Aah, life was good for Seth Qorbin. Endless clear skies above him, a sea of green in front of him and a nifty little palace just a few hundred meters behind him. No, this was not a dream - it was just the man enjoying his well deserved shore leave back on Onderon. For two full weeks the blond Human would be able to do nothing except relaxing and having fun, all the while completely not giving a damn or even thinking about his pilots back on the Halcyon Warrior.

The man had everything he could've possibly wished for - friends to keep him company during the day, beautiful women to keep him company during the night, exquisite food to try out anytime he was hungry and nigh limitless amounts of expensive booze to enjoy all day long. There were also sports terrains, a huge pool, a sauna and also a fully decoded HoloNet receiver in case everything else just seemed too tiresome.

Despite all that comfort and luxury however Seth eventually ended up resting under one of the larger trees outside, staring at a dismantled Air-2 swoop. He accidentally came across it when he visited the hangar and remembered buying it only a short while before joining the Vast Empire. He recalled the machine working for a day or two then suddenly becoming a useless piece of junk.

The blond Human actually considered tracking down the rotten Rodian that sold it to him but decided such an endeavor would eat up too much of his valuable time. Besides, at the time he had neither the time nor the skills to look into the matter more thoroughly. Now though, after having spent a couple of years working with starfighters, a bunch of basic notions and even a couple of advanced ones stuck around however. It was because of that new found knowledge - as well as free time of course - that Qorbin decided to fix the swoop up. How difficult could it possibly be anyway?

"Let's see... if it no longer functions no matter what, that means it's either because something's wrong with the engine or with the battery." Most of the craft's other components were after all hardly vital - hand controls. cowling, maneuvering vanes, seat, foot pegs, leg shields and a few instruments showing the swoop's current speed, altitude and power levels. I could probably add a small laser canon and link it to the main power... Heh, assuming I get it working it would be only a short ride back to Iziz after all.

The first thing the man did was pick up a hydrospanner. The second thing involved the usage of that tiny tool to further take apart the small bike. The engines were the first to end up spread across a five meters square area. There were so many little pieces connecting to the larger pieces... Also, a whole bunch of cables, power cords, a small generator, a repulsor coil and some other components that Seth wasn't even sure were present in starfighter construction. I'll just have to remember to place them in the same place I removed them from...

Next, Seth vacuumed, oiled up and thoroughly cleaned all the major pieces. Most of them had a greyish or brownish tint prior to that operation. Most of them continued to bear that discoloration even afterward, though a few of them actually looked whiter and generally less... well icky would probably be a good word to describe them. Gross would be another good one...

Satisfied that the parts were cleaner and given the fact that he did not see any traces of burn marks nor heard any strange rattling noises when he shook them around - just the smaller components, not the heavy ones too of course - Qorbin next proceeded to check the wires, cables and power cords. First he cleaned those up as well, making sure to keep an eye out for any cut or scratched portions. He also used his fingers to feel if there were any strange bumps or whether the harder cables would bend at odd angles.

Lastly he used a power calibrator to check if signals were still properly being sent through them, which was apparently the case. First to put these back together, the Ensign decided and began reassembling the engine block as well as putting it back inside the swoop itself. There were a couple of instances when he hesitated, no longer remembering if a certain piece was supposed to come before another one or if one was supposed to be placed facing forward or facing backward - little details like that, but which he eventually figured out mostly by good old trial and error attempts.

Once the engines were back in place, the Wing Commander took the hydrospanner and used it to remove the tiny craft's main power source - which despite its size was pretty damn heavy. The VE pilot decided to clean that one up as well, not because it would've helped in any subsequent operations but simply because it was dusty and handling it like that would've ruined his clothes.

The man next used the power calibrator to check the battery and surprise, surprise the crappy thing was barely producing any power at all. No wonder it wouldn't fly... Leaving the battery out, Qorbin next attached the power calibrator straight into the main power cable inside the swoop. He tried to start the Air-2 again and surprise, surprise once more - the 2.4m long bike rose from the ground and stood hovering at roughly a meter above ground level. It works! It works!! "It works!!!" the man couldn't help but yell that out loud as he stared at the now functional swoop.

So I just need a new power source... Technically speaking the man could've also decided to replenish the current one, but considering a new one would've only cost him a few hundred credits or so, the Wing Commander decided to just get a brand new one instead. That way he would also be certain that there was definitely nothing wrong with it.

Since the problem was found and a solution had already been planned out as well, Seth decided to instead just spend the rest of the day cleaning up the other components and also check if the instruments were working properly or not. He knew the calibrator would likely last less than an hour if he would keep using it as a temporary power source so he would need to make those verifications quickly. Once a new power source would be installed, the man would be able to properly test how the swoop would finally function when riding it at full speed, 600km/h or more, and at altitudes as high as even 100m.

Well technically speaking the Air-2 was supposed to be able to go as far as a thousand meters in the air - though Seth neither fully believe that claim nor particularly cared to test it either. At that height the air would be thinner, the temperature colder and the damn clouds would screw up his visibility as well. All those issues would've meant nothing to him had he decided to try them out whilst in a TIE, but in a simple swoop bike with no other protection measures? Nah, what would be the point anyway?

Still, the fact that the Air-2 could both move that fast and so far away from ground level was most definitely a boon. Most bikes could only achieve 500km/h speeds at max. Most swoop bikes could easily hit 600, 700 and with some further tinkering and a few extra modifications 800km/h and even higher still. What really set the Air-2 apart from pretty much all other models though was it high altitude limit. Most bikes couldn't go higher than 6-10m for normal civilian models or 25-30m for military or gang modified models. Seth didn't really know what the difference was between his acquired model and all the other ones across the galaxy, but he assumed it had something to do with the amount of power the engines used and possibly the strength of the repulsor coil.

Might as well ask about this too if I'm in town...

OOC:

WC: 1375