Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 58 (Patreon)

We ended up going to a smaller restaurant serving one of the three fish the planet was known for, ordering enough for everyone before heading back to the Chariot. The fish was interesting, similar to salmon in some ways, but with a more substantial chew and a deeper creaminess that was pretty good. Everyone but Calima enjoyed it, the Tholothian explaining that she wasn't a big fan of fish in the first place, so she wasn't surprised. When the food was done and the table was cleaned up, we discussed how our multi-purpose trip went.

"I am truly shocked we stumbled onto that armor," Vaz admitted. "I did not expect to find anything like that on such a limited planet."

"There's always those hidden gems somewhere," I said with a shrug. "You just need to know where and how to look."

"Racer could have probably found something if he looked on the net," Miru pointed out. "All sorts of black market, off-the-record stuff on local networks."

"Either way, I'm hoping to find more substantial armor for everyone soon," I said, shaking my head. "The plate inserts we use now work, but we need something more substantial, something like what we got for Vaz, with full body protection. That's a priority after we are done here."

"You didn't find a jacket?" Tatnia asked, and I shook my head.

"Nothing that I liked," I responded. "I'll find something eventually. For now, I'll just wear the plate carrier stuff."

Before anyone could comment, Racer rolled into the lounge, beeping, warbling, and whistling. Miru's face lit up, and she turned towards me.

"The data from the scan is done, you want to see it?" She asked, Racer activated his holoprojector after I nodded.

A projected image of the military base appeared above the table, slowly spinning so we could see it from every angle. There were three main buildings on the surface, an office building of some kind, a large storage warehouse and garage combo, and the structure built under the large double laser cannon. The powerful laser cannon looked a lot like the boxy, green laser-firing turret that was in some of the movies, but I had no idea if it was the same model or not.

Under the buildings were a series of tunnels and rooms. Unfortunately, the information the scan picked up on them was limited. The sensor clearly struggled to get through the ground on top of the tougher, reinforced military buildings.

"Anyone seeing anything that would ruin the plan as it is?" I asked, studying the scans of our target.

"The power generator is even more heavily protected than we thought, but that shouldn't cause any problems," Julus said.

The younger crew member pointed out the dome-shaped building in one corner of the base. The scans confirmed that it was the main power reactor for the base, which we had already guessed. The reactor dome wasn't far from the large, heavy turbolaser turret.

"The whole base is bigger than we anticipated," Admitted Vaz. "We should expect more resistance."

"With any luck we won't have to deal with it until it's too late for them to do anything," I pointed out. "Unless you think there will be too much for our plan to work?"

"... no, there's not enough space to have that many people, especially not if we execute the plan when we know most of the ship's crew are off base."

"Good. Alright, guys, this scan brings us one step closer to the heist, now it's just a waiting game," I said, getting a few nods in return. "Tomorrow, we can go shopping for a shuttle, and wait for one of the ships to land. Everyone good?"

I paused for a second, waiting for anyone to speak up before nodding and standing.

"Alright, then that's it for today," I said before turning to our ever-useful astromech. "Racer, keep tabs on the bars and the skies. Let us know if we get any sudden arrivals."

The short and stout droid gave a warble of confirmation, wheeling to the cockpit with Calima right behind him. Nal and Julus stayed in the lounge while Tatnia, Vaz and Miru headed downstairs to the first deck. I, however, made a beeline for my room. I had a lot of magical learning to do, and there were a handful of things I wanted to get down before we attempted to steal the ship, whichever one ended up landing for shore leave.

I spent two hours improving the efficiency and power of my Destruction spells, increasing their effectiveness slightly and cutting their mana cost a not insignificant amount, before taking a break and walking around the ship. After chatting with Miru, who was also taking a break from her own preparations, I headed right back up to my room and got to work on my Restoration magic, working hard to get the slight bump in effectiveness and the more significant increase in efficiency. By the time I finished that, it was almost time to sleep, so I spent an hour meditating and internally circulating my mana, heading right to bed when I was done.

The following day was much of the same until Tatnia and I left the Chariot shopping for a shuttle. I had to admit it was a bit surreal to be doing the same thing we were doing before we got snagged. I was a bit on edge, as was Tatnia, but neither of us was anywhere as concerned as Miru was. The young Twi'lek had stopped just short of asking us not to go, but instead insisted that we keep in near constant contact, even though she and Nal would be just as busy.

It took a few stops to find the kind of shuttle we were looking for, mostly because the selection was so much smaller than before. Most of the places we visited were selling land and air speeders and just happened to have a shuttle or two. The first five didn't have anything worth buying. It wasn't until the sixth stop that we finally found what we were looking for.

The shuttle had enough room for a pilot, a bit of cargo, and eight people to ride comfortably. It could fit about twice that many if people were willing to stand and use the hand grips attached to the ceiling. It was armed with a central dorsal medium laser cannon, which should just barely be capable of taking down starfighters. There were also two slightly heavier cannons under the cockpit. There was no hyperdrive, but the ship could maneuver and hit descent speeds for its size. The double-sided airlock entryway on both sides of the ship meant it could dock with most ships. It wasn't nearly as capable of a shuttle as the Dark Blade, but the fact that it could land in the Chariots hangar bay made it infinitely more flexible and useful.

It was also a CEC design, meaning there were a thousand and one upgrades available to us if we wanted to improve it. Tatnia was already looking at ways to make it harder to pick up on scanners.

"I hate to say it, but I really think we might end up selling the Blade," I said as we walked around and kicked the metaphorical tires on the shuttle. "We would need to hire a dedicated crew for it, which wouldn't be able to live on it. Plus, while it outclasses just about any shuttle its size, it's not fast enough to act as a starfighter or heavy classed enough to act as a full member of the fleet."

"It is a bit pointless to have a ship dedicated to being a shuttle… but not use it as a shuttle," Tatnia said, agreeing reluctantly. "If it was smaller, we could keep it locked to the bottom of the Chariot for easy access, but emergency docking ports aren't rated for frequent use. It sucks to give away such a well-made ship, but we would get a chunk of credits for it. Probably around a hundred and fifty thousand, and that's with a friendly discount."

"Damn, that's a whole 'nother ship, one that could actually function as part of the fleet…" I said with a whistle, leaning my head from side to side, weighing my options. "It would also pay for some major upgrades to the Chariot."

After a few minutes inspecting the shuttle, we decided to buy it, even though its CEC label meant we would most likely be paying an extra two, maybe three thousand credits. It fit what we were looking for way too well to pass up, plus I liked the appeal of being able to upgrade it later down the line.

A quick transfer of twelve thousand credits and a less quick refuel and installation of the shuttles power core, and we had ourselves a functioning shuttle. Tatnia climbed into the pilot's seat and started going over everything, eventually starting her up and lifting away from the sales yard.

We headed straight for the landing pad, the shuttle making quick work of the distance. As we approached, I commed Nal to open up the port hangar bay, as I knew the starboard would now be full, even with the Arrow stored along the mainline cargo space. It was a bit tight, but eventually, Tatnia guided the ship into open space, landing on the deck with a subtle thud. I stood up from my seat and made my way to the docking airlock, opening them both and stepping out onto the hangar bay deck.

"What do you think?" I asked Nal and Miru, who were waiting by the large cargo bay doors that entered into the hangar. "It was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but it's hard to beat CEC upgradability."

"A tight fit," Nal commented as Miru blew past me to see the interior.

"Should be enough room to work on it… Right Miru?" I said, calling out to our mechanic at the end.

"Yeah, it's at least a meter on top, that's more than enough room," She commented, peeking out the airlock. "It looks good, how much was it?"

"Twelve thousand," I said, getting an appreciative nod from Nal and Miru, the latter disappearing back inside. "Tatnia did most of the negotiating."

Nal chuckled and followed Miru inside, stepping to the side to let Tatnia step out. After ten minutes or so, Miru came walking back out and shrugged.

"The usual problems look okay, but I'm gonna assign Leddy and another repair droid to do a deep inspection," She explained, turning back to the ship. "I want it fully tested before anyone takes it out of the atmosphere."

"And the Head Engineer has spoken," I said, Miru blushing slightly, opening her mouth to apologize, but I beat her to it. "I'm not teasing you, Miru, you do get the final say on stuff like this."

The young mechanic nodded in agreement but turned away to hide her smile. She promptly left, headed to the cargo hold. The rest of us followed her out, but headed up to the second deck instead. After a quick snack, I made my way to my room, once again putting my nose to the grindstone. I had one more set of improvements I wanted to get through before our mission started, and I had no idea how much time I had. I did my best to push through a few more improvements as quickly as possible, working hard to work them into my spell casting so they would be ready.

Two and a half hours later, I left my room, finished learning for the day, and headed to the lounge. Vaz and Julus were there already, eating and talking. I grabbed my own meal and sat down with them.

"I'm just surprised you recognized them on sight," Julus was saying, accepting one of his blaster pistols back from Vaz, who was handing it to him, butt first. "I know they are pretty rare."

"They are much more common among the Mandalorians," She explained, Julus's jaw dropping as she explained. "My father carried a single Westar-35 pistol. They were made by a Mandalorian company."

"I… Really?" He asked, looking down at the pistol as if seeing it for the first time. "I… didn't know that."

"I thought that Mandalorians used a different weapon, the cylindrical one with a slightly wider tip and the skeletonized grip."

"...You may be referring to the Westar-34, the predecessor to the 35," Vaz said after thinking for a moment. "I preferred the 35, as it has a larger power cell."

"Wait, wait, back up!" Julus said. "Can we get back to the part about my dad using weapons that Mandalorians use?"

"They are rare outside of Mandalorian circles, but not unheard of," Vaz explained. "It is not like beskar, which would have meant he was a Mandalorian, or killed a Mandalorian and took it. While I may have missed the sense of ownership over such a metal, many did not."

"So you wouldn't care if I managed to get us some beskar armor?" I said, catching Vaz's full attention. "Probably won't be until after we have the new ship set up and manned…"

"How would you manage to achieve that?" She asked, looking skeptical. "After the Great Purge of Mandalore it became nearly impossible to find."

"I have access to a spell that lets me turn one metal into another," I explained, ignoring Julus's wide eyes and hanging jaw. "It functions in a way that making money from it is nearly impossible, essentially burning off mass when converting cheap, easily accessed metal, resulting in a comparably small amount of the metal you're creating. It also only works with one type of metal at a time, so using scrap would also be difficult. But if I wanted beskar plating for protection, I would happily buy ten thousand credits worth of metal and convert it into armor plating for everyone… or just chest plates if it's more expensive than that."

Vaz was silent for a long moment, digesting what I had said. After a while, she leaned forward, a frown on her face.

"I do not know enough about Mandalorian history and culture to consider myself one," She admitted, still frowning. "I would not even be able to find any of the coverts that are hidden around the Galaxy. I know that most Mandalorians would fervently demand that any beskar be returned to them, as they consider it theirs. As most of it was stolen from them by the Empire… I find myself agreeing. On the other hand… any that you... create would not be the beskar that was stolen from them, you would be creating it from other metals… I would have no issue with it besides the attention it might bring. I doubt a Mandalorian would believe you if you explained you created the beskar with magic."

"Well… it's a bridge we won't have to cross for a while," I explained. "I would need a sample of the metal first, and I would have to learn the spell. I have a lead on where we might be able to find some beskar samples, but it's going to be a minute before we can go there."

"Something for the future, then," She responded, and I nodded in agreement.

"Something for the future."

I was about to take another bite of my food when a long series of whistles, warbles, and intense beeps echoed from the cockpit. All three of us turned to look as Racer quickly rolled out into the lounge, still beeping and whistling. I shared a look with Vaz before turning back to Racer.

"I'm guessing the ship is landing?" I asked, getting a long excited whistle in return. "Which one is it?"

Instead of whistling, he activated his holoprojector, showing off a diagram of the Retrofitted Consular-class. It rotated a bit before winking out, Racers' holoprojector going dark.

"Alright, looks like we have a target," I said with a nod. "Even better, it's the one we have a map for. With any luck, we will be gone before the sun rises tomorrow with the beginnings of a fleet."

I could see that Vaz was excited, ready for the challenge that lay ahead, and I found myself just as excited. Racer let out another series of whistles before rolling back into the cockpit.

".... Could we please get back to the part where my dad might have been a Mandalorian?" Julus asked again after a long pause.