Record Time

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The Record Time was an armed troop transport that served with distinction during the fall of Coruscant and later the Battle of Borleias. The ship ferried the initial waves of ground troops and YVH 1s to the surface of Borleias in the initial stages of the battle as part of a New Republic effort to take the planet, but sustained heavy damage in the process.

Following that engagement, the vessel was later used to insert a team of Wraith Squadron infiltrators and Jedi onto the surface of occupied Coruscant. While performing this mission, the ship was attacked by multiple coralskippers and a Yuuzhan Vong frigate analog. The Record Time ultimately fulfilled its mission, but succumbed to the plasma cannon fire, disintegrating over Coruscant as its crew escaped.

Contents 1 Description 2 History 2.1 Early history and military career 2.2 Mission to Coruscant 3 Behind the scenes 4 Appearances 5 Notes and references

[edit] Description

The ship was nearly twice as long as the GR-75 medium transports once favored by the Rebel Alliance, at 170 meters long, and was composed of two bulbous main segments. The larger segment held the bridge and personnel bays (or cargo bays), while the engines were located in the smaller segment. Its bridge had both a transparisteel viewport and a series of holocams that created a panoramic view of the area around the ship to provide information to the crew. The personnel bays could be equipped with troop couches to secure personnel against the turbulence of fast descent and hard landing and featured a large exit ramp. A narrow access corridor connected the bridge and cargo bays to the engine drives section. Like many ships of its size, it was equipped with escape pods for the crew in case of emergency, deflector shields, and a hyperdrive. The vessel was also armed with a number of turbolasers for defense.^[1]

Despite its size, the ship was capable of being flown with a small amount of crew—on one occasion being crewed by only one person with the aid of a droid firing the weapons from the main bridge. To some, the vessel appeared to be fragile, but its original captain claimed it was the fastest, toughest vessel of its class. However, by the time of its military service, the vessel was considered reliable, but antiquated.^[1]

While the damage sustained in its first military mission was repaired, the ship was never fully repaired, instead receiving several modifications by Borleias ground crew in preparation for its mission to Coruscant.^[1]

[edit] History

[edit] Early history and military career

The Record Time was originally a privately owned freighter in its late middle age. The original captain/owner of the ship was Ninora Birt, who later donated the vessel to the New Republic Defense Force for the war effort, with Birt serving as the ship's captain during the fall of Coruscant. In the confusion following the New Republic retreat, the vessel ended up under Wedge Antilles's command. Antilles took his forces to the planet of Borleias, which had been used as a staging area by the Vong to attack Coruscant, in an effort to retake the planet. The Record Time was loaded with assault troops, engineers, and YVH-1 droids commanded by Lando Calrissian. Escorted to the surface by Twin Suns Squadron, the Record Time, under fire, disgorged its load of troops and battle droids at the site of the former New Republic base, taken over and replaced by a Yuuzhan Vong facility. While grounded, the Record Time coordinated communications between the Star Destroyer Mon Mothma and the ground troops. Although a rakamat attempted to destroy the ship, Lando used explosives to destroy the warbeast. While the troops were successful in taking the base, the Record Time was rendered unspaceworthy from the damage it had sustained. While the ship was stationed on the surface of Borleias undergoing repairs, its master, Captain Birt, was assigned to finding a location for medical facilities for the wounded on the planet by General Antilles.^[1]

As the New Republic forces formed a base on Borleias, they also repaired the Record Time. After command of Twin Suns Squadron was transferred to Jaina Solo, the vessel was used to ferry target practice canisters into orbit for Jaina, Jagged Fel, and Kyp Durron to practice Force-based firing coordination tactics.^[1]

[edit] Mission to Coruscant

Twelve days later, the Record Time, with only minimal repairs performed by the garrison, was assigned to a new mission led by Lando Calrissian. The repairs were so stop-gap that the flight control center gave Lando one in one hundred odds of the ship blowing up before attaining planetary orbit. The vessel had been modified to hold a flight-ready B-wing starfighter in its docking bay. Its cargo bay was filled with the organic detritus of coralskipper remains used to disguise insertion pods containing the Wraith Squadron personnel, Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, and Tahiri Veila for their ride onto Coruscant. The cargo would be released either by a command from the bridge or a comlink signal from Luke Skywalker, which would activate an inertial compensator to propel the pods out of the ship. The craft took off from Borleias shortly before the Yuuzhan Vong launched a major assault on the garrison, with a crew of only Lando and YVH droid weapons officer, as Lando did not want to endanger any other sentients on what he believed was at best risky, and at worst, a suicide mission.^[1]

Lando brought the ship out of hyperspace close to the former capital, allowing the insertion team to be launched earlier, but this maneuver resulted in the Record Time being unable to escape before a Yuuzhan Vong frigate and several coralskippers intercepted the ship, pummeling it with Yaret-Kor fire. As it reached the insertion point, small explosive charges attached to the ship's forward hull were detonated, opening the bay to vacuum and creating the appearance of internal explosions to Yuuzhan Vong pursuers. As the charges exploded, the vessel's bay opened, sending its human cargo plunging into Coruscant from orbit.^[1]

Yuuzhan Vong warships continued to attack the Record Time, breaching its shields, though the ship's guns, manned by a YVH droid, accounted for at least seven coralskippers. With artificial gravity failing and the hull breached and failing, Lando and his droid weapons officer escaped into the cargo bay. Climbing into the B-wing, they set an exit vector from Coruscant back to Borleias as the remains of the Record Time, charred and blasted by the Yuuzhan Vong, descended towards Coruscant.^[1]

[edit] Behind the scenes

The Record Time was created by Aaron Allston for Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream and has not appeared in any other work. However, it is curious to note that Record Time and Lusankya seem to have been assigned parallel roles in the Enemy Lines Duology, with both vessels' first appearance being over Borleias amidst heavy fire, both were escorted to relative safety by Luke Skywalker's Twin Suns Squadron, both were given stop-gap repairs by the garrison, converted from their original purpose, and ultimately sacrificed to achieve a greater purpose.

Based on its role and description, Record Time was most likely a Xiytiar-class transport. Aaron Allston previously applied similar descriptive terms to the Sungrass, a Xiytiar-class transport featured in X-wing: Iron Fist.

[edit] Appearances

• Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream (First appearance)
• The Unifying Force (Mentioned only)

[edit] Notes and references