The Force's Balance
By Kassien
Chapter 11: Growing Power
Bringing the Marauder into the docking slip on Atlantis was a welcome relief for all of us, as the last month of collecting supplies after leaving Kashyyyk was filled with obnoxious beurocrats and corporate bulshit every time we arrived to pick up our various orders. Luckily, Dursk fit in well with Sirius and myself, and was exactly what we needed to start up our Durocrete mining and production facilities. The return trip to Atlantis provided us many nights in the Marauder to talk and get to know one another, and the older gentleman was respectful and honest to everyone and very excited with our plans and the money and control we promised him.
He was currently working with the six builders we picked up in Lianna City to plan and prepare the beginning of our Durocrete mining and production facilities, which were planned to be put in motion on Kalsunor, once I rid the planet of the native alchemically mutated silooths, a beetle type creature the former Sith Empire created that overran the planet. In the meantime, they were planning the continuation of work on what Sirius and I began on Atlantis before we left for more supplies, and ensuring everything was up to the standards we asked for. The new School of Magic, that Sirius was still arguing should be named Hogwarts, was to be our first priority now that we were back with all the necessary materials.
The school was now important, as seven of the ten former sith prisoners from Korriban had eagerly agreed to become the first students after a month-long incarceration saw them reject the Dark Side and the ideals they grew up with. Partly out of fear, but also I would like to think it was because they were no longer living under the Dark Side taint of Korriban and their former Sith Masters. Unfortunately not all of them agreed, and two of their number tried to stage a breakout after weeks in captivity, and ended up killing one of their fellow Red Sith brethren and my two droids in charge of their care before they were subdued by the others, and then turned over to me.
The pair were unapologetic, and were making no attempt to reform or learn some of the basic Jedi meditation exercises I had begun teaching them all to calm their raging anger and Dark tendencies, like many of their brethren had begun. In the end, I offered them a choice between clinging to their Dark Side, or living under the simple rules I put in place which boiled down to a version of the Golden Rule. They both spat in my face, and I didn't hesitate to kill them both where they stood, to the shock of the remaining seven young Force users. It probably was a little harsh, but I wasn't in the mood to continuously babysit the pair, or let them taint and destroy what Sirius and I were trying to create with the others.
The remaining seven students were all now working hard to throw off their former teachings and learn a more middle of the road path that Sirius and I would take turns teaching and explaining, trying to stay more flexible than the Jedi and more lenient than the Sith. We both believed that power came in many forms, and that not everyone was suited for a cookie cutout version of good and evil, and that our choices really did help define who we were and who we wanted to be. It was the very beginning of a new path of the Force and Magic in the galaxy, one we both hoped would take root and flourish in the years to come.
My Jedi Archive Droid, AD-7JL had also compiled a list of over two dozen former Jedi, that had all left the Order for one reason or another, and was now working on tracking them down, so I could visit and feel each of them out to see if they would be interested in joining us. They also discovered a Jedi Academy at Obroa-skai, that specialized in data collection and antiquities, that wasn't too far from Kashyyyk, and was worth a look next time we travelled in that direction, hoping to learn more about any different teachings at the Academy. They were also known as one of the largest repositories of information related to the known planets and species of the galaxy, which seemed very important to me in this new galaxy I found myself in.
I had a lot of coordinating to do after we arrived, getting the many different projects up and running with the builders' help, setting up the spaceship, weapons, and droid facilities for the former slaves to begin working, and working on housing so the slaves didn't have to return to the Freedom every night just to sleep. Luckily, with the very many people now present, there was always a lot of help getting things set up, and getting the work done relatively quickly, especially when I added the ten thousands of droids I could employ. Within the week, so much had already been built up, and everyone was busy completing jobs, so I could make the run to Kalsunor without stopping progress on Atlantis.
It was only a few hours by taking the Marauder, to reach Kalsunor and the relatively overgrown planet covered with countless silooths, and most likely another Dark Side Well of the Force based on the feelings when I arrived. Glad I didn't include any of our students, so as not to expose them to the Dark Side of the Force any more when they were just getting used to being without it, I quickly located the source of the Dark Well. Casting my Fiendfyre on the well so it started to burn out the taint, I didn't have to wait long until several dozen silooths approached being attracted to the powerful magic, and I was quickly apparating all around the planet and killing them all.
I spent several hours cleansing the entire planet of the silooths, and filling a pair of trunks with possible potion and wand ingredients in the process, and by the time I was done my Fiendfyre was just winding down having burned out and cleansed the Dark Force Well. I waited until it was completely out, then set up a small ritual to help enhance the fertility of the planet, not nearly as intense or involved as the one we did for Atlantis, but it was at least something to boost the land. In my travels across the planet in my fights with the silooths, I had mapped out a few locations for a processing facility to collect and store everything we would gather from terraforming and mining the planet.
With that task done, I returned to Atlantis just as the day was winding down to find the continued progress coming along very well. After checking in with Dursk, we made a plan to return to Kalsunor within a week to start the building of our Durocrete facilities, and to start the mining of the planet for the resources we would need. He also claimed that in that time he would select at least two helpers or apprentices to be included in the process, so we would always have people who understood the process after he finally retired, and I recommended at least a few droids be brought along to learn and record the process as well.
Later that night, Sirius and I had a long discussion about the Dark Force Well I found on Kalsunor, and we discussed checking every planet and moon in the Sith sector of space for more of them so their taint of Dark Force energies could be completely removed from the sector. He also reminded me that we needed to come up with more training and exercises for our new students, so they could work further and increase the amount of time we spent teaching them magic and the Force. I agreed, but wanted the students to be further removed from their own Dark pasts, before we started teaching them too much or pushing them too hard and thought focusing on Occlumency and meditation would be our best bet to get them started.
I believe that Occlumency would be the greatest teaching we could provide the young former Dark side students, to help them understand and sort their memories and emotions, and allow them more control over both while not hindering their ability to connect with the Force. Sirius agreed as well, but also thought we should be pushing them physically as well to help build up their strength and stamina for the rigors of Jedi training on top of their magical education. I reminded him of all the work to be done as well as our Jedi training droids for lightsaber combat, and we discussed setting up the warded Jedi training center inside our new school building as our first priority now that the school was finally starting to take shape beyond just its foundation.
Within ten days the new Marauder's Institute, our school of Magic and the Force, was completed from a construction standpoint, and all that was left was to fill it with furnishings and begin teaching our young and at this point very eager students. All seven of the new students were taking well to Occlumency, though Zanih our only Zabrak was having a harder time quieting down his mind than the others, we expect due to some chemical or compositional difference in his brain patterns and structure. They were also learning to reach out to the Force without commanding it or using their emotions to fuel and twist it which I felt was an important first step to removing their connection to the Dark Side.
Their physical training up to this point was to simply help in the construction efforts well past the point that most bodies could function, continually pushing their bodies' limitations and growing stronger in the process. I had even begun testing the beginnings of their mental shields, giving helpful pointers and lessons among the process so they could improve in the control and organization of said minds to help advance their budding Occlumency. AD-7JL and his now three Archive Droid assistants were developing the basic framework of a magical curriculum based on the many texts and knowledge provided by both Sirius and myself, in preparation for teaching our new students an accelerated and practical version of our own Hogwarts' years as well.
We obviously weren't planning to take seven years to go through a full magical education exactly as we both had, but wanted to make sure we touched all of the different magical disciplines and had a basic framework to work from and grow in every area. Neither Sirius or I were as dedicated as someone like Hermione, and would therefore plan our curriculum to be much more practical and less theoretical, and focusing more on helpful magic we could actually use in our everyday lives. Likewise, it was pretty heavy in Charms, Transfiguration, and Runes with several other things included as well, while disciplines like Astronomy and Divination were almost completely removed and Herbology, Magical Creatures, and Potions would take some time to develop as plants, ingredients, and animals we were familiar with were in limited supply, and new ones almost completely unknown to us.
On a completely separate note, with the help of TC-7H who has been acting as our liaison with the rest of the galaxy, Marauder Industries LLC was now a licenced company in the field of droids, spaceships, weapons, farming and mining equipment, medicine, art restoration, and item procurement. Now with the school building finished, the next priority is to get the various manufacturing facilities completely up and running along with the housing for our almost two thousand former slaves that are being given the choice as to which field they want to work in. Separating out the spaceships and droid repair people from the weapons experts was going to take some time, mainly because I insisted on screening every former slave to get a good read on both their individual skill sets, and also the personal temperaments to hopefully avoid any problems going forward.
Already, I had flagged over fifty former slaves' files with concerns about their racial or species based prejudices, aggressive behaviors, or criminal leanings to keep a closer eye on them in case they start to cause any trouble. It felt a bit like MI-6, creating files on every single individual who was now to be an Atlantean citizen, but I didn't want to have problems if they could be prevented, and with everything they were starting to see related to my magic and Force powers, I wanted to also protect myself and my new planet and company. These people now relied on me to protect and provide for them, and I was going to take that responsibility very seriously, and started brainstorming with Sirius on setting up a government of sorts to help better represent all our people and interests within the galaxy.
In honesty, I was feeling rather overwhelmed with everything that was being put on my plate, in getting an entire planet up and running, creating a school and curriculum, actually teaching our seven students, creating manufacturing facilities for our many fields, and trying to find time for my own training and studying which I was very reluctant to give up. I hadn't even gone through all the many resources we acquired from the Sith on Korriban, or any of the Holocrons I had encountered in my travels or taken from the Jedi Archives. It was rather overwhelming, and without the help of my now personal team of Protocol Droids, I would have probably already screwed something up bigtime, and knew I needed an actual break from some of my many responsibilities.
A slight break came a few days later, when Dursk approached me with a young couple of former Red Sith slaves that wanted to get married, start a family, and learn from Dursk how to run a Durocrete facility and mining operation. They were asking for my blessing to get married, and were ready to accompany the older man to Kalsunor to begin the gargantuan task of starting our Durocrete Manufacturing Plant. In order for this to work however, I knew they would need some help with the basics of living isolated on another planet and I offered them a contingent of droids to make the transition easier.
The next day we went to Kalsunor with a small team of builders, and started the construction on a pair of modest homes and one of the largest factories we had built to date. It began with me pointing out to Dursk the several possible locations for the Factory I had already scouted out, and then deciding on layout and orientation of the buildings required. After mapping out the requirements for the Durocrete Processing Plant and its attached offices, I left the team of builders to begin their work laying the foundation while I worked on modest homes for Dursk and the newly married Zertij and Zildaje near the former Dark Side Well that now was the beacon of my small fertility ritual to anchor the wards.
Within three days the two houses were built and protected by the standard set of wards, and I brought their new inhabitants from their work on the facility to check them out and offer any suggestions for personal comforts. I had provided a pair of housekeeping/nanny droids, one for each house to clean up, cook meals, and eventually watch over any children the new couple had. I left in stasis enough food and supplies for at least two years, not that I was planning on keeping them isolated for that long, but just in case.
The factory itself would have a small medical center that the few biologic employees could always use, complete with a bacta-tank and pair of medical droids that should be able to take care of any health related needs. I also provided a small spaceship for emergencies, as well as a pilot droid, a dozen security droids, and and army of over five hundred more droids that would be doing most of the actual day to day work in the processing plant section, while the others helped with the actual mining of resources. I had to unshrink all the equipment Dursk required that I purchase to properly mine and process the Durocrete, and help the builders along at times to get everything built up quicker so I could return to Atlantis.
"I am going to need some more real employees soon," spoke Dursk as we met up for the final time before I left back to Atlantis, "I mean, those droids are good for now ...but soon I am going to need more real people."
"I promise to start posting job opportunities to settle here," I responded with a good natured grin, having had this argument with him before, as I felt the droids could do everything, and he would rather have actual people that could do multiple things instead of one trick pony droids everywhere. "I will also be continuing to send you my newly developed droids as well, and I would really like your honest feedback on them so we can make them more valuable to you."
"Why pay for three droids to each do one little thing, when a single human could do all three jobs at a fraction of the cost?" came Dursk's response, and a relatively standard one throughout the galaxy, as life was just not as valuable when slavery was so prevelant and reduced labor costs.
"If you can find me free living beings that want this job for the amount of pay I am willing to spend, then I will stop sending you droids," I replied with a flat look at the older man, "but I simply refuse to use living beings as slaves with no value."
"I understand, and I'm trying to get better sir" agreed Dursk somewhat reluctantly, as I knew it was simply part of the culture to have been raised with slavery prevalent and legal, but I also knew him to not be a total ass or in favor of slavery, he just grew up with it and assumed that was simply the ways things were done.
"I know Dursk," I replied with an easy smile, having talked with him about this several times already in the week it took me to get everything set up on Kalsunor, including a pair of old Druid land based spells that I was hoping would aid them in terraforming.
"See you in a few months sir," he waved, giving me a nod as he looked back at the now operating Durocrete factory, ready to return to the first day of having it up and running.
I sent back a wave of my own, and then called to the building crew that were returning with me to prepare for take-off as it was time to return to Atlantis. I sent out my magic for one more check of the wards I put up that would hopefully help protect the planet from discovery or unwanted visitors. With everything looking good, we set a quick pace back to Atlantis, and was happy to see Sirius hadn't wrecked the place while I was gone though he did have some news that really shocked me to the core. Seleni'arnustri had discovered that she was pregnant, and Sirius was going to be a daddy and couldn't seem to keep himself from freaking out.
"Relax Sirius," I said for what must have been the hundredth time in the first hour since returning to Atlantis, "I'm sure everything is going to be fine ...you will be a great dad ...just relax ...and breath"
"Oh Shit," panted Sirius practically hyperventilating and not relaxing at all, "oh shit ...oh shit ...oh shit!"
"Oh for fuck's sake," I exclaimed after the idiot refused to listen and continued to just repeat the same thing over and over again, "stupefy."
-break-
"Ennervate," I whispered more than an hour later, after starting to feel guilty for enjoying the silence a bit too much, "Sirius ...don't talk or I'll just fucking stun you again, got it?"
After staring him down for several moments until he actually started paying attention I continued, probably a bit more forcefully than I intended but I needed to penetrate that stupidity somehow. "Now, listen carefully ...you love Seleni'arnustri, everyone can see it ...raising a kid isn't going to kill you ...pissing off your girlfriend with your bitching may though. So, you have two options as far as I can see ...you marry the girl and let her take the lead on EVERYTHING parenting wise ...or you continue to act like a total ass and probably lose her forever. It's not a hard call ...so stop fucking complaining ...and go grovel at Seleni'arnustri's feet until she agrees to let you be a part of her life."
"B-but," started Sirius, about to try and question or complain about something I said, but didn't give him the chance.
"But nothing Padfoot," I interrupted rather forcefully. "You love that girl, and for some fucked up reason she loves you too. So, stop being such a dick and man the fuck up!"
I left him there staring at me with wide eyes, but couldn't even deal with his shit right now with everything else going a million miles an hour on getting our planet and companies up and running, and needing him to actually be helpful and get shit done. Storming out of our Manor, Kali jumped as she tried to pretend she wasn't just caught listening in on my chewing the old dog out, but I didn't have time to worry about any of that right now. Instead, I had a meeting with Kenroo that I was already late to, in order to find out the status of the Freedom, and how many people were still living out of the ship and needed more permanent housing on Atlantis.
My next several hours were spent discussing with Kenroo how many people needed to find permanent housing, and was at least happy to learn we were down to about a hundred still living inside the Freedom. We also talked about policing our sector, and checking in on our other assets occasionally to ensure everything was running smoothly, and he agreed that once the Freedom was done as temporary housing, he would start monitoring the sector and checking up on Kalsunor and the other planets once we started growing into them as well. The first of those was going to be the mining operation I was planning to establish on the predominantly desert planet, Begeren just passed Kalsunor on the hyperlane and it's rather large moon.
But before I went and settled people I didn't have to start two separate mining operations, I needed to check out and clean up Jaguada, the desert planet immediately before Atlantis on our little hyperspace lane Kamat Aegit. Then I would need to do the same to Ch'hodos, the desert planet just north of Atlantis on the Zorfe Trete hyperspace lane that connects to our new home in order to be protected from every side that could provide access to Atlantis. Fuck, there was just so many things to worry about and prepare, and only so much of my time to go around, I hope Sirius got his head back on and was going to start pulling some weight.
It was fortunate, for Sirius at least, that I didn't see him for the rest of that first day back on Atlantis, as I was too stressed out to hold his hand and was more likely to just curse him some more if I had to listen to his whining. I instead went to the large Cantina attached to our space port, as that was the only one in operation, and a place for many to gather after long hours working, and posted on the job notice board. I included several positions within the field of planet mining and terraforming to see if any of our current workers would be interested in a career change so I could start putting some of those mining operations in place.
Upon my return to the Manor late that night, I was happily greeted by Felici'arnustri and Kali, both of whom thanked me for what I said to Sirius, as it seemed the old dog had wisened up and talked to Seleni'arnustri and had since been behind closed doors. Kali hinted that she had mentioned what I said to the others, which I assumed she would after being caught eavesdropping earlier and didn't bother me at all. Instead, I spent an enjoyable evening with two insanely attractive and thankful women that kept me up much later than I was expecting, but I sure wasn't complaining about that part of my day.
At breakfast the next morning, before I left to start another insanely filled day of work, we were joined by a beaming Seleni'arnustri and a bashful looking Sirius who announced that they were getting married and having a child together. I smiled happily and gave them both big hugs of congratulations, and promised to give them anything they wanted, "within reason Siri." That something turned out to be an officiant for their magical wedding ceremony in a few days, and a honeymoon cottage near one of the ward beacons on the planet, that had been the location of one of their fertility ritual sites.
Knowing that I wanted to protect each of the seven ward beacons we had put up on Atlantis to settle the ley lines and anchor the wards to the planet, I decided that we should build a house for our personal use on each of the remaining locations to keep them completely protected and in the family. So that day, after finding out what they both wanted, I set out for the location they liked the best and began the process of building a large vacation home on the site. It was definitely one of the prettiest locations on the planet, with a large spring fed lake surrounded by small rolling hills almost completely on the other side of the planet from the new and growing City of Avalon.
With all the building practice I had from setting up our Manor House in Avalon and the smaller ones on Kalsunor, it took only two days to get the building up and starting to function, and I then brought in Felici'arnustri and Kali over to decorate and fill it with furniture stored in my now hundreds of shrunken trunks until it looked like a beautiful honeymoon retreat. With all of us happy with how it turned out we returned that night to find both Sirius and Seleni'arnustri a bundle of nerves for their upcoming wedding the next day, and split up to take care of them both and celebrate their last night as single people. Sirius insisted that we both go out and get drunk, in a weird desire for a normal style bachelor party he experienced with my father before his own wedding to Lily decades ago. I couldn't disagree with him, and ended up spending an enjoyable evening reminiscing about my parents and their wedding while drinking more than either of us was accustomed to.
The next day I had to spend the first hour, at least after ingesting one of my few remaining hangover potions and sending one to Sirius, doing research into magical wedding ceremonies, and found a few volumes in my collection that applied. I took a few pieces from each, and cobbled together what I thought at least was a reasonably easy to follow magical ceremony that should work well for the new couple. That afternoon I created a portkey that took the wedding party to the new honeymoon retreat, and a small gazebo I had built near the large lake bordering the property that doubled as the arrival point in the wards for all visitors.
I stood before the assembled party, with Sirius and Seleni'arnustri standing before me as the other guests sat around the edge of the gazebo to witness the event. Kali, Felici'arnustri, TC-7H, and our seven young students, who by this point knew us all relatively well, were the only ones present for this magical ceremony as Kenroo had his duties with the Freedom and my droid friend was mostly here to record the event. The students were included because I wanted them to witness the magical binding ceremony we were using to see and expose them to magic in various forms, and show the different ways magic could be used.
The ceremony began with Sirius wrapping Seleni'arnustri in the Ceremonial Cloak of his Family, which he created from one of the many standard cloaks I had brought with me, which he added both his Black Family's Crest and the newly created Crest of the Marauders to either side of the clasp. Then I began a small chant as I drew Runes encircling the pair to continue the Old Families' Marriage Ritual, before using a binding cloth to wrap their left hands together and finished with another longer chant that had the gathering magic grow until everyone present could feel it's weight upon them. With a final exchanging of basic vows between Sirius and Seleni'arnustri and a confirming chant of my own, the magic condensed over their bound hands and an instant later collapsed into those hands leaving behind the ring of Runes I drew around them to become absorbed into their hands forming matching Runic Wedding Bands.
It was an old Druidic based Ritual of joining that I had incorporated into a more traditional English Magical Wedding Ceremony, and everyone present could both feel and see the connection between the two newly married people as it completed. Cheers and congratulations followed from everyone, the students especially were enthralled by the Ritual Magic and the feelings of love that were physically present among them all and soon began bombarding me with questions about it. After giving the newly married couple a few congratulations of my own, I showed them the recently built Honeymoon Retreat, and we all moved inside for a small feast prepared by the housekeeping droids I left with the property.
Soon the party was coming to an end, and I told the newlyweds to enjoy their honeymoon for as long as they liked, but not to forget they could always come back here whenever they wanted, as there was still a ton of work to be done on Atlantis. I then portkeyed everyone else back to our Manor House in Avalon, and after promises to Felici'arnustri and Kali to return home soon, brought my students back to the school they had only just recently moved into and continued their lessons in the magic they just witnessed. Having now experienced both apparition and portkeys, they were all very eager to begin learning about magical travel as it was unheard of in the galaxy and a real advantage over any Force user.
It took several promises that we would begin studying travel magic soon, before I could get them all to sit down and go over the Runes I used and the Ritual I performed to bind Sirius and Seleni'arnustri in marriage. It was still well beyond all of them at this point, but wanted to show the practical application of both Runes and Rituals in magic, and how they could be used by the educated magicals. I then had them all continue with their Occlumency lessons, strengthening their minds and sorting their memories and emotions as it became easier the more you did it and was a great building block for what we had to teach them going forward.
That night with the Manor to ourselves was definitely an enjoyable one for me and my two girls, as they were both riding magical highs from the Wedding Ritual, and very thankful to me for putting it all together so well. I was a little worried that they might want something similar in the near future, but was content to wait for a while until I made that leap into marriage and just enjoyed the pleasure we provided to each other. Knowing that I physically couldn't have children also made it much harder for me to consider settling down in the same manner that Sirius did, but I figured we would cross that bridge down the road.
It took Sirius and Seleni'arnustri four days to return to Avalon from their honeymoon, which I can honestly say was better than I estimated and I have to give the old dog some credit for doing it right. They returned beyond happy, both with a level of calm and contentment that I had not known from either of them previously, and hoped it served them well in their life together. We were not idle in their time gone, and I especially had worked really hard to get as many things as possible accomplished in the meantime and pick up the slack in teaching our young students.
Of the seven students, the four full blooded Red Sith were progressing the fastest in Occlumency, mostly because they were also the oldest among them with Styke at 15, Chenkth at 14, Quailth at 14, and Juhrne at 13. Our one Zabrak Zanih was also 13, but at the moment still lacked the same mental discipline to keep up with the others, and our two youngest Akden and Druekas who were both 11 and only half blooded Red Sith and half Dark Jedi as the sons of Akdo Julvenes and Druen Sturken, were still too young to excel in the difficult mental skill. Those three also had the most difficult upbringings and pasts to work through, and we knew it would take them longer to get to the same level as the four oldest and were trying to keep everyone going at their own comfortable pace.
Without more teachers though, it was hard to separate the students too much as for now only Sirius and I were able to teach them anything, and with Sirius' recent honeymoon that all fell to me in the midst of settling the last of those who were using the Freedom spaceship as temporary residences. Luckily, Kenroo had successfully relocated all the former slave passengers of the Bulk Cruiser to permanent housing that was finally catching up to the needs of the people, and was ready to do a quick run through our sector to scout out any potential problems and stop and check on our small contingent on Kalsunor. With Sirius now back from his vacation, I was able to outfit the Marauder to lead that expedition through the Sector and swing by Kalsunor to check on our emerging Durocrete Mining & Production Facility.
I had received several inquiries into my posted off-world mining jobs, and in the little free time I had, reviewed all the applicants and selected two small groups of four that I was planning to install at Begeren and its moon after I explored them both. With Sirius back, I left in the Marauder with Kenroo and his crew following in the Freedom and checked in on my Durocrete operation on Kalsunor, making sure that both sides knew how to contact one another and establish their own protocols for deliveries of supplies to Atlantis before sending the Freedom home and continuing on to Bergeren. Stopping on the abandoned desert planet and finding no signs of civilization or any truly predatory animals, I cast some locator magic I had read up on to discover if there were any resources and found several to my liking.
Bergeren had a faster revolution and therefore only about 13 hour days, and much of the planet looked like the Sahara Desert from Earth, but was in fact livable provided one could locate the scarce water supplies and shade. With magic that was relatively easy, and after my now somewhat familiar small fertility ritual being performed near the largest underground water source, I had a location to set up shop on the planet. Creating a well that tapped into that water supply, I built a pair of small factory warehouses for storing gems and other precious metals that were in abundance throughout the planet and enlarged several large pieces of terraforming and mining equipment along with droids that would be doing most of the work and made sure they were all working even better than they could without magic.
It took me most of two days to finish the warehouse and neighboring homes before I moved on to the nearby moon that was less than a quarter the size of the planet but even richer in terms of minerals and precious metals. Here, I had to do a separate ritual after my now usual fertility one to create a fresh water spring before moving on to creating another set of warehouses and homes for the eventual group that I would be bringing here to mine the moon. Enlarging more equipment for the mining and terraforming of the moon was relatively easy now that I was understanding how they all worked better and was soon back in the Marauder on my way back to Atlantis.
My return only a week after leaving was pretty uneventful, as not too much had happened or changed in my absence other than Sirius struggling to keep up with all the demands on his time when I wasn't there to shoulder half the load. The good news was that the spaceship building & repair factory was now complete and would be able to handle any small issues that came up with the Freedom or other ships, though the workers weren't starting yet as they continued to help with the other factories. The Weapons and Droid Factories were both coming along, and would soon be ready as well and then the work could really start being done by the large former slave workforce we liberated from Korriban.
To help get them started I unloaded several spaceships that I reclaimed and repaired the surface components of, but still needed to be checked over to ensure they were all space capable and had everything they would need. I did the same at the unfinished Droid Factory and Weapons Factory in order to give the new workers things to do the moment they were all up and running. With the factories well on their way to beginning work, we needed to start acquiring more paying jobs so we weren't just hemorrhaging money. The other biggest thing we needed to get started on was farming and producing our own food as we were quickly going through our own stocks and only really had enough to feed everyone for another three months at the current rate.
For this, I went to one of our other ward beacons on Atlantis that was primarily in one of the flattest areas and began laying out the area for a large Marauder Farm. With the farmhouse at the intersection of the ley lines and protecting one of our ward beacons, I fenced in a large plot of land to accompany with the farm for our personal use, and then started clearing out the land around it for more commercial farming that would be used to start feeding our people. Knowing that this would only be part of the solution, Sirius and I started brainstorming ideas on how to purchase large amounts of food without setting off any alarm bells in nearby systems and figured a lot of smaller purchases for now would be the better way to go until we could find a planet nearby that we could use to exclusively farm food.
For a break after completing the very basic bones of the Marauder Farm, I rounded up my two teams of four to Mine Bergeren and its moon and brought them both to their new homes and jobs. Taking a day each to get them set up in their new homes and factories, and then show how the equipment and droids worked to start mining precious gems and metals, how to store the collected materials, and call the Freedom for transport of goods or to resupply themselves. With both of those operations now up and running, I returned to Atlantis to finish my work on the Marauder Farm, and plan with Sirius our next supply run to procure more food supplies for our larger population.
"I've talked it over with Selene," started Sirius, as the two of us sat up late in the night inside the completed kitchen of the new Marauder Farm enjoying a nightcap, after just finishing it enough that people could now live in it, "and she wants me to stay here with her and her sister while she's pregnant."
"Which means Kali will want to stay too," I replied, knowing the three women really tended to stick together and did not like being separated.
"Yeah, most likely," continued Sirius somewhat somberly, having wanted to go out and explore more of the universe after the months of hard work getting our planet up and running, but also understanding the need to placate his pregnant wife.
"It's probably for the best that one of us is here for the school kids, and in case of an emergency," I answered matter of factly, not having liked the idea of leaving the planet or our students with no real supervision.
"That was actually one of the things I was thinking about," continued Sirius matter of factly, to which I just raised my eyebrows questioningly. "Maybe we should split our students into two classes ...the older ones are ready to move on from Occlumency ...and the younger three definitely need more time and attention when dealing with their past memories and their emotional control."
"I understand and agree, but how are we going to accomplish that?" I responded thinking. "With me going on this food run, how are you going to have the time needed for both classes ...we barely have the time for the one class now."
"I was actually thinking that you could take the younger three with you," started Sirius honestly, "you'll be spending a lot of time where they could work on Occlumency in the Marauder ...and you'll need some company."
"Female company in my bed would be preferred," I answered back with a bit of snark, causing my godfather to let out his bark life laugh. "But ...I guess I can see the wisdom in that decision."
"Good," continued Sirius, "I really have a hard time with Legilimency, and can't help them the same way you can."
"In that case, you are going to be responsible for getting the new Marauder Farm up and running," I countered without an ounce of sympathy, "I'll leave all the equipment and droids you should need to get started in the barn before I go."
"Make sure you leave us some of the Lightsaber Training Droids," replied Sirius. "I was going to have our older students start practicing the forms ...along with myself."
"Sounds good," I answered easily, "I'll take one of the spare Archive Droids and maybe a few of the Lightsaber Training Droids as well ...I don't want the others to get too far ahead of our youngest."
"What planets are you planning to visit?" came Sirius' return question.
"TC-7H is supposed to be planning our route and placing orders," I started, "but ...I'm not sure how many he can line up that are nearby ...and I don't plan to be gone longer than two months or you might start having a food shortage."
"I thought you said we had three months of food stored?" asked Sirius.
"We do, but I am not going to cut it that close," I replied with a smile, "plus ...I'm not sure if this place will still be standing if I leave you alone for more than two months."
"Ha," barked Sirius with a friendly chuckle, "touche."
"Will you be taking off first thing tomorrow?" came the follow up question a few moments later after we had both had a sip of our Firewhisky ...something we only did on special occasions as my supply was starting to get dangerously low and we hadn't yet figured out how to replicate it.
"With the kiddos now included, I'll probably give them until the afternoon to gather their things and say their goodbyes," I replied.
"Thanks Harry," came Sirius' heartfelt reply.
"You too Siri," I answered.
The next day, after loading the Marauder with supplies and saying my goodbyes to Sirius and the girls, I picked up the three youngest of our students, the Zabrak Zanih, and Akden and Druekas the two half Red Sith offspring of the formerly Dark Jedi from Korriban. Along with TC-7H and a Jedi Archive Droid, we were also filled with trunks full of Marauder Industries' droids, weapons, and spaceships that I was planning to sell in order to pay for the several food orders we were picking up in relatively nearby systems. Our plan was to pick up the Daragon Trail Hyperspace Lane in Korriban heading towards the Core Worlds to a series of nearby planetary systems that included Feena, B'Trilla, Chenowei, and Atorra where we had already brokered deals for food.
That would take a little more than a week in total until our first stop, and would provide plenty of time to spend with my young students to continue their magical education with a focus still on Occlumency and mental control. Leaving Atlantis, I could tell that my three students were all somewhat nervous and knew it wasn't entirely due to their first real trips out into space, but also a lot was due to having to be with just me. While they all knew me pretty well, Sirius was really the lead teacher for all our students as I tended to get called away more often and spent less time with them generally.
So, once we were safely locked onto our first destination, I grabbed the three young ones who were also fascinated with the piloting controls and being in space until the first 15 minutes until nothing changed, and brought them to the Marauder's warded training room. For the next several hours I sat with each of them for long periods of time and walked them through the standard Occlumency exercises, and actually joined their minds on several occasions when they were struggling with one of the concepts or memories to help them work through it. It took several times of my joining them in experiencing their past memories and emotions until things slowly seemed to start catching on, and I was soon helping them less and less.
This pattern continued for the first three days we were onboard the Marauder moving at light speed towards our first destination, and slowly all three of them started to understand what Occlumency was really about. How to remove their emotional attachments to their memories, store and access memories, build defences and failsafes, and strengthen their control over their own minds. By the end of the three days of constant mental work they were all exhausted and emotionally spent, but we talked and worked through everything until they all felt more in control of their memories, emotions, and mental control and I deemed them all ready to advance to the next phase which was Legilimency.
By that point, I had used it so much on each of them that they all knew how to detect when a foreign presence was entering your mind and it simply came down to familiarizing yourself with your own mind and recognizing when something didn't belong and then trying to repel it. I had them each read a pair of books on Legilimency methods that I had found helpful in my own studies, and then had them each begin by practicing on me until I could be sure they wouldn't hurt one another and then had them pair up against each other to practise until it all became second nature. That took us another three days and almost to our first destination before each of them was comfortable with learning both aspects of the Mind Arts, and I told them from there it was simply a matter of finding what worked best for each of them and practicing it diligently as understanding Legilimency really helped in understanding how best to utilize Occlumency and vice versa.
Knowing how minds could attack and "read" thoughts and feelings of others is what finally allowed me to get over my own mental block in learning Occlumency, and I was pleased to find that it worked for these three as well. With that part of their training now finally underway, I gave them the rest of our time until our first stop off to explore whatever they fancied as long as it wasn't too dangerous. Both Akden and Druekas wanted to start exploring the Jedi Archives, probably looking for information on their fathers which I was fine with them learning and planned to talk with them both once they had exhausted all they could find out about them. Zaniih however wanted to look through some of my trunks full of spoils and mostly old and various droids I had collected, as he had a fascination with them that exceeded anything I had ever seen before.
While they were off enjoying a little free time, I was busy making my three students' necklaces each with a small notice-me-not field, a Force dampener cloak, as well as tracking beacons in case we got separated so I could find them. When I was done, the Marauder was only an hour away from our first stop, and I called my students to the cockpit to hand out their new accessories and explain what they were and their importance to remaining undetected by other Force sensitives, as well as letting them see our arrival at a new and different world. That was still one of my favorite things in this new galaxy, seeing the various planets as I approached them and comparing them to others that I had seen and remembered, always making me a little nostalgic about the last time I saw Earth.
"Our first stop is the planet Feena, and old world of Xim's Empire," I started as the indicators on the Marauder said we were leaving hyperspace, "this planet is still Outer Rim, and no real government exists here ...so please stay close and try not to cause any trouble."
"Should we expect trouble?" asked Druekas somewhat confused why I was being so paranoid after giving them necklaces that would hide their faces and Force presences.
"No," I responded, "but ...I have been known to attract my fair share and just want everyone to be paying attention and on alert."
It was at that moment that we exited the hyperspace lane and got our first look at the planet Feena, a smaller planet than Atlantis with a primarily mountainous and dry terrain that was known more for its trading than any production of goods. We only had a moment to look before we were being called by their planetary space traffic control center and had to provide our docking information and were told where to land in order to reach the largest of the local trade markets. Once I put the ship down in docking bay H-52B, it was approached by a slimy looking human male that just screamed corrupt, and was followed by a pair of large Gamorrean guards probably trying to scare an extorted docking fee out of me.
"The docking fee at this station is 10,000 credits," came the oily voice of the human as his two guards flexed their large bodies behind him trying to look more intimidating ...and failing spectacularly in my eyes.
"Sure," I replied easily, not wanting to deal with the idiot, and flipped a transfigured credit chip at him that would last at least an hour until it returned to the pebble it was made from and continued on with my three students following behind me closely.
We were all wearing cloaks, with the hoods up for my three students so as to help hide their young age and identities along with their necklaces, but it seemed most people here wore something similar and we blended in relatively well all things considered. The oily human watched us closely as we walked past him and out of the dock, not worried in the least as the Marauder was on total lockdown and would only be opened by me and very unpleasant for anyone trying to rob it. We quickly made our way to the docking lift to bring us down to the surface of the planet, and were soon exploring a rather large marketplace that seemed to sell all kinds of things including quite a bit of food stuffs.
For several smaller transactions I was able to shrink the goods while the seller was distracted and plant false memories that we had taken them already to our spaceship to avoid having to make useless runs back and forth to the Marauder, but eventually we reached the largest of the sellers with too many eyes on us. The five large crates of food we were purchasing were going to wipe the seller out of over 90% of his inventory and by this point we had picked up a bit of attention from the locals, including a tail who was keeping a good distance but always following us from vendor to vendor. Deciding that these five crates needed to be removed by hand, I purchased the remainder of the seller's inventory if he agreed to deliver everything to docking bay H-52B within the hour while my companions and I continued shopping, wondering if our tail would follow us or our goods.
Our tail took the bait and followed the goods to our ship instead of us, probably hoping to surprise and rob us as we loaded it into our ship along with the other goods we had already purchased. With most of our food shopping done at this location, I walked around a bit letting my students look at some of the other things on sale, and even purchased a few little trinkets that each of my students seemed interested in on top of the extra pairs of clothes they needed. We then returned to the Marauder with the knowledge that we were walking into an ambush of unknown beings that were most likely trying to rob us.
The food seller was just arriving at the same time we did, with our five large crates being pulled by a low flat transport skid into our docking hanger from a nearby service elevator. Also present was the same oily human who collected our docking fees along with a group of five large Gamorreans, all standing nearby the Marauder and obviously waiting for us as we approached. I could also tell that our tail was somewhere nearby as well, and wondered if everyone was working together or if this was just an instance of picking up too much trouble from multiple fronts.
"Captain Harry," called the food seller as he approached slip H-52B and the droid controlling the transport skid started to unload the crates as he approached me. "Here is your merchandise delivered as promised ...do you have the remaining five thousand credits?"
"Of course," I responded while keeping an eye on the other eager parties all watching and apparently willing to wait for the merchant to be done with us before springing whatever it was they wanted. "Here are the agreed upon credits ...thank you."
"Pleasure doing business with you Captain," he replied, and must have at least known about the upcoming ambush as he quickly hightailed it out of the hanger the moment he received his money, while I positioned myself between the soon to be attackers and my unarmed students.
"Can I help you ...gentlemen?" I asked, pausing to glance at both the large group ahead of me, and the hidden tail trying to hide off to my left.
"You can hand over the food crates and all your credits," demanded the oily man who took a few steps forward and motioned to his five guards as if that was a threat to me. "Or we can kill you and your little friends?"
"I'd like to see you try," I goaded, not in the least concerned about this piece of shit as I prepared for the coming assault, and didn't have to wait long.
The moment I spoke, the Gamorrean guards all got really upset and lifted large blaster rifles with the intent to shoot me and my students, but I didn't give them the time and with a sharp pull of my magic ripped the weapons right out of all their hands where they flew forward and came to a pile at my feet. My following smirk probably didn't help ease the growing tension but it had been awhile since I had to deal with complete idiots, and my resulting stun wave I sent out knocked the five Gamorreans out instantly along with the oily man. I then turned to the left and watched as the cloaked individual that was tailing us earlier quickly tried to turn around and run away.
"Accio," I commanded with a bit of power as I reached out for the fleeing individual and quickly pulled them right into my waiting grasp as they continued to struggle and try to flee.
"Please let me go," came the frightened feminine voice begging to be released, as she continued to struggle while I held her cloak by the back of the collar. "I was only following orders."
"Whose orders?" I asked still with my guard up in case she tried anything.
"L-lord G-Ghorhan," she stuttered out in absolute fear, still trying desperately to get away from my grip on her cloak.
"Who is Lord Ghorhan?" I asked calmly, and wondered if it wouldn't just be easier to use Legilimency to get all the information I wanted but willing to wait a moment.
"He rules this city," she squeaked still in fear, but now also some confusion after I didn't recognize her Lord as anybody important enough to know.
Figuring I wasn't going to get answers quick enough, and not really wanting to hang around with all the knocked out guards around us, I decided Legilimency was just the easier way to go and spun the girl around allowing the hood to fall back and see her clearly. She was a rather cute human looking girl and quite young, maybe only 14 or 15 tops and seemed too terrified and dirty to be a free person, as the slave collar would attest. A whispered 'legilimens' and I was able to quickly go through her surface memories and discover that Lord Ghorhan was a human slaver and minor crime lord that ruled this city and extorted or robbed travellers until they were indebted to him and then sold them off into slavery.
Jeana had been taken from her parents years ago, as they were killed and her siblings were all sold into slavery while she was left behind to work for Ghorhan who liked his girls young. She was no longer much use to the crime lord as she finally reached puberty, and had been forced to go work for his second in command, the oily human male currently knocked out ten feet away named Bodoff. Bodoff liked to skim from the top, and was the exact type of person who reminded me of Pettigrew, who always hung around those stronger than them and hid behind other people's power.
"Change of plans guys," I spoke to my students who I could tell were all looking at me with a bit of awe and shock at how quickly and easily I took down several opponents. "I am going to remove this slave collar and get Jeana here set up in the Marauder, you all are going to keep an eye on her and the ship while I go pay this Lord Ghorhan a little visit."
"Please," gasped Jeana in total fear, "removing the collar will kill me."
"Not to worry sweetheart," I replied with a calm smile, looking over at the expensive necklace around Bodoff's neck and performing a silent and instant switching spell before she even noticed it was gone. "It's already gone ...my students here are going to take you onto our ship and get you settled in ...you have nothing to fear from any of us ...we'll talk once I am done cleaning out your boss, okay?"
"Um ...okay?" She responded slowly after feeling her neck and the new expensive necklace now in the place of her former slave collar, and couldn't seem to process everything that happened in such a short bit of time as I handed her off to Zanih to bring her into the Marauder and wait for me.
"I'll be back in an hour," I quickly explained to them as they gathered the distraught girl and led her up into the Marauder, "no one but me can open this ship, so don't leave and you will all be safe."
"Yes sir," replied Druekas, who was taking up the rear and covering for his friends and therefore missed my scowl at the honorific ...I hated being called sir too.
With the Marauder locked back up and the now four kids safely inside, I walked over to Bodoff in order to interrogate him a little more. Noticing slight movement from the Gamorreans, I realized that they might be shaking off the stunning spell quicker than humans could, and instead conjured ropes to tie all five of them up together as I lifted Bodoff, sent a silent 'ennervate' through his body and before he could get his bearings, invaded his mind with Legilimency to learn as much as I could about Lord Ghorhan and his operation.
Within minutes I had everything I needed, and decided I could still use Bodoff as a distraction and cast the Imperius Curse, easily taking control of the weak minded man and had him lead me back to his employer's base of operations, plans swirling around in my mind.
The security was pretty basic at the boss' hideout, and the pair of Gamorrean guards at the entrance were the only obstacle to getting inside which was easily bypassed by pretending I was a slave being led by Bodoff who played his "imperioused" part wonderfully. Once inside the large manor, I cast a time delayed blasting curse on his disillusioned slave collar and sent him to his boss' room while I headed to the slave pen.
There were fortunately only a dozen slaves present currently in the pens, most having only been there for under a week, but it was still abhorrent that any human could treat other people like this and I had no issues with what was about to happen to the soon to be Late Lord and his second in command. Within a minute I stunned every prisoner and removed all their slave collars, then transfigured them all into small figurines I pocketed before moving on to the Lord's vault that Bodoff coveted. It took even less time to shrink and pocket everything inside the vault into one of my many trunks before I was again moving back through the manor and out back to the hangers where I knew several stolen spaceships were gathered which were soon going to become my own.
It was as I was shrinking the last of the spaceships that a large explosion occurred in the near distance over the former residence of Lord Ghorhan, that seemed to awaken some activity on the previously quiet space port. By then I was already approaching the Marauder and was soon walking up the ramp to see my youngest two students standing guard at the entrance with blasters in hand. They both gave relieved sighs as they recognized me, and I returned small smiles at their protectiveness, before motioning them to meet in the cockpit as we needed to leave before the hangar got shut down.
It didn't take long until we were leaving Feena and heading towards the next planet on this northern stretch of the Ardan Cross Hyperlane, namely the planet of B'trillan on our way to Atorra. Atorra was the agricultural planet that fed much of this region, and one of the only places TC-7H was able to broker a deal for more than simple personal use food products without sending us much further away. It was at least six hours away and provided plenty of time for me to return all the prisoners to their usual state and put in beds conjured inside the spare tent I set up in Sirius' old room now that his stuff was back in Atlantis.
Waking everyone up, and waiting for them all to come to grips with their new status as free people on a spaceship heading to Atorra took a lot longer than I was hoping for, but eventually everyone came around to the idea that they were for now guests on my ship. When I explained that I would drop them off at any of my next stops, not that I knew exactly where I was going from here most of them agreed to be released, especially when I mentioned that there were a few confiscated spaceships in tow that belonged to at least some of them. Ten of the slaves were from three separate crews that had their ships stolen by Lord Ghorhan, and were glad to be told that they would be returned to their property once we landed in Atorra.
The final two slaves however, including Jeana, had nowhere to go and no possessions to their names, and I easily offered them all free passage to any of my next few stops, or if they wanted a new life in Atlantis. It took a bit of explaining that Atlantis was a newly colonized planet by myself and a few friends where we provided lives and work for rescued slaves, and housed the newly formed Marauder Industries company that had its hands in spaceships, droids, weapons, farming, mining, and medicine for now but was constantly growing and needed good people to work. The three remaining former slaves, Jeana and a pair of auburn haired twins in their twenties were all quick to agree to give Atlantis a try, and I promised to spend some time with them on the next leg of our journey and figure out what they wanted to do, but that we had a lot of work to do as we were by now close to Atorra.
The purchase of several galactic tons of food from Atorra went off without a hitch, and the only real problem we had was convincing the seller that we had the capacity to store it all on the Marauder, which they eventually just gave up on. With the cargo shrunk and loaded, I led the three separate crews into the neighboring hangar where I had already gone and enlarged their spaceships, saying they were slaved to my own and travelled behind us. They were all amazed to be reunited with their ships and personal stuff onboard which thankfully had not yet been cleaned out like some of their more expensive goods and cargo were, but were happy nonetheless to be given back their freedom and livelihoods.
"We can't thank you enough Captain Harry," replied Fuidis, the human pilot of the small G9 Light Freighter and its three man crew, after checking it out and finding everything pretty much as they left it minus some cargo that wasn't anywhere as valuable as their ship and lives were. "If you have the time and are in need of more food ...you should check out Telos, they supply many of the planets throughout the Core World ...and if you ever find yourself in Korphir, please look me up."
"Will do Captain Fuidis," I responded sincerely, thankful for the tip, and planned to check the planet out once I returned to the ship to see how far away they were.
With our passengers off the ship and our food cargo loaded, I was pretty confident that we would need more than we currently had until our own farming industry started to produce enough to feed our entire planet, especially as I felt we would be expanding shortly with lots of immigrants. Our new passengers Jeana, Graldesh and Frodesh who I would probably always refer to as Gred and Forge, had nothing and nowhere to go, and likewise it didn't matter to them one bit where we went from here. I knew TC-7H had found a few other small planets nearby that would sell small amounts of food, but the idea of getting a lot more in one place really appealed to me, and after learning that Telos was were older Jedi learners who never got selected as Padawans went to work, I knew that was our next stop.
It was over two weeks away, but if we hurried and didn't encounter any more huge delays, I should be able to get us back to Atlantis in just about the two months I gave myself and put in the course heading for Telos. It was one of the first times since leaving the Jedi Temple that I actually felt the Force and it was truly happy, and that alone confirmed that this was the right choice to make. Telling our now crew of three students and three passengers where we were heading and how long it would take, I made sure they all had comfortable accomodations before we left Atorra behind heading to the Jedi Agricorps planet of Telos.
Unsurprisingly, our course took us south on the Feena Run once we returned to that intersection of hyperspace lanes and to the planet of Korphir which I thought about stopping on the way back if time permitted. We would then head west for just under a week on the Korphir Trace hyperspace lane until we reached the planet Junction, where we would again head north on the Hydian Way, one of the most populated hyperspace lanes in the galaxy until we reached Telos over a week later. The first part of the trip was spent solidifying my three students' Occlumency and Legilimency until it became more familiar to each of them, and they could even hold it up while doing other tasks mostly involving physical and Force training.
I realized that if they were going to travel with me, that they all needed to be better able to defend themselves as I often ran into trouble everywhere I went, and even though I didn't think there was much in the galaxy I couldn't handle, I wanted my students better protected. To that end, by the time we reached Junction, I was instructing them all in Jedi lightsaber combat starting with Form I and giving them plenty of time with the lightsaber training droids as well to practice as much as they possibly could. I also gave them lessons on blasters and had them each pick out a few they liked that they would become better acquainted with so as not to bring too much attention to them by carrying lightsabers openly.
I even brewed invigoration droughts so as to allow them almost twenty hours of practice a day without tiring, and by the time we were approaching Telos, all three of them had grown in leaps and bounds in lightsaber combat and their general strength and stamina. Each was also being instructed in suppressing or hiding their Force presence from others, as I knew it was an essential skill in moving throughout the galaxy undetected by the Jedi or other Force sensitives, especially since we were nearing a Jedi hotbed of activity. Coming out of hyperspace above the planet known as Telos IV, I was momentarily reminded of Earth again, as the planet seemed a mix of large land masses and oceans, with polar caps at the top and bottom.
It honestly made me really nostalgic for my old home world, until we were greeted by the planet's ship control and were directed to land in the spaceport near the Capital City of Thani, space D-37. Bringing the Marauder down into the designated space was an afterthought, as I stretched out my senses and could feel the whole world literally brimming with Force potential and Force sensitives galore. Even in the hangar bay itself, the moment we touched down there was a contingent of two men in the standard Jedi brown robes to greet us, along with a small squad of four droids that had me thinking of the best way to handle this visit.