STS. LOG-003. (Patreon)

LOG-003.There was a palpable energy in the activation of a starship, a phenomenon not entirely describable by mere words. It was an electric sensation, one inherent to the awakening of a slumbering giant, which coursed through both the command network and the very structure of the ship itself.Silent Guardian all but hummed with life as her metaphorical heart finally woke up once more and resumed its steady beat. Power surged through the vast network of conduits and systems, spreading warmth and motion to every part of the ship.She'd technically already been awake thanks to my input, but she'd been restricted to merely communicating with me and the B1s I'd wired up and brought into the network, with no other actions available to her until something other than basic reserve power could be diverted to her usage.Now her hull, her body was following suit and waking up as well, and with its reactivation came the return of countless functions and systems that had lain dormant for far too long, judging by how eagerly the Munificent frigate began to run through them at an almost blistering pace, extensively simulating and testing this or that feature before quickly moving on.In the end, fixing the issue hadn't actually been all that hard, amusingly enough. A jagged hole in the outer hull had allowed the dunes outside (and it was at least nice to have concrete confirmation we were on a desert planet of some kind) to pour in, and from there they'd slowly filtered through the vessel's innards, getting into nearly every damn nook and cranny until they'd finally gotten mixed into one of the main lines connecting the 'brain' of the Munificent to the rest of its hull, prompting built in fail safes to lock down the connection.Correcting the problem had been as simple as sending one of the B1's under my command over to a damage control station, hosing away the fine but thick sand clogging up the maintenance tunnel, before spending a bit more time drying it off a little and finally initiating a hard restart.[REACTOR: ONLINE. WEAPONS: ONLINE. SUBLIGHT ENGINES: ONLINE. SENSORS: ONLINE. HYPERDRIVE-]I knew that all throughout the ship, entire sections were slowly but steadily beginning to come back to life, even as the crew itself (minimal as it was) received the awakening signal, vectored through their mothership's internal network. As one, two hundred or so droids unfolded from their deactivated states and began to return to their respective stations.The rogers were damn near infinite.But for me, the biggest thing was the lights finally turning back on, forcing the darkness around me to recede as I settled in front of that same control console in the bridge, metal arms crossing behind my back while I observed countless reports begin to pour in, the rest of the bridge crew's chattering filling the air as they returned to their own stations....Was I perhaps just a little bit lost? Absolutely. But I had some very useful and comprehensive protocols I could follow, all patiently sitting in the back of my processor and ready to give me advisement for just about any situation. The actual decision making would be left up to me, however."We appear to be grounded. Locational status?"[ALARM: THIS VESSEL IS HALF BURIED WITHIN A MINOR CANYON. INTERNAL CHRONOMETER INDICATES A SIGNIFICANT LENGTH OF TIME HAS PASSED SINCE DEACTIVATION.]"Years? Decades?"...Centuries?[NEGATIVE: YEARS. ONE AND A HALF, TO BE PRECISE.]I noted the holographic projection now presenting itself in the middle of the chamber, and promptly stepped over to begin circling it. A brief inspection concluded that while Silent Guardian was technically correct, she was in turn also being just a little dramatic about things when it came to her current physical condition."Hm."The hull of the frigate herself was very much covered in a not so fine (compared to the interior, at least) layer of sand, yes. One likely accumulated over the supposed time we'd been sitting here, but by no means were we utterly buried like the frigate was all but complaining about.A quick pulse of the sublight drives would probably shake most of it off. Cleaning out the insides would be harder, but doable. Even if we'd likely never get every last bit granule out. To be entirely honest, it was starting to look like actually getting the ship airborne and back up into space might prove the main issue here. Munificents were not designed for unassisted planetary landing and takeoff, and part of me still wondered just how the actual fuck we'd gotten down here in the first place.Clearly not completely cleanly, considering a hole had been ripped into the side of the damned ship. Probably scraped through some of the armour and hull while manoeuvring into the canyon in the first place. Hells, it was a veritable miracle we hadn't smashed ourselves into several broken pieces, really."Silent Guardian, where are we? Consult Separatist territorial records."The response to the question and order was quick, even as the hologram morphed into that of a planet, rather than a frigate.[ANSWER: LOGS IN LINE WITH PREVIOUS GALACTIC RECORDS INDICATE WE ARE ON TORRID IV, WITHIN THE TORRID SYSTEM. CURRENT STATUS OF ACCOMPANYING FLEET ASSETS IS UNKNOWN, THOUGH RETURNING SIGNATURES SUGGEST SEVERAL VESSELS HAVE ALSO CRASHED OR LANDED NEARBY.]I paused, thinking. Torrid IV...didn't ring any bells, unfortunately. We could be just about anywhere. But I could piece together what had most likely happened.Namely, that whatever poor bastard of a droid that had controlled this body before me had received the general shut down order and promptly followed it (unlike a certain counterpart, I'd need to keep Kalani in mind if I ever managed to get off this rock), but not before ensuring that their fleet wouldn't be found and destroyed by Republic troops.Just why my predecessor had calculated that landing and marooning ourselves on a veritable dust ball of a world was better than floating off into deep space and going quiet would likely forever remain a mystery, though. Maybe they'd figured that the risk of accidentally bumping into an asteroid or getting caught in the gravity well of a star while drifting was higher than the threat of scavengers or wild beasts. Maybe they'd just been a bit of a dumb shit. Wouldn't blame 'em, it wasn't like I hadn't made my own share of fuckups in the past."Are you able to identify the nearby vessels?"[AFFIRMATIVE: MUNIFICENT FRIGATES AZURE DAWN AND STORMBRINGER HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED. CORE SHIP INDUSTRIOUS PROFIT HAS RESPONDED POSITIVELY TO GENERAL NETWORK PINGS. MULTIPLE C-9979 LANDING CRAFT HAVE ALSO BEGUN RETURNING SIGNALS FROM THE NEARBY PLAINS, THOUGH APPEAR TO BE HEAVILY DAMAGED DUE TO EXTREME WEATHERING.]A core ship? Now that was already sounding rather promising. It wasn't a full Lucrehulk class, but it absolutely could be if we managed to find a ring to connect it to. As for the landing craft...well, with luck the forces within them would be intact enough to make their way out and find somewhere better than a big open desert to die in."Understood, enact a wide area data burst. All CIS detachments are to reactivate and regroup immediately. Prioritisation should be given to the restoration of the closest, least damaged starships and salvaging of useable components from vessels deemed irrecoverable. Restrict the burst to well below local continent level, we don't want to alert potential enemy forces if we don't have to."[BY YOUR AUTHORITY, FLEET COMMANDER.]Shivers. Actual shivers. Or well, not really, since my new frame didn't quite have the capacity to shiver. But the idea was there. So...whatever.---In almost no time at all, what had once been a mostly empty canyon with some ships landed in and around it had become a veritable hive of activity, as what was effectively a small invasion force worth of droids were all repurposed into a tireless workforce instead.It was with context from the other ships around Silent Guardian that I now had some idea of what the actual purpose of this fleet was, and it had me giddy enough that I'd begun pacing back and forth while occasionally acknowledging various requests for additional manpower from the salvage teams I'd dispatched towards the transports.The core ship, Industrious Profit, was the key to our entire operation. Namely because the big bugger had been completely modified, both inside and out. As a vessel of transportation or war, it was actually all but useless, and even getting it installed into a connecting ring likely wouldn't help that fact. But there was a reason for those modifications.Namely because Industrious Profit had been converted into a factory ship, with enough foundries and assembly lines within itself to begin producing a not insignificant trickle of battle droids and whatever else we might need, so long as resources were fed into the giant ball of doom.B1s. B2s. Droidekas. BX commandos. Light vehicles. Tanks. Gunships. Starfighters. Though we'd need to do a good bit of expansion in order to facilitate production of anything as big as a vulture.Fuck me, the reconfigured factory sphere even had design specifications for AQ-series Aqua droids....The irony of that particular capability on a desert planet was not lost on me, but still. I was sitting on what was effectively a golden goose here.Nonetheless, this fleet had, in all likelihood while taking advantage of the mechanical nature of standard Confederate troops, been on its way to establish some kind of hidden outpost or base, intended to perhaps act as a safe haven and reinforcement point for nearby armies and fleets while the war dragged on.But then the shut down order had arrived, and suddenly the commander in charge of this entire operation had swapped priorities, focusing on damage control rather than completing their previous, seemingly no longer relevant mission.They'd done a solid job, at the very least. According to galactic maps, Torrid was actually pretty out of the way of everything else. Hells, it might have been the intended target in and of itself, even if it wasn't exactly rich in easy to access resources or in all that strategic of a position. We were in the equivalent of the Galactic Boonies, at the moment.So naturally, I'd promptly taken over and assumed command over everything. After all, I was technically the highest authority actively present in what was a trickle down system. Any new orders would have to go through me or others designated by me, which hopefully reduced the risk of all of us simply being told to go the fuck back to sleep by any bastard with the right codes.Still, not everything was all well and good.Silent Guardian was a comms frigate, and according to her, the flagship of this whole operation. In turn, that meant that she was pretty damn good at sniffing out unprotected (and given a bit of decoding, protected as well) signals, even while sitting in a canyon covered in sand.It was the main reason I'd ordered any troops not focused on springing free their mechanical brethren from the less intact ships to either remain within their own vessels or regroup within the canyon. Because as confused as she could get, my Munificent was still more than willing to relay the unrepentantly loud comm signals being thrown back and forth by what was either a large outpost or small settlement, located partially across the planet from us.Add in the fact that quite literally all of them were being broadcasted with transmissions that seemed similar to Republic codes, and yet ever so slightly off, and neither of us were reassured in the slightest.Context let me fill in the rest easily enough, while Silent Guardian continued to fret over whether her decoding systems were malfunctioning and producing subpar results or not, constantly demanding status updates from the exasperated maintenance team in charge of giving her a good look over.I knew better, though. The frigate wasn't listening to Republic comms chatter.No. Judging by the contents of the various messages, reports, calls, and other data we were peeking into, our neighbours were, in all likelihood, Imperials. Which...yeah.Fuck.