Jedi Academy

It hadn't taken long for Silas to find out that things weren't quite up to snuff around the base. There were signs of lapses of general maintenance everywhere.

Still that could likely be contributed to the lack of people he had seen around. So he decided to see if he could help. A few questions told him where the maintenance department was and soon enough he was there and knocking in the door. Might as well see if they could use him.

There was no answer.

A whiteboard hanging on the door provided some clue.

AT GARAGE
WILL RETURN 0730

It was after that already.

Well, that wasn't a good sign. Silas studied the board for a few moments before turning and heading towards the garage.

Maybe the mechanic would still be there?

Indeed, there were a few mechanics there. Three, in fact. They were working on a speeder of some sort; fairly standard, but with a lot of extra weatherized shielding.

One was underneath, one had the hood open, and the third, a big bear of a man, seemed to be trying to direct them. "Damnit, where's that bloody leak!" He cursed loudly. His breath was visible when he spoke; it was pretty cold in the garage.

"Um... Sorry to bother, but do you need any help?" Silas asked, as he watched the men work. "I've studied mechanics with the order."

"Huh? What's that?" The lead mechanic turned to look at him. He had a thick beard, and goggles covered his eyes.

He lifted them with one hand, peering curiously at Silas. "Hey, you're one of those Jedi, aren't ya?"

I wonder why Corvin doesn't have a cool beard like him. "Yeah." Silas replied with a grin. "I saw how busy you all must be so I came by too see if you needed an extra set of hands."

The big man scowled at him. Then, after a few moments, he banged on the speeder. "Yo, surly, come on out."

The man slid out from under the speeder. He seemed to have rather a lot of oil on him. The big man grunted. "We could use someone a bit smaller to reach inside the speeder, see. Find where that damn leak is. You wanna give it a try?"

"Sure!" Silas replied with a grin, as he began walking over to the speeder, grease and oil didn't really seem to bother him a bit. "I'm guessing you're thinking the leaks in oen of the lines?" He asked and he bent over and rolled onto his back in preperation for crawling under the speeder.

"Yep." The big mechanic came over. "Problem is, these speeders need extra thermal shielding, or their insides freeze up, even while you're piloting them. And if you stop for five minutes, forget about it."

He shook his head. "Makes it a lot harder to service them, though. If you can't find it, we'll need to take the whole kriffin' thing apart, almost."

(average difficulty)

Silas grunted in understanding as he slipped under the speeder and got to work. In all sounded liek a giant pain in the rear to him, but then that was probably the way of things "Ow! Kriff!, this thing is a mess under here." He muttered as he banged his knuckles aganist a especially annoying spot in the undercarriage.

Still he got to work, and after a few grunts of effort, and maybe another muttered curse word or two he announced his sccuess. "Alright, I found it."

Can I find the leak? Average difficulty: 1eP+2eA+2eD 2 successes, 1 threat


((Taking the threat as strain unless you have a plan for it?))

"Tell me about it." He heard the mechanic's deep voice come from above.

"Great. Okay, I see it on this end. See if you can apply a patch." The necessary equipment was slid under the speeder to him. "Nothing fancy, just get the leak stopped.

(no roll required)

"Alright." Silas murmured, keeping a hand and eye on the leak as he reached for the tools with the other.

It took a few minutes of work but soon enough he got it done. "Alright, that should hold at least for a while."

"Alright, I got you." Big hands seized Silas, pulling him out from under the vehicle easily.

One of the mechanics climbed into the front seat. A moment later, and the engine came to life, growling happily.

The big mechanic grunted, turning to Silas. "Not bad, kid." He offered his hand. "Where'd you learn to do this stuff?"

Silas hopped to his feet once out, looking for a shop rag to wipe off his hands. "Ah, at the temple." His lips curled into a smile. "It's not too common but a few of us learn to do this kind of work."

He was the only armorer in the class after all, even including the masters.

"No kidding." The big guy said.

He held out his hand. "Name's Riggs. Pleasure to meet you, kid."

"Silas." He grinned and took the older man's hand. "Sorry if I surprised you, but it just looked like you could use a extra set of hands around here."

"I won't be here for long, but I'll help as much as I can while I am."

Riggs looked at him for a few moments. "I wouldn't turn down an extra set of hands. There's all sorts of things that need doing. Thing is, there's just not enough mechanics for the size of the base; garrison used to be bigger, here, but we've been on a skeleton crew since the war started. Then, there's lots of places that you can only work on a few hours a day, or not at all some seasons."

Grimacing, he looked at Silas. "How are you with ducts?"

"That's what I figured." Silas said with a nod. It made sense after all, the war was a strain on a lot of resources.

"Ducts? They would be a first." He admitted with a frown. "But you don't learn by reading manuals, or at least that's how I always thought about it. Put a communicator in my ear, and I can probably manage."

"Or where you talking about crawling through them?"

Grimacing, Riggs nodded. "Yeah. Crawling through 'em. It's a bit of a fit, and you're not quite so big around as the rest of us."