they just produce more at a cheaper rate. Which was why I had directed the new CEO of Mandal Hypernautics, Jewyl Toza, to look into possibly working out a deal with MandalMotors to officially sell their licensed ships. As long as Mandal Hypernautics is producing second rate versions of MandalMotors ships, all they were doing was debasing MandalMotors's reputation and Mandalorian ship design.
However, if Mandal Hypernautics can officially make MandalMotors ships as a subcontractor. Not only would that give Hypernautics made ships a degree of legitimacy in the eyes of the public. It would also give Mandal Hypernautics the experience it needed to create its own ships and fighters. Which would be ten times more profitable in the long run than just making cheap knock-offs of another company's product.
The other major item of necessity was dealing with the contracts that Mandal Hypernautics had with several what could be best described as pirate organizations. The contracts involve salvaging ancient Mandalorian battlegrounds for equipment and beskar salvage.
These contracts were a little bit long-term and technically I could have canceled them completely, yet I didn't. The fact they were bringing in beskar, which is a material well worth its weight in the Mandalorian sector made me reconsider this. Over the next two years it was believed they would recover large quantities of beskar, which would replenish the lost amount taken when someone had absconded with half the beskar that had already been collected before Gerr's uprising or possibly had never existed except on paper. Considering the world was a rather bit of a crime capital, it was well within possibility that people were lying about exactly how much beskar was coming in to skim money off the top. That being said, I had issued simple orders on dealing with these pirates and that was they only got their money if their beskar was approved by local armorers as authentic.
And I also added that we would not be paying for armor at the same price as, say, hull plating. Beskar used in armor are usually ancestral property. Very culturally significant to the families that might be interested in having the pieces of armor returned. Simple fact of the matter was, if I got my hands on a piece of beskar armor that belonged to an important family and did not do my best to return it to them, it could cause a conflict. I incentivized the pirates to focus on pieces of equipment that would not have family ties and if they did bring such items I would do the most I could possibly do to return the item to the family of whatever descendant or relative was left. I knew there was a very low possibility that such a return could be possible, many of these battlefields that the pirates were apparently raiding for materials were dating back to the Neo-Crusaders era or older, but I would do the best I could.
Finally, there were my attempts within Gargon to improve the economic situation for the better, which I think would not go as well. Gargon, of course, lay right off the Hydian Way which was a prime real estate for trade. The problem was the upcoming Separatist Conflict was between the Outer Rim, at one end of the Hydian Way, and the Core, on the other end of the Hydian Way. There would not be much trade along that route while the conflict is still ongoing. Surprisingly enough, they actually would probably be visited by armies moving along that road, which considering Gargon's position could be useful. Soldiers like to gamble after all, they don't have long to live and a few days in paradise could do them good.
That being said, I don't expect a large economic output to be coming from Gargon's military industry anytime soon. Even if I was successful in not only moving the economy towards a more legitimate direction as well as getting Gargon into the Mandalorian Sector as an official member state, either would contribute to the defense of the sector, more income equals a bigger budget for defense spending.
But if it did well, I better not mix up my apparently large stockpile of funds or I guess it would be Gerr's funds that I had inherited which I used to buy some land. It's not like I could run to the planet and find wonderful spots for a hotel or anything like that. I trusted the man on the ground, Toza, to buy pieces of land that would have good vistas and to hire some local workers to clear and prepare it for construction of hotels and casinos. It might be objectively wrong to fleece soldiers who are possibly going to die of their money but they weren't Mandalorian soldiers and they should be paid by their respective governments so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. As much as I disliked the waste of human resources, I needed to be realistic on a few things since my bread came from the Mandalorian Sector. The only agenda I needed to concern myself with was the continuation of the Mandalorian sector as a free and peaceful state, if that meant I had to see that some soldiers were left paupers for a war that we were not a part of, then so be it.
On the subject of Mandal Hypernautics itself, they do have a few original designs they developed themselves. One corvette-like vessel and another destroyer-like vessel are still in the drawing board phase. But one design has passed prototyping and has entered into very limited production, the Canderous Assault Tank. This monstrosity was both the most hideously armored vehicle I had ever seen and the most miraculous that something like is even possible.
On the face of it, it was a hovering shielded bunker with dual Mass Drivers and a Missile Launcher. Perhaps my experiences were not the best, I do remember a hover tank called a Wraith that if it was struck, it would hover backwards whilst sliding like a skater on ice into friendly infantry taking cover behind it and probably crushing them. Luckily inertia is a thing so it is very likely that due to the weight of the Canderous, it will only be pushed back slightly before stabilizing itself.
This behemoth had two barrels widely set apart, which is a terrible design idea as you would need two separate sights to see what each barrel is aiming when you would only need one if both barrels are right next to each other. Any military craft that relied on Mass Drivers likely does so as a deliberate choice, considering that most armored vehicles in this day and age relied on lasers and were about the size of a modern MBT from my first life. The main reason to use a Mass Driver is the variety of different ammunition that could be used, from bog standard solid projectiles, energy shells that mimic the effects of a Blaster Cannon of similar yield, likely this galaxy's version of HEAT, burrowing bunker busters which is exactly what it sounds like, and even a heat seeking shell to take out enemy aircraft if the vehicle has a high enough barrel elevation. .
The old man with a funny mustache would have been giddy to get his hands on such a monstrosity, as it was probably larger than the Maus or at least on a similar scale. It also needed less crew to operate as it required a minimum of three, with the loader being replaced with an autoloader.
The tank is so large that everyone would see it a mile away, which for most vehicles would spell doom in the form of artillery and bombers. Not for this vehicle though, this vehicle turned out to be a solid brick of beskar, literally as it has beskar plating. I'm impressed that they put so much beskar into this vehicle, considering how rare it is, but what really caught my attention was that the main objective was to be hit. From the research notes I have read about this vehicle is not only a solid brick of beskar, it had a power generator strong enough to also power a shield and a cyber warfare suite that it could hack enemy armored vehicles in the area and direct those armor vehicles to fire on it instead of the much weaker and squishier infantry around it. I don't know why the tank couldn't just deactivate the enemy vehicle's weapon system instead of only forcing it to lock on to the tank itself.
The designer of this vehicle had literally created a taunt system in order to draw enemies to attack it. It was so outrageous that I was quite impressed with how outrageous it was. And the interesting part was there were several models already lying about in various warehouses. A few were still in one piece and one that Zum destroyed had been found and promptly scrapped since the entire thing is a burnt out husk of beskar when it was recovered after the whole False Silver Rebellion, or whatever they were going to name it.
Granted, from what I've been able to piece together, they had not gone ahead and made a beskar tank yet, merely a durasteel chassis with beskar plating. However the amount of interesting technologies in use are something to keep in mind.
One thing I had noted, both from my recent conflict with Gerr and research of conflicts in the past 50 years, was that there was not a wide use of armored vehicles in Mandalorian culture. A couple thousand years ago, there was something called the Basilisk War Droid that was used as battle mounts, but that was a long time ago. So looking at this monstrosity I was hit with several points of thought. If the main goal was for it to be a monster that drew the enemy's fire away from lighter vehicles, then where were the lighter vehicles doing other roles? This tank is likely designed to fit the role of a heavy tank, a heavily armed and armored mobile bunker, meant to destroy lighter vehicles as well as fortifications. This also meant that the drawbacks of heavy tanks from both of my past lives were also present here.
Like, how are you going to get something this heavy into combat? Most light transports did not have the capabilities to lift that heavy piece of equipment into position, and it may be necessary to have a Heavy Freighter like a Gozanti to transport them anywhere, which are fairly big targets. What are the hidden costs in spare parts, fuel, and ammunition for this tank? Something that big needs a powerful engine and that usually guzzles a lot of fuel and if they break down before they even fight because parts got worn down due to general use, then they are just a waste of money.
I remember that in the Battle of Kursk, out of the 200 Panthers sent there 6 Panthers destroyed themselves getting there and 80 of them were in the repair shops due to non-combat damage. When I heard that, I had to wince in pain at all of that wasted manpower and resources spent on building tanks that have almost half a chance of breaking down getting to the fight because the Germans adopted it before they knew if it worked. So you can see my skepticism to the concept of Heavy tanks, especially when with modern communications, bombers or artillery could be called in to take it out from a safe distance.
This assault tank on one front is a blunt instrument that can crack any defensive position or blunt an enemy offensive, but on the logistics front calling it overpriced is a severe understatement. Let's start with its weapons, it uses a Mass Driver, i.e. a gun, so it needs to be supplied with its ammunition on top of all of the fuel and spare parts and that takes up space on the logistics train that could be used for something else, as well as take up a lot of room in the tank. The risk of it running out of ammunition in a protracted engagement is another concern due to its limited ammo.
A Blaster Cannon uses Tibanna gas which can be stored in pressurized canisters, resulting in significantly more shots available when compared to Mass Driver Cannons. Even if the Mass Driver uses electric propulsion and only the payloads are stored in the tank, you can cram in more gas than solid ammunition. Blaster Cannons are also compatible with the infantry's Tibanna gas so the tank can refill their canisters at any military base/outpost with Tibanna storage not just in major bases. Finally, a Blaster Cannon may be more complex to make, but it also has less moving parts so the weapon would likely remain viable even after prolonged use, much better than a Mass Driver Cannon that may need regular maintenance after every battle to make sure it doesn't break mid-battle.
The Concussion Missile Battery felt very redundant to me. I knew that IFVs in my first life used Missile systems like the TOW on the American Bradley, but the reason that tanks don't have them is because the main gun is a much more efficient and cheaper weapon that does the same job, cause a tank shell does not have expensive electronics inside it like a missile does. I do remember an old RTS game that had a tank that resembled the Canderous, with it having 2 cannons as well as secondary missile pods for attacking aircraft, so this is not a completely foreign concept to me. If the Canderous can target air targets with its Missiles, then I suppose it saves having to deploy a dedicated AA vehicle into the field..
On the other hand, Concussion Missiles are very expensive from what I remember and if the enemy didn't bring any aircraft to be shot down or just have them conduct operations away from the Canderous, then the missiles are less than useless as it'll be a waste of money to fire them at buildings when the Mass Drivers can do the same job but cheaper. I guess if they encounter another Heavy Tank, the extra firepower of the Concussion Missile would be a benefit. However, relying on the enemy to be dumb enough to get close enough to the giant tank is a very idiotic battleplan. There is also the requirement to have sensors that can detect enemy aircraft, lock on that aircraft, and guide the missile to its target. A sensor suit like that would also take up space inside the tank that could be cut down to save space.Thus, while I can see uses for the Missile Battery, it is just unlikely for the Concussion Missile to be used that often to justify its cost. Putting the Battery in a dedicated vehicle that is able to take full advantage of the Concussion Missiles is the best solution in my eyes. Maybe instead of firing Missiles, the Canderous can launch drones for better situational awareness instead of a Battery of missiles.
Moving on to its propulsion, hover tanks are well known to be very maneuverable and can move in all sorts of terrain, even over water, mud, and sand which are usually problems for conventional vehicles. This is at the cost of having a weight limit on how heavy the final tank can be, being proportional on how powerful the hover engine is. The more powerful it is, the heavier the tank can be at the cost of being more expensive. The Canderous is clad in beskar, which is already a very dense metal, it being the size of a 2-3 story building, and then there's the added weight of a shield generator, the Concussion Missile Battery, Mass Driver ammo, and Taunt system adding even more weight. I shudder at what this thing's price tag is going to be if it entered production.
I assume that since this is a hover tank, there is no need to maintain tracks and transmissions which were present in tanks in my past lives, which are usually the parts to break the most often. But the fact that the Canderous needs a powerful hover engine to lift itself means that replacing it when it's damaged or doing general maintenance of more high tech parts is going to be an extremely expensive and time consuming procedure. I guess the benefit of having such a powerful hover engine is the fact that the tank can reach a top speed of 50km/h, which is a respectable speed for a tank that big and heavy.
Mandalore might be in a somewhat similar position to the Germans and the Empire at the end of their war. There is no chance whatsoever that Mandalore can compete with the Republic or the Outer Rim in terms of raw production when both had thousand of planets to call upon, and the government doesn't have the funds to expand its military to compete with them when most of our funds were funneled to the terraforming and rebuilding projects. Thus quality might be the only option Mandalore has to not get overwhelmed by the weight of numbers from 2 galactic superpowers. However an alternative may be present in the form of combined arms doctrine. Instead of relying on the brute force of heavy tank doctrine, we rely on all of the combat arms working in concert that requires a disproportionate amount of force to dislodge or defeat. This is what I would likely base Mandalore's war doctrine on. It makes use of our highly trained troops to outmaneuver any invader and either defeat them in detail or with overwhelming force that they don't have the chance to retaliate. This should ensure favorable engagements against a numerically superior force whilst minimizing casualties, with our relatively low population we cannot afford to get into a war of attrition. It's just a general idea for now, but when I have the time I'll refine it to be actually usable.
Thus, while I doubt the Canderous will be the Main Battle Tank of Mandalore with its price tag, it could still be a powerful asset when properly supported if we do get backed into a corner, as well as be the root of some better ideas. Instead of outright canceling the project, which I probably should have done, I sent down orders to what design staff remained on the project to produce lighter versions of it. Did it need two cannons? No, make it one barrel then. Did it need to be so large? No, not really. So make it smaller so we can make the most out of the amount of Beskar that we do have. Did it need those missiles that fired up from the rear of the turret? Not really, but I would admit an armored vehicle with Concussion Missiles to support troops in the field is not exactly a bad idea so maybe put it in a dedicated vehicle that could make full use of its missile armament.
For now, the Canderous as it is right now is too expensive for widespread use. However, having a few in reserve could be the right tool when a sledgehammer is required to break an enemy position. So I have X4 tell the designers of the Canderous to trim down the tank as well as do whatever they can to make it cheaper to build, maintain, and supply while still fulfilling its role as a heavy tank. But I also told them that I would like to have an even smaller version of it for general use as a main battle tank, capable of doing a wide range of roles instead of specializing as a breakthrough vehicle.
Other than a cheaper tank, I also wanted a missile artillery vehicle if possible, those could be rather effective in launching a volley before using their speed to escape counter-battery fire. If those missiles could target aircraft then they can double as AA protection. They would be just as profitable over the long term since artillery are always in need as the King of Battle. Finally I wanted an Infantry Fighting Vehicle to transport Mechanized Infantry that would support the MBTs in open battle as well as move them quickly on a strategic level.
The Canderous is a sledgehammer in the form of a tank and having a sledgehammer in my toolbox to hammer a very big nail is nice to have, however not every problem can be solved with a sledgehammer. It's likely that the Canderous would never be produced in large numbers as it is, but we'll see if it's viable after the designer trimmed it down a bit. Or I guess if the Hutts wanted them they would probably make a nice and easy profit for the company, the Beskar armor might need to be replaced with Durasteel for obvious reasons.
With a need for armed neutrality possibly coming up, I'm sure the Republic would have their own tank production. With big names like Kuat Drive Yards and its subsidiaries are more than capable of making their own vehicles. I also know the Separatists would also have their own vehicle production from Baktoid, I have seen some war footage from the Naboo Crisis and had seen their strangely tall hover tanks. If any conflict were to brew between this neutral state and the war participants, having our own armored vehicles that could counter theirs would be instrumental in preventing us from getting run over by their tanks.
Besides those points of interest, I left everything else to X4 to run. I trusted him to do a good job and have increased his funding on several of his own projects that I was not particularly keen on keeping an eye on. I already knew that whatever it was, it would probably produce some wealth for the company and White Silver in a way.
Leaning back in my chair I turned to look out my window at the Coruscant City skyline or I guess you could just call it the skyline at this point. Maintaining all these separate little projects were complicated but doable. Although, my most recent projects had apparently seen some unintended side quests.
Breshig was scheduled for terraforming and I had attempted to reach out to the population's governor only to find that no one really ran the place. So there was really no one to say no to. And so I thought that the situation was over and I need not worry about it.
So I had moved on to directing the Royal Mandalore Museum to start assembling teams of employees to search old battlefields for equipment and armor left behind as well as any relics so we could start archiving our history properly.
This is where things went sideways as one of my employees, who had recently come under my control, had requested a meeting and said there was a concern about the relics and equipment on Breshig. I thought it was cleared of such items long ago but I may be wrong it seems.
The possibility that the terraforming project might interfere with the collecting project was annoying to me but I knew that I needed to hear this employee out. I had had one of my Lancers pick them up and they were due to arrive from the Mandalore Sector sometime today. He should already be here and on his way up the tower for all I know. Whatever was happening on Breshig, I needed to have that settled quickly and find out what exactly was the concern.
My thoughts were interrupted as X4's voice came over the intercom and said, "Mistress Tanya, a Zoll Bresh from Breshig has arrived and wishes to speak with you."
'Ah timing.' I thought before saying, "Let him in X4."
I didn't have to wait long as a moment later the doors to my office opened. Stepping in is a Mandalorian in full orange armor. Rather surprising but if they wanted to declare themselves as having a lust for life and freedom that was up to them. I even respected that to a bit as it charmed my libertarian heart.
Standing up I greeted, "Mr. Bresh, good to see you. I hope your flight here was not too troublesome."
I smiled as the orange armored male nodded before saying, "The flight was quite nice, Representative Kryze." 'Formal', I noted as he stepped forward, asking, "Do you enforce a helmet on or off policy while on Coruscant?"
Well that's a question I did not expect to hear before saying, "I don't enforce either. Though most people do prefer to see a person's face when they're communicating with our own."
He nodded before reaching up and pulling his orange helmet off revealing a gentleman with dark hair and a darker complexion. "Then I will endeavor to do as the Coruscanti do for today."
Chuckling, I indicated the seat in front of me and said, "Well then let us get down to business shall we. What seems to be the problem that requires a face-to-face meeting?" He nodded his head and moved to take the seat across for me, as he took that seat I got a good view of the rest of his armor and besides being a Mandolorian who preferred the color orange there were some other oddities, lots of little gadgets and doodads that seemed to be designed for crafting and mechanical work hanging off various areas. Though I noticed with some pride that someone had taken his blaster pistol before he got in here as his holster was empty. Granted I knew he was probably carrying 10 different weapons hidden in his armor somewhere but we needed to put on the show of being civilized at the very least.
"My homeworld is what brought me here. I've recently heard about plans to terraform it back to something pre-swamp and though I agree that needs to be done I feel that my homeworld has been forgotten for the relics that it contains. When I heard that there was also a project to start finding those relics, well, I knew that I needed to speak with whoever was in charge."
I nodded, I was vaguely familiar with that world's history. Before the Scouring 700 years ago or so, Breshig had rivaled Mandalore and many of the other Mandalorian homeworlds of the sector and had a capital ship building industry that put everything that has existed together now to shame. But during the conflict, the polar ice caps of the planet had been blasted to bits and promptly melted, raising the temperature to the point that they did not return and the melted permafrost flooding most of the land under a foot or two of water.
Add in that there was actually no one there to clean up the bodies and most of the buildings had been destroyed and turned to rubble. There was a reason that Breshig was considered a swamp world. Nature had started to take it over but most of the ecology had been destroyed during the fighting so very few plant life types were left, besides things that could grow in shallow water. There's that and I heard rumors that the local zoo had not been destroyed during that period and released what could best be described as large freshwater alligators and crocodiles into that environment. The planet was not friendly to human life at this point.
Taking those thoughts into note I said, "Well I don't really know what there is to say about your homeworld, everything I've heard is that any and all relics are well and truly destroyed in the bombardment of the world or scavenged by the local clans at this point
Bresh nodded instead, "Understandable, our history has mostly been forgotten due to the events of the Scouring but rumors that it has all been destroyed are a bit overstated to some points. Under about 30 ft of water in the southern hemisphere lies the Breshig Museum of Space Maritime Designs, a facility containing every Mandalore design ever created for war on that planet. As far as anyone knows the archives were not destroyed during the conflict and though it is deep underwater in somewhat dangerous areas considering the wildlife, it is still accessible to those willing to risk it."
"What do you mean still accessible? If it's underwater, shouldn't the records that you're talking about be destroyed by simple corrosion or shorting out due to being underwater."
"Ah very true, under 30 ft of water most items not prepared for such conditions are liable to be destroyed but here's the thing this museum was 10 ft underwater before the conflict. It was designed so that its contents would be well protected in case of a bombardment and be preserved in the event the museum is submerged."
I leaned forward at that, a repository of knowledge secretly lost but still there? Who knows what could be there. I asked, "If this facility is designed for the conditions it is now in, how do you know it is still functional? I would have assumed a bombardment would have targeted it at some point."
Smiling, the young man said, "It's still functional because I've been there. After I repaired one of the many older ships that survived on the surface of that planet, I used it to dive down to the center and attempted to gain access. Unfortunately in order to gain access you need a special kind of connection port one that my ship did not have. And the only other way would be to cut a way in and unless this was done correctly, you'd risk flooding the facility and destroying it, something I was not willing to do at the time. I was however willing to travel all the way around this facility in the ship I'd created and confirmed that yes the facility is still intact, in fact I think their lights were still on inside in a few areas. If I had to guess, the facility was created with an energy reactor that could produce enough energy to keep it running for a couple hundred years and whoever was in it probably set everything to low power mode before escaping."
Okay so we got ourselves a bit of a treasured resource hidden on the planet, ship designs weren't exactly needed, especially designs from seven centuries ago but what other items could there be on that planet besides this museum that was an intriguing question to me. Ancient secrets lost to history just waiting for re-discovery was a tantalizing prospect no matter the context.
Clasping my hands in front of my face I asked, "I have two questions then. Are there any other relics like this museum in Breshig? And this is the most important one, is there anything else in that facility that could be useful to Mandalore."
Zoll Bresh smiled before saying, "There are whole ships still in their dry docks with some dating back to the Ancient Mandalorian Wars and most are in a rather preserved state. The water has corroded some holes but some halls I have noted are made from beskar and have not corroded at all. As for what else could be in that museum, rumors tell that it also had records for every ship ever lost that had been created on that world and their location or general location of loss."
"A literal treasure trove of information." I said rubbing my chin, the possibility of lost ships being returned to service could definitely help out with the lack of ships that the Self-Defense Force would be running into. Granted these hulls would probably be ancient but a ship's a ship. At best we could put them in dry dock over in Kalevala and see if they couldn't be upgraded to modern standards, at worst they could be salvaged and the materials be used in the construction of new ships or other items if some of these ships dated back to the Neo Crusader era. That was still a lot of beskar to salvage, considering I'd seen some indications that whole halls were made solely from beskar back then. That practice was, well, frankly abandoned by this point for obvious reasons. Having some fighters and tanks clad in beskar is a tall order but still doable since they were still insanely expensive now and no one really liked to send beskar outside the sector anyway.
I gave this subject a few more thoughts before I said, "You have convinced me, this is worth investigating." Taking out a pad for my desk I quickly wrote out a note and then keyed it with my fingerprint locking it so only the recipient of the note would receive it.
Handing it over I said, "If you don't mind getting back on a ship and heading straight from Mandalore right away, I could arrange a meeting with my brother who has a larger income for this particular project and the time to oversee it."
Nodding his head he said, "I have all the time in the world to help my homeworld, as much as it's a disaster, the chance to get it a little bit more recognition and the history of Mandalore is well worth it."
I smiled and reached across the desk to shake his hand, saying, "That's the goal of this project, go and secure your planet's history for Mandalore."
He nodded and stood up and said, "Thank you, Representative Kryze." before leaving as I leaned back in my seat relaxed. If this project was successful, it would be a potentially massive windfall for the Mandalorian historical society. Not only would it have shown that records could be saved and shared for the benefit of the Mandalore Sector but if those ships were real, it would encourage other people to start digging through their own records see if they have any information about lost vessels, armor, or other equipment it could be useful for Mandalore's protection.
I would not be surprised if as these records started to be shared, puzzle pieces would be put together about fates of certain vessels that have been lost for generations, as well as other stories that were never fully completed. And I can only hope that it would be good stories that came out of this and not start any blood feuds that have been forgotten.
Leaning back, at peace with myself I reached over and grabbed the strange box the Ordos had gifted me and tossed it in the air a couple times. I know I should probably be a little bit careful with these relics, I may have to return them to the Jedi someday but well this thing seems sturdy enough and doing this helped me improve my hand-eye coordination a bit.
Whole galaxy may be on the end of a war but things seem to be going my way for once.
Gargon, Mandal Hypernautics Office
Bo Katan Kryze
I had to say this was the sweetest job I'd ever got myself. Granted I'd only ever had three jobs: bounty hunting for a short time, mercenary work guarding supply convoys, and tutoring Tanya but still of the three this was the best paying and easiest one ever to take up.
Training the local Garrison into something that could actually fight was a simple job, most of them already had a good head on their shoulders and years of experience for the most part. There were a few who were outliers, either New Mandalorians or people who apparently were living in the Mandalorian Sector but weren't part of any of the Mandalorian Clans but they either learned to sink or swim.
And most of them seem to learn to swim, the New Mandalorians quickly taking on their old culture from the Mandalorians around them and the not so Mandalorians picking it up as well, quickly learning the language is a key tenant of this new Ranger outfit.
Tanya basically left me to do all the work on figuring out how to make this group of individuals work as a police force which was tough enough considering this planet was not exactly known for having a population that wanted a police force but I soldiered on and figured it out. Thankfully, Tanya's little silver book worked well in designing the curriculum especially for those on the not so Mandalorian side of things.
The six tenants of course worked well in trying to build a culture of what this unit should be. With enough training I think that they would be able to go one to one with the mafia Mandos, if that was needed. Thankfully they're only enforcers and were not interested in starting a fight. They seem to be keen on this organization existing to try and improve the outlook of their planet's future as well as do their work for them in keeping the peace.
No one suspected that in the next three or four months I would have the rangers trained up to a point that I was not needed to even run this organization and would just be able to sit back and relax for this job. Of course, I now have two jobs, this job which required much of my attention and a job that required me to make trips to Mandalore.
Who would have ever seen me being able to train my sister back up to combat status as an actual thing that would happen. Not me I don't think anyone would have. Granted no one knew about these meetings and our little spars but it was nice to have my sister back again. She refused to touch any violent weapons but unarmed combat was an important part of Mandalorian culture and it wasn't like she wasn't carrying around a blaster pistol specifically designed for stun mode. She may prefer non-lethal methods but she still was learning to fight which was better than what she had been doing in my mind.
And I probably would be scheduling more trips to Mandalore soon. We finally found Zum after a while, he had apparently been keeping a low profile for the last few months by hiding in his tropical island safehouse in Cheravh, just so he didn't get in any trouble. Well now that he was found, he's been building Satine her new set of armor. Once that was finished, more training would be needed, meaning I would need to make more appearances.
Oh also, the other crazy things X4 put me up to, that Droid had a few screws loose I think. One morning, the orders coming down from him made sense. There was a possibility of a galactic war about the spring into existence and he was interested in improving production of fighters and redesigning that huge tank Gerr was planning on using to something more efficient and affordable. Technically that was not my issue, that was Toza's issue but he complained enough that I heard about it, since we work together quite often. He was having to work to get production back up to pre-False Silver levels while also attempting to build a stockpile of weapons and armor for the Rangers in case something happened here. It's reasonable considering this planet was right in the direct path of both potential participants in this army.
But that wasn't too crazy no, the crazy part was the other stuff X4 got up to. Such as the current project to improve Mandal Hypernautics image and Gargon's image through hiring of talented young individuals, to be company spokespeople… or as he had informed me "Idols". What the hell an idol was? I didn't know before yesterday. But now I did and I hated every single moment of my existence because of it. Mainly because he had given that job to me to do. The pay raise was rather nice but having to go through dozens of hopefuls to find people who could sing, dance, and generally be entertaining was not something I know what to do with.
I wasn't exactly musically talented, I had fought most of my life, sure, I knew a few songs from the old days when we would sit around campfires in Kalevala. That did not make me musically talented though. If the job didn't pay so well I probably would have refused it but as it was I just had to go with my gut and hope I found what we were looking for. So far no, no it was absolutely shit, I might put up a few posters offering a position as a spokesperson in listing the requirements as musically talented and a few other things that I thought were necessary for a person to represent not only Mandal Hypernautics but Gargon. And I had to deal with three takers so far the first had been an absolute disaster.
The first man could not sing to save his life and I would not be surprised if it could likely kill someone. In fact I'm pretty sure my aide had lost the ability to hear for a couple hours after listening to the guy. The only reason I still had my hearing was I had kept my helmet on so I could keep my thoughts to myself during the whole thing and it simply turned him off at the start. The second hadn't actually read the part about musically talented and assumed all he would have to do is talk about the products I've been escorted off the property. And the third had been an assassination attempt. One of Gerr's Black Merc goons that apparently have not been picked up by the local enforcers or my Rangers yet and have just been hiding and waiting for an opportunity to strike. My aide Cylah Troa, a former Black mercenary herself, had quickly dispatched the bastard at the cost of the audition table which she used to slam the assassin's back into. Granted, I had my vambrace ready to put a hole the idiot but my aide who was standing nearby, got to him first.
Three swings, three strikes. I should probably give up on this but well a job's a job.
A knock came from my door and I looked up before saying, "Come in." Well there wasn't much for anyone that came into my office. It was not large per se but still pretty barren. A simple desk, a few pads that I needed, and for the most part a nice comfy chair. I should probably look into decorating it or something but it wasn't really a priority.
As the door opened, the aide that I mentioned before entered the room. Besides that, she actually used to be a Black Iron mercenary as well, but before that she was a former independent mercenary before Black Iron initiated a recruitment drive to fulfill Gerr's manpower requirement for his army. She's a member of the lower rungs of the organization and not a direct thrall of the former CEO. She's a good fighter though and seemed rather reliable so I made her my secretary for the foreseeable future. And thanks to that whole thing of the assassination attempt on my life, she now had a bonus to her income. Probably should give her a little bit more actually since she had been looking after the Rangers while I traveled off world to help my sister.
Cylah Troa was wearing these standard coloration for the rangers a mix of silver and brown, also she did wear red highlighting on her helmets that had existed before taking up a position in the rangers. And considering she was still wearing her helmet it's quite obvious that she learned her lesson and prepared herself to mute them in case of another terrible music act.
"Miss Katan, a trio has arrived to attempt to take the position as the company's spokesperson. Should I just tell them to leave?"
"A trio?" I asked. I haven't considered the possibility of a group showing up but hey I'd already had three failures why not have three failures at once. Out loud I said, "No no, let them in. I will give them a chance to either sink or swim."
She nodded and stepped in waving to whoever was outside to come in.
A moment later a woman in her mid 20s, I would guess, in a silver and black set of armor stepped in. Followed by two girls, both 14 or 15, I would estimate just by their size. One was wearing green and black armor, the other in pink and black. The armor looked old and beat up, which would make it obvious that they were from the nomadic clans as the style was of super commando variant but parts of it were bulky, possibly dating back to the shock trooper era armor design that had been popular about 2,000 years ago I think. I wasn't much of a history geek compared to Tanya but I had been somewhat interested in how armor developed at one point. Every Mando kid dreamed of customizing their own armor, and looking at cool armor from back then for inspiration is the usual way to go about it.
"Good afternoon and welcome to Mandal Hypernautics. I believe you three are interested in the role of being our company's spokespeople."
The silver and black one nodded before saying, "Yes, I am Miri Chour and these are my sisters, Khovi and Shomso. We heard that they were looking for someone who could sing and well one of the few skills we've acquired over years is singing so we thought we could try."
Well that wasn't much of an answer but it was good enough I figured. Indicating with my hand that they could continue I said, "Well show me what you got."
Nodding her head she cleared her throat and said, "This is a tune that's been passed down in my family for generations dating back to, reportedly, the Neo Crusader era."
She's going to be taking a moment to get her center in the meantime the two younger sisters of the trio began banging on their own chest armor with their fists laying down a slow melodic beat. The two younger sisters begin to singing first
"A world alight with WAR! A world alight with WAR!!"
Miri Chour started up then, "AS THE JEDI FELL UPON US AND WE UPON THEM!"
"A world alight with WAR! As we held the GALAXY BY THE THROAT!" The pair continued.
"A million, million souls from uncounted worlds! The force of battle shifted the very ground they charged across."
"Every soul alight, every shout for blood!"
"As the Jedi General looked on resolutely." Miri Chour sang.
"AND THE EARTH SHOOK! AND THE ARMOUR CRACKED!" sang the pair as they continued pounding on their armor.
"AND THE ARRRMIIESS OF THE GALAXY KNELT!" Miri Chour came in again "JEDI AND MANDALORIAN AND REPUBLICAN TROOPER! BOWED BEFORE A SINGLE STRIKE!"
"And the world alight with War shattered!" Pair was back "And the Galaxy took breath!" And the Crusaders beheld!"
"A WORLD SHATTERED BY WAR!" Miri Chour was back
"Ghosts of the Galaxy!" Pair came in
"OF THE GREATEST CRUSADE!" Miri Chour
"Fought on as a shattered world!" All three of them were singing at this point. "Brothers in death! And the war was won!"
"The grave of a million, million from countless worlds!"
"On a world alight with war!" Just the pair sing them out. The banging of their armor came to a slow close, as the song ended.
Well seeing as their faces were under a helmet, I couldn't tell if they were anxious or not and in turn they couldn't tell what I was thinking. But I could say one thing but three of them could sing and that was better than the other attempts. Where only one of the other attempts actually tried to sing but hey progress was progress and this had been quite a bit of progress in my mind.
The real question was had this been enough progress to hire them, which was actually a non-question. They could sing, they could sing together, and put on a rather good spectacle with their use of armor. The songs they knew were old and very centered on the ancient wars if that song was to go by. But I was sure I could probably find one of the many poets out there to write some lyrics that were less violent having to do with Mandalorian lifestyles.
Nodding my head I finally decided that yeah this could work. Reaching my hands up I pulled my helmet off and put it on the edge of the table before smiling and saying, "You're hired."
Whether they had been experiencing some sort of motion behind their helmets I didn't know but the moment they heard they were hired they were in a group hug celebrating which was a rather touching moment from the outside.
Mandalore, Royal Palace
Zum Murdoc
Things are taking an awfully strange course since I had last been in Mandalore. Heck, last time I was in the Mandalore System I would have been afraid that I was going to be hunted down by the Duchess's goons for supplying weapons to a madman. And even after I cleaned that mess up thanks to Tanya's intervention, I'd still assume that I should probably avoid the system for a while. Just in case she was in a rightfully bad mood about me being involved with Tanya's little effort to unseat the CEO.
So I decided to lay low in my favorite tropical island safehouse on Cheravh after an extended voyage across the sector selling as much equipment out of my stock as possible. Simply so that if someone came knocking it would not look as if I was running new weapons and armor as heavily as I had been doing. I had totally expected to see a call from the Duchess waiting for me. And she had sent someone to let me know that she asked me to come to her Palace, so there wasn't exactly much I could do. Sure I could run, but that would just make me look guilty in case it was something other than her annoyance at me helping Tanya. As much as that girl thought you could hide this whole mess from the Duchess, even I doubted that.
So I ended up going to the Royal Palace expecting to either be locked up or berated for helping Tanya. When Satine had ordered her guards outside of the room I knew I was not being locked up so I had braced for the inevitable lecture.
That I had not received, "I have to thank you for helping Tanya with the whole issue." Which was a step in the right direction that I'm not going to jail. The next part though, had been something that was a bit more threatening. She asked me to make her a new set of armor, a surprising task considering the fact she's been melting down more armor and I think the Republic ever got a chance to do so. But I wasn't going to say no to this demand. She had me dead to rights and she said she had admired the craftsmanship on Tanya's new green armor…the green armor of course being the set I had made for her from Satine's armor, which told me exactly what the situation was.
'Make her a new set of armor or I would be arrested for being involved in stealing her old set.' I could see the threat so here I was deep in the Royal Palace's forge, banging together beskar and Mandalorian Iron, to forge a new set of armor for someone who I had given up any idea that they would ever ask for this again. Though it was nice to actually be doing a job for House Kryze again as I thought Tanya would be my last chance at that. I wondered if Tanya's enthusiasm for armor has spread to the rest of her family. Maybe I'd finally be able to take Adonai the Second's armor and forge it for his son too in the future.
Sighing internally, I simply turn my attention back to work. Maybe I'd get another chance to build armor for the family, maybe I wouldn't, but I would do my best with this set of armor. I've been asked to make a set of armor for the Duchess to wear for political situations, not combat though. But just in case there is an assaination attempt or something, I'm not going to skimp on the defense features. That being said, I was going for a heavier style than what most Mandalorians would prefer. Most would prefer a simple plate arrangement so they could use a jetpack, some like myself go for super thick plates that didn't exactly do well under jetpack situations and turned them into more like jump packs as they couldn't maintain the thrust necessary to keep the user airborne because they were too heavy.
The one in front of me was actually kind of a mid-range armor. It's a full plate but not a half inch piece of armor as some of the heavy plates would go.
It has a solid chest piece that went all the way down to cover most of the gut and was taking every bit of skill to shape it correctly since I needed to be as perfect as possible. Building solid plates of iron is easy. Building small plates that could be put on one of the vests is simple as well, it's just very tedious. Creating a plate of iron that would contour the right shape is a pain in the ass as an error in shaping it needed to be pounded back into the right shape. I had to tweak the power of the pneumatic hammer a few times to get the right amount of power but I relish the challenge.
"How's the work, Zum?" a voice from behind me, I barely heard it over the sound of iron being pounded into the right contour thanks to the very expensive electric power hammer. Thinking about it, I turned the hammer to its standby setting while I re-insert the armor piece to the magnetic forge to reheat it back to a state that it can be hammered into shape much more easily, before turning to face the Duchess. Pulling out a rag I cleaned up my gloves and said, "The work goes well. I think I should have the sets of protective plates ready in a week or two. I'm pulling out all the stops and using every trick and technique that I know of in this project, but I think it'll be worth it."
She smiled and nodded before asking, "How much skill exactly? You said you were going to go all out on this but you didn't exactly describe some of the things you were planning to do. Remember this armor is supposed to be in line with the new doctrine where armor is meant for self-defense, no weapons on it."
I nodded and waved my hand before saying, "I know, I know. I've not gone senile yet. No weapons were included in the making of these armor. Though I do plan to include a little bit of a small shield that could be deployed from the torso. Just in case you get shot by an assassin with a beskar bullet or something. Besides, I actually kind of relish the idea of working on a defensive focused set like this, it adds an extra layer of challenge."
Walking over to the helmet I picked it up and showed it to her, "First off, we have this little neat thing." Reaching to the side of the helmet, I pressed a hidden latch and the front of the helmet opened up into three pieces that retracted to the sides and top of the helmet.
"Old tradition, very old tradition, said that Mandalorians used masks not helmets so I thought I would go back to that, this allows you to easily take the mask off and have a conversation to see a person's face or you know wear it like a normal helmet. I'm sure the designers of whatever garments that will go around this armor will love the idea."
She nodded and said, "That's splendid. Anything else I should know about?"
I nodded, putting the helmet down and pulling up a vambrace. "Although you said no weapons, I did include this." I opened the vambrace and I showed that there was a compartment that could fit something small like a pistol. "I heard from Bo that you tend to use a deactivator pistol. If you wanted I could see about getting a deactivator and integrate it into this vambrace for stun mode vambrace. If you don't want it, well you got a nice little pocket in your vambrace to store anything you want to hide in there. It also has an energy shield too for extra protection."
Satine nodded looking at it before saying, "I didn't consider that but I would prefer to stick closest to the unarmed armor doctrine as possible."
I noted that before saying, "What's old is new then." As I put the vambrace down on the table.
"Old is new?" she asked, sounding curious.
"Right, always forget that Armorer legends don't usually spread past Armorers. Supposedly long before the Neo Crusaders, back during the original Crusades, it was actually frowned upon to put weapons in your armor and it was more normal for combat between Mandalorians to happen unarmed but in armor. So going back to an unarmed set of armor is returning to the roots of what is Mandalorian in a way."
"Huh, I wonder if Tanya knows about that?" The Duchess asked absent-mindedly as she rubbed her chin.
"She was always asking questions about armor, when we were working on her set." I responded, matter of factly before I realized that might be a sore point.
If it was, she showed no visible emotions about it which was probably the scariest thing in the entire room. "Hmm sounds like you unintentionally helped create her White Silver document then."
"Did I?" I replied with a raised eyebrow. "I've never actually looked at the darn thing even after I found out Tanya was responsible for it. Is there something in there I should have been paying attention to?"
"Well the document did speak about the importance of armors to the Mandalorian heritage and their use to the economy. All those reforms I've been having over the years are related to your work and our response to that document."
"Huh, good girl then," I said with a smile as I moved over to the armor before continuing the information on the armor. "Back to the armor, another technique I've been working on, goes back to the Crusader era as well, to a point at least. Back then, each piece of armor was custom-made and often not made of beskar but pieces of bone, often from the mythosaur. Now all mythosaurs are dead and gone so their bones are hard to get but I was able to get a few pieces which I'm incorporating their ivory into this piece here will make up a shoulder collar armor. It'll be designed to basically hold a cape in place and you can easily click this joint here." I pulled out what appeared to be a solid piece of beskar with bone smoothly integrated into it. A point under the right side of the collar caused the latch to let go and the piece to fall in open.
"Not only does it quickly detach the ceremonial pieces, but it also gets rid of the cape so that it doesn't distract you if you get into a fight."
She nodded her head and asked, "Is that going to be a key point in the design philosophy?"
I smiled at that and said, "Yep, every piece of equipment that is there is simply to pretty it up. It can easily be removed by a click of your fingers, leaving you with only the important pieces of equipment that would save your life in an emergency. It may be meant for ceremonial purposes but I want you to be able to fight if you need to."
"Hmm you know that's not a bad idea. Would you mind if I send a droid down here to film this process?"
That raised my eyebrow, "I think I actually would. No armorer likes to have their secret techniques getting out there, I would be ostracized by the other armorers."
She knew that but quickly came back with a response, "What if you were allowed to edit the footage to keep your secret techniques?"
My eyebrow was still raised, but I said, "Alright, go on Duchess, what are you thinking?"
"One of the ideas in the Silver Codex was a simple idea of creating our own media for Mandalore and this is a prime example of what kind of media could be created. Showing some of the creation of non-violent armor made for not only self-defense but for ceremonial purposes."
"I don't know." This is something that I had to think it through. On one hand I'd risk losing some clients who were not exactly friends to the New Order that the New Mandalorians brought in. On the other hand, if the armor I created inspired more New Mandalorians to pick up the armor in some way or form that could counteract the loss of some of the old clientele.
Finally I nodded before saying, "All right, I would be okay with this. But if we're going to go for that, maybe we should go bigger and bolder."
"Bigger?" She sounds like she is interested.
"Right now I'm just using pieces of armor you handed me, which came from your parents and the mythosaur bone I was able to scrounge up. But if I was to be given a bit of a budget, I could get a few more glamorous items, such as those azure stones from the Draboon and maybe a few other rare materials from across the Mandalorian sector. Really go full ceremonial garb, but I'll add a quick release for a cape that would get it out of the way of a jetpack if you want to put one on for a quick escape."
Satine seemed to think about it for a moment before nodding her agreement and saying, "That could easily be arranged. I should also have my dressmaker make an appearance down here, after all she is going to be making the flight suit that would be worn with this equipment. Might as well let her have an input on it."
I smiled at that and said, "Sounds like a plan to me." and started to turn back towards the forge before I heard her cough and say something else.
"By the way, what kind of suit of armor did you give Tanya?"
"Which one?"
"My old armor."
Ah so she actually hadn't seen it yet and was just pulling my leg earlier. Turning, I said, "It's just a standard super commando style, she wanted it to be practical over being showy."
"Unfortunate," she said before continuing, "any chance that you could create similar editions that you're planning for this set for Tanya's? If I'm going to have ceremonial armor, it would probably be best if she did as well."
"Hmm, I think I could do that easily enough." I said, "Although I doubted Tanya would be thrilled with that as she seemed to enjoy the mobility."
"But we all serve the Duchess as well and maybe this would be a little bit of a punishment for the whole White Silver Rebellion."
Mandalore, Royal Academy Dorm
Korkie Kryze
The galaxy changes, that was something I was having to get used to.
Attending the Royal Academy was theoretically not a military pursuit. Self-defense was a major component of the course here but it was meant for more diplomacy between clans than actual military advancement in the society.
That being said, I'd always known that many of the students here would go on to either get careers in the Royal Guard, the Mandalorian Guard, or that Self-Defense Force would be useful and would be a stepping stone to further on their career.
I had accepted that it was a thing that was going to happen no matter how many people welded themselves to the steps of the palace. Yes, we had abandoned our barbaric ways but we need to be able to bring Justice and Law down on those who did not. Things had changed recently though, the announcement of a Self-Defense Force for the protection of Mandalore had riled up the student body quite a bit. I tried to stay out of the politics of it, which was a hard job considering I was related to the people making the policies. However, even I could see that this decision had made the Royal Academy a bit of a powder keg.
The teenagers in favor of White Silver's philosophy, of course, were all interested in joining the Self-Defense Force and I heard many talking in the halls about how they would be signing up for that instead of the Guards if they were allowed. The more pacifist aligned New Mandalorians that had not gone around claiming support for White Silver and were rather annoyed with the whole prospect that led to a couple scuffles, no real fights but it was more like debates amongst the teenagers about the future of Mandalore.
I could understand that, even though I could raise a good point as to why the Self-Defense Force was a bit of a bad idea. It did basically admit that White Silver had a point and that the goals of pacifism could not be reached through the sole pacifism of one side. Considering for the last 20 odd years, some New Mandalorians have been building this idea that if you just give up needing to fight we would be better off as a civilization. It just kind of stings to see those who are either throwing themselves into the idea fully or had been a bit coerced into the idea.
Thankfully, I had been noticing less debates in the last week so maybe this whole situation would pass and we could focus on our studies again. Summer break was coming up, which means we would have a month or two to go back home and be able to calm down about these sorts of situations.
Hopefully it would at least stop the inevitable as people would go into their military adventurous careers after their time at the Royal Academy was up. Be it at the Guard or Self-Defense Force. Personally, I didn't care about the whole military adventurism. I understood why we were looking into this whole situation now, the Galaxy seemed to be getting a little bit less friendly all of a sudden. But that wouldn't make me change my opinions on where I was going when my time in the Royal Academy was up. The civil service is simple as I'd help with paperwork and other duties required of people that keep the government running. Maybe occasionally work as a small-time diplomat between clans here in the Mandalorian Sector? Past that I hadn't really thought much about it.
Soniee, I wasn't really sure what she's going to be doing. Lagos, had mentioned about possibly going into the Guards, and Amis had been quite tight lipped about what his interests were. I suspected he had an interest in joining the Royal Guard, he had always been more action-oriented.
Letting out a deep and concerned sigh I walked the hallways and found my way to the shared co-ed room I had with my friends.
Amis and Lagos were in the corner talking about something as they looked out the one window onto the desert that was Mandalore surface, and Soniee was on her computer doing something. I wasn't a tech guy and the fact that she was wearing a pair of head glasses that allowed her to see the screen and no one else made guessing what she was up to nearly impossible.
"Hey there Korkie." Soniee called from the receipt, giving me a little wave without really focusing on me as she worked on her computer.
"Afternoon." I greeted back before taking a seat across from her, "What's up with everybody today?"
The two at the window shrugged before saying, "Nothing much, we're just planning for summer vacation."
I nodded at that before taking a seat next to Amis, saying, "Anything fun planned?" They shrugged again before saying, "Maybe go to the mall? I don't know." Amis said
Amis said, "There's not a lot to do nowadays. It feels like one of the terrible things about getting older, I guess you're not as entertained by stuff you used to be."
"That's your opinion." Soniee said, not even looking up from her computer.
I chuckled at that. I was about to continue the conversation when I heard a knock on the door. "Is anyone expecting someone to come by?" There was a resounding shake of heads all looking as confused as I so I got up and walked over to the door pressing a button to open it.
Standing there and basically full orange Mandalorian armor was a man I did not recognize. Before I could ask who he was he gave a short bow before speaking. "Good evening Mr. Kryze, I hope you're having a wonderful evening. I've come bearing a note from your sister." He held out a small pad and I took it.
It was a design that would open upon it reading my fingerprints so I quickly got to reading it and was somewhat stumped and startled by what I read.
Looking up I asked, "So if I'm reading this correctly Tanya sent you here to ask me to fund and oversee an operation to scavenge lost data and possibly ships in an underwater museum in Breshig?"
"That's the general gist of it, these ships and data represent a piece of Mandalorian heritage that's likely to be irreparably damaged during the terraforming process. Probably in the next few years as the terraforming project begins on the planet. So there's only a short opportunity to recover it before it is lost for good."
"I don't know about this." I muttered, poking around on a world that was ultimately considered a lost cause was not exactly something that I thought would work well for the whole Royal museum concept but then again Tanya had sent him along so she must believe it's possible.
Soniee from over my shoulder said, "So you're going to go to a planet that's flooded to search for lost relics of the past." Turning I saw that Soniee was smiling before saying, "You know remember that thing we were saying where we don't actually have anything to do this summer. Getting involved in a little bit of archaeological adventure sounds like a swell time for a summer vacation."
Looking at the others, Lagos shrugged before adding, "If you guys are going on an adventure to Breshig, I wouldn't mind going there. My family is supposed to be from there according to some of the oldest stories."
Soniee said, "If we're collecting data, you do need a competent slicer and I'm pretty competent if I do say so myself."
"Sorry guys, as much as that's an entertaining thought, there's no way it's just going to be the four of us. In order to get this operation going we would need to hire several hundred people, experts in their field."
"Yeah sure," Amis said, "but that doesn't mean they won't need people to just lift and carry stuff. And a trip off Mandalore to probably the wettest world in the entire Sector sounds a lot more interesting than going to the arcade again." he pointed out and I had to agree.
"Fine," I turned to the man in orange armor and said, "I'll contact my aunt and attempt to get an operation together to go salvaging on the planet. Earliest we'll be able to leave is probably within 2 to 3 weeks anyways because we'll have to get the right equipment and all that and we'll be out of school by then. That's fine right?"
The orange helmeted man nodded at his head before saying, "Perfectly fine. I am staying at a hotel in the lower sectors of the city." Zoll Bresh pulled out a card and handed it to me, "My name's Zoll Bresh, just contact me when things are starting to come together and you need my information."
"Thank you." I replied, earning a resolute nod from him as he turned about and started to leave. Sighing I turned about as the door slid shut with a soft sigh and wondered how underwater archeology would even work as this was basically what we would be doing.
We would need a local guide at the very least...
Writers note: Kept you waiting, huh. This one took a while. It happens but the important part is it out and the timeline moving again. Had some dealing with mando people, we saw what's up with Satine and Bo, and even what Tanya's older brother is up to. Things will be getting interesting next week.
Edited by: Warmach1ne32, Afforess, FallQm
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