OOC:

Jaenna
Communications Technician
Level 1: Equipment and Procedures
Story 1: Installation, Utilization, & Operation of Basic Comm Equipment

“Look, Jae. All of us here are looking forward to being able to see you again. So just get your training done, and then come visit us. You got that?”


The voice that spat from the ComLink was slightly gruff, and gave away the fact that it was a young adult male speaking through the connection. As he ceased his speech, a slight frown flickered across the lips of Jaenna Caldwin, as she sat at her Com desk, her feet propped up on the edge, crossed at her ankles, her hands behind her head in a rather relaxing looking position.


With a soft scoff, she rolled her eyes, despite the male on the other end of the ComLink not being able to see it, and moved her feet back down to a resting position underneath her desk. Running a hand through her auburn hair, she sighed before saying, “Ulip, you have no idea how hard this training is so far. I have to go into a freakin’ simulator in a few days. It’s tough, buddy. Real tough. But I promise… I’ll get all of this crap done so I can go back to Coru.”


The male on the opposite end of the ComLink laughed softly at the nick name for his home world. Jaenna let out a soft chuckle as well, while running her hand through her hair again, her lithe digits ruffling her soft auburn hair where ever they rub it the wrong way.


“I’m holding you to that promise, Jae. Don’t let Star Struck down.”


“I won’t, hun.” She said with as her lips pulled back to reveal a soft smile, her light sea-foam green eyes sparkling softly at the mention of her loyal gang of hackers.


After saying their goodbyes, Jaenna hung up her ComLink and sighed deeply, as she allowed her head to hang backwards over her desk chair. The day was moving towards it’s noon hours, and she was still tired. Why? Simple. She had been up most of the night before reading that damn text book, trying to study for the Com Tech practical she had later today. Why did she have to chose such a difficult Specialty? Another sigh and she shook her head, trying to rid her mind of the tiredness that was weighing down on her body. The poor girl was exhausted, she had got barely any sleep what so ever. All she wanted right now was the be able to take a quick nap before her Com Tech practical, but what she really needed to do was sit down and study some more.


She had fallen asleep while studying last night.


And so with a heavy heart, she stood, ran her hand through her hair again, and made her way to her room to grab her text book. Coming back out into her living room area, she sat down on the couch, crossed her legs, sighed again, and opened that huge text book to the page that she left off last night. Adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose with her index finger, she sighed again and began to read, her sea-foam green eyes flickering across the words printed on the paper.


With each sentence she finished reading, her brain soaked up the information that she knew she would be tested on during the practical. With each paragraph, her eyelids drooped a little more, but she would shake her head in order to keep herself awake. She needed to pass this practical, than sit through a freakin’ lecture after wards in order to move onto the next part of her Com Tech training. This was so much to do. But it was understandable.


The Empire would only allow the best to graduate through the Academy. And Jaenna had sworn to herself that she would be one of those best before she even joined the Army. If being one of those best meant that she needed to sit through hours and hours of studying, and lecture after boring lecture, then she would. She needed to. Something in her mind drove her to try and become one of the best troopers. But for some reason, she couldn’t figure out just what drove her.


Bah. That didn’t matter right now. What did matter was studying for this damn class.

“One can open the main interface to find…” She mumbled to herself as she read, “the Manufacture Descriptions, Language options, volume control, visual options and controls, other settings…”

Jaenna sighed to herself and allowed her head and fall back against the backrest of the couch. Her sea-foam green eyes stared up at the ceiling of the Luxury Condo that she occupied. Just how she had managed to get the amount of money that was needed to afford the payments for this thing every month, she didn’t know. Well, she did have a rather decent paycheck now. What with being a Lance Corporal and everything.

Jaenna sighed again and ran a hand through her auburn colored hair, shutting her eyes for a moment as she allowed thoughts of the upcoming lecture and practical to come to her. It was going to be tough, but she would have to deal with it. The time was almost there for her to just suck it up and go, but she figured that a little more studying wouldn’t hurt.

And so, she looked back down at her book and continued reading, mumbling to herself softly.

-    -    -    -    -    -

“Alright you wannabes! This is your first hands-on class if you really want to become a Communications Technician.” Sergeant Shracken said, rather harshly, to the students that sat before him. Their expressions were either full of ear, or pure confidence. Some though, were between the two extremes, one of these students being Jaenna Caldwin.

The sergeant peered across the faces of all of his students and laughed. Simply laughed. “None of you look like you even have the gonads needed to do this sort of work! We’ve only had one… Yes ONE other student actually pass the entire course and get qualified for this field of work. That trooper’s name being Sobaccus Ron.”

Jae’s eyes widened at the mention of her SL’s name. But she stayed silent.

“So do you all really think that you have what it takes to follow my former star student’s path? If not, then just leave out of that door right now!” Shracken yelled, still in that harsh tone. No body moved a muscle. “Well then. Let us begin.”

Shracken step behind his desk and turned his back to the class. One hand behind his back, he used his other one to pick up a laser pen. He clicked a small button and proceeded to draw out the basic outline of a Military-grade data pad. But this outline was blank, and soon it became obvious to Jae what she was going to have to do.

Once Shracken completed his simple outline, he clicked off his laser pen and turned to face the class once more. Many of them wore confused expressions, but most of the others seemed a little bit more confident now. Shracken smirked and pointed his thumb back at his drawing on the board. “That is what?”

Hands shot up in the air, including Jae’s. Shracken pointed a finger at her and she smiled, while the other hands around her sat themselves back down on their desks. “You there… with the star tattoo on your face. You have an answer?”

“Yes sir I do.” Jae replied with a smirk. “That sir is the basic outline of the Military-Grade Datapad that all Communication Technicians that are still in training are supposed to have. But that drawing there is only the very basic outline of one. It doesn’t have any of the schematics, and none of the parts are labeled.”

Shracken smiled and nodded slowly. “Correct, Caldwin. Good work.” The sergeant once again addressed the whole of the class. “Now. What I am going to ask you do for the first part of your practical, is to draw what I have drawn and label all of the parts, and other things that you believe should be labeled. Below your labeled drawing, write out the different command screens that one can access through a basic com like this one.” His smirk faded as she placed his laser pen in his pocket. "Get to work. You have," he looked at his wrist krono, "Three minutes."

The mention of how much time the class had made some of the students groan as they set to work. Jae on the other hand whizzed right through the drawing. She drew the outline, and labeled the things that needed labeling. She looked at her work, and smiled. It wasn't that good of a drawing, but it would do. This wasn't an art class after all.



Then, she completed the list of different screens that you could reach from the main screen of this basic datapad. She looked at her own wrist krono and made note of how there were only thirty seconds left. Just enough time to finish up. She completed the last line of writing, and put her pencil down just before Shracken looked up from his T'wilek girl mag and said, "Time."

Jae smirked to herself and watched as a few of the other students groaned and put their pencils down with a heavy sigh. They hadn't finished... obviously.

Shracken rose from his seat and made his way to the desks. He began to pick up the papers, smiling here, grimacing there. When he got to Jae's paper he smiled down at her. "Nice work, Caldwin." She smiled up at the sergeant and nodded.

"Thank you, sir."

Shracken finished collecting the papers and went back to his desk. He dropped the stack of paper on his desk and looked at his students, a look of utter apathy on his face.

"It appears some of us can't handle a simple task. Since a lot of you quite obviously shouldn't go into an art profession, can any of tell me verbally how one can program this basic data-pad to preform a certain function?"

The looks on the faces of the students showed confusion.

"I see you need further instruction..." Shracken sighed and ran a hand through his short, graying hair. "Tell me, anyone, how one can program the d'pad to respond only to the owners voice."

The students looked at each other.

Jae's hand shot into the air. Shracken looked at her and smirked. "Go ahead, Caldwin."

Jae nodded and began to speak. "The basic M-Grade Data pad has the voice recorder on the bottom right hand corner for a reason. This is what is obviously used to program a voice activated function." She then proceeded to list out what one would need to do.

"First - You need to turn on the D'pad. That's just obvious.
Then - One would need to open the language funtion by either hitting either the button on the bottom left hand corner that opens up the language control, or by doing it manually with the touch screen.
Next - Select the language that the command you are going to record will be in. With this step, you can make your D'pad super secure. Especially if you are one who is multilingual.
After that - One would need to manualy go from the language select screen back to the main screen, then to the menu option that says 'Personal Program'.
From there - One can select the 'Security' option and turn on the D'pad's security option. Once it is turned on, you have the option of selecting either 'passcode' or 'voice code'. For this specific process, you would select 'voice code'.
Then - You need to go into the actual coding of the D'pad. Why? Because, this isn't only a security measure. If one is good with coding, they can program the D'pad to preform multiple functions with just the sound of their voice. While in this coding area, you would put in the code for what you want the D'pad to do, then select 'Finish Code'. This will set the program into effect in your D'pad's internal functions.
Last - Go to the 'Programs' options and select the program you just coded from the list that shows up on the screen. From there, you can select the option 'voice activate'. Then, the D'pad will tell you to record the code word or words for the program. But, you need to record it in the language that you selected earlier. Once recorded, save it and it's done."

The students looked at Jae, utterly surprised. Shracken was even speechless for a moment, before he chuckled and looked at Jae with a soft smile. "That, everyone, is what I expect from every single one of you!"

He looked down at his wrist krono and laughed. "We only have ten minutes left in class. The rest of you can write up a paper on how to do a different program than what Caldwin here just explained and hand it in before you leave."

Shracken nodded to everyone and went to sit back down at his desk. But before he picked up his mag again, he looked at Jaenna and gestured her over. She got up and walked over to him.

"Yes, sir?" She asked with a soft salute and smile.

Shracken smiled at her and cocked his head to the side. "You know Ron don't you?"

"He is my Squad Leader, sir. for RAIDERS."

"I figured. You're a lot like him with this specialty. I have a feeling you're going to be one of the students to beat in this course. Good luck Caldwin. And nice work today." Shracken smiled at her and saluted. "You're dismissed."

Jae smiled back and saluted him, before nodding and walking out of the classroom, just to go back to the barracks and do more studying.

OOC:

Pretty good, especially for a first story. Slightly on the stodgy side, but Comm Tech stories tend to do that. There were only a few small errors here and there. Keep the spacing between paragraphs consistent, make sure not to leave out letters in words (ear ==> fear), but other than that, pretty well written. The only things that really irked me were the descriptions of your character's hair and eyes at the beginning. Generally, you describe the defining color/shape/luster/whatever of your character's _________ at the beginning of the story once, and then not again, or only very minimally again. It came off as awkward, and interrupted the flow of the story seeing 'auburn' and 'sea-foam green' repeated.

Overall, very nice story, though. You may continue on. You've passed.

OOC:

Jaenna 'StarFruit' Caldwin
Communications Technician

Level 2: System Control
Story 1: Computer Operation

“Caldwin!” The voice struck her ears like a ton of lead. Her head instantly snapped up to peer at the tall, clean cut and blonde haired man who stood with only a single pistol at his hip. “Stop spacing out or you’re out of the class.” The man’s voice spat out in a venomous command, entising an obidient nod from the dark haired girl. “Good then. Now to continue.”

The man turned away from Jaenna and began walking down the line of seven troopers, each with a bulky piece of equipment strapped to their backs. It was the OmniNode Communications set that most, if not all, Com Techs ended up using in the field at one point or another. Today would be this group of troopers’ first time trying to do anything in a battle field setting. They stood in the middle of the Sim Room, watching as the Professor, Colonel Tray, seemingly sized them up.

He began to speak again, continuing his pacing motion up and down the line of almost terrified troopers. "This is going to be a test. A hands-on test to see if you're ready to get out there and do what needs to be done while on the battle field." He took a breath and stopped pacing, now standing at the very middle of the line. "Each of you will have a private ComChannel opened with me. Each of you will have certain destination and a certain task. Once you get to that destination, I will give you that task."

One of the troopers raised his hand, his arm shaking from what appeared to be fear. At least that's what Jae thought.

"Yes, Private?" Tray asked - no - commanded from the trooper.

The boy was now shaking even more, he lowered his arm and allowed it to rest at his side again, his eyes still wide. "Are... are we actually going out into battle?"

Tray scoffed and let out a cold hearted laugh. "No, Private! This is a Simulator Room! Get your head out of your ares and pay attention to what the doors say when you're walking into a room!" The Private nodded and looked down at the ground. He looked like he was about to start crying.

"Alright troops! Get ready!" Tray then shouted and the room went dark as the 'whirring' sound of electrical circuits began to get louder and louder, a deep green glow showing through a multitude of small holes in the wall of the room.



She was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling with each shuddering breath as she tried to catch her breath. She fell to her knees in front of what looked like a small Com Station. There was a HoloImager on the the ground next to it spitting out a small, upwards beam of red light. This was her destination.

She reached forward and turned off the HoloImager, then quickly pulled the OmniNode from her back and set it next to her. She stared at the small Com Station. It was a small metal platform with a Com Box, a Laptop and what looked like an external Hard-drive piled onto to the platform in a neat fashion. She took a deep breath, after taking everything in and clicked on her wrist Com.

"Colonel, I've reached Destination Gamma." She said, still trying to catch her breath.

The Com crackled for a moment before the Professor's voice came through. "Good. Now, your task is to hack into the system, create a virus and send it to Destination Beta. Then, while still hacked in, corrupt Destination Delta."

"But sir. Those are other trooper's places aren't they?"

"Yes, Caldwin. You're messing them up is going to give them their task."

The girl took a deep breath, having finally gotten back to a normal breathing pattern. "Aye, Sir!"

"Good. Now contact me if you need any help. There is a second HoloImager on the platform somewhere with help instructions." The Com went silent, and all that was left for noise around Jaenna were the Simulator's guns firing and the sound of Simulating Jungle terrain. Oh not to mention the girl's slow and steady breathing.

Without waiting another moment, Jaenna leaned forward, still on her knees, to try and locate the HoloImager that would give her the instructions. After a few moments of searching, she finally saw the small, round piece of bronze metal with an indent in the middle. She grabbed it, flipped it on and instantly a sheet of what appeared to codes popped up in the blueish Hologram light.

The girl looked at the codes, knowing that she would need to read them carefully. But then something hit her. What she was looking at weren't the instructions on how to hack. It was the virus coding itself. "I have to input that into the system?" She let out an aggravated grunt and ran a hand through her hair. "Dammit all. Alright. Time to get to work I guess."

The girl turned to her OMniNode and clicked a button that opened it up. A small compartment opened, revealing a small computer screen, the flap that opened it up folding down into a small keyboard. She typed away on the keyboard for a few moments, then a small, broken down image of her OMniNode popped up onto the screen. She huffed softly and pulled at one of the cords on the side of the OmniNode. She held onto it and turned back to the Gama Station, a scowl on her face.

"I know I need to connect this to the ATX Power Connector so that I can get the schematics on the laptop but..." She took a deep breath, her eyes staring at the laptop, narrowed and showing her growing frustration. She had forgotten where the ATX was, and she knew that would be bad in any real field operation.  She wanted to ask for help. She wanted to turn on the wrist come and call for Tray, but she knew she would be reprimanded for forgetting something so simple. She took a deep breath and flipped the Com on.

"Colonel. I have a question, Sir."

The Com crackled. "What is it Private Caldwin?" His voice was gruff, as it always was, but he didn't seem angry at all. A pleasant surprise for Jaenna.

"The ATX Power Connector, Sir. I've forgotten where it is within the Motherboard."

"Something so simple, Private. How could you forget that?" He sighed and grumbled a bit. "No worries. That's what this class if for. The ATX is near the AGP 8X Slot. Think you got it from there Private?"

"Aye, Sir! Thank you, Sir!"

"Good, then. Hurry up on that task. You have ten minutes left." The Com link went quiet and once again Jaenna was left with the sound of her own breathing and sounds of simulated gun fire and the Jungle noise.

She took a deep breath and looked to the system. Without another moment wasted she moved a hand toward the laptop. She picked it up, flipped it over (considering the screen was still shut) and set it on the ground. She moved her hand to her belt, grabbed her trust Sonic Screwdriver and went to work on taking out the panel that covered the motherboard of the laptop. once that was done, she put the panel to the side and hooked the cable that was trailing from the OmniNode to the ATX port.

Almost instantly, the small screen on the OmniNode lit up with a few stats on the Laptop that it had just connected to. Jae set the laptop down, the cable still connected and turned to face her OmniNode. Her fingers lfew across the keyboard as she worked, and every now and then, another window full of new schematics on the Laptop would pop up and minimize. She read them quickly, taking in all of the information she possibly could.

"Alright..." She sighed and pulled up one of the windows. It was titled VIA KT-400. She smirked to herself and reached around the OmniNode to find another cable. She grabbed the end of it and turned to pick up the HoloImager that was showing the codes of the Virus she had been commanded to send to Destination Beta. She took a deep breath and plugged the cable into a small port on the side of the HoloImager. Almost instantly, the window that was titled VIA KT-400 began to flash slightly as bits of code flash across the window.

Then, a computerized voice called out, "UPLOAD TO VIA KT-400 COMPLETE." Again, Jaenna smirked. She unhooked the cable from the HoloImager and quickly turned again to the keyboard of her OmniNode.

"Alright. Here we go." She began to type on the keyboard of her OmniNode, and another window popped up titled 'TECH NOOB VIRUS'. She had to let out a laugh at the name that Tray had given the virus. Quickly hit a few more keys, then the screen flashed and a downloading bar popped up. The bar quickly filled with a red color and flashed the words 'COMPLETE'.

Now, Jaenna turned to the laptop that was still connected to the OmniNode. She flipped it over, the bottom of it now resting on her lap, and opened the screen. There, on the screen clear as day, was the code for the virus that she had just downloaded to the system. Quickly, she opened a Com Channel, and another window popped up on the screen titled 'Gamma - Beta: PRIVATE'. With that channel open, the typed a few more keys, and then hit the ENTER button. Almost instantly, the screen flashed and window with the virus coding disappeared, to be replaced by big letters that said 'TAKE ONE COMPLETE'.

She had sent the virus and now it was time to take on the second task.

"Frack. How the gods am I supposed to do this?" She grumbled, staring at the laptop of the Gamma Station then at her OmniNode. "Wait..." She had gotten an idea. Her eyes lit up as if a light bulb had popped on inside of her very skull.

She flipped on her wrist Com and called to one of the troopers she knew had to get to Delta. "Caldwin to Phillips. Intel question. Over"

"Phillips to Caldwin. What is it?" The voice crackled over the com and Jae let a soft smirk go to her lips.

"What is your task at your destination? I need the info for my own task."

"We have to establish an open channel to Alpha Station."

"Good thanks. Over"

"Wait. Caldwin what do you have to-" Jaenna clicked off the Com before Phillips could answer back.

She went back to work, typing away on the laptop that was resting in her lap. A window popped up a few moments later titled 'DELTA STATION COM SYSTEM'. She chuckled softly, her smirk growing into something held a bit more malice. The Private was sure to grow into a Trooper that held this look much more often if she enjoyed screwing people this much.

"Alright. Here we go. Enter the main Channel system... Done." She let go of another chuckle, and ran a hand through her hair. "Now to lock all of the Channelsssssss." She held out the last word for fun, only because she was so happy that she was about to accomplish something she originally thought would be way too difficult for even her to do. "Put a nice little message in there." She giggled as she typed and the words 'HAHA THE STARFRUIT WAS HERE' and pasted it into the Channel message. "And. Done."

She closed the laptop with another giggled and unhooked the cable that was connecting the laptop to her OmniNode. She strapped it back onto her back and flipped on her wrist Com. "Private Caldwin to Colonel Tray. Take A and B are complete."

"Good work Private. Return to Alpha Station." The Com crackled and went silent again.

Jaenna began to walk through the simulated jungle, her ears now used to the sound of gun fire and the jungle music.

OOC:

Wow. PASS