"I don't make mistakes."
After Adrian had said it, my father watched him for a long moment before his gaze shifted to me, and I could see that he wasn't happy, but... he had made the decision.
"You understand," he said slowly, "that this is not a gift. That ship is not given to you nor to your Order. You will be passengers on our vessel."
"I assumed as much." I shrugged, agreeing to the terms.
"It is a prototype," he continued, shooting a glance at HK, "And therefore, it remains off limits to any of your droids or machines to plug into its systems. You can only access consoles and ports that you are authorized to do so. Any other attempts," he shot a glance at my younger brother, "You bring them back, whatever their mission is."
"Of course." We both said at once.
"We also won't let you access the navigational data that we are specifying," I said simply, and watched as my father leaned back slightly in his chair, looking at me, but I remained unflinching.
"I can agree to it, but in turn, all performance metrics remain ours to collect."
"Define performance." I interrupted before he could go further than that. I knew how he liked to act, and I wasn't going to let him start obfuscating things and creating small backdoors for himself.
"Reactor efficiency," Adrian answered instead of my father, "shield harmonics under stress, hyperdrive strain tolerance, atmospheric reentry tolerances, weapon calibration drift, automation latency, anything that has to do with the ship's systems." He smiled at me faintly. "All of it."
"You do realize that the navigation logs would be part of 'all of it,' yes?" I asked. "The targets we are going to hit have to be wiped."
"You may wipe location coordinates," Father replied evenly after a momentary pause, considering it. "We are not interested in Jedi secrets; anything that has to do with the Force always brought misfortune to the Empire. Mysticism is simply unpredictable."
"I will personally have to oversee that it happens and doesn't get backed up." I insisted, "Including when we put in the directions for the navicomputer."
"I can create your own access, separate from others," Adrian said, surprisingly cooperative. "You can monitor it and see it being wiped the moment you close down your access."
"I would prefer that." I answered, and then asked him another question, "You won't object if we run the ship through… unconventional environments?"
"Oh, no!" Adrian's eyes lit up at that, "That would be ideal."
"Adrian," Father warned him, with a slightly raised voice. "Ensure that any modifications they require do not compromise the frame integrity. I will not have my son's design get destroyed because of Jedi improvisation."
"I'll supervise any possible retrofit personally." He nodded with a smile.
"And..." The old man looked at me again, "You will not repaint it with Republic or Jedi colors."
"Why would I?" I scoffed, crossing my arms.
"You will also not use it in open confrontation with recognized Remnant or Republic forces."
"That would be extremely counterproductive." I shrugged, rubbing my face, "We are not leaving to start a war."
"Good..." He muttered, somewhat relaxing, "Then we understand each other. Adrian, you can go and show him," He finally said.
...
....
...
Leaving the villa, we were ferried away by my family's shuttle, brought up to orbit, and docked at a personal section of the orbital shipyard. When we disembarked the shuttle, the present troopers saluted Adrian as if he were my father, even though he hadn't worn any signs of being a high-ranking officer.
"Someone is famous..." Vila muttered, making Adrian smile as he looked back at us, leading the party through the grey corridors.
"I made my name after my eldest brother's flounder. You could say," He smiled at Vila, but seeing her being unaffected by his 'charm,' he moved to gaze at Sareh. "I single-handedly saved the family and reestablished us as a prominent force within the Remnants."
"I should clap or something?" Vila asked, rolling her eyes, while Sareh just chukled, returning a pleasant smile towards Adrian. Haaah... Honestly... This is ridiculous.
At least, I didn't have to deal with this for long as we arrived soon after, able to take a look at the Vindicator that sat in Dock Ring Twelve.
She wasn't a destroyer, but she had the size, just as angular, compact, and deadly-looking. The hull plating followed Imperial doctrine, but... There were clear deviations. Where it did not meet the classical demands, I could see that the lines were less perfectly cut than in the older Empire designs. It had a type of gruffiness to it, especially where the twin forward prongs framed a recessed sensor array with a set of dorsal hardpoints and ventral weapon ports... with shielding? As far as I could tell, there were small bumps next to them, making it even harder to disable the ship's weaponry. At least we are not unarmed.
"She can operate with three crew comfortably, as I said," Adrian began as we looked at it from above. "I hope you don't expect to retrieve a ton of people, though, because if we go above ten, you will have to start sharing bunks."
"I don't share well," Vila gave him a sideways look. "I tend to kick really hard, you see."
"I'll keep that in mind," he replied smoothly, ignoring her tone. "Automation handles targeting and defensive countermeasures," Adrian continued as if nothing had happened, "Manual override is available, of course, but unnecessary in most scenarios. No human," he began and then looked at the others, "Or non-human mind can keep up with the speed of its central computer."
[Vindicated Statement: I have been saying this forever.] HK's photoreceptors brightened as he spoke up, [Query: Does this vessel permit autonomous tactical execution?]
"Hm?" Adrian tilted his head slightly. "It has the capabilities of efficient elimination of threats."
[Dejected Statement: So no.] HK said and then paused. [Statement: Meatbags still fail at the end. Still, the vessel is acceptable.]
"I am happy that the ship can't make decisions on its own," Sareh spoke up, chuckling at HK's words, "I don't want to sail on something that could go rogue under me."
"Yes, me neither." Vila agreed, shrugging her shoulders. "Sorry, HK, but that would be too unpredictable!"
"You trust me with this?" I suddenly asked Adrian, and to my surprise, he turned fully to me... When he spoke, he didn't hesitate.
"No. Of course not." Honestly, I almost smiled at that, "If this fails," he continued, "My name is attached to it, so that's why I'm also coming along. I am not going to let it be ruined, and I need live training. You know best, brother, that living in this cage that our Father deemed necessary has been... Suffocating."
...
....
...
We didn't have to wait long because after spending one and a half days as guests in the villa, the ship was loaded and ready to leave. When we met with my brother again, he was now wearing an Imperial Officer uniform, his rank marked as captain. And he would also bring two stormtroopers with him, which... was a given. I wasn't even surprised and let them usher us into the belly of the beast.
"Really..." Vila mumbled, watching the white-armored soldiers bring up the rear, closing the ramp behind us.
"It's their ship." Sareh said calmly, "I would have been suspicious if they didn't send bodyguards with one of their top prospects."
"He flirts with you a little, and you already give in?" Vila asked, making Sareh simply smile and not answer, annoying her to no end.
[Statement: Two meatbags mean nothing.]
"Those are Death Troopers," I said, and finally, even the two made a flinch.
"A what?" Vila asked as we walked through the interior of the ship, heading towards the bridge.
"It was a special division in the Empire," Sareh answered for me, "They were elite infiltrator and the best of the Stormtrooper Division. As far as I recall, they were many times assigned to guard influential members of the Empire. But... their armors are supposed to be black."
"Which made them noticeable," I said with a half smile, reading their feelings, knowing everything already... And honestly? I think I also remembered the two, because they were previously my father's own guardians. I knew I felt their thoughts to be familiar... I think I even remember their names... But I am not going to go that far to reveal that, or they may turn against us. "Those armors were ditched," I continued, "But I can recognize them from how they walk."
[Query: Meatbags, is this true?]
"They won't answer you," I shrugged, "Their training is the second clue. They will only talk to Adrian and do it when we are not around. Otherwise, they will only do their jobs and protect him. They won't give in to any of our provocations, so don't even waste your time."
It was then that we entered the bridge, which lacked most of the usual controls, replaced by the captain's chair, occupied by my brother, and a few wall-mounted access points, in case others needed to do... anything.
"Great timing," Adrian said, waving a hand over his armrest, and multiple seats rose from the ground, letting us also sit down, as if watching a movie on a screen, looking out towards the station where the ship was docked. "Please sit, and then we can leave."
There was not much else to do, so after we took our seats, the docking clamps released and the Vindicator. As the sip powered up, I could feel the rumble go through its hull, traveling up the base of my chair.
"Watch... this." Adrian smiled, directing it mostly at me... no... At Sareh? I guess. As I looked around, I noticed that the Death Troopers stood guard at the bridge entrance, while the computers booped and beeped, leaving the station without incident, without any of us prompting anything or trying to control the ship.
"Where are we to head first?" Adrian asked as he looked at me, and I almost spoke up, smiling to myself. The way he asked, the nonchalant tone, he almost made me reveal it without thinking about it...
"Sareh?" I turned to her first, "Are you sure of your findings?" I asked because we didn't come empty-handed. By now, Sareh had narrowed down our starting points to five possible locations, and she marked the Vhalor Reach as a good place to kick our search off.
"I am." She nodded and handed me a datachit. "The coordinates."
"It would be faster if you told me." Adrian smiled, but we all ignored him, well, all, except Vila.
"We have an agreement," She said, gazing at him with slanted eyes, "You get your data, we keep ours separate, and we don't share on that."
"I'm just saying!" He raised his hands, keeping his smile perfect. "When you are ready, insert it into the armrest of your chair," he added, looking at me. "The computer will do the rest, and I can't access it from here."
[Sarcastic Statement: Very trustworthy.]
"He isn't lying..." I muttered, feeling that he was surprisingly honest when he spoke, as if lying was beneath him, and I think he did believe that.
In the end, I inserted Sareh's datachit into the proper slot, and a moment later, the computer had adjusted the ship's systems, and we were off, without anyone having to input... anything else.
"Good," Adrian smiled, checking all the data, "Everything went smoothly, as expected. The computer says that our arrival, wherever it will be, is 28 hours away. Huh... We are heading towards nowhere, are we?"
"Vhalor Reach," Sareh suddenly spoke up.
"Never heard of it," Adrian answered after a momentary pause. "What's that?"
"A graveyard," She shrugged, standing up from her chair, stretching, "An old battlefield, with a lot of wreckage, spinning in space for all eternity. We will see more when we get there, but make sure that the computer drops us out ahead of time... It would not be nice to appear in the middle of a drelict dreadnought."