Able Crewman Michael Riley had just arrived at Melbourne after disembarking from his father's ship, the Sea of Dreams. He met his Uncle Kevin, a Bombardier in the Fourth Octavarium Fleet, at the dockside entry station. Kevin walked up and shook his hand.
"Mikey, my boy! It's good to see you again! How much did your dad tell you about why you're here?"
"Not much. He told me I'd be staying with you for a while, but told me that you'd fill me in when I got here."
"And so I will. Follow me and I'll explain it on the way. Leave your bags, the steward will take them to my quarters."
Michael did as he was told and set his bags down on the deck. Both men then started walking towards the main access corridor.
"Both your dad and the Chief aboard the Sea of Dreams tell me that you've been showing a lot of aptitude as an engineer and are planning to specialise in that. Before you start your Engineering Cadet's training, however, your dad thinks you should get some more experience on both dockside operations and maintaining smaller, one-man spacecraft. It may not be what you're planning to do, but it helps to know how things are done on both sides of the dock. We're heading just down this way."
Kevin indicated a smaller corridor heading toward one of the auxiliary service bays.
"You'll work part time as an apprentice with the dockside maintenance crews here at Melbourne. If you do everything your told and keep your eyes open, you can learn a lot from them. So pay attention. For the rest of your time, you'll be helping me with a project in here."
They arrived at a door at the end of the corridor. Kevin punched a short code into the keypad and the door slid open. Inside the service bay was a rather beat up spacecraft. Kevin pointed at it.
"Well, what do you think?"
"It looks like a very beat up Templar. Even in this condition I'm surprised the BAF let one go."
"Are you sure about that? Take a closer look."
Michael took his time and walked around the ship, looking it over from every angle. Then he saw what his uncle was hinting at.
"That's a Crusader! Where did you get it? I thought the BAF converted them all to Templars or recycled them!"
"That's what I thought, too. This might be the last one left outside the BAF Fleet Museum. Your dad saw it down at Invergordon and put me in touch with the scrap dealer who owned it. It's long since been stripped of every useful part and it sat on that scrap heap for years. The only part that still works is the tea kettle. I managed to get a good price on it and had a passing Mercantile Guild ship bring it up here."
"I don't know, Uncle Kevin. It looks rough. I'm not sure it'll ever fly again."
"Oh, ye of little faith... It does look rough. I don't think this old girl's quite done yet, though. You and me are going to rebuild it from the spaceframe out. Whether it flies or not, though, by the time we're done, you'll know everything there is to know about small spacecraft. Working on freighters and shuttles isn't really all that different. Let's head topside and get some lunch, then I'll give you the tour of the station."
Auxiliary Service Bay B5
Melbourne Station, Tau-44
The Crusader's restoration, though not without a few setbacks, had mostly been going smoothly. The frame was in surprisingly good condition, though one of the wing spars and a few interior struts had needed to be replaced. The first new part to go in was a brand-new Crayterian CHN-series engine. Though a Bretonian engine would've been a little easier to work with, parts were getting a little harder to source due to the demands of the Bretonian war machine. What was left for the civilian market tended to be a little less reliable than pre-war models. The Crayterian engine, on the other hand, was very reliable and easy to obtain, and required very little modification to slot into the Crusader's hull.
Kevin was currently working on adapting the main generator and weapons capacitor from an Eagle-class fighter. The parts were considerably lighter than the ones the BAF had placed in the Templar, and perhaps a bit less rugged, but still performed impressively. Kevin looked up from his work to where his nephew Michael had buried himself from the waist up inside the Crusader's interior.
"Hey, Mikey, how's the wiring coming along?"
Michael untangled himself from the ship's interior and dropped down onto the deck. He drew a cup of tea from the ship's tea kettle, which had yet to be fitted back into the cockpit.
"I would never have believed that much cable could fit in one ship. I'm about two-thirds through it. We should be able start fitting some of the other parts in a couple days. Assuming nothing goes wrong of course."
"Good. Hopefully by then, we'll get word back from Eureka about the cockpit avionics. There's plenty to keep us busy until then, though. Once we get the generator and capacitor installed, we can start working on the life support systems."
"What about the communications and sensor equipment?"
"Most of the communications equipment on a fighter is contained in the cockpit avionics, and the main dorsal antenna looks to be intact. The sensor module is pretty much a universal plug-and-play unit. We can have that installed in no time. Let's focus on the more difficult stuff first."
Just as Kevin finished speaking, both men heard the service lift start to come up the shaft. On it was a large metal container with the Aquila logo on a hovering pallet and a dockworker carrying a datapad. The docker moved the pallet off the lift and handed the datapad to Kevin.
"Bombardier, I need you to sign for this here."
As Kevin signed his name, he saw that the datapad contained the invoice for the replacement hull plating he had ordered. Apparently Aquila had seen fit to charge the plating to the fleet under the heading "R&D - Experimental Retrofitting". Well, it's not a lie, he thought. Hopefully that didn't come back to bite him later.
Once the docker went back up the lift, Kevin and Michael decided to open the container. Inside was a stack of brand new hull plating cut to size and ready to be fitted. The plating was thinner and lighter than the originals, but would still afford a great deal of protection. The plates were gleaming white and lacked the decorative red overplating of the originals.
"Well, Mikey, I think we have a name for the old girl. How's "White Knight" sound to you?"
The Rileys had been optimistic so far, but after the wiring and power generator, nothing had gone right. The air filtration system smelled of ozone, and new parts were on order. The water reclamation system spat out brown sludge until the third time they had disassembled it and put it back together. Now they were having problems getting the enignes working with the retrofitted power core.
Kevin and Michael had moved the White Knight into one of the engine test chambers and had been running static test fires on the engines, trying to isolate the problem. They were pretty sure they had it this time.
"Alright, I'm starting the test sequence again. Mikey, keep an eye on those readouts and let me know if you see any spikes."
Kevin pushed the level forward slowly, bringing the engine up to full power. As it revved up, Michael spoke up.
"It's starting to spike! No... Wait. It's levelling out. I think we've got it, Uncle Kevin!"
"It'll need a little fine tuning, but I think you're right. Let's try powering up the cruise engines next."
Everything seemed to be going smoothly as the FTL generator powered up, complete with the normal 'sucking-in' illusion as the engine did unspeakable things to the fabric of space-time. Just as it engaged, the ship's power suddenly cut out, and everything on the ship went dark. Kevin jumped back from the console.
"BOLLOCKS! IS ANYTHING ON THIS *****' SHIP GOING TO WORK RIGHT?!"
Kevin took a second to compose himself.
"Alright, no big deal... Let's get it back into the service bay and run some diagnostics."
Just then, Kevin and Michael heard someone punching a code into the door keypad. They both turned to see who it was.
The airlock to the engine test chamber hissed open to reveal the Minister of Relations himself, dressed in a white shirt and grey suit pants with the jacket folded and slung neatly over his shoulder. He strode in with his usual air of confidence, smile on his face.
"Gentlemen. I was told I'd find you here," he said. "Before you say anything, let me make something clear. I'm not here to get angry. I'm not here to scream at you. In fact, I think I have my answer already, looking at that magnificent piece of Bretonian engineering that stands before me. I'm not sure where you got the parts for one of these, but I think I know where you got the hull base. Which leads me to my question."
He paused for a clearly-awkward fifteen seconds.
"Why the fuck did you not submit an expense report for this?" he asked forcefully, starting at a shout before tapering the storm back down to a calm towards the end of the question. "Something like this I would have just approved. We've got the money to spare. I'm not sure how you managed to rope Aquila into being more vague than the Minister of Intelligence when he's plotting an assassination, but next time you need something like this, just buy it and put it on the Fleet expense account so I don't have to go throttle an Aquila executive."
He looked at his watch, and reached into his pocket for a small bottle of pills. He swallowed one dry and smiled. He gave the Rileys no time to respond to his barrage. "Clear? Perfect. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I need to go find an Aquila executive. Good luck with the Crusader!"
He turned around, smile still on his face, and began to walk back to the door, noting to himself that the pills were clearly working.
Auxiliary Service Bay B5
Melbourne Station, Tau-44
Since the last mishap with the engines, the project had started to go much smoother. The engines were still a problem, but Kevin and Michael tabled that part of the project for now pending an answer from Aquila. Things were finally starting to come together, and the project was nearing completion.
Even since Kane had given the White Knight his stamp of approval, word had gotten around Melbourne about the project. Now, suddenly, everyone wanted to know how it was going and had an opinion on what needed done next. The fact that none of those people were here now to help sift through the mountain of junk now scattered across the service bay was not lost on either Riley.
"You really think any of this scrap is going to work, Uncle Kevin?"
Kevin picked up another piece of electronics and looked it over for obvious damage.
"I can only hope. They built this stuff to last, though. Even after battle damage and floating derelict in space for ten years, some of this junk is bound to work. Or at least be intact enough to repair. Hopefully enough to kit out the entire cockpit. This piece looks good. Put it with the others for testing."
Michael took the part and put it on a cart with a pile of other intact looking parts.
"It's a shame the BAF or the Junkers never called back. It would've saved us a lot of time. At the very least, we'd have known we were getting good parts."
"Yeah, but you can't make people help. Still, I think we've got this covered on our own. And they might call yet. Our request is a bit on the unusual side. At least I got to have some fun blowing some frogs out of the sky down in 31."
"Making the universe a better place, one dead Gaul at at time, eh? Ahh, this part looks good."
Michael placed that one on the cart, too.
"Well, Mikey, I think we've got enough to go on for now. Let's get these parts tested and install the ones that work.
The White Knight was finally nearing completion. It was probably completed now, in fact, but it had to undergo a final set of tests and diagnostics before it'd be allowed into service. For one of those tests, they were back in Engine Test Chamber 4. Minister Kane had come through for them and sent along a new set of engines.
"All right, Mikey, let's see how these new Gaian engines do. Like before, I'm going to bring it up to full power slowly. Keep an eye on those readouts and call it out if you see any spikes."
"Alright. Ready when you are."
"Beginning startup sequence... 10%... 20%... 30%... How's it looking?"
"The readings match factory specs. Looking good, Uncle Kevin!"
"Good to hear it! 70%... 80%... 90%... Full power! Let's hold it there a bit."
They both watched the monitors, hoping that no problems came up. The engines were holding steady at full thrust, emitting a rich green plume. After a few minutes, the monitors still showed the engines performance matching design specifications.
"Alright, I think we're looking good! Bringing the cruise engines online in 3... 2... 1... Engaged!"
They watched in nervous anticipation as the FTL generator spun up. This was, after all, where their last engine test went wrong. The alterations to the engine plume looked normal and the 'sucking in' illusion occured exactly as expected. Their concerns proved unfounded, however, as the cruise engine engaged exactly as expected.
"Cruise engines online! FTL field appears stable. Engine diagnostics still within design specifications! I think we've done it, Uncle Kevin!"
"I think you're right! Let's give it another few minutes, then we'll power everything down and move it up to the docking bay for flight testing tomorrow. This has been a job well done, Mikey, and I couldn't have done it without you. Drinks are on me tonight!"
The White Knight was finished, and all that remained before it was turned over to the fleet for assessment was the fighter's maiden flight. Kevin had received permission to take the Knight out from Melbourne's CAG, provided he took along an escort. To that end, Michael was following him from a short distance in a borrowed station shuttle. On the shuttle's monitors was a complete readout of the fighter's diagnostics, recording the information for later review and allowing Kevin to concentrate on flying the ship.
"White Knight to shuttle Melbourne Seven. We're entering the Makassar Field now. Mikey, how's the diagnostics looking?"
"So far, everything checks out."
"Roger that. I think we've gone far enough in straight flight. Let's try some basic combat maneuvers. Take your shuttle a short distance away and start marking rocks as targets."
"Alright. Marking simulated targets... now. Ready when you are, Uncle Kevin."
Kevin took the fighter to combat speed and started maneuvering as if the target rocks were shooting back. After destroying a couple, he spoke up.
"Wow, this thing can move! You'll never see a Templar make turns like that! Hold on... I'm showing a red light on the AGCS. What's your monitors show?"
"Looks good from here. The artificial gravity control system appears to be operating within design limits. Think we should head back anyway, just to be safe?"
"Negative, the monitors probably just need calibrated. This ship was never meant to maneuver like that and cockpit monitors don't quite know what to make of it. We'll keep an eye on it, continuing maneuvers."
As the ship maneuvered around, destroying several more rocks, one of the Purple Goddess chainguns appeared to be firing off target.
"Bugger... one of the target tracking motors is lagging. We'll have to take it apart when we get back, but it's a pretty simple issue to fix. If that's the worst problem we have, I'd say we're mostly done here. Let's fly out to Canberra, then turn back to Melbourne."
"Alright. Entering formation."
Melbourne Station
Tau-44, Natio Octavarium
The White Knight finished the rest of its maiden flight without incident. As the Knight and Michael's borrowed shuttle settled down into their respective antigrav docking cradles, Kevin saw what looked like every pilot and dock worker on Melbourne crowded around the dock. As soon as he opened the cockpit and stepped down onto the deck, everyone started clapping and congratulating him and Michael on a job well done.
For tonight, they'd enjoy the celebrations (and the free drinks). First thing tomorrow, they'd sort out the last remaining calibrations and hand the fighter off to the fleet for a complete set of spaceworthiness trials. Restoring the classic spacecraft and bringing it up to modern standards had been a lot of work, but both men felt it was more than worth it. With any luck, in the near future, Sirius' last Crusader would take flight again, ready to bring the fight to anyone who would threaten the Natio and its people.