The Force's Balance
By Kassien
Chapter 8: From Onderon to Kashyyyk
When we arrived at Onderon, we were directed by the planet's security forces to land at the capital's main docking bay in the capital city of Iziz, and were greeted by a large retinue of government officials and a few others who must have known our passenger based on their greeting upon his arrival. A small Bivall boy ignoring the important looking government officials, ran up to and practically tackled Okaletti the moment he was visible at the bottom of our loading ramp, while his mother followed behind though equally as emotional to be reunited with her husband. Several other officials then broke ranks so to speak and converged on Okaletti, to warmly greet him and welcome him home.
We were welcomed very warmly as well, and invited to dine with Okaletti's boss, the Head of the Science Division, in Yolahn Square at the foot of the Unifar Temple that housed their King. The meal was wonderful, and everyone on my ship was pleased to be treated well, and for the respite from the redundant days of space travel. I spent most of my time talking with Svernix Koudifa, the Head of Environmental Sciences about the flora and fauna of the planet, interested in continuing my collection of possible potion and wand core supplies as well as what else Onderon had to offer. It was a dense jungle planet, and outside the walls of Iziz, was apparently not a very safe place for the average person to travel, but to me that sounded perfect.
My crew was given lodgings at a nearby hotel free of charge for our assistance in returning one of their citizens, and invited to spend a day in their city exploring their famous Malgan Market. It was wonderful for all of us, to get the chance to move around and explore something new and different, and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. I gave Kenroo the responsibility to keep track of our Wookie passengers and provided them all with more credits to spend than I think any of them had ever seen before, while Sirius and I went off on our own to explore. We started in the Malgan Market, where I was able to purchase some local foods and a few trinkets until we encountered a cantina that had dancing Twi'lek girls and I lost Sirius for the rest of the day.
Whatever, he deserved to have some fun and rest for a bit longer, so I left him at a premium table with an open tab and plenty of credits to shower the dancers with in order to enjoy himself. I then headed out to a speeder merchant I saw and purchased one of his best speeders, and several that didn't work at all while I told him about my repairing hobby and used a little passive legilimency to find out a few other things about the area. I discovered there was a large junkyard just outside the city walls on the west end that had grown to ridiculous size, and was overrun with dangerous insectoid carnivores called Gutkurr that I knew would be my next destination.
Masking my scent and presence as best I could, I then apparated to said junkyard and almost fell over at the sheer magnitude of the place. It seemed to have been added to for years without anyone ever cleaning it out and removing anything, just leaving it to the elements. There was lots of jungle growth among the hundreds of piles of broken space ships, droids, speeders, and tons of other random things I couldn't even recognize at first glance. It was also swarming with easily a dozen of the very dangerous and creepy looking insectoid carnivores, the Gutkurr I was warned about.
Figuring what worked best on Kashyyyk should be my starting point here, I apparated behind the nearest of the creatures and hit it with a sectumsempra dark cutting spell to the unprotected part of it's neck that tore into the insectoid creature and killed it relatively quickly. It did attract the attention of the other nearby creatures though, and for the next half hour I was apparating around the immense "junk city" killing the Gutkurrs whenever I could until I could no longer see any. They were pretty scary looking, with thin arms that ended in hooks and strong hind legs, almost looking like a velociraptor with a spiked turtle shell on its back, and were said to be very resistant to blaster bolts.
With the immediate threat now removed, I spent the next hour collecting and storing various parts of the rather large creatures, but mostly just collecting the spiked carapaces they had on their backs as they proved the most interesting and magically resistant, almost like a Fire Crab shell. Soon, I had a trunk full of potion and wand core ingredients, and could move on to the junkyard piles all around me. Another hour was spent repairing, shrinking, and storing everything that looked even remotely valuable, filling up three more trunks in the process, one exclusively with repaired space ships and transports.
By then, I was starting to tire from all the magic I was using and decided to call it quits, but not before getting on my broom and doing a quick lap around the junkyard city to make sure I didn't miss anything too nice. It was a good thing I did too, as at one end furthest from Iziz that I hadn't explored too much, there was a large machine bigger than most space ships that was mostly buried under the surface of the planet and covered by countless broken pieces of debris. I only noticed it because of its size, as it looked like a large terra forming machine I recognized from one of Captain Addo's memories of an asteroid mining site he visited once.
Deciding it was worth the Pepper Up potion I carried for emergencies, I was soon back to work removing all the surrounding debris, and then trying to pull the largest machine I had ever seen out of the hard ground that it must have been in for many years. The exterior of it was rusted and dirtier than anything around it, and with how well it was buried among the dirt and rocks of the planet, it had to have been there for a relatively long time. I spent over an hour just trying to get the area around it loose enough to pull it out of the ground, but had to give up as I was at the end of my magic and still hadn't managed to get it completely free, though I was pretty close.
So, instead I returned to the Cantina I left Sirius at, only to laugh at and shake my head at finding him in his own personal heaven being lavished attention on by the three twi'lek dancers. Figuring that he deserved the fun, I instead left the Cantina to go and eat some dinner before checking back in on him a little bit later. He was a little less happy when I returned, and he complained about the dancers all being slaves owned by the Cantina owner.
"We need to rescue them Harry," he exclaimed when I apparently didn't show the proper disgust at learning of this.
"Slavery is pretty common throughout the galaxy Sirius, I don't think we can afford to rescue all of them," I answered, though I too wasn't a fan of slavery, these at least where treated more as indentured servants and had it pretty good compared to most that I read about or witnessed in the stolen memories I gained from a trio of asshole criminals.
"B-b-but ...it's not right ...we need to do something," came his somewhat pissed reply at my lack of indignation, and I realised the memories I had seen really demonstrated how big of a problem slavery really was throughout the galaxy, and how difficult it would be to try and stop it completely.
"I agree ...we should do something Siri ...but, I don't know what that something is, and slavery is a much bigger problem than just a few dancers treated well in a random Cantina on Onderon," came my honest reply.
"Why can't we just liberate them ourselves?" he continued with a longing look to the twi'lek dancers now back on the stage as the evening had brought a much bigger crowd than earlier, who were all crowded around the stage ogling the attractive slaves, "I mean, look at those poor dancers with all those slobs hanging all over them."
"We can't just save the attractive slaves Sirius," I responded with a shake of my head. "The bouncers over by the door are slaves, the bartender and servers are slaves ...what are we going to do about the thousands of other slaves in this city? They all have slave implants embedded in their necks, so those need to be dealt with before you move the slaves anywhere. Most of these slaves don't know anything else, or have anything else to start a new life for themselves."
"We have to do something, Harry," he exclaimed, with another longing look at the twi'lek dancers.
"What do you suggest?" I asked honestly, curious about how involved and serious my godfather was or wanted to be about the galaxy wide slavery issue.
"I'm not sure exactly ...but we should at least try ...nobody should ever be a slave," came his passioned response, that had me realize that I agreed with him about the abhorance of slavery, but was unsure how the two of us were going to solve the problem.
"Well, the main problems really are going to be difficult to overcome," I started, "first is the issue of the institutional galaxy wide acceptance of slavery which is going to be almost impossible to stop, unless maybe we could stop the dependance on slaves and transfer it over to droids. But we would need to really increase our droid production and vary their capabilities to cover any job a slave is currently doing. The next biggest problem would be housing and providing either the skills or some starting capital to get their lives under their own control, I'm not sure how best to accomplish that part. The third biggest problem is physically finding and rescuing every slave, or purchasing them from their current owners ...and that will get expensive or put us on the wrong side of the law and some pretty dangerous criminals depending on how we go about it, not to mention be insanely time consuming as there are thousands of planets in the known galaxy, and almost all of them have some level of slavery."
"Okay ...so maybe not as easy as I first thought," replied Sirius, "but maybe that should be something we start working towards Harry."
"I agree that slavery really is a problem, but I don't think its something we could fix easily or should rush into without a lot of things in place to help all the freed slaves make a life for themselves," came my reply.
"What if we started small," continued Sirius, "I mean, obviously we can't stop the galaxy wide usage of slavery overnight, but I think increasing droid production and capabilities to take over slave jobs is a good start, and with our repair magic, that isn't nearly as difficult or expensive as it would be for others. From what you and Kenroo have said, the Wookies hate slavery too, maybe they would let us use Kashyyyk as a place to rehabilitate the slaves, you said they were really accomodating to you because of all the help you have provided them."
"They might be interested in helping, as they tend to have several of their race used as slaves throughout the galaxy and are definitely anti-slavery," came my thoughtful response after thinking it over a moment. "I'm just not sure their planet could handle too much of a population increase. Their cities are all basically tree houses, and not very industrialized or usable for a general non-Wookie population. Maybe we would be better off trying to set up in a city in one of the Core Worlds that doesn't have slavery?"
"Or we could settle our own planet?" came Sirius' answer, which was said somewhat tongue in cheek, but instantly had me looking at him in shock, and contemplating how we would actually pull something like that off, and actually really considering it as the benefits of controlling our own planet and settling down some permanent roots in this new galaxy we found ourselves in really appealed to me on some level.
"That actually sounds like a great idea Siri," I replied after several moments of thinking about it further, "we could set everything up exactly as we wanted it, and control everything ourselves. It would allow us to set up our own droid company and facility, a ship building and repair station, we could also set up other industries and provide jobs and training for freed slaves to help them acclimate better at a slower pace that was easier for them to transition. It would be a great way to set up a permanent base of operations and eventually a home for us ...I doubt we are going to want to live on a spaceship for the rest of our lives."
"You know I was kidding right Harry?" came Sirius' laughing reply.
"Maybe," I answered with a smirk of my own, "but, it doesn't change the facts that it is the best idea we have if you really want to try and fight against slavery in the galaxy. Anywhere else we tried to relocate slaves would have to be done within the legal framework of that planet, and be subject to that planet's government and protection. If we controlled all of that, we would be able to do a much better job than anyone else, and provide real help adjusting to their new lives and protecting them, while also creating a permanent home for us."
"Ok," laughed Sirius with a happy gleam in his eye at my passion filled speech. "So, how do we find a planet for ourselves?"
"Well …," I started and then paused as I thought of ways. "I think our best bet is to actually review some of the data I collected from the Jedi Archives, and see if we couldn't restore some historically significant planet with a strong Force presence to help mask and help along our magic."
"And ...we can start gathering slaves now to help us build and populate this new planet, right?" came Sirius' hopeful question as he spared another longing look towards the twi'lek dancers.
"Oh, for fuck's sake Sirius ...stop thinking with your dick," I admonished my older godfather, and his blatant horniness. "We are nowhere near ready to start actually collecting and re-indoctrinating slaves. Our ship isn't that big, and there are thousands of slaves in this city alone, and probably four times as many on the rest of this planet."
"I don't care about the thousands of slaves in this city, I just want to spend some time with those three," came Sirius' rebuttal with a bark-like laugh and perverse grin, that had me shaking my head at his hopelessness and one tracked mind.
"Fine," I groaned, knowing that he wouldn't stop bothering me about this until I did something about it, "I'll talk to the owner and see if we can work something out, but you are going to owe me big time and have to help me tomorrow morning on a project of my own."
"Sweet Merlin Harry, you're the best ...you've got a deal ...anything you need my help on," came the quick and grateful response of my horny godfather.
It turns out, handing the bartender a few hundred credit chips will get you a private meeting with the owner within an hour, and I was soon sitting with Sander, the middle aged human owner of the Green Door Cantina in a private office in the back of the crowded place. He was actually a pretty nice guy, treated his slaves very well, and ran a pretty good Cantina that he started himself ten years previously and built from the ground up. He was very reluctant to sell his twi'lek dancers though, and after a brief Legilimency scan, I discovered that he was in a relationship with the oldest of them going on seven years, and even had a pair of young children with her.
Knowing that, I quickly moved to just inquiring about the other two, as well as one of his three female cooks I had spied on in the kitchen and we were soon haggling over the price. Since he didn't have a great need to sell any of them, I had to make quite the offer before he even considered it, and it wasn't until I threw in a protocol droid and a pair of security droids that we were shaking on the agreement. He did ask what my plans were with the slaves, as like I said, he was a decent sort and actually cared about his peoples' well being, but I just stated I had my own restaurant that was opening soon on Glee Anselm and wanted to have some help lined up, and wasn't trying to compete with him, nor would I treat any of them poorly.
After the droid and credit exchange, he called the head of his staff, the bartender I paid off earlier to gather all three twi'lek dancers and the youngest of the cooks in the kitchen to come to his office as the night was at this point winding down. I too asked Sirius to join us, and the pair of us got to witness the handing over of the slave remote devices as the three employees were informed of their sale to me. The eldest twilek gave her "husband" the owner a long look, but then embraced her two younger fellow dancers with teary eyed hugs that showed they all cared deeply about each other, while the young human cook, probably in her early twenties looked on in uncertainty.
"I am sorry if this has come as a shock to all of you, but we are in need of your services," I spoke after a moment as they seemed to realize they had been sold to unknown persons and were looking at Sirius in a new light having recognized him from earlier and completely unsure about me. "This is my cousin, Sirius Black, and my name is Harry Potter and we promise to treat all of you with respect and fairness, and will fill you in on your purposes within the next few days as we travel. Our next stop is in fact Kashyyyk as we have substantial business dealings with their growing droid industry. We will in fact be leaving Onderon tomorrow around midday if you would like to take this time to collect any personal belongings or say your goodbyes to anyone, that will of course be allowed."
"Thank you master," came the small voice of the closest of the three, a green skinned twi'lek girl I would guess was about twenty, and seemingly the youngest of the lot. "I am Felici'arnustri and this is my older sister Seleni'arnustri," she continued motioning to the slightly older and darker green skinned twi'lek. "We can have our bags packed within a few minutes if you'll excuse us?"
"Of course," I responded calmly, both glad they were not fighting this, and also somewhat upset at how submissive and accepting of their slave status they had become, before I turned to the dark haired cook who was still looking a bit like a deer in headlights with everything that was happening.
"We will require your cooking services, and currently will have three humans with yourself included, two twi'leks, and five Wookies on board our ship for this journey," I continued as the young dark haired cook still looked a little lost, and I hoped giving her something to do would get her out of her shock. "If Sander would permit it, I would love to get enough food to feed us for one week, and will pay double the amount of anything you pick out that we might need or that you know you and our new guests would like ...though I do have a top of the line Food Processor XSL-500 on board."
"Um, yes sir," she shyly replied before looking horrified and quickly stumbling over an apology, "I'm s-sorry … I-I mean ...yes Master."
"Please, sir sounds much better," I replied with a small smile, hoping to put her at ease and hating the sound of someone addressing me as Master.
"Thank you sir," she answered with a relieved breath. "I'll go gather some food stuffs for our journey."
"Of course, and what is your name dear?" I asked, realizing I didn't know it, and causing the young woman to stop and look down in embarrassment.
"Oh ...um ...Kalithenesme, but everyone calls me Kali," she replied shyly, before ducking her head again and quickly slipping out of the room to gather her things and any food she wanted.
After that, I said goodbye to Sander and his twi'lek companion, knowing they needed to have a long conversation of their own and along with Sirius headed back into the Cantina's main room as the last few patrons were slowly finishing up their meals and drinks. It was only about a ten minute wait until the two twi'lek sisters returned with a small suitcase and backpack each. Kali took another fifteen minutes to return, but with her was a similar suitcase and backpack for her personal things, as well as three small crates carried by the bartender and set on the bar that I assumed was holding food.
"Is everybody ready to go?" I asked the three newest guests, who I was going to wait until we were aboard the Marauder to explain everything to, but knew I would need to give a little heads up to ease any fears or questions they were bound to have and waited for them each to nod. "Good ...Sirius, would you take care of the bags ...I am going to whip us up some travel cloaks to not raise any suspicion."
The three simultaneous gasps of surprise always made me smile, as people were introduced to our magic. They were all very wide eyed as Sirius took and shrunk all their bags and the small food crates before pocketing them, almost missing my creating three travel cloaks out of nearby napkins that I handed to each of the stunned former slaves to put on. I explained that I was exhausted at the moment and that we didn't want any trouble from the locals. We would explain our "Jedi" powers once we were safely back in our spaceship, which got three hesitant and wide eyed nods.
By the time we returned to the Marauder however, I was so damn tired after the long day and high usage of magic, and left a lot of explaining for Sirius to do as we showed them around the massively expanded ship. They all had their heads on swivels as they tried to see everything, especially when we led them into Sirius' tent which we agreed to let them stay in for now until more permanent accommodations could be made. Sirius was going to bunk with me, and Sirius explained that we were not going to keep them as slaves and they were therefore completely free to make their own way in the world, and that we were just going to help them get started.
Kali was very excited about that, and was quick to explore the guest room in Sirius' large tent she was given, and was eager to learn more about the world and if she could find a place within it. The two twi'lek sisters had a much more difficult time trying to understand where this left them, as they didn't have any understanding of being free. They were raised as slaves, and knew nothing else and if I weren't so damn tired I probably would have put up a much bigger fuss at what transpired next.
Seleni'arnustri gave a subtle gesture to her younger sister as we showed them the Master Bedroom in Sirius' tent that they could share and before I really knew what was happening, I was being led out of the room and tent by the younger Felici'arnustri and asked if my tent was similarly furnished. If I was more awake and aware I probably would have seen what was happening, but as it was, I didn't think too much about it as I led the beautiful green skinned twi'lek to my tent and my room with the intention of showing her around. But as I neared my wonderful bed, my fatigue overcame any other senses and I am pretty sure I just collapsed face down onto the covers without even removing my boots.
AN: Mention of sex in following paragraph, please skip if easily offended ...but then I would recommending leaving this story if the following paragraph does actually offend you.
When I woke up, however, one of the very first things I noticed was that I was no longer clothed in any way. That was relatively easy to determine due to the very naked and insanely attractive green skinned twi'lek bouncing up and down on my morning flag pole while rolling her hips in ways that made higher level thinking practically impossible. I totally wanted to blame my slow reaction to this on my morning drowsiness, but knew without a doubt that my reluctance to say anything came directly from the absolute pleasure she was quickly bringing me to. So, like all hot blooded Englishmen, I remained as stoic as possible as I was shagged like never before while mesmerized by her bouncing assets and brought to a wonderful completion before returning the favor.
After the truly wonderful morning wake up, I was thinking a lot clearer, and knew that I would need to say something to the young former twi'lek slave about this not being a part of her new job, though I did appreciate it very much. She had a hard time trying to reconcile that as a born slave who only ever knew dancing and sex, and didn't now what else she could offer her new master. It took a long time, and would probably need to be reinforced several more times about how she was now completely free and able to do whatever she liked, and owed me or Sirius or anybody for that matter nothing.
Despite the wonderful, if late start to the morning, we were still the first to arrive at the ship's cafeteria and I quickly went through the process of cooking up a large mostly English breakfast with what I had available before setting off an alarm charm to let everyone know there was food available. Kali rushed in shortly after despite being incredibly sleepy, and looked around in shock that I had prepared food and almost seemed to resign herself to punishment of some kind while I just offered her a smile and asked her to join us. There was no mistaking that the two twi'lek coordinated their planned mornings as Sirius arrived walking arm in arm with Seleni'arnustri a few minutes later, and the biggest shit eating grin I had ever seen on his face.
It led to another discussion about the girls all being free now, and not slaves to us or anyone else. Kali was the quickest to understand this as she was sold into slavery as a young teenager due to her parents dying and not being able to support herself, and remembered what it was like as a free citizen. The twi'lek girls had no such experience to draw from, and I enlisted Kali's help in explaining it to the pair and reinforcing the notion that we were not expecting or demanding anything from them. I also mentioned to Kali that we would be happy to hire her as the ship's cook for the time being, and that we would be back in an hour or two with the rest of our guests who had stayed in a Hotel to begin the preparations for taking off.
Sirius complained the whole time about not getting in another morning shag, and I had to explain to him that he too needed to try and curb the behavior of the two twi'lek girls and not reinforce their slave mentality. I also had to remind him of his promise to help me, and apparated the pair of us to the abandoned junkyard outside of the city. Luckily, there were no more of the foul Gutkurs roaming around, and with refreshed magic and Sirius' help, we were able to pull the large terra forming equipment out of the ground it was stuck in, clean it up, and shrink it before filling up an entire trunk with just that one large piece of equipment.
I made Sirius accompany me on a quicker than I wanted outing into the wild forests surrounding the walled city of Iziz, to search for and collect several plants and possible potion ingredients. I explained to him how I had been doing that wherever I could as you never know when we might find something valuable or helpful and showed him the spells I used and made sure he could do them as well. We then returned to the Malgar Market, and quickly located the hotel our Wookie friends stayed in and retrieved them all and their many souvenirs.
We were met there by Svernix Koudifa, the Head of Environmental Sciences division and Okaletti, who both thanked us again and provided their contact information to get in touch if we ever returned to Onderon. After saying our goodbyes, the Wookies returned with us to our ship and were quickly introduced to our new passengers. They however quickly headed to the cockpit and got to work inputting the coordinates of our next destination, and the one they were most eager to get to, Kashyyyk.
It took a little over eight days to get from Onderon to Kashyyyk, and in that time we had more almost daily discussions about slavery and freedom with the three former slaves until it finally seemed to be sinking in to the pair of twi'lek that they were not our bed slaves. Sirius really made that hard as he and Seleni'arnustri continued their sexual relationship despite me trying to get it to stop and give the twi'lek time to adjust to her new reality. I couldn't complain all too much though, as more than once I was joined in bed by Felici'arnustri, though I never asked or pressured her.
She claimed that me pleasuring her after that first time of being awoken, really changed something in her, as she had never experienced her own orgasms before, and wanted more. I made sure that she had control of every situation and got to set the pace of any activities that we shared, but I still felt at times like I was taking advantage of her, because of her overly submissive nature in bed. Sometimes, it was just easier to skip sleep and go over all the liberated star charts and history of the Jedi Order looking for a suitable planet for Sirius and I to make our home base and avoid the very amorous girl all together.
Kali was a wonderful cook, and after a few lessons and examples, was able to replicate several dishes that Sirius and I both really enjoyed as well as getting us both to expand our eating habits a bit to more modern galaxy-wide standards. The Wookies were all getting restless as we approached Kashyyyk, having gone through my many crates of stolen weapons, repairing everything or setting everything they couldn't fix aside for me to repair by the end of the fifth day. They had taken to tinkering with the repaired droids I had initially fixed that came from the junkyard of Onderon, trying to increase their functions and capabilities to even greater levels, but without much success.
The real success came on the last day, while studying Jedi legends and planets, I came across an old entry of a Jedi Temple built on top of an old Sith Temple in an uninhabited planet named Ashas Ree well out in the Outer Rim's old Sith Worlds Sector near Korriban. The best thing about it, was that the planet and temples had been practically forgotten by the Jedi, and if still uninhabited should be a great place to start looking for a planet of our own. There were several other Jedi Temples scattered throughout the galaxy that could work, but most of them were still in some use to the Ancient Order or on heavily populated worlds that would be hard to overtake.
It seemed to suit my needs perfectly, as it had a Force presence, whether light or dark didn't really matter too much to me as I had plans to cleanse the planet with a few rituals I had studied when doing my own personal rituals. Ones to increase the land's fertility and growth, cleanse and boost the magic, and even one to create artificial ley lines hopefully throughout the entire planet so magic would have a chance to really thrive. My only concern was if the cleansing rituals designed for magic would work on any remaining Force presence, but figured I would have to just wait and see, and maybe try a few different ones to give us the best chance of success.
The other advantage I had discovered from studying old star charts, was that it was a relatively isolated system with four moons and a pair of gas giants, with several more neighboring systems and planets equally isolated. Hopefully this meant that mining would be very beneficial and plentiful, as it was one of the best ways to really make a lot of money in the galaxy, and hopefully provide us the resources to do so. The isolation of the planets on the hyperlines, also would benefit us greatly in the protection of the system and its neighbors, not to mention that it seemed several of these planets and systems had fallen off the radar so to speak in relation to the Jedi, the Republic, and to Hutts.
My thoughts on our new planetary exploration would have to wait though, as Kenroo had just announced that we are about to come out of hyperdrive and have arrived at Kashyyyk. It was quickly becoming more commonplace for me now to see the take off and arrivals from and into hyperdrive and the planets we were visiting, but it still always filled me with true amazement at the advanced technology and the site of planets in general. Likewise, the bridge was filled with our entire crew, relatively packed with little elbow room when I arrived last, and had to smile at the palpital excitement radiating off the five Wookies returning home, as well the two Twi'leks and two humans still relatively new to space travel.
The Wookies had been busy, as we neared the ship landing dock, after passing the super freighter protecting them in orbit, to find said dock quadrupled in size already and new construction still ongoing off to the northern side. There was easily double the space station traffic I remembered even from a few short months away, and I was really proud of them for the advancements they had made with just a little help. Kenroo, too, was equally pleased with the progress, but it was nothing compared to the four returning Wookie slaves, who despite being told about the Wookie's new prosperity and growth, had to see the scope of it to really understand.
Having communicated with the dock control about granting our landing zone, we were expected and therefore greeted by Ganroowarr the Clan Leader the moment we stepped off the Marauder to cheers and roars of approval from the several dozen others who accompanied him. The successful return of four of their own from slavery, even if three of the current returning slaves were from different Clans, was a big morale boost and reason to celebrate for the often enslaved race. Sirius, and our three female former slaves were all pretty shocked as well at the celebratory attitude of the Wookies, and the warm welcome I was given by all the higher ups and nearby workers.
"Captain Harry, it is good to have you back," came the droid translation from TC-7H as Ganroowarr greeted us himself, and cast eyes over my small party of non-Wookies. "Is this the man you were looking for?"
"Thank you Ganroowarr," I replied easily, knowing TC-7H would translate if needed, but that the Wookie Clan Leader could understand basic just fine even if he couldn't speak it. "Yes, let me introduce to you my godfather, Sirius Black ...and our three companions, Kali, Felici'arnustri, and Seleni'arnustri," I continued with gestures to each of them in turn, who all acknowledged their names with a wave in Sirius' case and small bows in the case of the three females.
"Welcome my friends," replied the translated roars of Ganroowarr. "After this celebration, we have much to discuss and catch you up on Captain."
"Yes, and I have some more gifts for you as well," I replied back with a smile, and then chuckled at the wide eyed and surprised but happy gleam in the leader's eyes, probably thinking of some of the other surprises I had left for his people.
"We have begun construction on the Hotel and Cantina you suggested we attach to the space port," continued the droid translation from Ganroowarr, as he gestured to the south west end towards where I knew to be the Wookie City of Thikkiiana they all called home. "We would be honored if you and your party were our first guests at the Captain's Lounge and Suites."
"Brilliant!" I exclaimed happily.
It was one of my suggestions to increase their space traffic, to provide a Wookie controlled Cantina and Hotel for visiting crew and Captains to spend their time when visiting the planet, as their ship building and droid repair business began increasing. They could make a little more money, and provide lodging and drinks for visiting crews here to fill droid orders, or get their spaceships repaired and upgraded without having lots of beings inside their homes and villages.
Apparently, they had liked the idea, and now as I looked around I realized they did a great job in furnishing the Cantina, and knew that soon this place would be filled with patrons once word started to spread.
The Hotel as of now, only had the foundation built up next to the Cantina, but was coming along very nicely and in another few months, I could see it opening for business. My little group of five quickly found a table in the corner, as the returning Wookies were all still being greeted and welcomed by their brethren, and taking up most of the middle area of the large Cantina as drinks were being brought out by droid servers and bartenders. I pointed out the nearby window and the breathtaking view, so my guests could all see the towering trees in the distance and the very little bit of the villages' tree houses that were visible to us.
It was much later in the day, when I was asked to meet with Ganroowarr and his council, and terrifyingly left Sirius in charge of our three former slaves as I took TC-7H and went to meet them. I brought along four trunks full of gifts, mostly the stuff I let the Wookies on board the Marauder mess with. Two of the trunks contained blasters and other hand held weapons that I had either gathered or purchased and repaired back into perfect form and were quite welcomed by them all. The other two trunks contained most of the repaired droids I found in Onderon's junkyard as well as a few I purchased and repaired from Coruscant.
It was only half of my collection of reclaimed and repaired droids, and it made them very happy to get several new and different models they didn't have previously. I also mentioned I had a pair of cargo sleds that I thought they could use to move cargo around the growing space port which got me several very happy roars of approval. They then mentioned all the growth they had accomplished and planned for the future of Thikkiiana, before getting to the real reason they wanted to talk with me.
They had successfully repelled a slaver only two weeks previously, thanks to their orbital fleet, and mentioned that the other Clans had each foiled slavery attempts as well and were all very pleased with the security upgrades. They wanted me, because they had managed to capture the Captain of the recent slave raid, and were hoping I could find his secrets as I had done to their previous prisoner as they believed he was a repeat offender and would hopefully know about more Wookie slaves in the galaxy. I agreed to interrogate the prisoner, under the condition that I would have the chance to be a part of any rescue operation that stemmed from it.
They were happy to agree to my request, knowing it was primarily my help that made the rescue and destruction of Milthanex's operation so successful and profitable. I did mention to them that I was planning a trip soon into the Sith Sector, but would work around anything else that came up in relation to their captured Slaver. I also had some expanding and upgrades to make to the Marauder, which should only take a day or so, so that my expanded crew could more comfortably travel, my weapons would be increased, and guests could be more easily accommodated for.
After the meeting with Ganroowarr and his council, I was led to the prisoner pens and the slaver they captured. He was a well built human male with dusty blonde hair and a very unattractive scar that ran down the side of his jaw and continued to his neck, and seemed completely at ease sitting in his cell thinking the Wookies were weak as they hadn't tried anything to get him to talk. He sneered when he noticed me arriving with three armed Wookies, and realized that I was obviously brought here for him, and thought he could intimidate me with an ugly look, how amusing.
"Do you need him alive after I'm done with him?" I spoke clearly to the Wookies so the man could hear me, already knowing the answer, but wanting to increase his fear as it would make the invasive Legilimency I was about to perform much easier.
Their angry roars and shaking of their heads, had the formerly at ease prisoner sweating in his boots as he turned to me and immediately began trying to offer me money or anything I wanted if I let him go. I was in turn doing a light scan of his memories to ensure he was in fact guilty of being of slaver before I completely broke him, not wanting to condemn an innocent or somebody who just got in over their head without more proof. It was pretty clear though, that the man was a lifelong slaver and criminal of the worst sort, often preying on the young and was therefore given no mercy.
"Legilimens," I entoned while casting my spell, and quickly riffling through the memories of his life, looking for previous slavery runs, buyers and suppliers, criminals and low lifes the man knew and dealt with quickly building up a list of things to pursue.
His name was Tago Tidell, and was a slaver from Nar Bo Sholla currently employed by the Hutts to bring in a steady supply of slaves of every kind. He had been doing this for more than a decade, and had stolen countless Wookie slaves, as well as several other races equally as horrific. He seemed to operate almost exclusively in this sector of the Mid Rim, and it was only luck that Kashyyyk was his first stop on this specific slave run where he was gathering a workforce for the agricultural Hutt world of Ilos.
Ilos was one of the primary agricultural worlds controlled by the Hutts, and provided a lot of their food off the backs of literally hundreds of thousands of Ilosian slaves, and about ten thousand more of other races that were brought there by slavers like Tago. The Ilosians were given a lot of leeway as slaves, since they and their planet produced so much food, but the other slaves on Ilos were horribly mistreated even by the Ilosians themselves, and were to be the site of my next liberation raid. That Tago was due there within the week with the next shipment of slave labor also worked well, as I knew his ship was still on Kashyyyk, and another infiltration mission was already percolating in my head.
I got a lot more information from the long time Hutt slaver, and knew that I would probably chase a lot of it down over the next few months, but found the situation in Ilos to be the most pressing at this moment. Of the over ten thousand non-resident slaves on the planet, almost half of them were Wookies as their strong bodies allowed for increased manual labor compared to many other races, and knew Ganroowarr would want them rescued first. The other half of the non-resident slaves were made up primarily of humans from throughout the Mid Rim, Whiphids (from Toola), Boosodians (from Kijimi), and Skups (from Durkteel), all planets near Kashyyyk and Hutt space.
To rescue that many slaves however would take some serious coordination with other ships to transport them all, not to mention processing that many slaves, and removing the slave collars they wore without being discovered by any Hutt spies. I left the drooling mess of Tago Tidell behind and returned to the council chambers for a meeting with Ganroowarr to go over our plans for the rescue, and figure out how much help I can get to pull this off in one trip. Luckily, the Wookies were quick to get on board, and eager to help rescue their slaves, as well as those others, and decided to send a separate transport ship for every planet we were returning slaves to.
Toola, Kijimi, and Durkteel were all close enough neighbors that they wouldn't have too much trouble finding Wookie pilots that could make those journeys along with protocol ambassador droids to smooth everything over, and calls ahead to alert them of their returning slaves once en route. The largest transport would be returning to Kashyyyk, and anybody not from one of those other Mid Rim planets would have to come on that transport before they could be returned all the way home, so had to have room for over five thousand slaves. Luckily, we had several larger ships that would work for the transporting of slaves, with a little bit of expansion magic by yours truly, but the problem would be getting them landing clearance on a Hutt controlled planet but I think I had a way around that.
The plan had two main objectives though, and while liberating the slaves was definitely the primary one, the secondary one of liberating as much agricultural machinery was one that I knew to be very important for the betterment of my future home planet and the disruption of the Hutt's operation. So, I spent two days outfitting three large transports that could each hold around 2500 slaves, that would be going to Toola, Kijimi, and Durkteel, as well as a larger one that could hold three times that amount to return to Kashyyyk. I also made the necessary spatial upgrades to the Marauder, giving both Kenroo and Kali their own suites, improving the kitchen/cafeteria and workout rooms, and adding two large multi-purpose rooms for when I needed the space to move people around.
With all four transport ships filled with supplies, food, and droids and only minus the living crews, I shrunk all four ships and put them in my mokeskin pouch next to the shrunken Marauder to be expanded on the planet when we were ready to load them up with rescued slaves. Their crews would all be travelling in Tago's heavy freighter which had been swept clean and the cargo hold expanded, but since the trip to Ilos would only take about 32 hours it shouldn't be too bad of a squeeze for everyone. With the transportation arranged, and all the crews briefed on how this was going to go down, based on Tago's memories, I had my vial of Polyjuice, one of the many dozen I still had thankfully, and the hairs of Tago stored and ready for the ultimate deception.
AN: There are the next few chapters for your enjoyment, I am liking the 4 chapter drop at a time as it gives you enough to really grab onto and get back into the story. I am currently working on Chapter 26 of this story where I really felt like I was spinning out of control and telling way too much. So, I have felt the need to go through these early chapters again, and try to make a better effort of showing as well as telling, and also to reignite the spark that this story gives me, so I can push through the block I am at.
Thanks!
Kassien
