Welcome to the ninth day of Star Wars Xmas! So this chapter has a large section of tech stuff, there is a warning at the start and end of the section, and you can skim it if you want, but I don't suggest skipping it.
Small rant about Star Wars here: So more than one person has mentioned, 1400 KPH is not that fast compared to modern jets/rockets, and your right, I am fully aware of this, however that is VERY fast for an in atmo vehicle in Star Wars at this time from what I can find. Now there are a few reasons for this that I can deduce, 1) Nearly all vehicles in Star Wars are not really super aerodynamic, 2) they don't use Jets which would be dumb as Jets require air(water) to work and a good amount of battles/trips would occur extremely high altitudes (not enough air) or even out in space making these huge heavy space wasters. Rockets are a bit better of a choice, with them being usable in space, however, they still are large and both Jets and Rockets require lots of fuel (Not as big a problem for Harry with his fuel caps). 3) Jets and Rockets take huge amounts of maintenance and specialized knowledge just to continue using them, this is the opposite for so much of the tech in star wars (this might be a cop out but we really don't know how engines work in star wars and they really seem simple to fix at times). 4) Jets/Rockets ARE REALLY REALLY LOUD, LIKE DON'T UNDERESTIMATE HOW LOUD THEY ARE (loud enough their sound does damage to people and buildings, add in sonic booms too). 5) This is more related to our story, but Harry's not a rocket or jet engine engineer... He may have books, even a few designs from Earth, but that only get you so far, it would still take him years to get an engine designed to put on his ships, and it would still be quite bulky I would imagine. Anyways that is my thoughts on why the atmospheric speeds are much lower in the Star Wars universe. They do seem to go much faster in space tho... not sure how this really works LOL. That all said don't be surprised if a small rocket booster makes an appearance.
Chapter 9:
They didn't bother with any of the stealth tech as they flew into Coruscant airspace. On arrival they were quickly given clearance to land on their pad that was just above the penthouse apartment that he had PA buy a few months back. It was here so they had somewhere nice to stay, and because he wanted somewhere a bit more secure than a public spaceport to land his beauty of a ship at. Not that he felt it could be stolen, but Coruscant security may not be happy with a thief's remains smeared on their landing pad by his ship's laser cannons.
"Did Qui-Gon say when we will be able see Anakin?" Shmi asked as she moved around the apartment to get herself acquainted with it. Harry simply let his magic out a bit and did a quick scan to orientate himself, before retracting his senses back in, he certainly didn't want to have to sense anymore of this planet than he needed too. It had been disgusting enough when they had come in during their flight when he did a quick feel for the almost combined presence of the planet.
"He said he would be by 'momentarily after your arrival'. He promised to take us to the Temple where we can see Anakin. I imagine the Jedi council will also want to meet with me, and possibly you as well." he said looking over to her away from the nice view they had of a ton of traffic, the Republic Senate, and Jedi Temple. This penthouse had cost him a pretty penny, but it was close to the temple, and one of the few places that had a shuttle landing pad built in. One wasn't really spoilt for choice here on a planet where over a trillion souls never see the light of stars in their entire lives.
He didn't like the feel of this planet in the force either, and he couldn't understand why the Jedi would want to build their main temple here. It was simply not a place he wanted to spend a lot of time at, and that wasn't his dislike for politicians leaking through either. It was almost like there was a cloud of the darkside permeating this planet, and it annoyed him as it tried to constantly seep through his mental shields, entirely unsuccessful, but it was annoying as it tried to constantly cling to his mental shields only to fail to gain a grip.
"Well I am going to get changed into something more comfortable to go out in." Shmi said moving off towards their massive bedroom, with a stupid big bed. It was almost like PA was also telling him to bring more women into his life, as she was certainly vocal about him having kids for her to mother them; seemingly as much as Shmi wanted them too. What was with the woman in his life, and one was a droid too for Merlin's sake. Just then a ding indicating someone was at the front door and lift entrance. Walking over to it he saw Qui-Gon through the transparisteel standing there to be let in. So he did with a smile and a push of a button on the side.
"Long time no see, my friend. I thought you were going to visit soon?" he asked of the older Jedi.
"Yes, but between Anakin and my former master leaving the order, I have been a bit busier than expected." Qui-Gon apologized to Harry's raising an eyebrow in question about his former master. "Master Dooku felt disillusioned with the Republic and its corruption, and what he perceived as repeated failings of the Council in simply following the Republic's lead on many issues. However enough of that sad business, you seem a bit miffed?" Qui-Gon asked, bringing a small blush to Harry's face thinking back to what he had been thinking about just before the Jedi had come in.
"Yes, well life outside the Jedi order will do that to you sometimes." he said deflecting the question. He didn't need another man's advice on his soon to be wife encouraging him to develop a harem. Even if the man in question was a Jedi, well maybe even more so because he was a Jedi. "So when are you going to come to Tatooine for this visit you promised a year ago?" he asked.
"I believe another year, and Anakin will be at a point where Obi-Wan can take over as his main instructor." Qui-Gon said, seemingly proud of both of his students, even if one was a knight now. "Are you prepared for our trip to the Temple?"
"Yea, pretty much always ready to go. Shmi is just changing now. Anything I should look out for when we arrive?" he asked the Jedi as they moved over to the sitting area to wait for Shmi.
"No, nothing really, except I must inform you the council wishes to speak with you today." Qui-Gon said to Harry's quick chuckle, which caused Qui-Gon to raise an eyebrow as well.
"I told Shmi that they would most likely want to meet with me." he said with a bit of humour in his voice at the council's predictability. Just then Shmi walked out in a nice but conservative dress that still showcased her fit figure. He was certainly a lucky man to have this woman accept him with faults and all.
"Qui-Gon it is nice to see you!" Shmi said coming up giving him a quick hug, seemingly putting the Jedi a bit off kilter. "How is Anakin? He's not causing too much trouble is he?" she asked getting right to the point sitting down beside him, in full mom mode. It's kind of amazing to see how much Shmi has changed, or more precisely come out of her shell in that last decade, and at the same time was still the same woman.
"No, he does well. Is dedicated to his learning, and is progressing very quickly." Qui-Gon answered Shmi honestly. It was probably weird for the Jedi to have to deal with the parents of a Padawan, but Harry hardly ever did things normally, and that often leached to those in his surroundings.
"Are we going to head over now to see him?" Shmi asked Qui-Gon excitedly. She had clearly missed her boy over the last year.
"If you wish, we may leave immediately." Qui-Gon said getting up, while also looking over to Harry.
"Alright lead the way then." he said to the Jedi, following the man to the lift. From there it was simply a matter of them taking Qui-Gon's large airspeeder off towards the Jedi Temple. The Temple was simply massive, and made Harry wonder what the Jedi were compensating for, as it towered above nearly everything nearby. It made the Pyramids at Giza look like a child's toy. That being said, it was still quite beautiful to both his eyes and mage sight.
"That is one big building." he said teasingly to his Jedi friend who was pulling them up at a 'parking' area near one entrance.
"Yes, we will need to enter through the main entrance, and I will take you directly to the Council Harry, then lead Shmi to Anakin if that would be alright with you both?" Qui-Gon asked, clearly seeing that Shmi wouldn't want to wait around while Harry was getting grilled as she was impatient to see her boy.
"Sounds alright to me." he said to the Jedi while looking around and observing the place. There certainly were a number of Jedi here, nothing like back in the Wizarding world, but certainly far higher concentration of Force sensitives than he was used to on Tatooine. He did see a number of young kids running around seemingly happy in their little groups, which brought a smile to his face. That did make him feel better about the order, if they had not seen to the wellbeing of the initiates, even with simple regards to their childhood, he would have been upset. He knew what the galaxy was like, and imagined that a few here were getting better upbringing and lives than they would have otherwise, but it was still a sticking point for him with the Jedi Order that they took children from their families.
They got quite a few stares as they moved through the temple, as Jedi would often stop to observe them as they passed. Well mainly it was him that was getting the looks, but he had worked on his presence dampening effects of Occulemancy since Naboo, so it should not be this bad. It certainly didn't block off his presence like the Sith's ability, however it made it nearly impossible to sense outside a certain radius around him, and dampened his aura, or Force presence, considerably as well within said radius so that it wasn't a large beacon to whomever he walks by. Unfortunately, it still seemed to still be far brighter than any Jedi as he was constantly creating and putting out magic unlike everyone else here.
Thankfully there was a large elevator that took you to the council chambers that seemed to be at the top of the Jedi Temple. As they approached the door to the chambers, Harry could feel some powerful presences in the Force just inside the room. He could also feel them sensing him, and even trying to probe his mind as some Jedi seemed to instinctively do.
"I will leave you here Harry, it should only be a few moments before you are let in." Qui-Gon said before turning to Shmi. "Would you like to follow me to find your son?" he asked her.
"Oh yes, and you must give me a more detailed report on his performance. I won't allow him to slack off when out of sight." Shmi said as the two walked back towards the elevators and out of his ear shot. It was only a minute later that the council doors opened and he felt the force inviting him in. It seemed they were not going to make a power play by making him wait, and so it seemed they were already earning brownie points from him for their approach.
Walking in he was surprised to find quite the assortment of aliens present, and even a few people attending via hologram. There were still a few humans meaning they certainly out weighed the other species by a large ratio if you take into account there being millions of species. Humans were quite prevalent throughout the galaxy, and if Shmi's theory was right that may mean that they were even descendants of proto magical humans. However what caught his attention was the two small aliens that almost looked like House Elves, but did have a few differences. Both were powerful in the force and their presence felt ancient compared to most in the room.
"Welcome to the Jedi Temple Master Peverell. I am Mace Windu, Master of the Jedi order." said the human man from his seat. He had a formidable presence in the force, but not to the strength of the small green alien. "We thank you for coming to see us." he said honestly.
"Well I felt it was only polite, as you have been accommodating for me so far." he said to them alluding to them allowing their visits with Anakin. Something he knew was against their code, but they were making exceptions. "I was also a bit curious to meet this council, as it is not always often someone gets to meet other Force users. Qui-Gon has been quite polite so far, so it was only polite of me to accept his invitation." he said standing just at the entrance of the circle so he could see all the members of the Council.
"We are quite interested in your force abilities, would you be able to give us a small demonstration?" asked an old human woman who looked like a child with something new to study, getting right to the point. She kind of reminded him a bit of an older version of Hermione. "My apologies, I am Jocasta Nu, Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives." she gave him her name before waiting for his response to her question.
"A small demonstration would not be remiss." he said before thinking about what he should demonstrate. There was no reason for him to truly show them abilities he didn't want them to know about, or would be inconvenient for them to know. It had to be something that the Jedi could not easily reproduce with their own powers, so levitation was out. Then it came to him, so he intoned Aguamenti in his mind and made water appear pouring from his hand onto the stone floor in a slow gentle stream.
"Fascinating" Master Nu commented leaning closer to look at the water, and even used her abilities to summon a small amount in a ball closer to her for inspection. "Entirely real, with only a bit of the Force within it remaining from your ability." she said to him, while also letting everyone know what she was able to deduce with whatever methods she was using.
"Yes, it is an ability my people use to pull water from the surroundings. However to say we condense it is not correct, as it is simply summoned from where it is to our desired location, and in the volume we want. Within limits of course." he said to the Jedi council clearly seeing them intrigued.
"This could have many applications, and uses in survival situations for the Jedi." Master Windu commented. "Is it teachable?" he asked.
"I am unsure, initial attempts with Anakin did not work out well with any of my more advanced abilities, only with simple things like levitation." he said demonstrating by levitating the water of the floor into a sphere above his hand before banishing it away. "That will have to be something that Qui-Gon explores when he visits." he said to the council hinting towards them sending him out some time to visit, the man was good company.
"Yoda, Master Jedi I am." the small green alien said getting Harry's attention and the rest of the room. At least he remembers to introduce himself first. "Question, I have. Older than you look you are, care to explain?" asked Yoda politely even if his wording came across as a bit of an order. It was most likely because of his weird speech pattern, either way he was surprised the little guy could sense that.
"Yes, my people age far slower than normal humans. However I age far slower than even the average for my species." he said not wanting to let them know he didn't age at all, as he was still a little sensitive about letting people know that. "So yes, I am a bit older than I appear" he said with a smile, "but not nearly as old as you, old timer." he said with a chuckle, and surprisingly getting a chuckle from Yoda as well.
"Yes, clouded your future is, but for once by an ability you use and not the dark side." Yoda said intriguing everyone in the room besides Harry as he knew what he was talking about.
"Yes, I use an artifact that my people have created that possess the ability to prevent myself from being scryed upon, past, present, and future." he said to the group quite surprised at the little guy and his apparent ability to see into the future at near demand. Clearly it was not controlled, but even then that exceeded what most seers were able to do back home, but also sounded like some of the ancient wizarding stories.
"Something you dislike about us, I sense there is." asked Yoda after he closed his eyes for a bit, before opening them to observe him. Man this little guy could still glean quite a bit without him being able to get past his mental shields at all. Yoda's attempts were nothing like legilimency, and were not nearly as invasive, it was more like he was trying to use the force to draw impressions out of his mind or almost taste his presence? This meeting certainly had proved one thing, and that was there was way more he could learn from the Jedi than he expected.
"Yes, I do dislike a few of your practices, such as taking children from their families as young as you do, and your attempts to minimize your attachments." he said to the order clearly seeing some were slightly upset at his accusations. "However my species is different in that we do not feel the pull of the darkside or lightside in the same way as those who do not possess our force nature do." he said to the order calming them down and almost setting off his Hermione alarm for Master Nu. "So I can not truly judge your people on your actions you feel necessary to prevent members of your order from falling. That doesn't mean I don't disagree with the practice." he said to them, clearly gaining a bit of respect from them. Really it was simply the fact that regardless of all else, their method was effective, but only really worked while the galaxy was at peace and would fall apart at the littlest bit of pressure.
"Jedi falling to the darkside, a problem the order has had for a long time." said Yoda to him and the council, which had Harry thinking a bit about it. See he had two main reasons he believed wizards didn't feel the negative effects of the darkside as much as Force sensitive did: First Wizard or Witches were often only using their own magic for their spells, which would only corrupt them if they truly wanted it to through repeated dark or black magic use, and Secondly they were constantly producing magic in their cores in its entirely, so balanced between the light and the dark. This meant magicals had far more robust limits before they eventually fell so deeply to the darkside that like Jedi that they lost themselves to the dark magic.
However, there was one more factor, and something that not all Wizards ever even took advantage of, and that was Occulmancy. With that thought Harry started to channel his magic into his LIS around his neck, putting far more magic into it than he normally needed to summon a book for a short while. This time he wanted it to create a permanent copy of the information he wanted in one large tome. So he sent his wants of a book containing his people's entire knowledge on Occulmancy, without any of the other mind arts, or any other sensitive information. He then brought his hands, palms facing together, before bringing them slowly apart as if summoning a book between the two, which could be seen forming between his hands. Seemingly appearing out of nowhere.
Once his hands were apart they held a large tome between them. During this a few of the Jedi Masters had gotten up from their seats and even had their hands on their lightsabers but made no further moves. Yoda, on the other hand, was smiling for some reason, and Harry deduced that probably by him making this offer, the order's future had changed for the better. So before they did something stupid he turned to Master Nu who was sitting their with a look of fascination on her face.
"Master Nu, besides my species biology, there is one other thing that can help us from falling to the darkside, while also providing advantages in so many other ways." he said walking over and handing her the tome, clearly under the close watch of a few of the Masters that were just now starting to relax seeing all he seemed to do with that build up of the force was to summon a book. "This contains my peoples entire knowledge on the skill we call Occlumency. It is a skill that allows one to use the Force to protect their mind from negative outside influences, and control their thoughts and emotions." he said to the shock of a few of the masters around him which he easily felt.
Clearly they had understood the implications such a thing could have for their order. Jocasta took the book very carefully, as if it was a holy Force relic and held it closely. After handing over the book he continued explaining. "It allows one to master their mind, and through that gain a greater control over their emotions. If the Jedi order can master this method, I believe the dangers of your members falling to the darkside will be drastically reduced. However, someone trained in this method could still choose to follow the darkside of the Force." he warned the members of the council.
"A great gift, given us you have." Yoda said, having opened his eyes again. "I can already sense it saving a few members of the order, I can. This is what you started to teach young Anakin?" Yoda asked him.
"Yes, it is a great skill that not only helps with the emotions, but protects one from projecting their thoughts and presence out into the force, where another skilled force user could easily catch those stray thoughts. It also allows for one to retain and access information far more quickly." he said to the council, getting into this teaching mode on magic, one of his favorite things to do. "It can also help prevent other Force users from forcibly entering one's mind to steal information as well once you gain sufficient proficiency. I am unsure if the Jedi or the Sith possess such an ability as that, but a few of my people certainly did. It was rare, but a few did practice it." he said to the council leaving his question open.
"Yes there are several abilities similar to that, however generally the more forceful and dangerous approaches are restricted in the archives as dark side abilities." Master Nu said answering Harry's question nearly instantly, having gotten quite intrigued.
"Is there anything you would like from the order in return?" Master Windu asked, still seemingly skeptical of him.
"I would like to get some training in the lightsaber from Qui-Gon when he comes to visit in the future." he said as he summoned his blade from his pouch, showing the council. "I stole this from that Sith guy back on Tatooine, I cleansed the crystal inside about a year back and have been using it since to improve my sword skills. It's quite the versatile weapon, and offers a good amount of defense too. Which really is quite unheard of for a blade," he said to the Jedi council with a smile on his face like usual when talking about something that interested him.
"A Jedi's lightsaber is not a weapon for everyone to use, it is extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, mostly to themselves." an odd alien with a large forehead and white hair said with a slight reprimand to him.
"Yeah I figured that out quick. Especially after the first few times I nicked myself, I stopped doing that quickly." he said with a chuckle. "My people are quite resilient, and I find it incredibly relaxing to go through various forms I know with the blade while being immersed in the Force." he said to the council and saw a few of them nod in agreement, especially the Master of the Order, Mace Windu.
"We shall have to discuss it, but some minor training should not be a problem." Master Windu said to him. "Now I imagine you wish to see Anakin as well. Do you need someone to show you the way?" he asked.
"No, I should be able to find him through the Force." he said to the Master. "And thank you for your gift in return, I hope we may be able to learn more from each other in the future." he said to the whole council. "Master Nu, you are most welcome to visit whenever you get some time from your Library. My company offers secure passage from Coruscant to Tatooine. Free for any Jedi to use." he said letting them in on that little known fact, because he just made it up. He will have to remember to tell PA.
"May the force be with you." Master Windu said with a nod. "I will have a knight come find you soon to show you the way if you get lost." The Master of the order said cheekily, clearly sending the message for him not to go wander around.
"Don't worry, if I wanted to sneak around your order, you wouldn't know I was here." he said cheekily as he walked out of the room to the fleeting feeling of shock coming from a few of masters, and humour from others. The truth hurts. Harry let himself be led by the Force as it led him into the elevator and down to a well used level.
As he walked the number of children increased by quite a bit, and he could feel their curiosity at who he was. He smiled at them happily as he passed by each. He kept following the Force towards Anakin with a smile on his face when a small little Togruta girl ran right into his legs. Looking down he could see she was about four or so, and was as cute as a button. The oddest thing was, he could swear he could feel a force bond with the child almost echoing back through time, it was quite an odd feeling. It was something he was certainly going to have to investigate, as it was almost like the minor Apprentice bond he shared with Anakin. Looking down the hallway he could see a matronly looking jedi lady coming after her lost charge.
"Hello there." he said to the incredibly adorable little girl who was looking up at him in wonder.
"Who are you?" she asked slowly with that innocent voice only kids could pull off. Harry could feel this little one was already strong in the force, and would make a good Jedi one day.
"I am Hadrian Peverell, profiteer, rouge, prankster, Force user, and an all around cool guy. Or at least that depends on who you ask around here." he said with clear humour and a smile on his face to defuse any worries he was feeling from this little girl and it worked. "And you are?"
"I am Ashoka Tano, Jedi Learner of the Clawmouse Clan." she said proudly, clearly excited to be a Jedi and part of the order. Here was at least a small bit of evidence that kids were still having good childhoods here in the Jedi temple, and to be frank there was no reason to even compare it to his own.
"Which is somewhere you should be right now." a voice came from over the girl's shoulder as the older Jedi had finally caught up with the youngster. "Now Ashoka, come along, and thank you for indulging her." the Jedi said to him but just as she was about to take the youngling away both of them looked towards his waist. He looked directly to his pouch where he could feel something from the Force, whereas the Jedi was simply looking in the general area of where his pouch was.
Deciding to see what this was about, he felt with his magic for what was causing this reaction in the Force and summoned it to his hand. What appeared had him stumped for a bit before he realized what it was. It was a small silver bracelet, however what made it important was that it was enchanted, and more importantly to him, it was one of the few things he had found in his family's vault that belonged to his mother. However, he could feel what the Force wanted quite clearly, and for some reason it wanted this little Ashoka to have it. Examining the bracelet a bit closer to see exactly what it did only gave him a few clues, and not as many as he would have liked.
"What is that?" The Jedi Matron asked a bit worried, but her own curiosity at the antics of the Force were clear as day.
"This is something that belonged to my mother, and now it seems it will belong to young Ashoka." he said as he kneeled down in front of the young girl and slid the comically large bracelet over her tiny wrist. As soon as it was over it shrank down in size producing a gasp of shock from the Jedi and one of wonder from Ashoka. He could see the Jedi matron was now even a bit more warry.
"That did not answer my question fully, what does it do?" the matron asked protectively of her charge, which caused Harry to smile while standing up and patting Ashoka on the head who was still looking at the bracelet in wonder.
"I am uncertain of all its functions, however the one I could easily discover was its ability to reduce the effects of any powerful poisons or chemicals. The more powerful the poison, the more effect the bracelet will have. Whereas for weaker poisons or chemicals, like alcohol, the bracelet will have little or no effect." he said while still looking down at Ashoka. The Force acted in odd ways, but this was surely one of the most odd to him, and the most clear since arriving. "I am uncertain why the Force feels she will need that, but I doubt it will be needed anytime soon." he said to the Jedi Matron who was looking a little perplexed but nodded her head.
"Well I and young Ashoka thank you for your gift, however it is time we have gotten back to where we belong." The Jedi said to both him and Ashoka as she led the young Togruta who was still looking at him in excitement. He just knew that this was not the last time he was going to see this little one, nor for some reason did he want it to be either. He carried on his way to where he could sense Anakin, and was surprised to find him in a training area showing off his new skills with his training saber to his mom.
"Harry! Look at what I can do now!" Anakin said as soon as the boy saw him enter the enclosed large training room. There were a number of windows so it made it a nice place to train in, and Harry could see various equipment stacked off to the side. There were also balconies above the training area for people to observe from. Anakin started to move through his lightsaber moves, showing that he was starting to get good but still had far to go.
"I can see that Anakin, and in a few more years and you may be good enough to spar with me." he said to the boy a bit provokingly.
"I will! I still have a lot to learn, but I am improving fast!" the kid said before coming up to him and giving him a hug. "I missed you."
"Me too kid. Did your mom tell you about our engagement?" he asked while hugging the boy back, getting a nod and beaming smile in confirmation, which made him extremely happy that Anakin was ok with the arrangement. "So then tell me all about your first year as a Jedi Learner." he asked the kid as he and Shmi sat down on the chairs off to the side as Anakin with a ton of animation of his arms described everything he was learning about. It sounded like the kid was doing good, and him and Obi-Wan were becoming closer as well it seemed from what he heard or 'read' between the lines.
Unfortunately they could only stay for the afternoon, before they had to head back as the Jedi order was already leery about them visiting. He could also understand from their perspective of other kids whose parents were not coming by. In a few years however, Anakin will be allowed to come visit for a bit longer on Tatooine with his Master every year or so. He would see how well that turned out, and act accordingly when it happened. He understood some of the dedication required to become a Jedi, but there was only so much he was willing to accept when it came to Shmi's happiness.
Shmi was crying as they left, as she had wanted to spend more time with Ani. Regardless she was still the most supportive of his endeavors to become a Jedi, far more so than his own feelings on the matter. He would not really care too much if Anakin did not want to become a Jedi, simply as long as the kid was happy he would be fine. He also managed to get a promise from Qui-Gon to bring Anakin with him when he comes to visit in about a year's time. That should give the order enough time to really ingrain themselves on the kid before they felt he could be let out of their sight, even for only a moment.
Harry and Shmi stayed in their apartments for two days seeing some of the sights on Coruscant, however after sometime he sensed someone trying to track him with overt negative intentions, he then decided that it was time to go home. But not before he caught his pursuer, which turns out is stupidly easy when one could use magic to hide themselves and sneak up on someone.
After locating the person in the Force, he 'simply' walked up from behind hidden and silenced with his magic to the attacker, who was perched on a lookout position, and then hit them with a stunner before rolling them over to inspect. He was quite surprised to find a fairly attractive female Zabrak. Opening her eyes with his hand he quickly scanned her mind to see why she was targeting him, and whatever else he may learn.
Apparently she had been told that he was a ruthless slaver from the Outer Rim, and she had even been shown a few pictures of him with Jabba the Hutt. Digging deeper, he found that she didn't know who hired her, but they paid 200,000 credits for him dead. He also found that she was a fairly decent sort of person, even if she had been trying to kill him and did kill others. All of her targets were people who in Harry's opinion deserved death or at least had it coming, and she rarely did those types of missions anyways. The money this time was just too good for her to turn down, and even though she didn't get the name of her client, the client still came well recommended and vetted by some of her 'colleagues'.
Harry was in a bit of a pickle here, usually he would just kill someone that was trying to kill him, but this time he didn't feel it was appropriate. Therefore he simply grabbed her and apparated them both to his apartment. Shmi was sitting there on the couch watching something on the holoscreen, and raised an eyebrow at the girl dressed in black who suddenly arrived with him.
"She wanted to assassinate me, I didn't think she deserved death in return, as it was a misunderstanding." he summarized to his fiancé. Dang did he like referring to Shmi as his fiancé, if even in his own head. "She also seemed like a fairly skilled bounty hunter, we could use her skills in the coming future." he said, explaining the beginning of his plans to her.
"She's also very pretty isn't she." Shmi said, shocking Harry and even bringing a small blush to his face. "I approve." she said before going back to her program. Harry took the unconscious woman to another room where he could talk to her without disrupting Shmi. She didn't usually like to get involved in anything he did that was not really legal, preferring to stay busy with working for HPI.
Transfiguring a pillow he summoned from the side into a chair, he put the woman into it before binding her using ropes. All conjured nicely thanks to magic, it was also one of the first spells Voldemort possessing Quarrel had used against him. Sitting in another chair across from the woman, that he created the same way, he looked at her before sending a quick enervate.
She was instantly alert and looking around, after seeing him she tried to break out of her bonds with all her strength. His magical ropes were not budging though, as she finally settled down to look him over closely. Before looking around for any possible escape routes.
"Hi, I am Hadrian Peverell, and I think someone has misled you about who I am." he said calmly to her as she increased her scrutiny of him. "You see I believe someone has told you I am some giant asshole slaver deserving death, when in fact I own no slaves, and have actively worked against the practice." he said to the woman noting her surprise and anger. "If you would be so kind to offer your own name?" he asked of the mid twenties woman in front of him, already knowing the answer.
"Sugi, and if you're not a slaver, why have you been seen with a crime lord Hutt?" she asked accusingly, obviously not wanting to be wrong in her convictions.
"You mean Jabba?" he asked curiously, getting a nod in somewhat confirmation from the woman in return. "Well me and him have been actively working together to raise his profile in his clan for a number of years. Which he recently used to ban them from operating any more slave operations. It not outright banning slavery within his clan, but it's still a start." he said honestly to the woman. "He also distributes legal products for my company that he sells to Hutt space, and to many places across the Republic bringing in legal credits to reduce his clan's dependency on less savory means." he said the woman who clearly still didn't quite believe him.
"If what you say is true then someone tried to use me to murder an innocent man." Sugi said angerly at him but also at whoever was fucking with her.
"Well I can prove it to you by simply taking you with me and my fiancé to Tatooine where you can see I was telling the truth." he said to the woman, seeing her suspicions rising again he cut it off before it got there. "If I wanted to kill you or take you there by force, I could have done all that without waking you up." he pointed out to her, defusing quite a bit of her anger, removing most of the rest when he waved his hand and the ropes fell to the side. She was obviously a bit weary on how he had done that, which he could easily feel through the force, but she quickly let it go as unimportant for now.
"Why would I want to do that?" Sugi asked him, putting on a tough front she really wasn't feeling at this moment in time.
"Well so you can be assured by yourself, that someone is trying to screw with you, and so that once you have, I can then hire you to find who hired you in the first place." he said to her getting up and leading her out of the room. "Seems like a win win to me." he said, seeing her deep in thought, before a smile broke out.
"Alright I will agree to come, but I will make my own way there." she said to him as he diverted from going to the lounge and instead to the elevator door. "How will I find you." she asked.
"Just find any HPI droids on the planet and ask, or ask when you land at the spaceport, I own them both." he said to her surprise, clearly someone had fed her a ton of BS on him if she didn't even know he was as wealthy as he was or ran a business on the planet. He also didn't blame her for the lack of information gathered by herself, as there was no google here, and no easy way to use the Holonet to gain information like that. The holonet was more like a cable service and a super primitive dialup primitive internet put together.
"That is fine by me. I will see you there." Sugi said as the door to the lift opened and she walked in. Harry took a quick glance almost involuntarily to her ass, that was clad in her tight black leather pants. Dammit, Shmi was right, he was a horn dog in disguise, and that was a fine booty. With that he went to collect his fiance that kept trying to get him to stray wayward and prepared to leave for Tatooine.
Throughout the entire trip here, he had hardly thought about any of the projects he had on hold back home, and if that is not the sign of a good vacation, he didn't know what was. Either way it was time to get back to shagging his soon to be wife the rest of the way back to Tatooine. It was nice having a private love boat, er he meant personal shuttle, for his own use, and have someone amazing to share it with.
When they dropped out of hyperspace over Tatooine they saw the 4 deep blue painted HPI ACs and their three similarly painted CR90 escorts each. As they approached the planet, a few CS fighters that were patrolling the area changed course to intercept them. However they all broke off quickly as the pilot droid on the Marauder sent out their identification. It was quite a sight to see over the once lonely little planet and certainly will be a shock to anyone who visits that has been before and not heard about the changes since their last visit.
As the Marauder entered the airspace over Mos Espa he could see how far the now true city had come. Rather than mostly sand cement like buildings, now there were many buildings made out of metals and this plastic cement like stuff used all over the core called Permex. It was a bit expensive for him to have it brought in, but it could be easily used and made into whatever you wanted to build. It could even be made into Permacite for a huge increase in durability, ideal for any high value military installation, or simply something you wanted to last. So of course Harry used this often for his own properties. Spare no cost, was usually his mentality when it came to protecting his assets or making his stuff last.
They flew low over the city and approached the main HPI compound which still housed his first and largest shop, but now was far larger and impossible to miss. The compound had nearly 25m tall walls surrounding it with laser cannons, and even a few turbo laser cannons spaced out along its top. The whole compound was a few sq km now and took up a significant part of the commerce district of Mos Espa. Thankfully it was not an industrial waste land like he had seen in similar high commerce areas around the Galaxy. He and PA made sure of that.
His company's complex was clean, and certainly looked to be in better condition than everything around it. Inside his shop was still made out of high quality materials to show off his wealth, and to attract customers in. However surrounding it to the back was large piles or organized materials and many many more buildings than before. Most were warehouses, but a few were set up to facilitate larger orders from his company, such as shuttle loading zones, shipping centers, or even office buildings.
The Marauder came in for its landing, and smoothly touched down due to the amazing Ion Engines it had. They were certainly something he would be adding to his ships when he started designing them. He had finally decided that he was going to do one last review of his new droid designs he had done before he handed them off to PA for production. So while Shmi went to their apartments to get settled back in and caught up on her own work, he went to his private office to finalize his designs.
**Mass technical information**
He had come up with a number of designs for his future army so that he can truly ensure the protection of his assets and anything important to him. With that goal in mind he also wanted them to be well rounded, so that there were no fatal flaws for enemies to exploit. He expected to have to build quite the force up in secret before ever truly deploying them in numbers for obvious reasons. This was because right now, he felt somewhat secure, and his force senses agreed, however in the coming decades he could sense many dangers coming, and for decades after too.
Thankfully he had spent a lot of time looking over blaster technology, as BlasTech was being obstinate about producing anything to custom order. This meant that for him to properly equip his droids, unless he wanted to cut corners, he had to develop his own blaster technology. It wasn't actually very hard, as blasters were really similar to laser cannon technology, just FAR smaller. He had some experience there, so it wasn't too much of an issue. However, what this meant was that instead of actually equipping most of his troops with detachable blasters meant for organics, he simply built them into their bodies instead. Ready to be deployed on demand or need.
He also worked on ensuring the Droid Control Units were secure, and even had self-destruct mechanisms inside to destroy themselves and any information they contained if compromised. This was to protect his hyperspace routes, planet locations, and any other valuable information they may contain. It also prevented people from copying them or figuring out how they worked. Finally he also tried his hardest to make his droids and things he built were as hard to reproduce as possible, as he was afraid he would simply hand his enemies improved equipment to build if he didn't.
The first droid model he built was to be his cheaper dispensable general battle droid called HB-1. Similar in role to the B1, however it also was to fill roles where they saw less battle, such as a guard or sentry duty. They could also easily be added in great numbers to cargo holds of his ships when they are traveling through space. This was mainly due to being able to pack themselves into compact squares just slightly bigger than a B1s. This would ensure a ship's safety, as well as its ability to project a quite substantial number of troops to somewhere in a pinch as a few dozen at minimum could be stored easily on each of his ships. A few dozen well equipped quality troops could do real damage wherever they went.
Like all his droids, big or small, HB-1s came with a Droid Control Unit inside to allow them to act tactically and strategically together with all other droids in range. Or independently if needed. This allowed his droids quite a bit of versatility, which was severely limited in the Trade Federation's B1s by their hardware and software. Unlike his more expensive designs, Trade Federation droids did not have extensive data banks or hardware, and therefore could only fill limited roles. This meant that they needed to download a very specific programming for whatever it needed to do, or if it needed to change roles without an update it severely limited their capabilities. Whereas his designs could have a far more robust programming and could even have a small number of different minor specializations pre-downloaded and ready to use.
The HB-1 was still quite fluid in it's movements even though it was cheap in comparison to his other designs, and it still surpassed the strength of about 3 very strong humans. This allowed them to perform in close combat if required, however this was not their main role. Like alluded to before, their main role was to simply lay down lots of blaster fire from their two built in dual repeating arm blasters. These blasters have semi-auto and auto fire modes, and could lay down a serious amount of fire. They were accurate within 200m, effective within 500m, and all at a rate of 12rps (rounds per second) each at max rate of fire.
HB-1s were lightly armoured, but with enough that it allowed them to shrug off a few light blaster shots, and potentially a glancing heavy blaster shot. This meant they had quite a bit more durability than B1s and would not simply fall over inoperable if you hit them hard enough with a tree branch. That being said, he did try and keep their costs down and ensure their ease of production, as that was important if he was going to be building them in his own factories. At the end of the day they ended up costing about 5000 credits, a far lower cost for him then his GU series he was using that they would be entirely replacing them, as well as being far more competent in the roles they would fill in the future too. It was a win-win for him, however the cost was certainly higher than the roughly 3000 credit cost for B1 battle droids.
Due to the hardware limitations of the mass produced HB-1s, mainly to keep costs down, he had to create two other battle droids as well. The second was his Specialist droid HB-2, that while similar to the HB-1 in shape and size, came with far more databanks, and increased processing power. This allowed them to take on far more specialized roles such as commandos, pilots, doctors, officers in battle, investigators, strategists, and whatever else they needed to do. They simply downloaded new programming sets for whatever role they needed to fill and got to it. Unlike the HB-1s, the HB-2s could have programming for many many more roles stored at once without issue, and switch between them seamlessly.
HB-2s were slightly more armoured than the HB-1s, and their main systems were in their chest as well. This meant that their head could be removed, and they would still be able to function. Albeit obviously with reduced capabilities, as many sensors were housed in their head. These droids were an improvement from the HB-1s in nearly every respect, and that was reflected in their cost of 8500 credits. He hoped to have about one of these for every 20 or so of his HB-1s.
The last battle droid he developed was his mainline battle droid. These were his replacement for the Droidekas and what he felt the B1s lacked in being able to bring to the battlefield. The HB-3s were larger than either the HB-1, or 2s, as they came in at just 2.5m tall and were heavily armoured. On top of having the two dual repeating arm blaster cannons, they also had guided rockets that could fire from a concealed launcher in their shoulders with a six rounds capacity each.
Each HB-3 had a similar but slightly improved version of the Droideka shield, and could sit there dishing out blaster fire without taking damage themselves. Even if you managed to overcome the deflectors, they also still had their armour you had to break through that could take a few heavy blaster shots easily. While still vulnerable to heavier fire from ships or weapons systems, they were going to be hell to face for anyone on the battlefield with something smaller than a rocket launcher, and even then.
He added a small almost backpack looking thing to them, that was basically a larger heavily armoured power generator they would need to power all the subsystems the droid carried. The back piece had extra blaster gas for their weapons, and even included a small compartment for medical supplies for anyone fighting with his droids. It also conveniently acted as an area to install a jetpack on them. Normally these jetpacks would be fairly limited, but due to his runic fuel caps, these droids could use their jet packs for a substantial amount of time before overheating kicks in.
Speaking of fuel caps, PA had come by one day with a huge crate of tiny little caps that were barely 1cm across and 10mm thick. The runes for his array were so tiny he could barely even make them out, and had asked PA what they were before she explained. The R2s basically used their incredible precision to carve these runes for him to empower for his coming droids. Harry had even enlarged one with magic to check them out, and was quite surprised at the precision the droids had at such a scale. This would allow his droids basically indefinite combat time in terms of fuel, and they could be left somewhere for a long time to keep guard, or continue maintenance of a facility.
From then on he would get a few crates a day to empower full of small fuel caps, ready to be installed and initialized on his future droids. He had even thought about things like, what would happen if the droid was damaged, would his caps keep producing fuel spilling it everywhere for a time? While not a huge problem as the fuel will disappear eventually, unlike his blaster gas which was created from various gases in an atmosphere, this fuel was conjured. To remedy that issue he added in the pressure gauge portion of the runes to determine if there is a major fuel leak and stop producing fuel. Fuel caps ended up saving space in his droids, and even cut down on costs for his droid operations.
Finally for each of his HB-3s, they had similar capabilities to the HB-2s in their ability to learn, download, and utilize what he had given to them effectively on the battlefield. There was no point in him spending a lot more on a droid and skimp on its logic circuits simply to save a bit, thereby effectively gimping them on the battlefield. However this all came at a fairly large cost, being 35,000 credits each. He wanted to build them at about 1:10 compared with HB-1s. Meaning they were going to cost him quite a large amount of credits to amass any reasonable number. Not that he was having any form of credit shortage at the moment.
All of the HB series droids had a number of small additions that aided them in their duties. Good sensors, quality green blaster gas, mag boots or at least this galaxy's upgraded version of them, substantial hardening of their circuits to protect from ion and EMP weapons, and finally they could all pack up to be transported in larger numbers like the B1s. This was mostly because he saw how effective that was in allowing The Trade Federation to move a large number of droids, and their equipment in a small number of landing craft. They all had hands, on top of being humanoid in shape. This was to allow them to more easily interact with others, as well as commandeer any enemy hardware or equipment.
The last standard humanoid droid he created was the HW-1, which was an all purpose worker droid. These would be found everywhere from cleaning his shops, to on the battlefield doing auxiliary actions, such as cleaning up battlefields, repairing damaged droids, and running supplies around. They could fight fires, build bases, harvest resources, or even assemble a starship. They were basically versatile all around non-combat droids to be utilized on his ships, bases, factories, and companies facilities. They were cheap compared to his others only coming in at 2000 credits each. They were not however specialized mining droids, those he was still purchasing, for now at least.
As great as all these are, the Battle of Naboo clearly showed him that no matter how many droids he has, if he didn't have the large hardware to back them up, they would get crushed. That was why alongside his droids, he developed equipment to fight side by side with them in many fields of battle. This was a wide range of things, however much of it was either inspired by what he learnt from the Trade Federation, or from Earth's past.
Starting from small to large, he took the Trade Federation's design for a Single Trooper Aerial Platform mini speeder, and remodeled it to allow for slightly better usage for organics. This was in case they were ever emplaced along his troops. He liked the STAPs because they were quite economical in designs, and relied more on speed than defenses. That being said, for around 3000 credits these could go 400km/h, and had two repeating dual blaster cannons.
So he used what he learnt from the STAP and built the TT-01 or Trooper Transport. It like he said was of similar design to the STAP, but instead he moved the turbines to below the foot rests, and enlarged them slightly. He added a deflector for minor blasters shots, to reduce drag, and protect it from small collisions while traveling quickly. They each could reach heights of up to 50m, compared to the half dozen of a STAP, and had a max speed of 500 km/h.
He increased the output of the dual blaster cannons, by replacing them with ones of his own design and streamlined a few of the circuits. Finally he added a similar control mechanism as to the Marauder that allowed them to be controlled remotely. This gave him the ability to deploy them to troops if they needed them, or have troops use them to land before sending them out of the way to not be damaged by land battles by simply sitting there in the line of fire. Unfortunately his additions increased the cost by quite a bit, raising it to 5500 credits each, almost double the cost of the Trade Federation's version.
To move his ground troops around a planet and to battles in large numbers, while also storing them for transport, was his replacement to the Multi-Troop Transport or MTT of the Trade Federation. He designed the Multi Troop Carrier or MTC, to be a lightly armoured, 30m long, and 10m tall and wide, rectangle shaped carrier. It unfortunately looked like a flying brick, but could even land on top of another MTC for close packing inside a ship. It had powerful deflectors, and even had four small quad laser cannons on each bottom corner to clear any smaller ground targets when coming in to drop troops off.
Unlike the MTT, his MTC was in fact a shuttlecraft, and not simply a repulsor vehicle. This meant it had a speed of 400 km/h and could be deployed from high orbit. Each craft then would quickly move from its transport ship, and deploy onto a planet wherever required. They could even be used to deploy troops to enemy vessels, or orbital facilities. He was not quite sure why the Trade Federation didn't do something similar, because the MTT while heavily armoured, was slow at under 40 km/h top speed, and could only ever hover over the ground.
One other key difference for this craft, and many others he was building compared to the trade federation, is that they all have a Droid Control Unit inside them, making them essentially droids themselves. He did this, rather than the stupidly inefficient design of having battle droids pilot the crafts crudely into battle, taking up key space inside for the cockpit area, and having limited feeds from the ships sensors to the battle droid. This is best seen in the Armored Assault Tank from the Trade Federation where the engine is placed in the barely armoured rear creating a large vulnerability, all because central space was being used for battle droids to pilot the vehicle. It seemed crazy to him, so his designs avoided this issue altogether.
The MTC could also be put to other storage/hauling uses as well, which seemed like a huge win to him, and a huge improvement from the MTT. For once he was almost sure his version was cheaper coming in at just around 110,000 credits, though he couldn't be sure as not all prices for Trade Federation equipment were available. That being said they both came in with similar loadouts, with his being a bit better, being able to carry 156 HB-1/2 or 52 HB-3 battle droids, or some combination of droids and heavy equipment into battle. There was a possibility to outfit the MTC with a hyperdrive, but he felt for now that was cost prohibitive being 10-15 thousand more credits at least per ship.
Now came the heavy equipment. He decided to base his heavy armour off of Earth's tanks instead of the Battle Tank used by the Trade Federation. He put his quite extensive knowledge of landspeeders to work when designing this tank. It was quite similar to what one would expect a futuristic tank from Earth to be, being 8.5m long, 4m wide, 2.5m tall and shaped nearly the same with a rotating turret. That was where the similarities ended really, as it had a top speed of nearly 200 km/h.
His heavy tank was called the Tiger Tank, or TG-01, however instead of the sharp corners of the historic tiger tank, his design had smooth rounded edges and looked far more modern and gave it almost a layered plate armour look. Besides its armour plating, it came with a large series of deflector emitters, being powered by one of his powerful engines. It was designed to take a heavy beating, while also acting as forward cover for his advancing droids, all the while dishing out massive amounts of pain.
To do this, it was equipped with dual heavy laser cannons on each side of the main gun. It also had a single medium turbo laser cannon as the central weapon of the turret to even be able to target small ships. On top of that, it had a much smaller but rapid firing turreted blaster cannon. This allowed for the rapid decimation of both ground troops and larger equipment, simultaneously, while still having the capability to hit flying targets. Finally for the tougher nuts to crack, or to dish out some rapid fire power, it also had two missile launchers with 24 missiles total. The missiles were stored above the repulsors which ran down each side of the tank above where the traditional tracks would be if this was not a repulsor craft.
It was an amazing piece of heavy equipment, and would not typically be deployed in normal situations that weren't a battlefield. It would be saved for when real ground battles or attacks were expected to happen, or to protect military bases or important assets like space ports. He will have a number here at his base on Tatooine, but mostly hidden for rapid deployment when they finally enter production. As they were quite impressive, those stats unfortunately came at a cost of 135,000 credits. Far more expensive than he knew the Trade Federation's tanks were, which he was able to get some intel on costing around 75,000 credits.
To compliment the tanks he also developed a Droid Gunship. This was designed to give air to ground superiority, while still also being to fill the role of Anti-Air when needed. It was mostly based off of the gunships becoming popular on Earth when he left. However, it certainly took advantage of the technology available here in this galaxy. It was about 12m across, mostly round in shape, 2.5m thick, with a small 1.5m square box coming out the bottom of the center of its circular body. It looked like a thick deformed flying frisbee with a small square box on its bottom side in the center. There were also six small legs that could extend to allow it to land, or stack on top of another Gunship Droid for storage.
It was very lightly armoured, but had a good deflector shield on it. It was an airspeeder that had a limited operation range to about a high orbit, however that greatly reduced overall costs, while also allowing it to hover still while firing for increased accuracy. Due to it not having the engines found on a fighter, it was a bit slower with a max speed of 650 km/h, but they were not really meant to chase down other fighters or air targets. The small protrusion on the bottom had two dual turreted medium laser cannons, and in the center of the square was a larger turreted laser cannon. On each of the four sides of the circle body of the ship was rotating repeating blaster cannons, giving it multiple wide ranging firing arcs.
To top it off it has two hardpoints for installing variable launchers, bombs, concussion missiles, rockets, proton torpedoes, and even mines. This meant it could be quickly equipped before being deployed for something closer to fit the role it needed to fill, while still having oodles of firepower from laser to blaster cannons. This would hopefully ensure he has superiority on the ground, while still controlling the skies for a cheap price of 65,000 credits each. Unfortunately as said it does not truly replace a fighter or an interceptor, those would come later.
Finally he needed something to transport all of this equipment to wherever he may need it. This is where he developed his first larger craft since coming here, and his favorite designs of those he was reviewing today before sending the PA. He decided to name it the Rapid Troop Deployment Craft or RaTDaC for short. It did borrow substantially from the Haor Chall Engineering's C-9979 landing craft for its internal track, and variable storage system for rapid deployment of assets within. What he basically did was took one wing of the C-9979 cut it in half then stacked those half's on top of each other.
Like quite a bit of his new designs, the RaTDaC was more boxy in shape than other things found in the Galaxy, however this way it was extremely economical with its space. That was where its similarities with the C-9979 ended. His ship was 200m long, 85m wide, 65m tall ship with a small cockpit and crew area for non-droid passengers. It had his modified version of the Ion Engines found in the Marauder that he had developed since he got that ship, and first put his hands on the engines. This gave it a top speed of 850 km/h in the atmosphere.
The RaTDaC has a double embankment of deflector emitters running along its bottom so that it can take an extended beating towards its bottom while coming in for landing. Beside those, there are four missile launchers for rapid clearing of a landing sight, whether that is enemy units or even possibly overly large foliage. In each corner of the ship like its smaller cousin the MTC, giving good firing arcs, was eight retracting turret mounted quad laser cannons for anti fighter coverage, and support fire when coming in or taking off. Combined with the two small turbo lasers on the top for ship to ship fire, it was well armed. It had a smaller door in the front to deploy units, however it was the back that had large cargo doors that opened up to allow units to deploy quickly unlike the single file line of the C-9979.
It was not a combat ship per say, but could still defend itself while transporting its troops to a landing site. However they would never be deployed without other support vessels, as anything larger than a fighter could take it out without much trouble, as the RaTDaC only had laser cannons and two small turbo lasers, which were not equipped to deal with heavily armoured and shielded targets. It also had four legs that could retract to allow it to fully land planet side, rather than simply hover with it's repulsors.
Unlike the Trade Federation he had no large cargo vessels to transport his landing craft in, so that meant his ship needed to be hyperspace capable. So he designed this ship to have room for one to be installed, and all it was waiting on was for him to develop a good class 1 or 2 hyperdrive. For now though, the ship will be built with more expensive Nubian hyperdrives till his was finished, mainly for their smaller size and reliability. However, developing a good hyperdrive was needed for not only this ship, but other ships he was planning to create to support his ground army from space as well. It was on his list... a long list.
Like the C-9979, the RaTDaC has an astonishing loadout to be deployed. The standard RaTDaC loadout would carry an incredible, 42 TG-01 Battle Tanks, 110 TT-01 Trooper Transports, 6 Droid Gunships, and 20 MTC Multi Troop Carriers. The nice part is that the MTCs are loaded on the top 'deck' of the ship, and therefore can be deployed without the ship landing first. This allowed for multiple injections of troops in different points, or even adding additional targets for enemies to shoot at to reduce the chance that a RaTDaC failed to make landfall with all its precious cargo.
At a cost itself of 1,850,000 credits, with a full load out it would cost an incredible 9,690,000 credits filled up. Like the MTC, the RaTDaC carries about ten times its actual value in cargo to be deployed. Hence why it is so well armoured, and has strong deflectors. Each RaTDaC taken out before it deploys its loadout, was a huge loss to him in both money, and war potential. On the other hand, it was kind of scary to think that an army large enough to take on many Outer Rim planets could be built for under ten million credits. There was also a Carrier Variant of the RaTDaC, and those were designed mainly to carry Drone Gunships or CS fighters.
**End mass technical information**
He finally let out a sigh after going through all of that once again for the last time before he sent it to PA. "PA I have sent you the designs, and I have just finalized them." he said to the droid pretty worn out after his intensive review session. "You can start production whenever possible." he said to the droid, knowing she was already waiting on him as there were factory lines waiting to build these droids already on the Avalon factory world.
"I just received them, Harry. These look great, and I think you have already out done all my expectations again. I will get our small shipyard working on a few of these RaTDaCs immediately." she said happily, surprising him as he didn't even know their first testbed shipyard was online or let alone even under construction yet. That just made him need to get those fighter, starfighter, bomber, and capital ship designs finished. However first he needed to work on those pesky hyperdrives.
Maybe he should ask PA for more regular updates, but it was annoying to always hear about this ship being delivered, or that ship being ordered, or this system or hyperlane discovered. Most of the time there was really nothing interesting in new systems, besides the odd planet that had extreme material wealth in ores, plasmas, or crystals, only long term surveys will show up anything unique unfortunately. He was honestly glad to have PA handle all this stuff for him, but she did get carried away sometimes. More often than not though she surprised him in how fast she could get things done, and to what scale she took his ideas.
He could just imagine it, being questioned by a reporter or by some judge, 'wait your honor, you're saying my company is doing what? I had no idea.' He didn't need his imagination to see how well that would go over. Either way he loved his freedom, and what his company brought him, so he was not going to be changing anything.
"Harry there is a report you should see." PA said to him before he could get lost in his thoughts again. "I have sent it to your terminal."
He pulled up the report to see it was about his nearby neighbors at Geonosis. Apparently their ruler who HPI had been working on to open up a few contracts with, had been killed and replaced in a coup by one called Poggle the Lesser. Unfortunately it seemed Poggle had the backing of an outside source that had him then back a move to accept a contract from Trade Federation to produce a number of units of something for them. It sucked because they had been working for a few years on getting into Geonosis, but the Geonosians were quite stubborn at times. Apparently they had been burnt badly in the past by the Republic, which he respected their caution to some extent as a result, but really at this level it just hurt them more than helped. It was unfortunate as they had been making good progress till the change in power.
After reading through the report he finally made a decision. "PA just write the Geonosisn off as being too difficult to work with. We can concentrate our resources somewhere else that actually wants us to be there." he said to the droid who was floating beside him. There were literally hundreds of agri worlds they were servicing here in the Outer Rim that were constantly crying to them to extend extra shipping capacity to the transport lines to and from their planets.
Food took up quite a bit of cargo space, and he could only cheat so much with his trunks without someone noticing. Another nice feature offered by his company is that not all people or organizations wanted to sell directly to him, just for him to sell somewhere else, which was often what other companies insisted on. Some preferred to use HPI as more of a cargo transport service instead and sell on their own once their goods arrived somewhere. Or more likely they would already have a buyer and his company is just the delivery man. This was also why PA had insisted they get a few bulk freighters for their company, as some questions may have been asked about how they are moving so much food in AC cruisers.
Right then an alarm notification he set went off to let him know he had 30 minutes before this month's podrace started. "PA I am off to the races, gonna go earn some money." he said to the droid jokingly about his gambling profits from the races. Thankfully gambling for the races was galactic wide, at least wherever they were broadcasted to. This meant there were countless schmucks for him to take money from. Many people here had learnt to not bet against him, but that still meant they needed to know who he was betting on, and that was protected information. Unless he let slip that information to some 'friends', all in the name of increasing his influence in the area.
Getting into his luxury model speeder his company produces that he now uses, he was escorted by four GU-series battle droids on small speeder bikes. These guys basically followed him wherever he goes now, but it was for good reasons as even in his landspeeder he saw people pointing towards him, and informing their neighbors of who they had just seen. He had become quite the celebrity here, being one of the two co absolute rulers of the planet, and the one who also brought in quite a bit of prosperity to a few Outer Rim worlds.
At the podracing arena he pulled his speeder into his reserved spot he now had close to the private doors he and Jabba used. The whole arena was a huge upgrade from before, as it needed to be for the now far larger crowd sizes. With the increased population of the planet and availability of safe transit to come and enjoy the races in person, people were coming in droves. It was quite the spectacle each month during the main race, and even still quite busy during weekly races. He only went to the large monthly races, as he simply didn't have the time to go to more like Jabba did.
He nodded to the two guards of Jabba's, and the six GU droids standing at the entrance to the elevators and quickly clicked the only button there taking him to their personal booths. It was a small corridor from the elevator that led to each side with the one on the left leading to his personal booth, and the one on the right leading to Jabbas. He went left and walked into his box after entering the door code. It was quite nice, and there was already an assortment of goodies on the little counter around the kitchenette area for him to eat.
There was a large lounging area with a holovid screen, and then a balcony with many large seats to enjoy the race from. It had a bedroom for whatever reason, and a full bathroom. There was even a hot tub to boot which was crazy on this planet. Today he had decided to enjoy the race by himself when he noticed Sugi sitting in one of the seats waiting for him. Good if she could get in here without alerting others it didn't seem like he had chosen wrong. That being said he was sure PA was aware she was here, and had simply chosen to let her surprise Harry. That cheeky droid.
"I see you found your way." he said, pulling into a seat beside her as they watched the proceedings leading up to the races. Harry had gotten himself two butterbeers from the tap he had added and handed one over to Sugi, who looked it over with interest. "Something from my private stash, not yet released. Give it a try." he said to the Zarbak. He took a swig and watched her eyeing him before taking one herself. Butterbeer sounded gross but it certainly was a magical drink, and Sugi's delight he felt in the force reinforced this belief of his. It was simply deliciousness in a bottle.
"I asked around a bit about you, and it seems that what you say is true. Or at least mostly true." Sugi said, eyeing him just as the race was about to begin.
"Hold that thought." he said, interrupting her before feeling in the force for who had the best chance of winning, and placing a bet on someone new to the races he had not seen before at the console right beside his armrest. The new racer meant it was a good spread for him, so he indulged a few hundred thousand Peggats before returning his attention to Sugi. "Sorry continue, I just needed to get in a few bets before the race starts." he said as the dong sounded out and the engines of the podracers roared out of the starting area.
"I heard you had a few slaves, but if what I heard is true, one is now your fiancé and the other has left to a school of some kind. Doesn't sound much like slaves to me. Otherwise what you said seems to be true." she said a bit annoyed at him being right.
"Yea, this is not a Republic world as you imagine, and years ago before me and Jabba changed things, being a slave of someone important gave a certain amount of protection to that 'slave'. I got Anakin and Shmi as part of a business deal for a smaller shop." he told her as he watched the podracers on the 'JumboTron'. "I of course deactivated their chips, and asked them if they wanted a job at my shop, and a place to stay. A few months later me and Shmi started dating after we had gotten to know each other better." he told the woman beside him with a smile while watching the race. She certainly had done some quick investigative work to find that much out about him, all the while sorting out the nonsense.
"So, you have proved who you are to me. What is this job you want me to do?" she asked him.
"Well first I would like to put you on retainer, and then I want to send you off to find out who hired you in the first place." he told her as they started to discuss the finer details. By the end he had agreed to pay a yearly retainer fee, as well as per job fees, which she had the right to reject on moral grounds.
As they were wrapping things, out of nowhere two mercs or bounty hunters shot up with jetpacks from the crowd down below and opened fire. For once it was not at Harry, nor Sugi, but was actually at Jabba in his box to the right of Harry's. He was about to reach out with his abilities before he remembered his defensive additions and realized he could feel no threat to Jabba through the force. They shot two rockets each from their arms and pulled blasters laying down a serious amount of fire power on Jabba's box all in quick succession.
Nearly as fast, Harry pulled his heavy blaster pistol and shot one of them. His target got nailed squared in the neck and got knocked out of the sky like a fly being hit by fly swatter. His reaction time was quite a bit faster than anyone else around, so he was already aiming at the second before anyone else had fired a shot. However before he could finish squeezing the trigger he heard a shot fired from beside him nailing the second assassin in the groin of all places.
Harry could see the man fall out of the sky, not yet dead but Jabba's goons and Harry's droids already rushing to the scene. Before they got there, however, many in the crowd pulled out their own blasters and laid into the two downed assassins ensuring they were dead. Harry leaned over his balcony and looked over to Jabba to see if he was fine, and was happy to see the deflector shield that each had to protect their booth had activated and the Hutt was fine, if a bit shaken.
"Good shooting." he said to Sugi before indicating to her to follow him. He moved to the sealed door that connected his and Jabba's boxes and entered the passcode to open it up and he walked in to find a bit of chaos in the other room. Goons had their guns aimed at all the entrances, and even him, but lowered them when he walked in and they recognized him. Sugi followed him as he walked to Jabba who was talking quite loudly with Fortuna.
"Jabba are you alright?" he asked the big Hutt. "Who would have attacked you so openly like this, I thought the council prevented such things." he said to the Hutt, alluding to the council that prevented clans from coming into conflict.
"Yes fine, thanks to your defenses I thought to be ridiculous." Jabba the upset Hutt said to him before his mood souring even more. "I am as surprised as you, I had heard some rumblings about others wanting in on my success, but nothing to this level." Jabba said pointing to the still clearing smoke from the rockets that had impacted the Deflectors.
"Jabba this here is Sugi, she is a bounty hunter. Someone hired someone to kill me while I was on Coruscant last week too." he said to the big slug pointing out the new face. "I have hired her to track the person who hired a hit on me, there may be a good chance they are connected. I will have her keep you updated as well." he said to his friend who got angry at learning that Harry had been attacked as well. Jabba might not have a standing army, but he had access to many many mercenary bands out there. This meant he, and others Hutts could deploy a lot of hurt on someone, that made even the Republic avoid antagonizing the Hutts. It did not hurt that the Hutts loved to mothball tons of ships, and had been doing so for thousands of years so they could even pull capital ships out when needed.
"Yes we may need to increase security here even more." the Hutt said tapping his non-chin, a habit he did when he was in deep thought. "Yes, I will also hit back on these interlopers as well. I enjoy the sight of the ships stationed above Tatooine each time I return or leave, and their VIP escort they give me. It makes others think twice about double crossing me," Jabba said to him, giving him a compliment on getting his side of things done.
"That reminds me Jabba. If you wish to leave the planet, would you be willing to take a few of my droid starfighters along for me? It would be catastrophic if you were captured while going about your business." he said to the Hutt. "I would also recommend taking a few GU droids around as well, but that may be a bit too intrusive so I will understand if you don't want them. However, they can offer you quite a bit of protection, and you don't need to worry about their loyalties." he said to the Hutt. This would certainly give him a bit more information on the Hutt's activities, but it truly was because if Jabba was taken out, it would currently be a large setback for him.
"I can see the reasons behind your alarm, if one is willing to attack me here at my seat of power, where would they not try?" Jabba asked arbitrarily of him.
"I imagine HPI could scrounge up a few hundred spare GU droids to loan to our best customer for his protection," he said to the Hutt with a smile. "By the Force it may even be tax deductible as a business expense." he said to Jabba now his humour clearly coming through before he started chuckling. "Imagine some Republic bean counter scratching their heads over the legitimacy of 'Hutt Protection' as a business expense." he finished while laughing even more. Sugi also had a smile on her face and Jabba was rumbling in the way he did when he laughed.
"That may be worth doing just for that reason alone." Jabba said back to him. "It would also be remiss for me to put my little Punky Muffin in any more danger." Jabba said really letting Harry know that he was still in his hormone driven protective mode over his new let Huttlet. Or should he call Jabba a she right now, it was oh so confusing.
"Hopefully Sugi here will be able to turn up something, otherwise there's a few things I am gonna try to do. I usually would point fingers at the Trade Federation, but this doesn't feel like them this time around." he said to his friend. "Anyways Jabba I am glad you are well, contact me if you need anything, and don't hesitate to ask PA for assistance as well." he said before moving back to his box where he went to listen to what the crowds were saying. It wasn't hard with his slightly enhanced hearing, and all it took was a bit of force and he could make out what they were saying to each other, or at least those nearby to his box. So he sat back in his seat, and channeled the force, and listened in.
Apparently they were pissed. People were starting to like his and Jabba's rule over the planet. Even quite a few of the criminal types, as their rules ensured that those who tried to cut corners on criminal endeavors to make a quick buck were usually dealt with by Jabba, or in extreme cases him. This meant ironically crime here was even more stable with them being around, and the fact that everyone had more money to spend was also appreciated by those who had expensive things to sell. Cough fence, Cough.
The larger growing non-criminal population basically accredited their continued prosperity to him, and a bit less so to Jabba. Many of them also worked for his businesses in various ways, or in a job created by his business being around. It was crazy what types of skilled people that can be found out here in the Outer Rim if someone just had a large company that operated many spaceports, on many different planets to do your advertising for you. It was also impressive what it could do for your quality and quantity of any of your recruitment drives too. Not to even mention the skilled ex-slaves they kept getting.
His business had gotten so big now that they employed many organics people to fill roles dorids didn't do so well in. Such as interpersonal interactions that were not routine, like say a traffic control droid versus a salesperson. The salesperson more often than not would be more successful as an organic than as a droid. There were also other places as well, droids could be astounding legal aids, however most good oral arguments needed a good organic lawyer. That is to say not all droids or organics were alike, nor was it smart not to utilize both together.
That was why they had many people now working for them in their law firm, financial services sectors, species resources, and other departments that droids sucked in. A big one was marketing, and finding new and inventive ways to use his goods. This was a huge area for organics, as you usually need to market your services and products to each planet or species you were trying to sell to. So he hired tons of people, many of them former slaves that simply caught a ride on one of his ships out of wherever they were. Once on board no one tried to get them back as they would look down the barrels of laser cannons and blaster rifles of his droids and ships if they tried. Company or sovereign property and all that, or at least that was their excuse and they enforced it by arms. They fully cooperated with inspections of cargo being loaded or unloaded, however their helpfulness ended at the doorway to the ship.
Deciding to stop listening to gossip he looked over at Sugi who had been cleaning her blaster after its use. "Are we agreed then?" he asked, referring to their conversation before getting interrupted.
"YuP, and I will send reports to this droid on this frequency?" she said holding up a data chit with the frequency for PA that Harry had given her.
"Ya, that's PA. She is my personal assistant, handles my communications and such. Bust most importantly for you, handles paying almost all my people" he said to her. Honestly he didn't need this shit with assassins and such, but that was the cost of doing business in this galaxy it seemed. The bigger his business got, the bigger his profile and the more enemies he would create. "I will be seeing you around then." he said to her as he walked out and back down to his speeder. It didn't take him long to return to his office, where Dobby was waiting for him.
"Hey Dobby what can I do for you?" he asked his oldest friend. "How's Winky?"
"Winky is good, Sir." Dobby said speaking nearly perfect Basic now. "There be a problem sir." Almost perfect. "We are running out of trunk space for the herb farms. Miss PA is giving us much work, but there are not enough farms for the potions ingredients, master." Dobby said a bit distressed. That made Harry wonder a bit more about how the Elves were doing.
"Hey Dobby are there enough Elves to go around? They are all doing well? Need anything?" he asked his friend, as it had been some time since he had gotten a good update on the Elves.
"Oh yes, Master Harry." Dobby said excitedly. "With all the work, magic you give us, and the magic in the air here, we House Elves are more happy than we ever remember being, and we are having a population explosion." Dobby said excitedly, getting Harry's interests peaked.
"How many Elves are now bonded with me?" he asked Dobby, having long lost track, as it was far too difficult to tell the individual bonds apart now, and with his ever changing magical power levels he simply had no reference to work from either.
"Hmm." Dobby said, thinking for a bit. "There are about 25,547 Elves working under you now master Harry." Dobby said to Harry's utter gobsmacked face. If he had a drink in his mouth he would be spitting it out right then. It had only been 16 years since they arrived here, how in the hell had 150 Elves become 25,000. No wonder they were bonded to wizards, if there wasn't someone around for population control they would grow out of control at this rate. It made him wonder all the more where they came from, and their history with Wizards. He also did a quick check on his magical core power, and found a similar, if not smaller percentage of his power being taken by the Elves. It was quite interesting to see his growth in such terms, as he had not done anything magical substantial besides training in some time. No super flashy rituals or anything of the like, except constant training each night in his Manor Trunk to burn off his excess magic before bed.
"Well alright Dobby, you let me know if you need more room for the Elves too." he said. "Also can you have a number of trunks delivered? I will get started on enchanting them and expanding their internal space." he said to his friend planning to test his limits again with how big they could get inside. "How's the home life treating you?" he asked knowing that Dobby now had a number of little ones, a few he was even training to take over as Harry's personal Elf. Apparently there was Elf nepotism, who knew.
"There is tons of work for us, and ample magic to take from. We are all happy at home, lots of work, good magic, and ample space." the little guy said with a beaming smile. Which got Harry thinking.
"Hey Dobby, could the Elves survive without a bond to me in this magical rich environment?" he asked, to the growing horror on the Elf's face. "Not that I am planning to get rid of any of you." he said quickly gesticulating with his arms to defuse that bomb before it went off.
"No, wes be able to draw much from the environment, but we must still get a small amount from you each day, otherwise we eventually get sick and die." Dobby explained. So at least he didn't need to worry about possibly setting off a house Elf plague on the galaxy if they needed him for their population growth. Thank Merlin, who may actually be responsible this time, if some of the stories on House Elf origins were to be believed.
"Alright I was just interested." he told the Elf to pacify him. "I am glad that the Elves are..." he started saying before getting distracted by an idea he just had. He honestly could not believe he hadn't tried it before or thought of something similar. He let himself fall forward to smack his head against his table in punishment for his stupidity. This could have been making him tons of credits, and would have helped with a problem he's already had once.
"Harry Sir?" Dobby asked him a bit worried.
"Oh sorry Dobby, I just had an idea and felt like an idiot for not thinking of it before. Actually you may be able to help me test it out." he said to Dobby before reaching into his pouch and grabbing two of his spare communication mirrors and handing one to his House Elf. "Dobby, can you go on the Marauder and take it for a ten minute hyperjump and then contact me on the mirror?" he asked the little guy who took the mirror from him.
"Alright Master Harry, but what are you testing?" Dobby asked him confused.
"Something that may make PA mad that I didn't think of before." he said to the little guy honestly, who was now getting a worried look knowing PA's reputation well. "I want to see if there is a maximum distance on the mirrors, and if not then I already have a few ideas on how to use them."
"Alright I will contact you shortly, sir." Dobby said as he popped out of the room. If he could get this to work it could mean that he would have an ability to contact places even without Holonet access. Let alone the possibilities it opened for his company, and admittedly a few more sinister ideas he also had as soon as the idea started to bloom in his mind. It was like one simple thought had exploded into dozens of ideas and it got him excited.
If this test works, then he could basically set up a galactic version of the internet using mirrors as data links for his network. From there it would be fairly easy, far easier than on Earth, to set up a central exchange. No need for relays in space, or long cables like on Earth. Simply add mirrors onto the network like any other new IP address or series of addresses that was added onto the Internet. His company can then set up the other Mirrors on planets and sell access to his secure network, which itself would be linked to the Holonet at certain locations. All to ensure constant, efficient networking with the rest of the Galaxy that would still be using the Holonet.
"Sir, I am at the destination." Dobby said when he activated the mirror at the location 15 minutes later.
"Dobby can you hear me fine?" he asked the Elf.
"Yes, Sir. I am still not sure what you're testing though." Dobby asked, a bit confused.
"I just wanted to make sure that the mirrors still worked over a very long distance." he told his friend. "Dobby, you can come back, and send another Elf in your place to take a transport to Corellia and perform the same test there." He didn't actually believe the results would be any different, because from what he can tell there was no delay, even though Dobby was light years away.
"I will have an Elf who is not busy do so Sir." Dobby said closing the mirror connection.
Even before the test was done he started to conceptualize his design. In his new network, his communication mirrors will basically act as a 100% secure instant 'fiber optic' cable. With him simply having to send the light signals through on one end to be read on another. It was so simple, he felt stupid for not thinking about. About the only two things he needs to do is build a secure central hub where all the 'paired' mirrors would be stored and networked together, the other is a service provider on each planet he wanted connected to the network.
This worked great with his spaceports already, they could start offering a wireless service out of them without much issue. However he would also try to set up places all over, mainly because the cost should be incredibly low. All he needed to do was set up a small building with a mirror, and connect it to a planet's local network. In some cases he may need to set up planet side transmitters to then broadcast that access to everyone on the planet, but that was not that difficult compared to holonet transceivers blasting messages across the cosmos.
With this method Naboo during its invasion could have kept contact with the rest of the Galaxy even while jammed, providing everyone proof of the invasion without issue. He could have immediately told his droids in his HQ to start delivering aid and would not have had to risk his CR90 to do so. However PA would hate him if he didn't think about the profits that could be made too. There was stupid amounts money to be made through communication services between planets, and even more so for secure ones. No one would ever be able to 'listen' into the chatter on his system except for himself, which he certainly planned to.
See he could copy everything that was sent through his network and no one would ever know. From there all he needed to do is simply have a system to tabulate, sort, and discard 99.999% of the data it received as useless and unimportant. This would honestly fix one of his issues he felt was a fairly large hole in his enterprise he was building, and that was intelligence on his enemies or even knowing who they were. This recent attack at the race on Jabba just highlighted this.
The fact was that he was sitting on a goldmine for his company and hadn't even realized it. Not only that but it would probably spread his name faster than most of his other goods could, as most places will want one of his Galactic-Net or G-Net connections. From his central hub he could then connect it to the Holonet to connect any users of his G-Net to the holonet as well. Not only that but he could set up a number of secluded Holonet connections around the galaxy to ensure his G-Net can't get jammed in a single location either.
"Hey PA." he said. "I think I just had another money making idea." he said to the room, which only took a few seconds for PA to come zooming into the room herself in her floating droid body.
"What way do you have to make money this time Harry?" she asked excitedly.
"Ah, I think it's a big one this time." he told her, and started explaining his idea. PA's circuits nearly shorted, as she buzzed with excitement. "We just need to choose somewhere to act as a hub for us." he started planning out loud to PA. "Shouldn't take too long to design a system to do what we want, and have it be expandable as we added more sectors and planets. That means we may need a lot of space depending on the number of connections we have to our network. Oh we will also need to ensure we start with a sufficiently long starting id tag system."
"How about we use one of our new planets?" PA asked which got him thinking. That could work, he could even ward it fairly easily, well relatively, compared to a planet already occupied anyways. They could also ensure its security by the fact that no one else knew about it, security through obscurity. Possibly even a Fidelius Charm.
"That should work. It would also allow us to facilitate my idea of monitoring the traffic. It may take quite a bit of space to build a facility to do that, and was trying to figure out how to hide it here securely." he said to his assistant.
"I will get to work right away in laying plans to sell it to planets and customers, you need to get to work designing that central hub, and end system relay." PA told him. "How long do you expect it to take, and do you have an idea on the first planet to get serviced by our 'G-Net'?" PA asked.
"I think maybe around two weeks with the help of R3, and yeah I got a good idea on our first customer." he told PA, before he realized she wasn't going to reply and was now waiting on him to start getting to work on his next money making idea for her. Sheesh everyone's a slave driver around here he thought fondly before diving into his mind to start development there in his mind palace. He would do this till he had a good idea on what he was building before he started designing it on an actual Datapad or more correctly his design computer he had built for himself.
Well there we are, another chapter finished! I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, I know some will more than others as some people really enjoy the tech stuff a lot more than others. I shall see you tomorrow with another chapter, and may the Force be with you during these holidays!