Before Rift Apart (Complete)

Beyond The Night

Nundac Asteroid Ring, Cerullean Sector, Apogee Base, 5 weeks later

After a near close call once again on Corson V, Rivet decided to spend her recovery helping the Resistance set up a new base. This one was far more dangerous for multiple reasons. First, the old shield generators were barely holding from the random asteroid collisions. Problem two was that the base was set up to gather intel from Emperor Nefarious' shipping lanes. Which meant the base was in close proximity to his territory. Crack-pot engineers designed a solution but had no idea how to properly build said miracle.

Rivet was called in and when she looked at the design she had a hard time believing it would work at all. "You're kidding me right? A cloaking device?" Rivet sighed. Cloaking devices were something that just couldn't be done due to the enormous power requirements. "Maybe someone with limitless amounts of bolts and materials could pull this off, ya know, like Nefarious, but we can't. We have next to nothing." Some of the engineers looked at her and shrugged. "We were tasked with designing, not building." Rivet growled in annoyance and kept looking over the "genius" design. It had far too many flaws.

She sat down with the design plans and started making some corrections. She decided if it were possible, no matter how remote that she would at least make it easy to pull it off. Eventually she came to a seriously flawed design of her own. It just wasn't possible to lower the power requirements and that was a serious problem considering the Resistance didn't have power coils to spare. Rivet determined to even make an attempt they would need to gather 4 power generators frrom cruiser-sized ships and even then, they need to be in good shape.

For once it was decided that some of the others should take up that task. Rivet had nearly sacrificed herself enough lately and everyone had become concerned. Every single Resistance cell, off-world or otherwise knew of Rivet which basically made her a leader in their eyes. Many praised her heroics, some thought she wasn't a good fit. And of course there were others who determined she was a major risk. Like the leader of the Apogee base, Talwyn Apogee herself. Daughter of famed explorer Max Apogee. Talwyn preferred caution above all else, and Rivet was a security risk in her eyes.

Since Rivet's arrival, her and Talwyn had been in an argument several times already. Usually it was Talwyn's doing and it had created some level of chemistry between them. While Rivet was looking over the plans for the cloaking device, Talwyn was over looking the supply requistions as well as the base's set up. Talwyn's two lieutenants were over-seeing their own usual foolishness. "You know, that silver-haired girl looks familiar." Zephyr said. "Of course she looks familiar ya durn fool! She works with us and has been here for days." Cronk said back. Zephyr couldn't quite place it.

He knew her, or someone like her from somewhere. "I meant her species. Something about her..." Cronk interuppted. "Blah blah blah! We've got work to do!" Talwyn looked over and sighed. "Can you two focus for one minute? We have things to do!" Talwyn ordered. She rolled her eyes and went back to work, checking boxes whenever something looked right. After awhile of checking things, Talwyn had gone into the base control room to look over things. "How's it going in here?" Talwyn asked. All she got back was a concerned look and knew she shouldn't have asked.

"Ok, I'll bite... What is it?" She asked, and the two in the control room looked at eachother. "Someone tampered with the communication system. Not long before you walked in, the distress beacon activated..." Talwyn's eyes widened. "What?! Who did it? Who's access code was used?" She demanded to know. They had no idea who's code was used but they started sweeping the system. All the while, the news traveled quickly and Rivet had an idea. "You wanna what?" Talwyn asked Rivet. "I want to take a short range fighter and destroy our beacon. An enemy scout ship is already on the way here."

Talwyn thought for a moment and with reluctance, agreed. "Ok, fine. It would only take a few days to fix anyways right?" Rivet gave a nod and headed off quickly to the fighter bay. She jumped and strapped herself in and started the launch checks. Though against her own better judgement, she shortened the checklist so she could get underway. Rivet would decide later if that decision was bad for her health but she had to be quick. "How long before that scout gets within detection range?" Rivet asked. "You have 9 minutes." Talwyn responded.

"Great. This is where it gets fun I guess." Rivet said to herself, not at all excited at the speed she'd have to go in order to get to the beacon in time. She sighed as she launched faster than she or anyone for that matter, would've liked. "Dang it rookie ya singed the dang bay doors!" Cronk yelled. Rivet giggled slightly. "I'll paint it later, fair?" Rivet said back to him. "You hear that? Whipper-snapper has jokes now!" Zypher laughed out. "Hey! Can everyone wait to make jokes until after we won't get blown to bits? Focus guys!" Talwyn yelled.

Rivet smiled to herself, but decided to stay quiet while en route to her target. "Alright rookie, you're getting close to the beacon! How do you feel in that thing?" Cronk asked. "I feel like the interia dampeners are running at 70% but I'm ok..." Rivet said, the speeds she was going making her want to hurl a little. "That's because they ARE at 70% ya durn fool!" Zypher said to Cronk. "I'll fix it later, if I survive this." Rivet said, trying to not giggle and keep the subject at hand. "Ten-Four Rookie, you've got this!" Cronk said.

Rivet got close enough to finally lock on with missles, only to realize the fighter she took didn't have any. "Guys?! Are you serious right now?!" Rivet yelled in worry. "You have a rail gun system, but you'll have to get closer to use it!" Talwyn said. Rivet quite literally bit her tongue to shut herself up as she increased speed in order to get an accurate shot with the rail gun. The moment she got close enough, she fired about a dozen shots, which then obliterated the beacon system. "I'm happy this is over with, but I hope you know I was hoping to REPAIR that." Talwyn said.

Rivet smiled to herself. "Don't worry, I'll show you how to build one, I'm pretty good-" Rivet was interuppted when Cronk yelled about debris collision. "Oh sh-" Rivet couldn't dodge it fast enough. A piece of debris hit her fighter, causing a crash landing from the Control Room's perspective. "Rivet..? RIVET?! Come on Rivet are you there?" Talwyn asked worriedly. "Cronk, Zypher, get a search party started for that crash site ASAP!" Both Cronk and Zypher gave a salute before rushing out. "I was wrong about her..." Talwyn said to herself quietly.