Chapter 86: "Definitely Not 'The Nova Boys'"

Disclaimer: Star Wars and all of it's Intellectual Properties is owned by George Lucas and Walt Disney, This fictional work and all of it's original characters are however mine.

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Jake's P.O.V. :

Back in the captain’s quarters of the CR90 carrier, I was throwing imaginary punches at the air like it owed me credits. Mostly just working out my frustration over the absolute word vomit I spewed during that fleetwide speech earlier. I kept replaying it in my head—every awkward pause, every overdramatic line. Force, I sounded like some wannabe holodrama character giving a pep talk before marching into a hopeless battle.

After a few minutes of venting and flailing around like a madman, I finally calmed down enough to head out. The Stellar Envoy was still docked under the belly of the cruiser, and I figured I might as well go to the common area. Not because I was feeling social, but because I wanted to know how bad the teasing was gonna be.

I walked slow—real slow. Like, slower than a moisture farmer on a hot Tatooine afternoon. Trying to come up with decent comebacks if Tarek or Rina decided to roast me over that speech. Which, let’s be honest, they absolutely would.

Sure enough, when I finally stepped through the hatch into the Envoy’s common room, Rina looked up from her seat with that mischievous little grin of hers. “Well, well,” she said, smug as ever. “The resident cult leader blesses us with his presence.”

I blinked. That was... not the roast I expected. I was so ready to defend the speech, but now her choice is what? Me as a cult leader? I got caught flat-footed. Tried to recover, but Rina just sat there, grinning like she’d already won. Which, to be fair, she might as well had.

Before I could even try to claw back some dignity, Davik and Kado wrapped up their holocalls and walked over, both of them looking way too pleased with themselves.

“All of ’em,” Kado announced, practically bouncing. “Every last crew we contacted, every one of them who joined us on the raid—signed on. No holdouts. They're in.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? That’s... a lot.”

“We've scattered for now,” Davik added, arms crossed but smiling. “Heading back to their old haunts. But the idea is to ease them into making the station our main base later. Satellite outposts will come later. Quiet-like. Let the heat die down.”

“Yeah,” Kado nodded. “The Hutts are gonna come sniffing around once they realize someone just punched them in the teeth. Best we stay low while we start standardizing things.”

“Standardizing,” I repeated. “You mean, like... actual structure? Ranks and reports?”

“We’re an organization now,” Davik said with a smirk. “Time to start acting like one.”

Then he added, “So... are we actually gonna call ourselves what some of the crews are already calling us?”

I tilted my head. “Which is?”

“The Liberators.”

Before I could answer, Mira appeared at the back of the room, stepping in with her usual quiet grace.

“Most of them actually prefer something else,” she said. “They latched onto the nova metaphor from your speech.”

I squinted. “Wait—the line about being a league of stars, each burning bright like a nova?”

“Yes, that one,” Mira said, nodding.

Kado pointed at me. “I like that. It sounds flashy. It's even inspirational. That should be the name then.”

Rina raised an eyebrow. “Bit long for a name, don’t you think? What, are we supposed to shout when we’re charging into battle—‘For the League of Stars That Burn Like Novas!’?”

Everyone was caught off guard by the comment and made us laugh uncontrollably.

Davik chuckled. “Nah, we’d just shorten it. Pull a few words.”

By now the rest of the crew was drifting into the room, drawn in by the noise. Tarek threw out, how about “The Shining Stars?”

Shmi, not missing a beat—and probably getting help from the little mechanic beside her whispering loudly—offered, “Star Novas?”

That kicked off a whole brainstorming session, the kind that got louder, faster, and more ridiculous by the minute. “Shiny League,” “League of Novas,” “Nova Force,” even “The Nova Boys”—which got vetoed on the spot for obvious reasons.

I threw out, half-joking, “Shining Star Nova League.”

And weirdly enough, everyone paused.

“That’s not bad,” Kado said, sounding genuinely impressed.

“It’s a mouthful,” Rina added, “but it’s got a ring to it.”

“We can still polish it,” Tarek said, arms behind his head. “Maybe trim it down?"

Eventually, we landed on it.

Nova Star League.

Short. Punchy. Memorable. And somehow... it worked.

I found myself grinning, leaning back against the bulkhead as the others kept bouncing ideas around. Inwardly, I couldn’t help but laugh at how childish it all felt. Sitting around a ship’s lounge, coming up with names like we were forming a superhero team from some old comic book I used to read back on Earth.

But then again... maybe that’s not so far off.

To the slaves we freed—and the ones we’ll free in the future—we probably are superheroes.

And if that means we get to act a little childish sometimes?
Yeah. I’m good with that.

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After the newly recruited crews scattered to their own bolt-holes to lay low, we finally made our way back to Station Base. Not without the usual dance, of course—half a dozen random hyperspace jumps, doubling back, even a false drift into a gas cloud just in case we’d picked up any kriffin’ shadows. Paranoia's a feature, not a flaw.

Once docked and pressurized, most of the crew practically melted into the decks with relief. Mira was the first to snag a hot meal; Davik muttered something about getting the turrets cleaned and vanished. Me? I was already cataloging mental blueprints before the ramp even finished lowering. With no big ops scheduled for a while and the holonet whispering quiet across the Outer Rim, I finally had time to tinker. Well, quiet if you ignore news about the Hutts and their thugs.

Now, the adjustments to the hive-link network for the sentinels are an extremely easy fix. That’s not even a side-gig anymore, it’s just maintenance. But what is side-project-worthy is getting our armor up to spec. No point having droids with personal shields and reactive protocols if the meatbags in the squad get vaped first volley.

The armor I’m planning to roll out will double as our crew’s uniform—standard issue for the extended team. Not the same high-tier specs as what I slapped on the Stellar Envoy crew, though. That phrik-laced plating’s reserved for us core members and, if I ever feel like playing warlord, maybe an elite strike team. But the new generation of armor will be solid.

Coverage will stay the same—torso, shoulders, shins, forearms, and helmet. But I gotta tweak the visuals. As for my early designs? Yeah, they're a bit too close to Mandalorian armor for comfort. Got the wide horizontal visor and rounded dome instead of the T-slit and bucket look, but still… if someone squints, we might get mistaken for a bunch of Outer Rim mando pretenders. So not ideal.

Then for the gimmicks? Oh boy. Arm-mounted energy shield on the left gauntlet—as standard issue dictates. Gravity reducers on the belt to boost jump height or give us more movement control. Now that’s podracer-level maneuverability. For when stealth is needed on missions, I’m slapping on a camo unit to the belt—burns through power like a vibrosaw through durasteel, so it’ll come with a power pack in place of a jetpack. Not for every op, but nice to have when we need it.

And speaking of jetpacks, I’ve finally stabilized the Mark III design—modeled off what I put on the Nick droids. Sleek, controlled, reliable burns. About time those prototypes graduated from 'experimental’ to 'standard issue.’ Reminder to update the droids with the new modules too, before they start falling behind.

Now for other mods? Right gauntlet gets a high-powered comms rig synced to squad channels. Dual shock dart launchers on both wrists for non-lethal options—because sometimes stun’s better than splatter. Especially when intel's on the line.

And this is just the basic armor. Pfft, basic.

The real prize is my personal rig. Still classified as a mainline project, mostly because I don’t want the others getting any bright ideas until I’ve stress-tested it myself. That’s where the real fun begins. All this grav tech I’ve been dabbling in lately—reminds me of something from Earth. Back before I got yeeted across the stars into what I thought was just a massive multimedia franchise.

I’m talking about a game that had everything: ancient synthetic threats, galactic politics, jump drives, and people who could tear the floor out from under you with a thought. If you haven’t figured it out by now, you’re probably a kriffin’ scrag. But fine, spoonfeed time: It's Mass Effect.

And yeah. I’m gonna recreate Mass Effect biotics, with Star Wars science.

The grav-manipulation gauntlets are just the start. Pull, push, slam—I’ve already got the physics mapped, it's technically telekinesis. If I can isolate the fields into microbursts, maybe integrate some neural uplink or chemical enhancer? Kriff, maybe I can inject myself with some synthesized element-zero analog and go full blue-glow space wizard. Can't really get Element Zero in this universe since that's the Force bullshit equivalent in the Mass Effect universe.

But hey, sure, it’s Mad Science. But this whole galaxy runs on Mad Science. Don’t tell me the Death Star wasn’t the fever dream of a caffeinated engineer with no adult supervision.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll even punch a hole through dimensions and find out if Mass Effect was real all along—just another universe over, behind a hyperspace fracture.

All this running through my head while I took notes, eyes wide, fingers twitching. Good thing I had the sense to lock my quarters and trigger my "get out" alarm every few hours, otherwise someone would’ve started banging on the door thinking I’d fried a circ board in my brain again. I’m just in the zone, that’s all. Deep in the flow.

This right here? This is how I unwind. Let the others hit the cantina or grab bunk time. Me though? I’ve got tech to bend, rules to break, and physics to insult.

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Of course I didn’t spend the whole two months locked in my quarters just sketching designs and ranting to my holo-diary about the tech gap between galactic eras. I still needed real results—tangible proof that all the tinkering and schematics meant something. So yeah, I got my hands dirty. Used the base’s old Assembly machines—cranky things, but with a bit of tuning and some help from Shmi and Arlos, they ran smoother than a fresh hyperdrive coil.

Neither of them are tech-heads like me, sure, but after months of working maintenance on our gear and helping recalibrate the Assembly units, they’ve got a solid eye for detail. Sometimes, they even catch the little things I overlook—stray power fluctuations, a shield emitter vent running too hot, stuff I’d usually chalk up to “fix it later.” It’s annoying. And helpful. And yeah, I hate how helpful it is. Anakin hangs around too, our little shadow, always watching from a safe distance like a six-year-old sponge just absorbing it all. I’m not sure if that’s terrifying or impressive. Probably both.

Anyway, we’re in the final phase of testing what’s about to be our standard combat armor. Not just protection—this stuff’s going to double as the new uniform for the recruits. Something sharp. Functional. Intimidating, in a "you really don’t want to mess with us" kind of way.

Arlos and Shmi are field-testing the mass production units now. Simulated stress runs across a dozen different combat biomes—desert, jungle, forest, deep water ops, zero-G. You name it, we’re throwing it at them. We even patched a combat suite update into some of the “Fodder” worker droids to play enemy. They’re running dummy routines, but with randomized tactics and varied unit behavior. Makes things interesting. Sometimes a little too interesting.

Once we wrapped those tests, I pivoted them to some of my side projects. Like the overhaul of the droid-controlled fighter-bombers. The ones we slapped together for that slave auction raid and the pirate scrap a few cycles back—functional, yeah, but kriffing messy. These new models are going to be cleaner, meaner, purpose-built. Plus, they’re getting a proper hive-link system, inspired by the Sentinel droids’ network, but refined for space combat maneuvers. Arlos and Shmi are handling the integration while I focus on my real baby right now: Project Biotic.

The grav-manip gauntlets already let me throw stuff around like a ticked-off Jedi, but it’s still brute force—inefficient. I want nuance. I want the kind of control that lets me crush a blaster barrel without turning the whole rifle into slag. Or maybe even stabilize a wounded ally mid-firefight while redirecting return fire. That’s the dream.

Shmi and Arlos aren’t here this time—they’ve got their hands full assembling the testbed for the new starfighters. So it’s just me, the hum of grav-field generators, and about three dozen datapads worth of failed simulations. Fun.

Kado, Davik, Tarek, Rina, and Mira are en route to the last rendezvous point aboard the Carrier-variant CR90. They’ve got crates full of the finalized combat armor—enough to kit out all the new blood. Once the handoff’s done, they’ll start drilling the recruits. Get them moving like a proper unit instead of a bunch of blaster-happy scrubs.

Technically, we only needed to lay low for a month, but I pushed for two. Everyone agreed once they saw the payoff—gear’s better, fleet’s tighter, and we’re not limping into our next op with patched-together junk and wishful thinking.

Now… back to grav-tuning. If I overload this core one more time, I’m going to punch a hole through the deck. Maybe intentionally.

Worse comes to worst, I can always say I was testing structural integrity.

Kriff it, I’m calling that a feature.