Ahsoka Tano; Mightiest Force Wielder (Book 1: The Rise)

Heart Broken

After having dropped out of hyperspace the VT-49 signaled it with beeping. The call from Coruscant ground control was already on the screen. Ahsoka selected automatic landing at the military space port again. Her heart was heavy, there was this foreboding of more combat encounters and the separation with Mike. Vader had put a 500k credits reward on her head and she did not know how many bounty hunters he had approached. This time, the ground control officer did not call in when the VT-49 entered the restricted air space over the space port. The new RegID of that other military VT-49 must have done the trick. Cruising over the space port for a spot to land, they saw the airspeeder still sitnin' outside. That was so unexpected and hard to believe, nobody had stolen or removed the obviously abandoned vehicle. That made them both happy and saved the day. After landing Mike discussed the next steps with Ahsoka. They agreed it would be best, if Mike would go and contact his acquaintance at the university while Ahsoka remained in the ship. Before leaving the ship Mike shaved his hair off, then putt ugly safety glasses on (which he sometimes used for eye protection when working on something) on to hopefully not get detected by surveillance cameras. Being bald did not suit him at all and the goggles on top, made him simply ugly ... at least Ahsoka did not have to worry about other women.

Mike went over to the airspeeder touching and greeting it like an old friend, whom he did not see for some time. The airspeeder was dirty inside and mike tried to remove as much of the debris as he could with bare hands, then he took off for the university.

Uni of Coruscant

http://starwars_wikia.com/wiki_University_of_Coruscant

Mike came back in the evening bringing food and good news with him. The guys at the university were eager to put their thought control system into her ship. So far they only experimented with airborne vessels, thus they were really eager to test it on space craft, too. They would meet them tomorrow morning with the VT-49, to discuss the details.

Next day Ahsoka brought the VT-49 down on a parking lot at the university. It was not easy, the parking lot was built for small crafts, it was not a spaceport. Ahsoka ended up putting the VT-49 on top of several small vessels with only the stand offs being placed on empty space. It was quite a grotesque picture. They met with the professor and two of his assistants. During the meeting, the professor informed Ahsoka about their system. Seemed, he really enjoyed presenting his science project. He was going far into detail and Mike asked many questions, but for Ahsoka it was boring. She forced herself to pay attention and not fall asleep, she feared, she might otherwise miss out on something important. At the end of his presentation the professor explained organizational, governing and legal matters. Thereafter one of the assistants told them, that he already made himself generally familiar with the VT-49 Decimators and how to implement their system. They would install a wireless transceiver in the pilots console and connect it to the data network of the space ship. That was the rather easy part, making the physical connection between the flight computer and their thought control system. The more difficult part was the application layer connecting the flight computer with the thought control system from the software side. They reckoned it would take them a week.

After his colleague had spoken for two minutes, the professor had the dire need to say something again : "As I explained in the presentation already, there are two ways doing the thought control. One is using a type of cap that is worn over the head, which will pick up the thought commands, the other is implanting a chip into the brain and connect it to the motorical center. The later one is a brand new method we developed. It is superior over the cap method providing more accurate and faster control of the ship. It is like learning how to walk in the beginning, but later flying the ship is as easy as walking; it will be second nature."

Darn, Ahsoka did not really grasp that part of the presentation, she must have been half way asleep, and that part would have been important, but maybe, the professor was not really highlighting it. The issue was she neither was prepared nor keen on getting a brain surgery done, so she decided for the cap method, after all, the brain method could also be implemented at a later point in time. The professor informed them that the only thing missing for them to get started was signing the paperwork and the 5000 credit donation, which was required by the university. He himself, would do it for free, simply for the sake of research, but the university insisted on it. Having gone through the tedious bits of bureaucracy and having made the donation in the administrative building, Ahsoka and Mike returned to the professor, who was very delighted and instructed his personnel to get started immediately. He insisted on them to leave the VT-49 there at the university, so that they could begin with their work.