Harry Potter and A Galaxy Far Far Away

by kossboss

A small change had Harry slowly absorbing memories from Voldemort's soul shard in his head after the battle in the Chamber of Secrets. Follow him as those memories lead him to an escape from the Wizarding World and an adventure in a whole new reality with spaceships and space wizards. Grey/Smart/Powerful Harry. Slow Build Up.

5. Chapter 5

Welcome to the fifth day of Star Wars Xmas! Thank you all for the reviews and the engagement that I have been seeing.

A small few asked why soap if water was a commodity. Well 1) Good question 2) He sells offwords 3) I am not sure people don't use water in that way on Tatooine anyways (have not looked into this specifically). Reusing/Refiltering wash water is often done. 3) Many of his clients don't live on Tatooine fulltime.

Ahbaroux - You asked a question but have PMs turned off... so I couldn't answer you.

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Chapter 5:

It took nearly two months for the Skywalkers to settle in with Harry. He had learnt they came basically as advertised, and Shmi was now acting as PA's assistant manager for the shop, and was also in charge of reviewing any new possible project requests before having them sent to Harry.

Anakin, on the other hand, was growing a lot on him. He had taken to teaching the kid, and giving him an education that certainly exceeds most standards in this galaxy or his own universe. The kid seemed to absorb knowledge and loved to learn about things, but could not settle down enough to listen to his extended lectures or lessons just yet. However, when it came to technology, and mechanics, that was where the kid was really starting to shine. Sure he had a long way to go, but he could be a real starship engineer in the future if he puts his mind to it. It was also fun watching the kid bring his friends around to see his latest 'creation', often simply scrap metal put together into a shape of some sort. Anakin, who was new to the area, made friends so fast with the locals it was astounding to watch.

The kid had also started to join Harry in his tinkering, but Harry still did his major production of things without Ani, as he didn't think the kid was ready to see magic on that scale. However he did see him use magic, as Harry still hadn't used a tool since he had been here, and used magic to take apart any machine he worked on. It was quite simple to grasp the whole bolt with his magic and simply undo it that way rather than getting a tool, and the fact that it was basically second nature didn't hurt either. Harry could swear he could almost sense the boy trying to do the same thing when they were working on something together. It may only be a matter of a decade or less before Anakin could be using magic to aid him in breaking down an airspeeder too.

Since his first discussion with Anakin, Harry had done a bit more research on the Jedi, but was still having trouble finding much information. It was actually PA who would end up getting him a few pads from some sellers here on Tatooine for him that held the information he wanted on the Jedi. While limited in scope, one was an extremely old introductory training manual for a 'Padawan learner', and others just had some minor information.

It was enough though to lead Harry to believe more firmly that magic and this force were the same thing or very similar, however these Jedi seemed to not have nearly the skills Harry had available to him. The only thing Harry could think of was that they didn't have a core like him and relied on drawing in magic from the environment to perform magic. While that was something he could also do, it wasn't something he often ever needed to, and only had done so instinctually in the past when in a few dangerous situations before coming to Tatooine.

However some of what he learnt about the Jedi order didn't sit too well with him, but nothing too serious. They were more religious than Harry would like, shunned to many emotions, and were extremely light side focused. Whereas their now extinct counterpart, which Harry doubted quite a bit, Sith, delved solely into the darkside. It was odd because even the most dark wizard he knew of, Tom, didn't only use dark magic but used normal 'light' sided spells daily too.

Not that a spell was really ever fully light or dark sided, but was molded far more by the intent used when casting it. The effects of the dark side of the force and the use of too much dark magic seemed similar to back on Earth, but far more pronounced here. All this led Harry to believe that a core in Wizards acted to naturally balance them between the two sides, and even blunt some of the effects of using too much dark or light magic. A core probably also meant they could more readily and easily express their magic to do things, such as spells, or as children, accidental magic.

Though he imagined an ultra skilled force user who was extremely talented in drawing in the natural magic of the universe and shaping it to their will, could perform some absurdly and amazingly powerful things. But on an average basis, Harry expected a wizard to simply be far more powerful if using their magic competently. This did prompt him to start to train his ability to use ambient magic in his spells, rather than always pulling on his core for most of his magic. He also made sure to get in more magical practice, and push his reserves to their limit during training to maximize his core growth each night now.

Even though Anakin begged him to teach him to do 'that' when taking apart machines, he still refrained for now. However, he did cave a bit and started him on meditations and the basic foundations for Occlumency. When the boy was older Harry would teach him more, but the fact that he was spending so much time with him meant that the little kid was growing on him fast. Almost like a little brother, or maybe something more parental like, like a nephew or a son.

Shmi was also nice company and he enjoyed their group meals they had most nights, as they took turns cooking when the Elves would allow. Harry introduced them to a few of his favorites from Earth, and Shmi showed him some native food of this Galaxy that Harry had not had much opportunity to try. It was quite daunting to go into a restaurant here and have no idea what was edible to a human and was literal slime shit.

All was going quite well, and Harry even had another major project he was working on. This time he wanted to try and invent a runic array to create fuel for his ships, both their hyperdrives and ion drives. However this meant that he basically needed to know everything to know about those two things, especially their energy distribution systems. This was where he realized how long this project was going to take, as those were two hefty subjects.

And he really did mean invent, as there was nothing even close to this in his magic books, and fuel was far off from producing a single gas by runes. Even if the concept seemed similar it was still quite a bit different. The other part was Harry didn't want to have a large machine needed to do the mixing, as that would take away any improvements Harry's runic array would give in space saving terms.

The biggest reason for this was right now the fuel for his ships was actually one of his companies largest expenses. So Harry wanted an array that could be put on the fuel tanks of his ships to conjure fuel to be used to produce energy before it dissipated, getting around the fact that conjured materials would eventually disappear. However the fuel used by his engines was not simple by any means, and was proving to be a difficult and confounding project.

So while Anakin was often doing his workbook exercises for his schooling, Harry was right there beside him working on something related to his own 'school' work. It did make Shmi happy to see them like that, his magic definitely made sure he knew. He sat there carefully going over related runic arrays, and often looking at how various runes had been combined together in the past, before being balanced to ensure they didn't fizz out. It was an enjoyable time for him, and helped also give him more material to review in mind palace.

One evening after Anakin had been put to bed, Harry had been sitting down enjoying a few of his drinks from downstairs and watching a Holovid with Shmi that she said was recommended to her. She seemed to be really enjoying it, but movies in this Galaxy certainly didn't hold up compared to those on Earth. However his thoughts along this avenue were interrupted by Shmi as she quickly leaned over and kissed him entirely out of nowhere, at least according to him. At first he was surprised but he definitely started to return the kiss with some passion after only a moment's hesitation.

It was after a few minutes of them making out, when she started straddling him and ripping off her own clothes that he tried to slow things down and stop her. "Shmi you don't need to do this." he said, feeling maybe she was worried if she didn't show her appreciation to him in this way, he would kick her out. Her quick spark of anger though dissipated those thoughts for him.

"I don't need to do this, I want to!" she said kissing him again before pulling back and looking into his deep emerald eyes. "You treat Anakin so well, and make me feel beautiful and wanted all the time without even trying." she said happily before pulling back slightly. "Unless you don't find me attractive?" she asked him clearly worried now. He didn't need his magic to tell him that, so he leaned forward and pulled her into a kiss dispelling that notion like a Finite to a simple charm.

They ended up retreating to his huge room, where the calm confident Shmi was replaced with a somewhat shy, but excited and sexy woman. They spent a good portion of the night together, and Harry had used a few things he had picked up from books, his stolen memories, and the few drunken flings he has had since he arrived here to make her night as amazing as he possibly could. Not to say his night was any less amazing either.

From then on they started dating, but Shmi seemed to always defer to him in the private setting, and oddly enjoyed him tying her up during their nightly adventures. Which he thought was weird for a former slave, but didn't say anything as he didn't want her to feel self conscious about her wants in the bedroom. His magic, or pft Force, certainly helped tell him when he pushed too far, and ensured he could give her a wonderful time.

That being said, she was still the same confident woman, and would argue things with him when it came to either the business, Anakin, or really anything outside the bedroom. Apparently the fact that he was willing to let Anakin drive a speeder at four, or as the kid liked to say 'I am almost four and a half', got him stripping down, and not the good kind. Though he had held the tyke in his lap the whole time so he could see why, and in his defense, Anakin did stellar job piloting the small craft.

Shmi had also moved up in the business over the last few months, and had taken over overseeing a lot of the new medical line for PA. This was not nepotism at work either, but simply because Shmi was really quite smart, reliable, and well liked; it was clear where Anakin got it from. It just made her that much more attractive to him, and made him happy that he had accepted his magic's nudging's to get them off of Watto. His life was heading in a direction he never expected and he loved it. Who would have thought he could have found something so great out here under the baking suns.

---

Things had progressed at such a rate over the last six years for Harry that he could barely recognize his life now, it had just changed so much. Anakin and he had grown closer, and Harry had finally started to teach him a bit of wandless and wordless levitation, as that seemed to be all the tyke could manage for now. He had taught him Occlumency and Anakin seemed to have gained a good start on the skill. His lack of a core didn't seem to hamper him there, whereas his lack of being able to sit still did. However at least Anakin was able to now levitate a tool to himself when he was working on a machine, albeit a little slowly and wobbly at first for any tool a bit too big.

With Anakin's progress in the mind arts, it meant an increased rate of learning for the already smart kid. They had spent a lot of time together doing just that, with Harry teaching Anakin, and even learning something when he didn't have the answer for a question and they had to look it up. Whereas Harry concentrated quite a bit on progressing his skills with engineering, mainly concentrating on engines for his fuel runic array he was working on.

Harry had felt something bad coming for a number of years now, but knew it was still quite some distance in the future, however he pushed himself to prepare even if it felt decades out. That meant while he was working on the runic array, he and Ani were also working on designing from scratch a new battle droid for him to start using. Most likely not selling, but to equip his own facilities and ships with. It was a project they had really bonded over, and was something he looked forward to each day.

They had made really good progress, but were still working on creating a more fluid servo system for it. Their combat programming and droid brains were already quite excellent, but they wanted them to be equipped with sensors and hardware far beyond standard for battle droids. This took them quite some time to get it to all work together correctly. They just needed to get their new servo control system working and designing proper outer armour before it was going to be ready for production.

During this time Harry had basically adopted Anakin as his son, in all but through official means or even really stated, as Ani still called him Harry, but he played the role of a father figure to him. Harry knew the kid saw him as a mentor, and a friend, even maybe secretly as a father too. Shmi had also realized fairly quickly, much to his surprise, that Harry was not aging. That led him to explaining to her that he was not a base human as it was called in this galaxy.

She had taken it fairly well, and he even had let her in on a few more of his secrets. Her reaction was about what he came to expect from her, that being from a steadfast intelligent woman, and had only asked him for the details he wanted to share and hadn't pushed him too far for more answers. She could clearly tell he had a lot of baggage attached to his past, and didn't like talking about it. Harry had started giving her some of the Elixir of Life as well, combined with a few treatments from his medical droids so her ageing had been halted as well now. That had been a nagging worry of hers, and the first anniversary after she had found out about Harry not aging, he had presented her with the option.

Shmi now looked to be about early thirties, but was still extremely attractive as the elixir renewed quite a bit of her vitality that had been sapped during her early life as a slave. He had also introduced them both to some of his magical items, and now both Anakin, and Shmi carried a few enchanted items, including a communication mirror each. This was mainly because Anakin seemed to get into all sorts of trouble, the kid had even built himself a podracer at 6, in secret, and had wanted to join the pod races. That was when Shmi was convinced to let Harry give Anakin some piloting lessons, where they weren't doing anything quite as dangerous as podracing. He certainly didn't let Shmi know anything about Harry's own experiments with the sport or the podracer he had built himself. No sir he certainly did not.

Outside his blissful home life, things were quite crazy with his business. His company had grown so much that they opened two more shops here on Tatooine in other cities. He had basically been forced by necessity to move his medical exports that catered to the republic to Naboo, all to reduce how many trade ships needed to come out of Republic space. A few too many that weren't operated by him were getting hit by pirates, so some of them came to petition him to give them easier access to his medical lines. Potions had been selling better than almost anything but his Blaster Gas and Cannabis, they were now being sold in a lot of places across the galaxy.

Cannabis was making both Harry and Jabba mountains of gold, and the hilarious thing was, and something both of them certainly broke into huge amounts of laughter over, was that it was entirely legal. In fact the Republic regulators already approved its sale, as it didn't actually fall under their controlled substances regulations, and didn't warrant new laws being passed to limit its sales. Apparently they felt, similarly to Harry, that it was a far better choice to other drugs out there, it didn't hurt that they were hard pressed to point out how it was worse than alcohol which was legal almost galaxy wide.

The fact was it was growing in popularity by crazy amounts in the core worlds. Apparently Cantinas devoted specifically to carrying dozens of strains of Cannabis had even popped up already. Harry was super careful to control the quality of supply, and had his Elves insure there were ZERO seeds that ended up in their product being shipped out, meaning he had the market cornered. Sure some synthetics have already popped up, but they are both far worse tasting, and far more expensive to boot. It's hard to beat 5 credits a gram.

Harry had invested some of his money back into Mos Espa as well during this time. He started around his store of course, but he installed paved roads, proper sewage and sewer systems that led to a waste management system to output fertilizer and even solidified crystal reaction mass for starships. Even though it was a desert here, it did get the rare huge downpour of rain that made all the shrubs bloom. The sewage processing equipment was actually a design of Anakin's that Harry had steered him towards making. Harry had even patented it with his company, but it was proving hard to get a proper manufacturing chain going to produce them without magic to help.

The other large local project was installing a proper power grid, mostly so that he could have some customers to sell their excess power to. Or at least that was how he sold it to PA, and it had nothing to do with the indecent when he was watching a pod race and his view screen ran out of power when the racers were just out of sight, and he couldn't find one of those stupid fucking box looking droids to plug into, so he missed some of the best action of the race. There was already a small grid around the spaceport, but they replaced the entire thing across the city, but because as they did so, they then owned exclusive rights to it. Meaning no one else could sell power through it. It was buried also to make theft quite difficult, not to mention the crazy monitoring methods they had developed.

Unfortunately due to the vast majority of his time being devoted to his fuel runic array related tasks, and the fact that sales were so high, Harry was forced to outsource all his models of speeders to SoroSuub, including the new airspeeder he had developed. It wasn't anything amazing but it was just a mean little machine, pushing nearly 900 km/h in the air, and with a maximum height of 200 km. He installed deflectors as standard, so it was not cheap, but still retailed for under 20,000 credits depending on where you were. It also came with a single hardpoint like standard on all his speeders. He had certainly made a name for his company in the speeder game, and was thinking about making a bike next.

As a result of his success, he ended up attracting the attention of a few people he would have rather avoided. The Trade Federation being one. They had tried to get an exclusive contract for his medicine for the distribution to the republic, with quite a bit of strong arming. They offered him far lower prices than he was selling at right now but for large quantities purchased right away. However when he had read their representatives mind, he found out they had planned the jack the prices of his potions to make as much money as they could. They also treated Harry so poorly because they felt he was beneath them because with how small his company was comparatively, his rejection had somehow come as a shock to them. Which had made him laugh at the look on the aliens face.

The Trade Federation, or at least a faction within it, had then tried to hire a few mercenary groups to hit some of his ships, but that had failed miserably in three ways. One Harry only ever lost a few fighters, nothing that couldn't be replaced, and even that was rare due to how good his droid fighters were getting in dog fights these days. Each battle they had meant more improvements to their performance being shared between them all. The DCU was really starting to pay off. The second was that Jabba was fairly protective of Harry these days, and had been pissed that the Trade Federation was trying to strong arm his most important business partner. So Jabba sent his own goons out to hit a few of the Trade Federation trade routes, and their ships on average were far less protected than Harry's, even if they were often far bigger.

Harry had also managed to, in retaliation, undercut one of their small contracts to sell blaster gas to a small shipyard over the Mid Rim planet of Leritor. This has led the Trade Federation to try to investigate the source of his blaster gas, and made him laugh at all their failures to try and track his non-existent source. It honestly was highly amusing watching them run down leads that he knew would not bring them anywhere. They had even gone as far as to accuse Naboo of selling plasma under the table or something similar, but a quick open investigation proved that to be false, and his company didn't even need to be involved at all. He had sent an apology basket to the newly appointed Queen there for all the hassle that had been caused by the investigation.

This all meant Harry was now making far more credits in a day than he was five years ago in a week, it was hard to get an estimate now that his business was spread out so much, and he was now purchasing even more today than ever before, but his daily profits were usually between 10-20 million credits. It was just simply crazy how much demand a galactic society could make for products, and all the extra work for the Elves seemed to just make them reproduce, well like rabbits. This made the medical droids astonished, as more work, and good magic seemed to even increase the number of children per pregnancy, lower the gestation time, and improve their growth rate. All of which he had been assured by the droids should be impossible.

It was quite fascinating, but he now had a few thousand adult Elves under his control, all working for him. There was even a small group of about 25 that even agreed on getting paid, which he happily did. However he had been worried about them possibly having genetic degradation with his smaller starting group of just sigh of a hundred-fifty, however unlike himself, the droids are able to monitor their DNA, and it seemed magic protected them from collapsing as a species that would normally occur due to lack of genetic diversity. That was relieving to hear, but even with their rate of growth his supply lines were getting stretched with the number of potions he was selling, meaning he may be forced to raise their price to fight rising demand. Not something he wanted to do, so he was looking into solutions.

On a slightly better note and related to ships, HPI was basically now solely responsible for saving the CloakShape starfighter line, as he was now their largest single customer by a huge margin. He had actually purchased ownership of the rights to the fighter to produce them himself if he wanted, and he leveraged how much of the market he represented in the negotiations too. Kuat had ended up gaining rights in perpetuity to produce the default model and sell them as normal, but Harry now owned the design. Not surprisingly, they were extremely happy with the deal as they made back a good chunk of their RnD cost and Harry's purchases hadn't reduced. It had only cost him 5.6 million credits anyways, as Kuat felt the line was mostly a loss.

He had also become a premium customer of Corellia Engineering Corporation, and now his company had their own personal sales rep to handle all their business needs. Harry was actually currently working through the proper channels to get authorization to build or buy larger ships, with a higher number of weapon systems. Apparently this time around approval wasn't automated, but instead was handled by a committee in the Republic. That being said, due to how popular some of his products were, his legal representative handling the procedure said there was little chance of him not getting that approval. CEC has even sent someone to help smooth the process along, as Harry imagined they wanted him to buy ships from them after he gets his new license.

The VIP reception he now gets from CEC was because he now had 52 CR90s and their fighter escorts running around. He also had one hundred CS droid fighters here on Tatooine alone, but most of them were parked, cough hidden cough, in his underground hangar. Jabba would have a Rancor sized fit if he knew that Harry had that many here, as it was enough firepower to easily take control of the planet without some major reinforcements coming in, which was unlikely. It was amazing what you could sneak in with trunks, and hide in your underground hangar, that just happened to have a massive hangar door that could open up to the sky on demand to launch said ships from. It was one of the additions his droids and Elves had added to his growing underground bunker facility that was just below his property.

The underground facility had grown quite a bit, but all three of R3, PA, and Dobby kept coming up with good reasons to expand it. For example they had added deflector shields to their compound to be activated incase of an attack, that was fine. What wasn't to them was Harry's plan of setting up another building to produce power for said shields. Instead they insisted that it was a weak point, and that they should put the generators far underground out of the reach of weapons fire. Harry saw their point, feeling his idea was an amateur mistake and had agreed to the expansion. That was just one example for expanding, and the hangar was another.

All the soil, and strangely mineral rich material they excavated when digging the underground complex went into a trunk to be dealt with later, as it had some odd 'force' decay to it that activated when one refined it. It would start to rust and erode far quicker than should be possible for the element in question, regardless of which they tested. They had no idea what to do with it for now, so in a trunk it went. He would hopefully get some time to study it later on. His underground facility was also where he was storing his extra battle droids, as he was always purchasing them when people brought scrap in, but rarely sold them. Honestly it was almost fair to call his shop a pawn store as well as he would buy almost anything people would sell if it was the right price.

He had been stockpiling battle droids as tensions in the galaxy had only been rising since the end of the Stark Hyperspace War. Harry knew something was going to boil over, as large corporations and many outer rim worlds were even more discontent, upset, and now than ever before they were even making bold moves by defying the Republic Senate in small ways. So Harry was being a bit over cautious in building up a small fleet of 'trade' ships, and getting his approval for additional classes of ships. Thankfully as everyone had told him it would, that approval had just come through last week and that meant he could look towards getting some nice additions to his 'defense forces'.

Unfortunately for some, just recently a new set of taxes by the Republic was instigated on Mid and Outer Rim hyperspace routes via Senate Resolution BR-0371. This was kind of funny for Harry as he did pay taxes on the goods they could actually see in his manifests, but because he had his trunks, the vast majority of his goods moved around tax free. That fact that this wasn't a tax on corporate profits was working out quite well for him, and not so much for the Republic.

However it had meant that tensions with the Trade Federation, and a few other major companies and the Republic were at an all time high. Combine with the fact that pirate and slavery attack were rising, and tensions still be present from the Stark Hyperspace War, it made for a volatile galaxy. The rising tensions were often on his mind lately and was actually what he was mostly thinking of as he was just putting on the final touches to his runic fuel array when he stopped what he was doing and concentrated on the new feeling his magic was giving him.

Something important was going to happen today, but it was hard to tell exactly what it was, but all he knew was that he needed to be at his shop today. Specifically at the Parts division to be exact. Harry took his Padd he was working with and walked through his complex as he looked at all the activity with tons of droids and Elves moving around getting various tasks done. In the inner portions of his complex, only his Elves and Droids were employed here, as all the locals he employed worked on the outside or low security areas, at most they may be working in the warehouse division. This was to allow his Elves freedom to use their magic more outside his trunks, even if they still did tone it down a bit. He was not too worried about it getting out that they had minor 'force' powers, as it was well known he himself had them to those around these parts.

He walked into the shop from the back and saw a few customers being serviced at the sales desk, and another two being led around by droids to go look at something in the back. Harry went over to stand behind the managers podium where a PAM droid was floating, observing and waiting to be needed. As he looked around he pulled out his padd and got back to using his nice new application he created to allow him to design and create new runic arrays on a padd. It had been extremely handy in helping him work on his fuel array, as it had been proving to be quite difficult to work out all the kinks, and rewriting all the runes all the time had been taking too much of his time. So he developed a simulation program to allow him to develop virtually before doing tests in a real environment.

One of the major problems he was still having was regulating it on or off, and controlling the rate or pressure of fuel arriving. He had actually gotten his fuel he was trying to make already chosen as there were only a few to choose from, and had the array producing it just fine. This did mean in the future he will need to ensure all his engines use the same fuel type which may either mean he needs to make them himself, or do some modifications to some of the ships he buys. That was for the future as he needed to actually get the array finally finished first.

As he was working away Harry felt something he had not in quite some time, and that was the presence of someone almost magical getting closer. However, they certainly didn't feel like a wizard or witch did to him, as they almost had a static feel about them, but Harry could feel that these new presences he could feel had just dropped out of hyperspace at Tatooine hyperlane access point and were making no attempts to hide the presence with their magic. Following their presence with his own magic, his padd now forgotten, he sensed them as they approached the planet and even when they started to land on the outskirts of Mos Espa. Which to be honest was not common these days. Deciding to wait and see what happened, he expected they were here for a reason, and the fact he was here in his parts shop gave him a good clue.

It didn't take more than an hour as a few of the people on board the ship he was tracking through his magic to start making their way to the city, however Harry couldn't glean much more as he was not too used to using his magic in this way. Knowing though that force and the magic were related in some ways, he thought these two presences he felt may be the elusive Jedi he had heard about over the years, and he was interested to meet them. Though there had been a few individuals over the years, and even a one recently, that had a strong presence in the 'force', but he had mostly dismissed them as Jedi after a quick looksy. He knew Anakin still held onto that goal of becoming a Jedi one day, so it would be nice to form a personal opinion on the group and not just rely on the material he had read or absorbed from others' memories.

It didn't take long for three people and a droid to finally walk into the shop. Two were humans, an older man and a younger girl, and the last was of a species Harry could not recognize by sight. Finally they were followed by an R2 unit, which brought a small smile to Harry's face. However it was the older gentleman that had Harry's attention, as he clearly was similar to Anakin in the way magic seemed to seethe around him. The older man's magic was certainly more calm than Anakin's, and he was looking straight at Harry when he walked into the shop.

Rather than going to the sales desk, the old gentleman walked right over towards Harry who was at the managers podium off to the side. Harry was tempted to try and read the man's surface thoughts but expected him to most likely have some protection, or at least the ability to feel the intrusion. The possible Jedi did walk as if well assured of himself, even if the weird alien in the group was an obvious walking disaster. The young woman also let off a bunch of waves of worry into her surroundings, and he could tell it wasn't just about being here on Tatooine, something else was bothering her, a lot.

"Hello..."

---

Qui-Gon Jinn walked into the cockpit of the royal starship as they pulled out of hyperspace and started to fly towards Tatooine. His Padawan was on the scanners, looking at the readout from the planet. He could immediately feel something in the force when they left hyperspace, a disturbance, but something else as well. The force was far too active on this planet, and he would try and find out why when he was here.

"There's a settlement there." Obi-wan commented pointing it out on the scanner unit.

"Land near the outskirts. We don't want to attract attention," he said to the pilot. This planet already felt odd enough to Qui-Gon, they didn't need to add a bunch of criminal scum trying to steal the ship. He walked out to get ready, he needed to get a simple cloak to hide his Jedi robes. While Jedi were not common out here, there were many criminals who made a habit of avoiding Jedi, but would also easily identify their typical robes on sight. Walking to the engine room after changing to find out the damage to the ship, he found his Padawan working on the hyperdrive.

"The hyperdrive's generator is gone, Master." Obi-Wan said as he made it into the room. "We'll need a new one."

"That'll complicate things. Be wary." he told his Padawan seriously. "I sense a disturbance in the Force, and there is something else off with the Force on this planet as well."

"I feel it also, Master." replied his Padawan seriously. Obi-Wan was always so serious and Qui-Gon knew the young man wished he was more willing to follow the councils orders, but his way was to follow the living force, and sometimes that requires one to act. "It almost seems like the force is over active here?" Obi-Wan asked about the odd feeling they were both experiencing, and nodded to his Padawan in agreement.

"Don't let them send any transmissions." he said before walking out of the ship with the astromech droid. He was hoping they could find a replacement here, as he had only limited republic credits on him to work with. The Gungan decided to come with him as he was leaving, complaining about the ship being too small. From what he knew of Tatooine, Jar-Jar will not be enjoying the hot heat, or dry atmosphere. They had made it only fifty meters from the ship before they were interrupted from behind.

"Wait!" Captain Panaka called after them, before walking to catch up. "Wait. Her Highness commands you to take her handmaiden with you." said the man, clearly not fully on board with the idea himself. They didn't need another complication however so he spoke up.

"No more commands from Her Highness today, Captain." he replied back firmly. "The spaceport is not going to be pleasant." he finished before starting to turn around before getting stopped again.

"The queen wishes it. She's curious about the planet." the captain once again argued for his queen.

"This is not a good idea." he said admitting defeat, as it was not worth trying to stand his ground on this issue. However he had learnt a bit about Tatooine a few years ago, and from what he learnt, this place was a criminal infested back-world planet, and the handmaiden will not have a good time. He felt no warning in the force about her coming however, so he simply caved to the request. "Stay close to me." he said to the young woman, and started off towards the settlement.

As they approached the town, Qui-Gon had to admit he was a bit surprised, and it seemed his information was either wrong or quite out of date, as the town was far better developed than he was led to believe. There were paved roads and even some buildings that looked really well made. The spaceport looked far busier than he expected for a backwater Hutt world like this, as he could see several ships coming in and leaving. There was clearly quite a bit of commerce going on throughout the city, and ships were landing and taking off every few minutes. He started to explain what he knew to Padme when she asked.

"Moisture farms, for the most part. Some indigenous tribes and scavengers." he said as they made their way into the city explaining the economy. "The few spaceports like this one, are havens for those that don't wish to be found."

"Like us." the quite astute handmaiden said.

"Yes, though my information seems to be a bit out of date, as there is quite a bit of commerce happening that I can see which was not included in the report I read." he replied, as he saw two armed droids walking shoulder to shoulder lockstep down the road seemingly patrolling the area. Thankfully they were not Trade Federation Models. They were not a model he recognized but they appeared to be from the same company that produced the GU-Series Guardian Police droids that patrolled Coruscant. He said a silent prayer to the force that this didn't mean there was a Trade Federation presence here.

As they had been approaching the city, he had felt the concentrations of the force increasing the closer he got. It was like nothing he had ever felt before, and only somewhat reminded him of when he first walked into the Jedi Temple after he gained access to the force. However this was not simply a light sided nexus, though it wasn't dark either, it was simply a concentration of the force.

There were many signs around them that things had been changing here recently, as rising wealth brought in prosperity. He also sensed a lot less crime then he was expecting for a city of this size on a Hutt world. It was quite nice to be surprised in a good way for once in his life. It was about time. It was an interesting conundrum, and as they approached the market area things kept changing even more starkly. You did not even need the Force to feel the positive atmosphere that surrounded this major market.

There were more droids patrolling with what seemed to be fairly high powered blaster rifles, and even a shock and concussion grenade attached to their waists if he saw right. That would have sent an uproar on a core world, however here they seemed to not even garner a second glance. He even saw one helping someone, who dropped their bag on the ground, and was collecting their goods, so they clearly were not there as an oppressive force on the planet. His recent experience with droids may be clouding his opinion on things a bit.

The roadway also increased in size and quality as they got closer to where the force concentration was, but the biggest surprise was how many people were lined up at a stall selling some kind of food. Qui-Gon could see what appeared to be slaves lined up right beside a well of what he believed was a bounty hunter. Whatever was being sold there was both cheap enough for a slave to buy and good enough to draw in the more wealthy individuals. There was no crime he could see anywhere around him, just a lot of businesses and a massive shopping complex in front of them that he saw a number of people coming and going from.

He and Padme watched as a nicely dressed woman escorted by two droids made her way through the crowd who all moved out of the way for her as she passed by. She had a nice smile on her face and said hello to those she clearly recognized.

As the woman passed close by, two rougher looking aliens standing nearby spoke quietly, but not too quietly that both he and the handmaiden couldn't hear them. "Who was that?" asked the Rodian in leathers and carrying a blaster at his side.

"That there was the lover and slave of Hadrian Peverell. So show some respect if she walks by, because I don't want to be walking down the road one day to find your dead body filled with holes after someone comes to teach you a lesson." said the other mercenary pushing on his friend's shoulder. "But don't look down on her, she also manages part of HPI, so piss her off and those PAM droids may start charging you extra." the second Rodian said chuckling at his buddy, clearly not actually actively afraid of this Hadrian fellow, but there was a hint of underlying fear or was it respect, Qui-Gon could not quite tell.

"It seems this world is prospering, and this is quite the company for this small of a planet, but I didn't know slavery still existed in the Galaxy." Padme said, pointing out what they were seeing in front of them and overheard. "Though that name, HPI, seems familiar from somewhere, hmmm." she said pointing to the large sign above the massive gates while in thought.

"Yes, it seems some of my information is really out of date, though that is odd as it should have been up to date at least within the last decade or so. You should also be mindful that Republic laws don't hold sway out here, and they won't protect you from those wanting to do you harm or force you into bondage." he replied back to the handmaiden as they approached the large gates that led into the massive walled shopping complex. He had wanted to try and find a small dealer, but he couldn't see any around, and the force was leading him towards this massive complex in front of him. On each side of the gate he saw signs in both Basic and Huttese advertising what they sold, and it seemed to be a wide range of products, but two things jumped out for Jinn. That was that they both accepted Republic Credits, and sold starship parts, so he walked forwards.

It was as soon as he walked over the threshold of the property did his force senses get hit with a wave of information. It wasn't just that inside the gates was a concentration of the force like he had only ever seen on Illum when getting his lightsaber crystal, but that he could also feel one massive force presence just in front of him in the building on the right that said Parts Division. He also quickly realized that there were many other smaller force presences, but he couldn't quite make out what they were or where due to the overshadowing of the one large presence and the sure abundance of the force concentrated in the area.

However it was just amazing inside the walls, as some objects around him, including the building itself simply shined in the force. He had stopped at the gate after he had just walked through assessing the area with his force abilities in dumb shock, so it was a surprise to him when Padme touched his shoulder getting his attention. He had been so engrossed in the area he hadn't even heard her calling his name.

"Are you alright Master Jedi?" the young girl asked him quietly, a bit worried now.

"Oh, yes it's just I felt something very interesting in the force." he said to her and saw her growing alarm. "It shouldn't be anything to be worried about, but just in case be careful here inside these walls." he said to her as he made his way towards the massive force presence he felt. It was incredible, it almost felt blunted though, and he imagined whoever it was, used some type of force skill to prevent their presence from spreading too far, otherwise this size of a presence would have been felt by some masters all the way on Coruscant let alone simply outside this complex.

"Mesa feels much better here in this place." Said Jar-Jar surprising Jinn, as he had not even realized with everything else he was experiencing, that inside this complex was a lot nicer climate wise than outside. It was cooler, and even more humid. He searched with his force senses and realized that this was some kind of manipulation of the Force in a way he had never seen before, all to allow this space to be cooler than the outside. What a fascinating way to use the Force for such a mundane reason. This also meant he was not walking up towards an only slightly skilled user, but someone who may even exceed the order in some ways. It made him a bit wary, but also extremely excited as his force senses were not screaming any warnings at him yet, so it was most likely not dangerous to just approach this presence which he was still having difficulties discovering anything about it through the Force, even so close.

They all walked through the nice rock displays, and of all things a number of nice small trees to the side of the walkways. They could see dozens of people coming and going to one of the three buildings that seemed to serve customers. This place must have been doing great business, and that was most likely the catalyst for change on the planet. He even saw a few small shuttles take off from a loading area that he could just make out far in the back between two of the buildings. This was honestly the exact result that the Republic Senate wanted when they first introduced the free trade zones. Oh how that idea has come back to bite them in the ass though, as this was certainly not representative of Outer Rim planets.

Walking into the building on the right, he immediately felt another field pass over him at the doorway as he walked inside. He was not really paying attention this time though, as he was looking at the man standing behind a podium off to the side who was looking at them as they entered the building. He was a tall, well built human, with dark brown hair, and the most piercing emerald eyes Qui-Gon had ever seen. Green eyes, thank the force he thought, as he didn't want to have to deal with a darksider with yellow eyes and a force presence that large. The man was also wearing a nice suit made out of some kind of snake or finely scaled animal skin that almost seemed to absorb the force. The man behind the podium certainly struck an imposing figure, but did not have the age he had been expecting from one so powerful in the Force.

He decided to ignore the sales line and instead walked straight up to the 'managers' podium, as the sign hanging above clearly indicated. He looked over the mid to late twenties man in front of him and really didn't know what to think. His past experiences were all failing him here, as he had never encountered another force user such as this. However he had a reason for being here in the first place, so he got to it putting his own trepidations aside.

"Hello, I believe you are the person I should come to see about getting some help." he said to the man who hadn't said anything as they walked up except looking between their group and then back at him when he started talking.

"Well I can see what I can do to help. My name is Hadrian Peverell, and you are?" Hadrian asked in a nicely accented and calm voice. The man also let off an almost calming aura around himself somehow, possibly by just being so sure of himself, or at least that is what it felt like through the Force. Qui-Gon was quite intrigued, and at first he had been hoping to hide that he was a Jedi, however he didn't think he could fool this man. So he looked around to make sure no one was in earshot before answering.

"I am Master Qui-Gon Jinn of the Jedi Order. It is nice to meet you Hadrian. I was hoping you would have parts for a J-type 327 Nubian Starship." he asked the man in front of him honestly, the man looked him over before opening his mouth to answer.

---

It was nice that this guy seemed to trust him enough to be honest, as he clearly didn't want to be known as a Jedi by his body language. Harry could feel this, and saw it too when the man looked around first before answering. That did certainly earn this Jedi some brownie points with him, as he didn't like those who liked to hold information back because they felt they knew best. Even if he was a bit of a hypocrite for doing just that all the time, as he had many secrets.

"Hmm, we should have most parts you could need for any Nubian starships, but it depends on what you exactly need." he said to the Jedi getting down to the brass tax that the man was clearly here for.

"My droid has a readout of what I need." Qui-Gon answered indicated to the R2 unit.

"Alright, why don't you all follow me, and please refrain from touching anything." he said while looking at the weird Alien he could sense was going to be trouble. He stepped down from the slightly raised back behind the podium, and walked back towards one of the massive warehouses connected to the Part's Division, this one had more of their Nubian parts. Looking at the droid he asked. "Now which part was it?" he asked the R2.

The droid beeped a few times, which Harry had somehow started to pick up a bit of the language due to exposure, even though all his droids have vocalizers, so he knew the droid was basically saying 'one moment please'. A holo readout was soon displayed as Harry whistled at the damage that their hyperdrive had sustained, it seemed it was entirely out of hypermater too. A bit more damage to some parts putting them out of alignment and the whole ship would have exploded, they were quite lucky to have made it through hyperspace safely.

"That shouldn't be any problem, are you paying with Peggats or Credits?" he asked the man clearly in charge, but before Jinn could answer him, the PAM droid that always followed him around when PA wasn't present started to speak in PA's voice.

"Harry, there is an urgent transmission from HPI Trade Six." said PA through the PAM droid. Urgent communications he needed to handle was not a normal occurrence at all, as this only ever usually happened when they were attacked by someone. Looking at his 'companions' and looking them over, he came to the decision to trust them a bit too, just as the Jedi had shown to him.

"Put it through then," he said to PA. A holographic display projected out of the PAM droid and showed one of his command droids, who worked with the Droid Control Units to command the CR90s.

"Sir!" the droid said and saluted Harry. They were weird like that. Many models of droids seemed to develop odd quicks, but Harry let it go as the over the top military side of his command droids was tame as far as droid quirks go. "We have been prevented from performing our scheduled landing on Naboo due to a blockade being enacted by the Trade Federation with 24 battleships of substantial size. Sending data now." the droid reported.

Harry was about to answer when he heard a small gasp from the young unassuming woman which grabbed his attention. Harry hadn't given her much thought since she had walked in with the group, as the Jedi Master had held most of his focus. However now that he looked at her he slowly picked out a few inconsistencies, like the clothing quality, the makeup, and smoothness of her shin. This was clearly someone of high class, and this intrigued Harry, so he decided to glean her identity from her surface thoughts, and was shocked for another time today. Who would have thought he would have the Queen of Naboo inside his shop.

"Where are you now, and did they attack your vessel?" he asked the hologram after giving it back his attention, putting her royal highness to the side for a moment.

"No, sir we were warned away, and instead of attempting to circumvent the blockade we returned the way we came for a short ten minute hyperspace jump. I then had us drop out of hyperspace to contact you and await further instructions." The Command Droid gave him, as usual for his model's series, a strictly factual report.

"Alright maintain positions, and update me if there are any changes." he ordered the droid, and terminated the holo connection before looking at 'her Majesty'. "So do you want to tell me why the Queen of Naboo is in my shop or why the Trade Federation is blockading your planet?" he asked the girl who gasped in shock at being found out. Surprisingly and funnily enough to Harry, he realized that the Jedi hadn't noticed the young woman's deception yet either if his reaction was anything to go off of.

"How did you know?" she asked, getting a bit frosty having shed her persona of a handmaiden.

"The Jedi are not the only one with a few tricks." he said to her with a smile. "However, that didn't answer my question?"

"We made it known that we wished to renegotiate the contract that Naboo has with the Trade Federation to export our valuable plasma resources." said the Queen to Harry. "Their response was to send an invitation fleet and army to Naboo and blockading the planet cutting off all communications." her anger clearly shining through. Harry would have initially guessed she was simplifying things a bit, but he only felt honesty from his magic. That meant there certainly was something else going on here, and Naboo was most likely just being used as a pawn for something grander.

"So let me get this straight? Naboo is currently being illegally blockaded by the Trade Federation, and if I am not wrong your ship was damaged when running said blockade? Hence why you are here." he said looking over the group and got a nod in confirmation of the young queen. "So my ships are being prevented from delivering or getting cargo from the planet of my company's Republic HQ costing me and others millions of credits a day?" he angrily asked, almost rhetorically causing PA who was controlling the PAM droid to make quiet noises of distress at their business slow down that would result from this.

"That's where I recognize the name from!" the queen said suddenly not quite as sullen. "You are the owner of the new company that opened in Theed several years ago. I have heard your company is the fastest growing company on Naboo, and responsible for many of the new medicines we are now exporting." she said getting a bit more excited, before then getting confused. "Why then are you out here on the Hutt controlled Tatooine?" she asked.

"That sounds about right, and I am out here because this is the main hub for my companies operations, and where I live and make my home. My company does quite a bit beyond our medical line. In fact our medicines would only be about our third or fourth best selling product line." he answered the young woman honestly. "However back on topic, has the Trade Federation made any demands?" he asked.

"They have demanded that I sign a treaty that legalizes their occupation, and concedes sovereign control over to them." she said her unhappy mood returning, even if she put on a strong front for one so young and clearly out of depth. He was honestly impressed. "They said they will maintain the blockade till I sign, starving the planet of the critical supplies we import, such as food and medicine." she said getting sad again, which just pissed Harry off.

"I fucking hate those assholes. Save your Credits Jedi, this repair is on me." he said to the Jedi master a little upset with the whole debacle. "In fact I will upgrade your class 1.7 Nubian to one of my Class 1s I have here. It seems your group is in a bit of a hurry so this may help a bit." he said to the smile now returning to the young teenager's face.

"Your help is very welcome." Qui-Gon said bowing his head. "I was actually worried we would not have enough funds to enact repairs on our vessel." he said.

"It's alright, even had that been the case, I would have just sent a bill to the Naboo Royal Hangars." he said smiling to them before walking further into the warehouse where there were a few of the hyperdrives in question nicely stacked up on a massive shelf for large parts. They were sleek in design and about 2m by 1m in size, and only 25 cm thick rectangles. "Here they are." he said as the R2 unit beeped a few times while moving up and started to inspect the hyperdrives to see if they would work. A few beeps later in confirmation was all they needed.

"Thank you sir." said her highness to him getting his attention back. "Naboo will not forget this aid, and I hope We shall be able to reciprocate the help in the future." she said to him using the royal We. She was kind of pretty in her own right, even if she was too young for him being 15, however it was clear she was going to grow into a beauty in her own time.

He was about to answer her when Ani and Shmi walked into the warehouse with Ani leading his mother holding a helmet in his hands clearly excited. His entrance got everyone's attention, including the Jedi Master who gave the boy a good long hard look. Harry would have to look into that later, as Anakin still had aspirations to become a Jedi and who was he to step in the way of Ani fulfilling his dreams.

"Harry! Look I finished it!" he said holding up his pilot's helmet he had been working on for a few weeks now. It was designed to work with a ship computer to feed even more data than a normal pilots helmet did. The major difference was how it was able to be integrated with a Droid Control Unit, to be fed data from any surrounding Droid Control Units or even ground based droids. It was quite a feat of engineering as a ton of hardware needed to be fit inside that helmet. He was proud of Anakin for this one, as without his magic he was hard pressed to say if he could have pulled it off as quickly as the boy did.

"Ani! You can see Harry has customers, please behave." Shmi scolded Anakin lightly, not really slowing the boy down, that was until he caught sight of the young queen.

"Are you an angel?" Ani asked her suddenly, bringing a smile to Harry's face. Ani continued without waiting for a response. "I heard deep space pilots talk about them. They're the most beautiful creatures in the universe." Damn him if this kid even knew what he was doing, because even without knowing, he sure was smooth with the ladies, as he could see a small blush had broken out on the girl's face. This made Harry's smile grow bigger, and he could even see a small smile on Shmi's face.

"You are a funny boy." Padme said to Anakin while smiling at the kid, looking between the boy and his mother before her eyes widened. She then started looking between Shmi and him, before exclaiming. "You're that woman we saw earlier, the one who was called the slave of Hadrian." the young woman said now looking at him frostily, which made Harry chuckle lightly at the young spitfire that reminded him so much of Hermione. However he was saved from the young Queen's wrath by Shmi coming to his rescue

"Being the slave of someone powerful gives quite a few levels of protection here on Tatooine. Harry certainly doesn't treat us as slaves, and we are free in all but name. We could even leave whenever we want." Shmi said while walking up to the young queen with a big smile on her face as she looked fondly at the young girl.

"Then why don't you leave, and go to a Republic world were slavery is banned?" asked the young queen of the older woman, who walked up to him before answering.

"That would mean I would have to leave behind the man I love then." she said with a smile at Padme, before going on her tippy toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. Harry looked over to the Jedi to see his reactions to Harry's 'attachments', but saw nothing but a smile and no rapprochement hidden within. This Jedi certainly was giving Harry a FAR better opinion of the order than he was getting from his other materials. It was good that he withheld from making any sweeping judgments before meeting them in person.

"That being a topic for another time, we were discussing something important before someone interrupted us." he said looking down at Anakin, with only mild rapprochement. "Do you have any plans to deal with this invasion your majesty?"

"Your majesty? and what invasion?" Anakin asked out loud before seeing Harry looking at Padme. "I knew it you were an Angel!" he exclaimed, which brought chuckles from all the adults, and an even bigger blush to the young woman.

"The Trade Federation has invaded Naboo Anakin." he said, explaining to him and Shmi who was also in the dark. "They are trying to force Padme here to sign her planet away to them, and are threatening to starve her people to force her hand." he explained to the boy, who was more mature than most due to the realities of a lot of his life.

"You are going to help her aren't you?" he said looking at Harry imploringly with so much hope and expectations that he honestly couldn't let the kid down. If looks could melt a heart...

"I can see what I can do, Ani." he said, patting the boy on the head and messing up his hair. "But I am only one man, with a small company. However I will give it a go, just to not let you down alright?" he said to the kid who he saw as a son. When he explained why he had couldn't do anything about the slavery here on Tatooine years ago to Anakin it had almost broke his heart that he couldn't give the answer to the kid that he wanted. Well at least now he can actually try to meet Anakin's expectations.

"Young Anakin, we are on a mission to try and get that help from the Republic Senate, but we needed to stop here first to enact repairs on our ship." Qui-Gon said, obviously bailing Harry out a bit.

"I can repair anything!" Ani said, getting into the whole thing now.

"I am sure you can." The Jedi said almost knowingly. "However we must hurry if we are to be in time to prevent as much damage done to Naboo as possible." he finished saying seriously.

"I am sorry Master Jedi, however there is a sandstorm coming in." said PA through the PAM droid, getting everyone's attention. "While we could return you with a few of our HPI Sand Speeders, we will not be able to move and install the hyperdrive safely during the storm." the motherly voice of PA explained.

"Well then, you all shall just have to stay with us while the storm persists." Shmi said, taking Padme's hand and started to lead the group out of the warehouse area where a few droids were already coming to load up one of the hyperdrives and spare parts. "We can have dinner while the storm rages, and learn more about what is going on at Naboo." Shmi said, taking control of the entire group.

She took them out the front of the shop to the first, and largest building, where their residence was on the second floor. It seemed everyone, including Ani who was still looking at their guests in excitement, was waiting till they got to where they were going before starting their discussion again. Ani was getting good at knowing when and where he should or shouldn't say something, as he had yet to slip up about magic that he was aware of.

They moved up the elevator that Harry sometimes used to get to their apartments, however he usually used the stairs, but his guests had an R2 unit with them. Inside Padme looked around in appreciation, and the Jedi even seemed to be looking around in awe, and Harry could see his attention being drawn to a few of the minor magical items in the room. Harry was proud of their home, as it was both tasteful, but clearly showed off Harry's wealth. It was mostly Shmi and PA's work, but he definitely had his input.

Shmi led them to the large open lounging area and had everyone sit down as they could see the sand storm coming in through the large clear bay 'windows' looking out just above the wall surrounding the compound and over the city. She got up after asking everyone what they wanted to drink, and left to get them drinks. Once she returned and had settled herself beside him, they started to talk about the elephant in the room.

"There is a chance aid from the Senate will be slow to come, if it comes at all." he warned the young queen when she told him her plans.

"I know, but there is little else I can do, that is other than watch my people suffer and starve to death." she said with her feisty anger coming through, but it was clear that it came from her huge amount of care she had for her people. She honestly was handling this situation so well for someone so young. Harry still didn't understand why the people of Naboo would elect someone so young to be their Queen, but she certainly was doing the best job she could in the situation. It seemed they had chosen well in her, as she was handling this better than some adults he knew would.

"Well I can see what I can do. But I can't do it all for free being a merchant, so you'll have to pay at least my costs in the end, but I will give you the good friend discount." he said to the quite distraught girl as Ani gave him a pleading look. They both perked up at that, and the Queen happily nodded in acceptance of his terms. "PA can you open communications with Trade Six?" he asked PA who had finally showed up in person.

"One second Harry." she said before a few second's later a holographic projection of the command droid was once more presented to them.

"Sir, how may I help you?" the droid did a full salute.

"I am going to need you to try and put the blockade runner nickname of the CR90 to the test." he said to the droid. "I want you to run the blockade and drop off as much of the food and medicine you have in your stores to the locals. While you are there you are to send a message to our HQ to start distributing their emergency supplies to the locals in Theed as well. Tell them to be careful and try not to get caught." he ordered the droid. "After you have run the blockade, if you can manage to make it back out good, otherwise if your ship is too damaged, set its self destruct and abandon it. After that find any local resistance groups and attempt to aid them. Utilize your superior fighters, and put them to good effect." he said finally.

"Yes SIR!" the commander said clearly excited to get some real 'military' action in.

"Anything I should add, your Majesty?" he asked Padme.

"No, but thank you, and I hope you are successful." she said to the command droid, and him both. "We will be in your debt."

"May the force be with you." Qui-Gon said to the droid, who then disappeared as the communications were cut off.

"PA, can you have some of our ships that aren't on priority missions to start to assemble here." he said pointing on a holo map he just pulled up, to a point just outside the hyperlane that leads to Naboo. It was about a 45 minute jump for his ships to get to Naboo. "I feel Naboo will need some more help, as I think our Queen here is going to be disappointed by the Senate." he said to PA and the group.

"I will have it done Harry, but I want to start making some more orders for ships immediately, as I think we will need them after this is all said and done." PA replied a bit sadly to him.

"Yeah that's alright, just let me look over any models or designs for any improvements I might want to make or to reject any I don't like." he said to the droid who had started managing an increasingly larger amount of his business empire. "And don't spend all my money." he said jokingly to the droid as he still carried around hundreds of millions of gold coins on his person.

"You really don't think the senate will be able to help at all?" Padme asked him, a bit sadly.

"I just don't have the best experiences with political groups like the senate or old men who sit around thinking they know best, as they both seem to end up doing more harm than good, and often are either blinded by their own hubris or are corrupt." he said to the young girl trying not to destroy all the hopes she had. He hated seeing how those Trade Federations fuckers had made this young woman so upset.

"I can understand those feelings, however the Senate while corrupt in some cases, should be able to help us here." Qui-Gon said to him and the young Queen. Clearly the over optimist in the group.

"Are you a Jedi Knight?" Anakin excitedly asked Qui-Gon all of a sudden, but Harry had seen that the man's cloak moved to briefly display his lightsaber while trying to console Padme with his words. Of course Anakin wouldn't miss that even if there had been a herd of Banthas running through the room, and a new model podracer being started up at the same time. No, the kid had a bit of an obsession about becoming a Jedi, and said he often had dreams about it. Going around in his monk robes freeing slaves around the Galaxy. Harry had no desire to try to dictate to the kid what he should do, that screamed too much like the Dursleys to him, so he only showed Anakin his support for his aspirations.

"What makes you think that?" Qui-Gon asked Anakin to test him and to also have a bit of fun too.

"I saw your laser sword. Only Jedis carry that kind of weapon, not even Harry has one!" he answered the man.

"Perhaps I killed a Jedi and took it from him." Qui-Gon countered.

"I don't think so. No one but someone like Harry could kill a Jedi!" answered Anakin, much to Harry's own chagrin as he almost spat out his drink he was sipping at that moment. He really didn't need the Jedi thinking he was going to go around killing them, or that he could.

"I wish that were so." Qui-Gon said looking at Anakin before giving Harry a quick glance.

"I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back here and freed all the slaves with the help of the Jedi order." Anakin said to the Jedi Master, that comment really gave a punch to Harry's stomach as he really hadn't done too much to reduce slavery around the planet or galaxy. Sure he had done a few things, like pushed Jabba more about removing any other slave markets on Tatooine. However the scale of the problem was just so large that Harry had no idea how to do anything but waste money in pursuit of the goal.

There were billions of planets out there for slavers to hit, too many for him to protect and honestly he needed to concentrate on his immediate area and his own personal attachments and issues. However, that didn't mean he could not start taking a bit more active role against the trade. He was not too altruistic to try and fix the whole galaxy, but he will try to at least see if he could tackle the issue in his local area.

"You guess correctly Anakin." Qui-Gon said to the boy after that comment. "I am a Master of the Jedi Order, and was assigned to help her Majesty here with her goal of freeing her people." he said to Ani once again looking over the boy closely.

"Can you teach me to become a Jedi?" Anakin asked, causing worry to flare up a bit from Shmi.

"To become a Jedi you must go to the Order's temple on Coruscant, and there are a number of rules to becoming a Jedi." Qui-Gon said to the boy before looking at Harry and Shmi. "Your parents would most likely miss you, as you would not be able to come back to visit often, if ever." Qui-Gon said dampening Anakin desire a small bit as he looked over to his mother who he loved so much it always made Harry smile, and missed that he couldn't have that with his own mother.

"I just feel I am supposed to be a Jedi." Anakin said flatly.

"If I could do a little test?" Qui-Gon looked to him for his permission.

"Ask his mother, it would be her decision. While Anakin is a son to me in every way but blood, Shmi is his biological mother." he said to the Jedi, getting a bit of surprise out of him. He also felt a warm surge of happiness from Anakin at his public acknowledgment of their relationship. Harry assumed Qui-Gon had thought Anakin was his biological son, so he wanted to head that off early.

"It just a simple blood test and won't hurt at all." Qui-Gon said to Shmi who nodded her head in acceptance. Qui-Gon then took Anakin's hand and put a finger to a device that took a small blood sample. He then took a data chit from it and attached it to his communicator. "Obi-Wan?" he said into his communicator.

"Yes Master?" the person he assumed to be Obi-Wan answered Qui-Gon.

"I need an analysis on this blood sample I'm sending you." he said to the person on the other side of the communicator, and ended up answering the unspoken question in the room. "He's my Padawan Learner, soon to graduate into a Jedi Knight." he told everyone while not holding down the button on the communicator.

"Wait a moment." the man's Padawan said through the communicator that seemed to act quite a bit like a radio handset.

"I need a midi-chlorian count." Qui-Gon to Obi-Wan, mentioning something Harry had never heard of before. He may have to look into whatever a midi-chlorian was.

"The readings are off the chart, over 20,000. Even Master Yoda doesn't have a midi-chlorian count that high." Obi-Wan said with a bit of disbelief. Harry was getting more and more interested in this conversation as it progressed. He had always known that people seemed to have different degrees of abilities here to interact with the ambient magic. However it seemed the Jedi had some way to actually quantify this talent. Obviously natural talent isn't everything, and skill and practice were still required. He had beat that notion into Anakin's head over the years, so this should not go to his head either, with being 'off the charts'.

"Does that mean I can become a Jedi?" Anakin asked, getting excited.

"Maybe, I am not sure." the Jedi Master answered him. "You will need your mother's permission first, and it will depend on whether the council will allow you to join so late." the man said honestly, however Harry could sense his doubt about whether or not the council would accept Anakin. Harry could also feel the man's conviction to teach Anakin either way.

"Well I have always been supportive of exploring developing your powers Ani." he said to the little guy, and decided to let slip a bit more about himself to the Jedi to see what their reaction would be in the future. "You know my people are different and use the force in our own unique ways, so I have taught you most of what I think you could easily imitate, and you just need to continue to practice those abilities. There are only so many of my abilities you can tap into." he continued explaining, giving the Jedi a small understanding in how he was different. "However if the Jedi do turn you away, you can decide to dedicate your life more strongly to my Force lessons and we will certainly be able to expand your abilities through hard work." he finished. Qui-Gon's interest was obviously peaked but he ended up asking a question that Harry wasn't expecting, and not to him either.

"If you don't mind me asking. Who is Anakin's father?" Qui-Gon asked of Shmi. This was actually something that Harry had never asked about, as it didn't seem to really matter to him and Shmi never seemed to have any desire to speak of it. Harry had just assumed Anakin was the result of one of the sadder aspects of a female slave's life. So his attention was now peaked with the topic being broached.

"He didn't have one till Harry." she said looking at him fondly. "I carried him, birthed him, and raised him, and I still don't know what happened, but I won't trade him for anything." she said as she smiled at her son who was looking at her with a large amount of confusion. Harry could sense her honestly about what she was saying, and that she wasn't just trying to hide something terrible. In fact, she seemed to be truly happy about the entire series of events.

"Interesting." Qui-Gon said making Harry even more interested in what his opinion was on the topic. Even though Harry may rag on the Jedi's lack of ability with magic or the force as they called it, they still had a huge pool of experience and knowledge to pull from. However Qui-Gon clearly wasn't going to share anything he may have deduced, so Harry changed the subject.

"Well Ani, if you get accepted to the Jedi Order, me and your mother can always come and visit." he said to the boy who started smiling again. "It's not like they could stop me even if they tried." he said with a wink, getting a giggle out of Ani. He had shared a bit of his love of pranking with the boy, but was careful to teach him to pick the right targets. The wrong choice here on Tatooine could be deadly, but he still had a fairly large group of friends his age. However it had exposed the kid to a few of his more stealthy abilities. "I don't believe your mother or I have a problem with you trying to become a Jedi." he said looking to Shmi who nodded her head in agreement.

"Awesome!" Anakin exclaimed. "I can't wait!"

"How long will it take to repair the ship?" Padme asked changing the subject in her worry, not that anyone cared as it seemed to be resolved for now. It was PA who answered her.

"Sensor scans show the sand storm will last till either early morning or afternoon tomorrow. Afterwards the hyperdrive and other parts will be delivered directly to your ship, and repairs will be enacted. It should be done either at the end of the day tomorrow or early the next day." PA said answering the young Lady in the reassuring motherly voice she had. "I would bet closer to the morning the next day however your Majesty."

"That is alright, and thank you all for your help." she said to them all seriously.

"I wish I could be more helpful, but I still haven't gotten around to my personal starship project, or keeping a proper spare hyperspace vessel around here." he apologized to the Queen, as he knew his nearest trade vessel was still 34 hours out. "I also don't think you will find faster transit with others, or at least safe enough to be willing to risk it." he finished explaining the possible options to her. "The lack of a ship is something I am going to rectify soon though," he said looking to PA who beeped in confirmation of getting his unsaid message.

They all ended up having a nice dinner together, and got ready to go to sleep as they had a lot to do tomorrow. Anakin wanted to show Padme a bunch of things he had been working on, Harry had quietly told him to avoid a few projects on his tour around the property tomorrow. Harry had also sat down for a private chat with Qui-Gon.

"Those small aliens I saw working on our dinner, they are force sensitives are they not?" the Jedi asked Harry.

"Yes and No. They are symbiotic species to my own. You may be able to sense the bond between myself and them if you are sensitive enough." he said to the man. "They draw a bit of the Force through the bond from me. They use this to sustain their lives and help them prosper, in exchange they offer their services to the one they are bonded to." he said to the man.

"Interesting, I have never encountered a species like that before. I know of animals that require the force to survive, but none that draw it through a bond such as that." the man said, quite intrigued.

"So why is it you feel that the Jedi Council might reject Anakin?" he asked something he had been wondering.

"They may feel he is too old, and as a result formed too many attachments." the man said. This was always the thing that confused Harry the most about the order.

"Why would that matter?" he asked, still confused.

"The Jedi Order believes that attachments and the emotions that come with them can lead to darker emotions that quickly lead to the dark side and cause a Jedi to fall." the man said seriously. "Not all agree, and in the past the Jedi didn't think this way, but it has proven to be somewhat effective in reducing dark side users in the galaxy." Qui-Gon finished his explanation.

Harry wasn't quite sure if he bought that pile of bantha poodoo, but decided that he may not actually know best. The way magic, or the Force, dammit he may end up just having to call it the Force to stop confusing himself or looking like a bumpkin to others, anyways, the Force certainly acts differently for non wizard users, so there may be more to fear about dark side than Harry knew for a non Wizard. However he wasn't convicted and he let the man know.

"I am not sure if I buy that, I know from personal experience, it was my love for some people around me that has prevented me from doing some truly dark things." he admitted to the man. "So I think the Jedi Order may be looking at this from far too skewed of a perspective. They also are forsaking any who do fall, as without someone they truly love, they will have a hard time coming back from the other side." he said to the Jedi who seemed to be taking his words seriously.

"You may correct, and I agree with you in some respects." Qui-Gon said to him but wasn't letting the ball drop yet till he spoke again. "However many on the council would not."

"Haha old men sitting around doing nothing, letting their hubris go to their heads. How unexpected." he said sarcastically, shaking his head and chuckling a bit, not truly reprimanding them as he had not actually met them. "Some things don't ever change," he said with a chuckle.

"Enough about the Jedi, you mentioned you are not a normal force user. How so?" Qui-Gon asked him, obviously wanting to learn more about him.

"Well it's fairly simple, I am not a base human, and as a quirk of my peoples biology we interact with the force in a unique intimate manner that I have yet to see in anyone else in my years here on Tatooine." he said to the man fairly honestly. "The reason I left my home behind, was because my people are far too insular for my tastes. For example some treated the Elves as slaves, and punished them accordingly, often simply because they could." he finished saying trying to drop the subject. It seemed Qui-Gon got the message and changed the subject to that of his business and other happier topics.

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Well we have finally gotten to the start of the first movie! I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter, and I will see you tomorrow with the next! May the Force be with you!