The Sabersmith

Chapter 3: The Night Buzzard

The Supreme Leader had me follow him through Bay Six, showing me the various ships that only he and his Knights had access to, at least until now. I knew about the Night Buzzard and the Supreme Leader's Silencer, but I had no idea they had several more ships in their bay.

Kylo Ren had a command ship, an Upsilon-class shuttle. Alongside the Silencer, he also had a TIE Whisper, highly modified from what I could see from the outside. I was sure the interior was also modified to an extreme.

He explained some of the features on each of these ships as we walked through the bay. I was paying attention to the features, but there was a lot of information he was giving me, also telling me some of the history of the ships he had and where he had taken them. I wasn't able to process all the information he was giving me, but I knew the information about the engines and where the ship had been before were irrelevant to me. And I knew once I took a look at the weapon's systems, I'd be able to figure everything else out myself.

Then we came up to the Night Buzzard. The Supreme Leader's voice had droned on for quite a while at this point, and through the modulator I wasn't able to pay as much attention.

"Sergeant," he said, turning around to look at me.

I lifted my eyes to where his would be through his mask. "Hmm?"

"An answer." He crossed his arms, irritated, and I could feel his glare through the black matte of his helmet. "You were listening, correct?"

"Yes," I attempted to sound like I had heard everything he'd said and responded. "The Night Buzzard, your Knights' ship. You need me to work on this."

He paused, and for a moment I was worried he knew that I hadn't been listening, but he continued. "We will be headed to Eadu in two days, just the eight of us, and we will be taking the Night Buzzard," Kylo Ren began. "I need you to make sure the ship's weapons are..." He paused and my attention was immediately snagged again. "Is this boring you, Sergeant?"

My eyes widened momentarily before I regained my composure. Eadu, the ship's weapons, got it. "I've heard of Eadu, you don't have to explain." Immediately, I felt the annoyance coming off of the Supreme Leader in heavy waves, but I continued anyway. "I know that there's not a large population of people because of the storms, and it's almost completely covered with mountains. It'll be difficult to land."

His irritation with me lifted for a moment, replaced with something along the lines of being impressed, but it came back quickly. "Exactly. Communication with the fleet will be nearly impossible, so we are not going to rely on that. I need you to make sure that the ship's weapons won't be damaged by the storms and prepare for any Resistance that might be around."

Kylo Ren began walking towards the ship's entrance, but I stopped him with another question. "Why exactly are we going to Eadu? It's dangerous, and there's not much there."

He turned around, and I could hear him sigh through the voice modulator. "The Empire created a high-energy refinery station atop one of the mountains. It was built to conduct experiments on kyber crystals in order to find out how they work." Kylo Ren began towards the Night Buzzard's entry ramp again.

Kyber crystals. That peaked my interest immediately. I hadn't been able to find one for my lightsaber that I'd been building. Maybe I could find something while we were there. If I could figure out a way to—

The Supreme Leader paused his steps and slowly turned around.

That's when I realized I hadn't yet started moving to follow him.