Chapter2, segment 1, first draft

This took forever to write, hopefully you all will like it. I have done only a minimal review one this piece so far so please forgive the rather abundant mistakes.

As always C&C not only encuraged but begged for, even if it's just 'I like it' or similar note, but acctual suggestions for fixes would be far far better.

Chapter 2: Construction

Segment 1: Building a new home

Chloe stood in the drydock orbiting Nippon, looking over the old and battered hull of a supertanker. It was huge, 3.6 km long and one in diameter, but it needed to be rebuild from the ground up.
“I’ll take it.” Said Chloe to the merchant selling the ship.

***

Somewhere in Neo-Edo in some seedy bar Chloe was talking to a man in a rumpled suit.
“That many nanofacs will cost at least 50 million, and they won’t be easy to obtain. And these stealth systems you want are quite sophisticated.” Said Fargo, “and I don’t know where the hell I’m going to find that many GAZERs.”
“That is why I came to you. I was told you are skilled in getting information and materials.” Replied Chloe.
“Indeed I am, but this is a large order. It will take me months to assemble it all, and 250 million.” Complained Fargo.
“You will have one month and 100 million.”
“Make it 220 million and you have a deal.”
“120.”
“190."
“150. Take it or I will find another fixer.”
“Very well miss Redienh’s Nei, you have a deal, if you are willing to do me a favor.” Agreed Fargo.
“What kind of favor?”
“There has been a rush of synth murders on Nu Pari, and we need a bodyguard and assistant to investigate these murders and stop them.”
“What’s a synth?”
Fargo was surprised that she didn’t know this, and resolved to do a background check on the girl. “An artificial humanoid.”
“I see. Very well I agree.”

***

Chloe and Ukir are back in the dock with the new ship Chloe has acquired.
“This is not a warrior’s vessel!” Complained Ukir rather loudly.
“I believe I already told you that I dislike loud people.” Countered Chloe.
“There is no honor in piloting a merchant vessel.” Said Ukir in a much lower volume.
“This merchant is not going anywhere until it is fixed up. Follow me and I will explain the test you must pass to get accepted into the clan Redienh’s Nei.” said Chloe completely ignoring Ukir’s complaints, while heading into the ship. “I am the clan head or at least the closest equivalent to a Klingon clan head. Epetai I believe you call them.” After waiting for an affirmative grunt Chloe continued, “Unlike Klingon clans you can’t bribe your way into this clan, or get in through pure skill and reputation. To join the clan you must serve Cy and pass seven trials. The three trial of combat, the trial of leadership, the trial of learning, the trial of the hunt, and the most important one, the trial of loyalty. We will begin with the first trial of combat. Shall we begin?”
By Now Chloe and Ukir where walking through the corridors of the ship, all bare metal, and more than half of the lights where broken casting long shadows in many places. Ukir noticed that Chloe stuck to the shadows and he frequently lost sight of her as the shadows just seemed to shallow her. “Hurmpf, hiding like a coward. Maybe there is indeed no honorable soul to be found outside the empire.” He thought while answering, “Sure, what must I do?”
“Here put on this ring.” Said Chloe handing him a ring and waiting until he put it on, “Defend yourself, and if you can counterattack. Unarmed and improvised weapons only.” Answered Chloe, before dropping to the floor and making a combination handstand and mule kick towards Ukir’s face which he barely dodged only to be hit by Chloe’s following upside-down spin kick.
As Ukir regained his balance he looked down the hallway they where fighting in but he couldn’t see Chloe.
“What are you waiting for?” Came Chloe’s voice from behind him, causing Ukir to spin around and get into a ready stance.
“You really haven’t be trained in unarmed combat at all have you? That’s all right I will train you in the clan’s own martial art.”
Ukir could hear the voice, and it was clearly coming from that patch of shadow, but there was nothing there... Wait the was the barest hint of something, so Ukir charged, and promptly found himself airborne before he fell to the ground with a heavy thud.
“I’m impressed, most people can’t seem to see me while I’m in the darkness.”
Growling Ukir got up again, but before he even had the chance to reorient himself he was pounded back to the ground.
“You are to slow, any enemy could be pounding on you right now and you would never be able to retaliate. Oh by the way this battle will last until you give up or are unable to fight.”
Ukir got back on his feet thinking himself ready for the assault now, but Chloe just grabbed his legs from behind and pulled causing him to land flat on his face. This time however Chloe didn’t give him the chance to get up, instead she sat on his back and put Ukir’s arms in a painful hold.
“Do you yield?” asked Chloe in a playful tone.
“No.” growled Ukir, trying to sit up until Chloe increased the pressure on his arms.
“Yield or I will break your arms.” Said Chloe still sounding like she was enjoying this game a lot.
“Never!”
“Oh well you asked for it.” And two snaps and a howl of pain could be heard.
Ukir slowly got up both his arms hanging limply at his side.
“There is no dishonor in surrendering if you can’t win. Oh and next time, don’t scream so loud please.” Said Chloe sounding rather bored. Ukir merely growled and tired to kick Chloe which she jumped over and then kicked him in the face. Ukir staggered but managed to stay on his feet. Ukir tried to kick Chloe again but she just caught the foot and spun it hard and Ukir landed on his face again and now one of his legs was dislocated.
“You can’t fight anymore. You lost this battle, and you failed the first trial.” Declared Chloe, “And here I thought Klingons where great warriors. Ah well at least you are persistent.”
One quick cure spell later and Ukir was able to move again.
“That ring I gave you is a ring of regeneration, it should heal you completely over the course of about 10 hours. It will also allow you to regenerate lost organs and limbs although it does not help you survive organ loss. I have a feeling as if you will need that ring if you are going to train regularly with me. Tomorrow evening I must leave for a few days, maybe even weeks, I will give you a set of design plans to implement during that time. Make sure that whatever workers you hire won’t lose sleep over the addition of a few not quite legal weapon systems.”
Ukir seemed to brighten quite a bit at the mention of weapon systems, and asked “I take it this won’t stay a merchant ship then will it?”
“Tzk, tzk,” said Chloe while shaking her head, “of course it will remain a merchant ship, the Humanx stated quite clearly that they would not let me keep a warship. Besides carriers are mostly empty space anyway. Can you handle it?”
“Of course Epetai.”
“Here is the design. Look it over and tell me if there is anything you think could be improved.” Said Chloe while handing him one of her precious laptops. “The information on this laptop must remain a secret, defend it with your life if you have to.”

***

Ukir found the crew quarters of the ship and sat down to study the designs after figuring out how to work with the odd interface.
“Hmm, weapons would be a good place to start.” Thought Ukir to himself.
Immediately the green wireframe lit up with evenly spaced red dots and a large blue line that stretched through most of the ship. Calling up details on the blue line first Ukir was impressed with the projected range and firepower of this spinal mount particle cannon, the power costs where enormous though. The red dots turned out to be interceptor guns that could double as offensive weapons, however at a rating of up to 9 GW the power cost for 15'000 of these guns would be enormous.
Curious as to how Chloe planned to power all these weapons Ukir checked the plans for the power system, and immediately the entire wireframe turned red. Looking a little closer Ukir saw that the power distribution system was composed of a central line down the middle with periodic lines to the outer hull and the outer hull was for a large part just a network of power lines. He was impressed with the amount of redundancy displayed in the construction of this power net. It wouldn’t be all that to disrupt half or so of the power net in a section, but that would only affect a few interceptor turrets, if that much.
A listing of power plants finally gave Ukir the information he was looking for, and thought for a moment that he was on the wrong page. Well the antimatter reactor explained where she would be getting the power from, even though he wasn’t feeling suicidal enough to fly a ship with one of those into battle. Then he noted the other reactors listed below that and he was impressed by the sheer amount of paranoid redundancy built into the power system. If you cut the ship in half it would be only be a minimal reduction to its combat power. Of course the ship could be built far more efficiently if the amount of redundant components where removed and more weapons added instead.
On a hunch Ukir checked some other systems and found the same pattern of redundancy everywhere, two hyper drives, two types of main engines with several of each type, four types of Sensor Arrays, everything was redundant. Also while many components where Humanx or Narn in origin there where a lot of components listed as being made by Cyan Tech, including the primary weapon of the ship the Cyan Tech Doberman Boomer, revised edition. A short search revealed the exact designs for all the Cyan Tech components, and those components had the same sort of redundancy seen in the overall design of the ship.
“Well I guess I know where Chloe learned her engineering skills.” Thought Ukir to himself.

***

Chloe and Ukir where siting together in the bridge discussing the modifications to be done to the ship.
“And that is why I think it would be better to have more weapons and somewhat less redundancy.” Finished Ukir after he outlined the changes he proposed to Chloe and their reasons for them.
“Hmm, your argument for bigger hangar doors is noted, and approved, as for mounting more weapons, your reasons are sound except for this fact. This is a carrier, not a battleship, if we do get into combat we are either desperate, or trying to get away, and I would rather not have a lucky shot cripple us while we are trying to get away, and if we are desperate enough to join in combat ourselves then a few more guns aren’t likely to do the trick.” Replied Chloe. “Any more suggestions?”
“No.”
“Very well, then I will start teaching you the basics of hand to hand combat now.”

***

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Catty Nova Nebulart, aka Darth Wader
http://www.angelfire.com/anime4/cattynebulart/index.html