Chapter 8

[A/N: Since I was asked for images of the crew, here is what I imagine the Mandalorians to look like more or less. Feel free to imagine them however you like though, those are just for readers that want to have vague features. And they are all obviously not in Mandalorian getup, so the clothing or equipment doesn't really fit. If you have better images, feel free to add them. :)]

It didn't take long for Valin to equip the Mandalorian ship with the cloaking technology that he used on his freighter as well. It was a comparably basic version that he was easily able to use on smaller ships. When he was finished, they immediately went on their way.

A few minutes before they arrived at the base, he called one of his management droids to prepare for their arrival and open one of the smaller hangars of the shipyard.

As he passed by a decently sized rock he always used as orientation, he concentrated in front of him. Just a moment later a section of the hidden shipyard was revealed. There was enough space to land a medium-sized ship, therefore there was more then enough space for both of their small vessels.

They quickly landed and met up at one of the doors where Valin was waiting for them.

"Your base surely is hidden well." Dunn said with a bit surprise in his voice.

"It is, but for a good reason." Valin answered, as he went to the terminal to open the doors. He took notice of the curious looks at his answer.

"I will tell you later. For now I will show you where I spend most of my time and we will stay for the next two months." His statement was greeted with the hissing of doors.

They took a few steps into the hall, until a few seconds later only the steps of Valin rang out. He turned slightly while stretching his hand into the direction of the big hall as he saw their stunned and gaping expressions.

"This my crew, will be our vessel!" He exclaimed proudly.

The Mandalorians took a moment to get their bearings back. In front of them were easily over a hundred different droids working on a nearly completed black ship. What surprised them however was the huge size of the vessel.

They had seen a lot ships of differing sizes in their life and the one in front of their eyes was easily half the length of a Lucrehulk-class LH-3210 cargo freighter that the Trade Federation used all over the Galaxy. The difference however was that the vessel in front of them was to be piloted and maintained by a small crew with the support of a few squads of droids and obviously a warship instead of freighter with a lot of space for cargo.

That last thought made their hearts beat faster in anticipation.

"This my crew, is what I call the Aurora class, model Scimitar." He introduced their ship. "While his naming sense was not very novel, nobody here knew about the two original ships. In a moment of nostalgia, he decided to use both of their names in the end.

"Honestly, what are you even planning with a ship like that?" Dunn asked.

"Adventure, visiting the multitude of known and unknown worlds and unveiling the mysteries this Galaxy has to offer. There are many known and unknown dangers out there and with this treasure, we will be equipped to weather them all." Valin stated as he listed his broadest goals, not going into detail for the moment.

They all nodded at that before Corvus started. "I'm really interested, what features did you equip this beauty with?"

"Everything good I could think of honestly, but just to name a few. You won't find a faster ship in the Galaxy, it has tractor beams, a teleporter for cargo, droids and even living beings. There are 52 pulse disruptor cannons, 27 photon torpedo launchers, a thalaron cascading biogenic pulse weapon and four batteries of highly advanced drone weapons. Nearly flawless cloaking technology that allows the use of shields and weapons even while hidden. Primary and secondary shields while we are at it and the fitting energy supply to keep all those systems going for a very long time." He explained patiently.

"How can you say that so casually for fuck's sake! Most of those technologies are either unheard of or in the hands of the most influential and rich people!" Corvus heatedly shouted out. This ship was his wet dream, he would do everything to stay on it and work to improve it further together with Valin.

While the other's reactions weren't as extreme, they were still taken aback and the sight before them reaffirmed that it was a good decision to give Valin a chance and follow him. They doubted anyone in the galaxy was as well equipped when it came to quality. To be honest, it was extremely impressive, that he was the only human here and managed such a big project on his own.

"Haha, don't worry about it. I got my hands onto a few schematics and improved on them myself while combining them." Valin humbly replied with a bit humour in his voice.

"But even then, you were doing this alone right?" Corvus asked.

"Yes, it took me over ten years to fully plan and build most of it with the help of nearly two hundred droids." Valin replied.

"A bit over ten years he says! I don't think you know how actually difficult it is to work on a ship of that size together with all that advanced tech and to get everything work together flawlessly. That is prodigal!" Corvus didn't even pay attention to them anymore and just began to walk around and inspect the droids working on the ship.

"I didn't take him as an overly excitable person to be honest." Valin thought as the image he had of Sabe when he showed her his guns began to overlap with Corvus.

"You just hit bullseye with that ship of yours, that is right up his alley." Brachium told him, laughingly.

"On another note, what else do you hide in this base?" Thwak asked interested as their attention turned to Valin again.

"Not much I'm afraid, most of my stuff is built here. I have a small shooting range and a few living quarters over there. Aside from that, I am building a few droids in another area. Actually, I should head over to them and check on the progress." Valin thought for a moment before he answered them.

"Do you want to follow me? Otherwise, I can get a droid to show you around if you want." He offered.

"The shooting range sounds good to me!" Sabe really had a one-track mind when it came to those weapons.

"Why not, can't let our skills get rusty." Freia replied to her this time as the two brothers nodded along.

It didn't take long for Valin to grab one of the administrative droids that were nearby and told him to act as their guide for now and which areas were still off limits due to the ongoing construction.

"I will follow you, as the commander of combat forces, I'm pretty interested in what kind of droids you are building." Dunn explained his reasoning for following along.

They waited for a moment until Corvus joined them again and made their way over to the area where the droids were currently built. The first thing that he saw when he arrived, was that the last pieces of the droids were currently attached to the skeleton to cover the other inner workings from damage.

Due to them being combat oriented droids, the plating was quite a bit thicker with a thin layer of beskar on the outermost layer. This way those droids could withstand a lot more damage and wouldn't go down easily when shot by normal blasters.

Valin turned towards the droids that was overseeing the assembly process and addressed him. "Please add their names onto their shell. For those Marines, they are called MA-01 until MA-10. Those over there are to be named SE-01 until SE-06." Valin first pointed at the space marine inspired droids and afterwards at the sentinel machines he tried to mimic to an extent.

"Yes sir, it will be done immediately." The droid answered him and directly headed over to the others that were tasked with the assembly to relay the order.

Compared to average droids the Marines were rather tall and bulky, standing at around 2,30 meters. And while the core of the sentinels was not even half that size, they were equipped with the ability to fly and therefore extending their reach suitably.

Looking them over, he was satisfied as there was nothing amiss. He would be able to activate them later when he built the still missing parts, the weapons, shields and other tools they would get integrated. Their programming had to be intgrated as well. He had to overlook those processes personally, as if was a custom job and he still had to experiment a bit to get the best result.

"They look pretty fierce, did you have blueprints for them as well?" Corvus asked as he studied their appearance.

"No, actually I read about similar armours in fiction and thought, why don't I try building something like that myself." Valin actually surfed through the HoloNet for fictional works to relieve himself of boredom in his downtime and found several stories that could have counted as a vague inspiration for them.

"Fascinating." Was the only reply he got, as Corvus got absorbed into studying them again. Valin was looking forward to working with him. He seemed to understand technology a great deal and it was an improvement to building everything himself. Granted, he had droids with him, but they hardly replace human(oid) interactions.

"How do you plan to arm them?" Dunn asked about the information that was the most important for him. Depending on the equipment they get, their uses might differ a lot.

"The Marines will get a bigger rifle based on the particle magnum you already saw. A big knife for fending of foes in close range, a shield they can deploy from their armguards and a jetpack to help them overcome different obstacles. Additionally, they will get explosives I still have to develop. I will ask Freia to help me with those." He answered.

"I'm sure she will, those are her speciality after all." Dunn affirmed his choice of action.

"As for those, they will stay close to the ship at all times. Their close combat abilities will keep the ship clean of possible intruders and they will be equipped with the necessary tools to repair the ship while in space." Valin explained as he pointed at the Sentinels and the tentacles-like limbs that were still unfinished at parts.

"And what kind of intelligence do you want to use in them? Any I might know of?" Corvus asked from the side, eliciting a grin from Valin.

"I programmed them myself after studying those of other combat models. Those custom droids deserve custom work when it comes to their programming as well. The personality matrix is that of a perfect and loyal soldier. Additionally, I made sure that their learning ability and adaptability is off the charts in comparison to mass produced models. I want your squad to train them up from the start. Your tactics Dunn, my and Sabe's shooting, the twins close combat abilities. They will learn with every enemy until there are nearly no weaknesses left to exploit aside from overwhelming force." Valin proudly stated.

Dunn's eyes widened at that. "So, a suicide squad of Mandalorians or really any kind of soldiers on steroids?" He asked.

"In a way, yes. Just that they are extremely hard to damage and 'kill' for suicidal soldiers." Valin answered with humour.

It didn't take long for all three of them to burst out laughing, looking forward to their first performance.