Weird, the man thought as he again selected his destination, confirmed and reconfirmed it only to again witness nothing happening.
Very weird... Then Seth considered something else - what if the black hole wasn't the reason he dropped out of hyperspace in the first place? At least what if it was not the only reason? Regardless of the specifics, the fact remained that his hyperdrive wasn't apparently working properly and traveling at sublight speed, even the high speed of a TIE Defender, would still take him quite a huge amount of time to reach the nearest civilized world. And that world wouldn't even be a VE world for that matter...
Gah, and I do so hate tinkering and jury rigging the ships I'm actually supposed to fly on myself... The implication there was that the Wing Commander did not particularly give a damn if his pilots would be forced to fly such crafts. He made sure not to let them know if that was the case anyway - better to prevent needless worrying and paranoid behavior. Paranoid people could be so... well paranoid really. They were hardly any fun to be around.
Knowing he had better start working on the issue at hand, Seth spread his legs and pulled on the panel just in front of his seat. Once, twice and the panel came loose, revealing a whole bunch of wires and a larger box shaped item in the middle of it all. The Ensign knew that was the craft's hyperdrive. Or rather a very small part of it, the modified ND9 hyperdrive motivator. The first TIE Defenders could only achieve a x2 class rating, but the VE built or otherwise acquired models were further modified and improved so as to be able to raise that - or technically speaking lower it - to a Class 1, which was the norm for military crafts across the galaxy anyway...
The man first deactivated the piece from the nav computer before physically reaching out to it and pulling it out, making sure to gently remove the wires entering it first of course. Seth figured it would've really, really sucked if he just made things worse by further damaging the complex system.
Lighter than I remember, the pilot thought as he weighed the expensive piece of equipment. Next Qorbin reached out under his seat and pulled out a small kit which contained both first response supplies but also tech gear and even a standard military issued blaster - everything a pilot could need should he ever come to experience any problems.
First the Human male pulled out a hydrospanner which he used to unscrew the case, revealing further wires and delicate circuits inside it. The man lightly shook the box a bit next, causing some dust to spread in the rest of the cockpit. Next he attached a small power diagnostic tool to the hydrospanner's handle and proceeded to touch the entry points for each of the main wires that would normally fit inside the box. Values ranging from 50 to 60 were considered the norm, values slightly lower or higher revealed that the piece of equipment might not work the way it was intended and all sorts of strange things could happen as a result. Or they might not happen - it depended entirely on the owner's luck.
If the values were zero or only a tad higher however then the device was definitely not working properly. Chances were it wasn't working at all to be exact. Of the eight ports Seth checked out, six were within standard norms, one was a little higher and one wasn't showing any signs of activity. The man sighed as he realized he would need to further take the thing apart. For that a vibroblade would first be needed though to cut the isolation of the smaller wires inside the hyperdrive. Once that was done a power calibrator would need to be used and check individual wires. All of that was bound to take a while and the realization made Seth sigh once more.
Still, half an hour later he had managed to rip out the sixteen thinner wires connected to the port that was glitchy. The man checked each of them to see whether they were all busted or whether only some of them were no longer working properly. If by chance they were all abnormal then the problem was likely with the circuits themselves and if that was the case then Seth would need some properly trained engineer or at least a knowledgeable droid to deal with the problem. Thankfully that was not the case however, only three of the smaller wires apparently showing zero values.
Although Qorbin frowned, he was also somewhat relieved by this fact. It meant that he yet stood a chance of making it home in a matter of hours rather than days. First he would need to isolate the good wires back up. He had some electrical tape for just such cases. Next he would need to add a new power source to the wires no longer transferring power. Since he had no idea where exactly the problem was and since he also didn't have any specialize gear to tell him as much, the man would instead need to improvise. Seth knew that he could even integrate the power calibrator to pull that off but he feared the item's battery would not be able to produce enough juice to last him all the way.
No, he would need a more constant source of energy instead. Luckily that would not be too hard to find though - after all each system was powered up separately so as to prevent cascading failures in case of something going terribly wrong. All Seth would have to do was to basically trade the power output from one already functioning system to the hyperdrive.
If only I had a larger power source. Or at least a whole bunch of power calibrators...The Wing Commander made a mental note to start carrying more of those in the future, but for the time being decided to pull out another panel and remove the cable that was normally required to power up the comm system.
Not like I have anyone to talk too anyway... Even less so when in hyperspace... Besides, once he would reach Abrae, the man could easily - relatively speaking - undo the damage and at the cost of his hyperdrive become nonoperational once more he would be able to request docking permission and be able to get some proper help...
"Sounds like a plan", the man thought as he began tweaking with the wires, making sure to pull, press, squeeze and tie them together so that in the end an isolated bridge could be achieved between the newly freed power cord and the three thin wires inside the hyperdrive unit. The end result... well it did not look pretty truth be told. Seth also feared a more sudden shake could pull them open or even rip them out if severe enough. For that reason the man upped the inertial compensators as much as he could. He didn't like the feeling - it was so fake and artificial, but he also knew it would be safer this way.
Thus Qorbin next attached the very first wires he removed from the hyperdrive - the eight larger ones that would end up connecting the unit to the fusion generator found further behind and out of the pilot's reach. Assuming he did everything right then when next the Ensign would try plotting a course and engaging the hyperdrive the paralight system would force the field guide to gather gamma radiation which would be stored and modified by a motivator and eventually sent through the fusion generator from where it would be released and
voila! bluish tunnel and elongated stars should follow.
Assuming his null quantum field generator wasn't also busted then the man should expect a smooth ride all the way to his destination. And if not... well then a lot of jumps would be needed to get there instead. Unless the hyperdrive part was really busted, in which case Seth would still reach his destination - as a smoldering pile of charred ash.
Nah, what are the odds of that happening anyway? Seth tried not to really think about that though and instead imagine happier thoughts. The Ensign actually waited for a couple of minutes hoping such thoughts would eventually cross his mind but no such thing occurred.
Ah, screw it! he cursed and once more reached towards the navcomputer, selected his destination, confirmed his destination, confirmed the previous confirmation and engaged the hyperdrive.
This time around the ship seemed to have momentarily stopped before suddenly pushing forward. It pushed forward so fast that the stars became lines and the darkness of realspace was replaced with the soothing blue hues of hyperspace. "Hell yeah!" the Wing Commander exclaimed happily. Part of that happiness was caused by him managing to jury rig his craft into a hopefully working order. The other part was caused by him still being alive to see as much. Being alive was always reason for happiness...
~~~~~~~~~~
Eighteen hours later the Ensign finally reached Abrae. In the end Seth Qorbin was forced to make eight more jumps after prematurely dropping from hyperspace as many times. The Wing Commander was in a foul mood for three whole days after that...
- OOC:
- Total WC: 3643
