"We still have some of the oldest and least effective turbolasers ever presented in combat. But for the rest, our Dreadnoughts' weapons are among the finest to be found. It's too bad Alderaan doesn't have more war materials, or I could ask Bail for help on fitting out our last weakness."
Utena looked at him, wide-eyed. "I thought Alderaan was a pacifist system - no weapons of any kind allowed."
"Yes, mostly. They sure don't produce any. But the Organa family learned well from the hard spot Naboo got themselves into by being too peaceful. Alderaan has full planetary shields, anti-orbital artillery, and one of the finest starfighter legions anywhere. They just keep all of it secret." (It also doesn't do a heck of a lot of good against the Death Star - but we don't know that as it's in the future.)
Utena was speechless, while Ranko paused in brushing the child's hair to look at her husband-in-fact, if not in law. She peered at him beautifully. "How do you know?"
Ranma glowed, revealing his accomplishment. "I helped Bail install it. Few people are more likely to keep a secret than a Jedi, and I had the engineering expertise he needed. In return, he's provided the crews to run this operation for me. Alderaan creates the most renowned artists in the whole galaxy, bar none. And when they offered to share their craftsmanship our crew accomodations got a thousand times more comfortable. All the best luxury liners, resorts and hotels use Alderaan designers, it's trivial to adapt those principles to work in our starships' systems. Their planet sure doesn't make alot of craft, but they've been invaluable adapting my stolen tech to workable designs. Once I lost track of Blissex they've been my prime help in getting the last bugs ironed out as I've tweaked them. They may not be the best ship engineers, but another few sets of eyes can find alot of problems before they're allowed to become problems."
"What are we going to do about that Star Destroyer?"
Ranma paused, sinking into thought at his sister's question. They'd dropped the crew of all those ships off on that colony world, where they could blend happily in with the native population even if they were never found - which was the whole idea. The slaves they'd rescued they couldn't trust much more. Being abused didn't do wonders for one's morality and there are slaves who'd sell out anyone: their masters, other slaves, even their rescuers. So plans were afoot to acquire the materials to set them up on a quiet, backwater world that they could farm. If that worked out, the freed slaves could sell their excess produce to his fleet, in return for processed supplies that he could buy elsewhere, making for a decent life no better or worse than enjoyed by most of the rest of the galaxy's citizens.
But the Star Destroyer hadn't been planned on.
The boy Jedi rubbed his forehead. "Well, I can't see much choice. We've got nowhere to put it, no way to sell it, and it takes ten times the crew of our refitted Dreadnoughts to run it..."
Ranko smirked at him. "I thought you already had some of the best fixes in the galaxy for reducing crew requirements."
Ranma froze with his mouth wide open.
The girls waited.
The boy curled up on a seat and began muttering. "I'll have to track down Blissex again. I want to do it right, and no fair playing with the design without the original designer. But we can add computerized slave-rigging to it, update the automation... I've got better droids than the TB series he's using... fortunately I've got the fix for that life-support bug that's so costly... his daughter came up with the answer to that thruster design on the Imperial, even if she botched the power system... the fleet's line ship varient increases armor and firepower at the cost of a little fire control, but we can lick that in the computer core so we don't sacrifice accuracy... even bump the armor up a little more..."
Ranko giggled, interrupting her brother. "So, I take it we're going to refit the ship into a whole new type? Then we'll use it?"
Still deeply wrapped in thought, wearing his ponderings like a cloak, Ranma came to his feet. "No, we don't have to do nearly the same extent of a refit as we're doing to the katana fleet. Those I'm tearing down to frame and base components and reworking both - actually, if I had a decent salvage setup to do the stripping down stage I could double my refit rate. No, what we're going to do is minor in comparison, but it ought to make a much better ship."
"And what would we use it for?" Ranko teased, eyes sparkling.
"Our Dreadnoughts are pure combat vessels, with some degree of autonomy of support. The Star Destroyers are all designed to be dual-use as mobile repair docks, fleet tenders, and heavy equipment transports. We can use all three of those, the fact it performs about as well in combat as our smaller, dedicated fighting vessels is only added bonus. Once we cut the operation costs down to where we can afford them this would be a VERY useful ship. I wish I had more of them."
His twin sister grinned at him, slyly. "Well, if that's the case, I heard on Tanith the Empire decided to remove hundreds of Victory SDs from one of their line divisions to make room for the newer Imperial class. They've got to be somewhere, right?"
Ranma's mind was racing. Decommissioned ships, victims of modernization. Perfect. If the Empire was cutting Victory class SDs, then Dreadnoughts and similar vessels were already long into the phase-out process. The Katana fleet was alot of ships, but only hundreds out of thousands of Dreadnoughts created. The minute the Empire felt the need to expand its navy to meet a real threat, those decommissioned craft would be reintroduced to service to supplement regular construction rates. But for right now, the thought of hundreds of combat vessels floating empty in yards only lightly guarded...
It was inspiring.
The only problem was he'd need a hundred times his present resources. The stardrive facility he had would have to spawn a full production center. He'd need at least another dock yard, more would be better. Maybe deepdocks, maybe just find a good spot and build static facilities. If he was going that far building the right salvage machinery was a given. He'd need droids, components, different classes of machinery he'd never needed before, plus supplies of every kind, which meant money and front companies as there's no way he'd risk Alderaan, funnelling all those war materials through them. Direct links to the companies would be cheaper than other means and easier to conceal. Rawmats became an issue, as did labor. And crew would have to come from somewhere.
But it would be a fleet.
Oh, nowhere near the size or capabilities of the Emperor's ten thousand Imperial SDs and growing. But it was an amazing start, better even than having a full construction shipyard of his own, as the refits took trivial cost and materials compared to pure construction, and the raw materials - ie, the ships to refit, were essentially free to the man who could steal them.
The Empire was phasing out the Old Republic's fleet as it built a new one. Ranma had the resources and plans already in place to take that old fleet and turn it into a new one. All he had to do was get the ships the Empire was throwing away.
Even more enticing was the thought that by taking those ships now, he would be denying their strength to Palpatine when and if the war actually turned against the Empire and they needed them recommissioned. Then, if Palpatine ever found he needed numbers instead of firepower to put down a galactic insurrection, he'd find his few big Destroyers couldn't be everywhere at once.
"We'll forge false orders." Ranma abruptly decided. "We could steal some and have it look accidental. But I want all those hulks that I can lay hands on, and someone's bound to notice, so we'll lay in our excuses beforehand. The more normal it looks, the farther we'll go before anyone notices anything. We'll want hundreds of different excuses: Moffs competing to add to their fleets, planets authorized to have a picket ship or two, scrap companies, museums, all the excuses we can think of so we don't tip them off that someone is gathering all these to rival their navy. Then we back that up with a few subtle 'suggestions' via the Force to the guards to hush the whole thing up. Even to inspectors it'll look like ordinary scheming among Moffs and the Emperor's own secret projects.
"Then all we have to do is refit them. There's no way we can feasibly hide all the production and manufacturing we'll need in the Empire. We'll have to go outside the scouted borders of the settled slice of the galaxy he rules into uncharted space to build it. But that's actually good. We'll set up our own shipyard facilities, agricultural worlds, and manufacturing base - establish our own sectors. That way we can hide our Jedi and infrastructure safely where he can't get close enough to find it.
"Stupid Palpatine dismantled the Republic's Scout Corps because new worlds meant a frontier, a frontier meant somewhere to go where his iron fist of control wasn't established, and somewhere to escape his control was something he didn't want to exist. So we get beyond the settled borders and he'll never find us. And even if he did, we're bound to have time to put emplaced system defenses in. There's no way he'd allow fortress worlds to set up *under* his control, unless they are ones he's setting up for himself. But if we do it where he can't catch us doing it, then even should he find us we'll be too difficult a nut for him to crack easily and can hopefully go right on with business.
"It still takes two of our line ships to beat one of his in battle. But we CAN beat them, which we couldn't easily if they'd built them as well as we're building ours. But the Imperial class was an engineering and budget planning nightmare, without the real expert who could've made it work. So it's inefficient and wasteful, just like the Empire. And it's BECAUSE of that waste that maybe we can beat them!
"Gads, we need a billion things. But if this works we can sit beyond the outskirts, building strength, hiding our Jedi, while the political will to oust Palpatine materializes among the rest of the galaxy. Then when some planets decide they've got the will to fight, our fleet will be there."
Utena was staring at him as if he'd grown three heads, but Ranko was smiling.
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(Posted Sat, 07 Jun 2003 01:46)
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