27 Chapter

I enter my cabin and collapse on my pillows. So tired, but it is finally done. Four months in a shipyard takes it out of you, even if you are not actually the one doing the repairs.

Sighing happily I rest my head on the pillow and yawn again. Turns out the damage was even worse than my engineering crew originally thought. The entire starboard engine nacelle was not only shot up to take out the engine itself, but also to damage the actual superstructure.

To make things worse the starshuttle is not a combat ship and as such doesn't have the redundancies those do, so the damage ALSO took out several power relays and fried the hyperdrive.

Luckily the light cruiser that came to our rescue was nice enough to tow us to Corellia shipyards even if at the time I wasn't sure it if was worth it as it meant I had to stand the Captain's attitude about merchant shippers for another few days.

My chief engineer was angry as a bee for a while as well. Not because I put her and Tel'te on half pay for a month for their stunt in the food court...ok, it was a nice looking stunt, but still, I can't let that kind of thing slide. I could have been a passenger walking in on them.

No, the thing that made her pissed was that there where yard dogs crawling all over 'her' ship, making a mess.

The third time I got a complaint from the crew working on the ship I had enough and gave her the general specs I need for a space superiority drone and let her get on with it.

That got her out from underfoot for a total of two weeks.

The result is the Crow.

The drone is an aerodynamic airframe built around a double laser barrel with powerful engines. The thing is unshielded and can carry the power reserves for five hours of full operations in combat conditions. Each Crow also contains a link to communicate with the ship and with each other to let their VI's coordinate strikes.

Once its power is low it will return to the ship to refuel the power cells, a procedure that takes a total of 30 minutes. As it does that it also creates a backup copy of its entire memory to a central core. Everything it learns is then also uploaded into the other Crows as they dock.

Meaning that even if all Crows are killed, the next batch will have the 'combat experience' of the old ones and they learn from mistakes other crows have made.

At the very least, building all twenty of them from scratch kept her busy for the rest of the refit even if they cost a pretty credit, we could afford it as the Jedi were nice enough to pick up the tab for the repairs.

All twenty have been moved to their launch hangars, all repairs on the ship have been finished, and the turrets got VI gunners installed. All is ready for the shakedown cruise tomorrow.

I even got time to start constructing my ascension armor. While all Morrigi males, at least the ones from quality tribes, know how to make them, quite a few components don't exist here and need to be approximated from local tech, slowing the building down....but then again, building the armor is more a kind of art form than an engineering challenge.

You sculpt it from technology, you don't build it.

I purr softly and close my eyes, trying to catch some sleep...tomorrow is a big day and hopefully, everything will go well.

The next day I am curled around my control pillar, watching my crew go over systems checks before Samantha Swan looks back at me from the XO seat just in front of my pillar.

"Captain, all systems report ready and we have permission from Corellia Control. We are clear to undock."

I give her a nod "Very well. Miss Visa, ahead slow to standard orbit."

She smiles and almost purrs, "Aye, Skipper." and the ship shivers softly as the docking clamps let go of the station, letting us accelerate away as the engines start to purr.

Clear Skies slides away from the station and executes a smooth turn before accelerating and I relax, purring softly as I enjoy the feeling of a smoothly operating ship around me again and pull up the VI feed.

All of them are almost constantly talking to each other, going through simulations. I nod happily and close it down again, returning my attention to the bridge "Status?"

"All systems nominal. Engineering reports all clear. We are ready for hyper test." Commander Swan reports without looking up from her console.

I 'hmm' and am about to pull up the nav charts before I snort, "Well...before we were so rudely interrupted I think we were heading somewhere for a vacation. Helm, Please set a course for Dac."

Tel'te glances back at me a few moments later and nods with a smile "Ready, Captain."

I spread my feathers in amusement and then point forward "Engage." and we break orbit. Half an hour later the stars turn into stripes before being replaced with the swirling of hyperspace.

Clear Skies has spread her wings and is safely on her way.