Hey Everyone thanks for the awesome reception for chapter 1! I tried to answers most questions that were not too plot related, if I didn't get to your's simply rewrite it so I see it again, or hit me with a PM. Anyways I hope you all enjoy this chapter as well!
Chapter 2
Apparating to the exit of the trunk he made his way out, before closing the lid again and walking into the shop front. As he walked in he could see a few rough, goon looking types that were standing around, and one was observing the Elf that was manning the front desk. They didn't seem to be here to cause trouble, and his senses didn't scream trouble to him, so Harry was relieved, but they were certainly trying to put off an intimidating air.
"Hello, how can I help you?" he asked the clear leader who was leaning against the front counter. He looked to be a Weequay, but Harry was not 100% sure.
"We are here to see about collecting money for the protection fee for Jabba the Hutt this month." The lead goon stated, standing up and acting a bit more serious, but he was clearly still a low level enforcer for the Hutt. From the knowledge Harry had, this was a perfectly normal thing, with there being no real law here, protection money to a group or Hutt acted as a good deterrent for those who wanted to screw with you.
"For this money you would protect this establishment?" Harry asked playing dumb, as people were going to peg him as being new to town anyways.
"HAHA, NO! That is on you, however if you do get hit, we hit back and get you revenge. This discourages others from trying in the first place." the Weequay said. Harry thought it over quickly, and honestly, it wasn't a bad deal, and would help ensure people would leave him alone, whether he was on his property or moving around the city.
"How much does this protection cost me?" he asked cautiously, making sure not to act too eager or anything.
"5 Peggats a month for basic service and 15 to ensure we hit back hard." The man barked quickly, not even thinking about it. Harry quickly did the math and realized it would cost him about 600 credits a month for their 'premium' service as Peggats usually exchanged for about 40 credits each depending on if you could find a buyer. A credit was worth around 3-6 British Pounds back home but it was hard to really tell, with their buying power changing drastically depending on where you were. Really the protection fee was almost like the local taxes so he didn't really see a problem with it.
"Hmm, I can see why something like this may be required. You have a deal." he informed the leader before reaching into his side pouch and taking out 15 Peggats, putting them on the counter for the man. "I hope not to need your services, but it is better to have them than not." he finished as the Weequay picked up the coins. Throughout the conversation Harry had been using his magic to tell that the man was actually being honest with him, which was kind of funny for a protection racket.
"Agreed, it was nice doing business with you, and Jabba the Hutt welcomes you into his protection." the man said as he left. Harry had wondered if he needed some signage to advertise his new found protection, but it seemed like that was not the case. Either way he was now out of his trunk and that left him with a good opportunity to make a few orders and do some shopping.
Walking out the front of his place he looked around at the shabby joint and realized that this place simply was not to his standards, and when he got back he would have to start working on fixing it up. With that in mind he got onto his speeder and took off towards one of the nicer cantinas he knew of.
It was afternoon, so the streets were still fairly busy with people going about their days. But even then it was a bit disturbing at times during his quick trip, like riding by a few aliens eating live prey at food stalls. There seemed to be an awful lot of carnivorous species here on Tatooine, and their choice of prey certainly raised a number of moral questions. The cantina he was looking for acted as the operation base for a group of smugglers from whom he could order a Holo Transceiver of high consumer quality from.
Walking into the Cantina, he looked over the various patrons, with many of them smoking, a few even Death Sticks, which were a crappy, extremely hazardous version of pot from Earth, which for some reason Dobby included a variety of seeds for when preparing for his trip through the veil. That had certainly been an interesting discussion he had with the Elf to explain why, and exactly how that came about. Apparently preparing anything he may need, had meant a lot more to the Elf.
There was a larger table in the back corner with a Duros, a classic green looking alien that wouldn't be too out of place in Earth films. This was the woman he was looking for, as she acted as the organizer, or manager of a group of smugglers that had a fairly good reputation for completing their contracts.
Seeing an open chair in front of the lady, Harry confidently walked through the bar and took the seat. The woman looked up at him a bit surprised at his gumption but didn't look too irritated.
"What is it you want?" she asked, clearly wanting to get back to whatever she had been doing on the few padds in front of her. In fact, she did not even wait till he had answered before looking back to her padd.
"I was wondering if your group would be able to acquire a high-grade consumer or military level HoloNet transceiver array?" he asked, getting her to quickly look back up at him, as that was an expensive request.
"That will be costly, and may I ask who is inquiring?" she asked far more friendly now that he was identified as a possible customer.
"I have good hard Peggats to pay with, and my name is Hadrian Peverell. I recently purchased the scrap and parts business from that Elderly Rodian out by the edge of the marketplace." he informed the lady, clearly she knew of the property he was speaking of, as she took on a look of recognition. "I will pay half up front and half when the transceiver arrives."
"Can't do that, the transceiver is far too costly for an arrangement like that." she said. "We can do the deal if you pay 75% of the cost upfront." Harry thought about it, and could only feel honesty coming from the woman with his magic, so he decided this was probably the best bet.
"Alright, we are agreed on the split then, however, what is this going to cost me." he asked, wanting to get to the meat of their bargain.
"Well a good high end consumer transceiver will probably run you about 5,000 Peggats. With it being fairly high valued cargo, we will charge 1500 Peggats to deliver it. A military one will reach far higher." The Duros said while quickly looking through her Padds for pricing information. Honestly, from what Harry knew from the memories he stole, this was actually quite a good rate for high-end consumer equipment, and he really didn't actually need a military grade hookup.
"That price is agreeable with me," he said, not even bothering to try to bargain. "Can you have someone come to my shop to pick up the down payment?" he asked, not wanting to flash large amounts of coin at a cantina. Even if it was one of the nicer establishments, it was still a cantina, and one on a crime world to boot.
"Yes, and it has been great doing business with you so far, Hadrian." the Duros woman said before putting her hand out for him to shake or smack to acknowledge a deal being made, which he promptly did, by shaking her hand gently.
"Likewise; if this works out I will likely have future orders to place through your group." Harry said as he got back up and walked out of the Cantina with only a few people observing him. He bet by the time he was back to his shop, many of them will know his name and a bit of gossip on him. That was just the way of Tatooine.
Rather than going straight back, Harry took his speeder to a few droid shops that were around the same area of his own shop. Harry wanted to get a few working droids to start helping around the property, as well as dozens of broken ones for him to start tinkering and experimenting with.
The problem Harry had was not finding droids to buy, but trying to choose which ones to pick, and nearly every shop he visited, the owner had thought of him as a smuck to rip off. Thankfully with the help of his magic, he was able to finish his shopping spree with a number of droids as well as dozens of broken droid chassis for spare parts, all at an amazing rate due to his newfound magical trade advantage via sudo-mindreading. Invading others privacy should really have bothered him, but for some reason it just didn't. It was not like he delved too deep either.
The droids that he picked out so far were of a couple of models, mostly so that he could see what he liked the best, as well as get first hand experience with the pros and cons of each type. The few 'working' droids he picked up were 3 battle droids, 4 astromechs, a medical droid that was nearly new, a half dozen small scout droids, 3 pilot droids, 5 assorted general labour droids and a protocol droid.
He was extremely happy with his purchases, and he was glad he was on a Hutt world as some of the droids he got would have had their sales restricted in Republic space. While a few of his new droids were of custom design, a few notable exceptions were the two R2 units and his prize purchase, an actual near brand new R3 unit. He also managed to get a decent 3PX protocol droid he wanted to try and teach English. Other than getting a few basic guard style battle droids to protect his place and labour droids, he had simply gotten an assortment of smaller droids to try out.
All in all, he spent quite a bit of money today, about 15,000 Peggats, as droids were not cheap, but were still surprisingly cheaper than a good slave. Though there were still cheap slaves around. He walked back to his Speeder which had its sled loaded down with parts that the other droids were unable to carry. The Astromech droids were beeping what Harry assumed was a happy noise as his slow moving group followed him as he made his back to his property at a snail's pace. Thankfully for his sanity it was in the same area as where he had made his purchase.
Having the droids shuffle into the property, he had them move into the back storage area in the building and brought the R3 unit out back towards some of the tables and spare parts. Looking around he found what he was looking for and walked over to a pile of parts and started moving them around until he got the droid head he wanted. He used his magic to take it apart smoothly and pulled out a small box from inside.
After looking it over, and passing his magical senses through it to make sure it was working. He cast a repairo on it anyway to bring it to perfect condition. Walking back to the beeping R3 unit, which he could not understand, he started talking.
"Hey buddy, gonna just shut you down quick here as I install an upgrade so we can communicate easier." He said to the R3 unit showing him the communications module. The R3 beeped excitedly before going back into a normal sitting?/standing? position and shut down.
One of the great things about R series droids was how customizable they were, however, even then, Harry needed a few manuals related to these droids first, as there was much he didn't know about them before doing anything major. He did know enough to slowly inject his magic into the top of the droid and start taking it apart with the various components blocking his way floating gently off, screws and bolts undoing themselves like magic. From there he inserted and hooked up the communication module, before the other parts floated back onto the droid and it was whole once again. Once that was done he reached around the side opening a hatch and clicked the switch to reactivate the little guy.
"Beep, Beep." The droid chirped as it woke up excitedly, and started to obviously internally check over the upgrade. "Testing the new upgrade, can you understand me master?" the R3 unit asked. Harry simply could not understand why these droids were not installed with communication modules in the first place, but it was not something hard for him to fix on his own droids.
"Yes, it's working great!" he said to the excited droid, who seemed to have a fairly nice voice and attitude. "Now that we have that done and can communicate, we have a ton of things to get done around here before my delivery arrives. Now I would like you to go check over and enact any simple repairs upon the working droids inside, and inform me when you're done or need assistance, after that we will be doing some significant remodeling around here." Harry finished saying to the droid as he looked around at the honestly pitiful property he owned. The only thing it had going for it was the fact that it had lots of land, and a good location.
"Affirmative." the R3 said while it started to wheel across the property to the building and went inside to follow his orders. Harry wanted to make some major changes here on the property and the first thing he was going to start with was the walls surrounding his compound.
Harry and the droids, with the judicial help of his House Elves, had spent the last few weeks remodeling his entire property. The only interruption he had was the group of ten aliens that came by the pick up the down payment for his order which was going to take nearly 3 weeks to arrive. Otherwise there were no other interruptions, and few breaks during the 'great renovation'. He didn't even bother putting up illusions to hide the work or anything, as the wards he had put over the property should be able to do that easily for them.
It was quite satisfying looking at the finished product. He had put up 4m walls all the way around his property adding another 0.75m feet of height to the previous walls. He had them remade entirely out of granite this time, which, while a bit pricier here, was not impossible to find. However, the granite he used was from his supply in his expanded trunks. There was a single large gate that opened up to the front of his property with two large sign boards on each side for whatever he may want to advertise. There was also a spot at the top of the metal wrought gate for the name of his future store.
Inside he had leveled the entire property and removed the sand, before replacing the ground at the entryway with an extremely tasteful looking rock garden, as plants were not really a choice here due to water shortages. Not that that would have held him back, but it would cause a lot of people to start questioning things if he had a number of plants. He had a nice path that led to the now two story large steel grey stone building.
He had torn down basically everything on the property to rebuild it, and even with his magic, the droids still did a ton and actually were quite helpful at doing menial tasks. He also had the astromechs run all the various electrical lines needed throughout the building, and had the Elves do most of the construction. Though he kept the protocol droid offline for now, as it had an incredibly annoying voice, and had been pestering him.
The building he constructed was about 50 meters wide by 150 meters long, with ample room for a large storefront area, and even room to spare to have a much larger secure storage behind the counter, or even a possible kitchen if that was the route he was going to take; but that looked to be slimmer by the passing day as he worked with and on the droids he had purchased. The upstairs was for his residence or personal space. He kept the colors of the stone used on the property to lighter tones, but used a variety to give the area surrounding the building a very elegant but not ultra expensive look.
Unfortunately it did still look really out of place here, but that didn't really bother him. There was not much here at Mos Espa to really blend in with, and he was not truly worried about there being a big enough threat to him to cause him to not be able to either retaliate or escape in time.
The rest of the ground of the compound was done in hard packed gravel, and would be far nicer than the sand it was replacing. He also hooked up a few generators to his property to ensure it had power even if the nearly non existent local 'grid' went down. He had done a few modifications to the generators, making them far quieter, and were quite a bit more efficient than before. It was amazing what the effects of a few runic arrays and charms could do for technology here in his new home. That being said, he still hadn't figured out a way to replace the fuel required to run them. Yet.
He even put a couple of nice benches on each side of the short path leading up to the store from his gate to the compound. Beside them he put this galaxy's version of an AC unit in the ground between both sets of benches. This would both provide a more comfortable temperature for any companions of future customers of his that may want to wait outside, and it would also provide an excuse for the far more temperate climate inside his walls.
Of course his shop had a proper door as well, something that most of the places here seemed to not bother closing, and inside was a crisp cool temperature compared to outside. Harry had a few ideas on what to do with the space inside if he did go ahead with his plans of opening a shop, but first he had a lot he wanted to learn about the galaxy, and to do that he needed his damn holo-transceiver. Thankfully the female Duros, who now knew was named Sim Gypa, had sent word that his package should be arriving soon.
Harry had gone around to a few of the shops here to get some computer terminals and other tech he was going to need to make the best of his holo-net connection. That was a little harder than expected, as a lot of people here in the outer rim territories shunned technology to some extent. This was another reason slaves were preferred over droids here, and that his use of a lot of droids was unusual.
The final thing he did after the initial construction, was to build a second building in the back corner of his property to act as his workshop outside his trunk with a huge open door to move large vehicles in and out. Harry was still a bit hesitant to show his droids all his secrets, but the small bit of magic they had seen seemed to excite the astromechs at least. R3 told him as much, and asked many questions. Not that he was worried about them betraying him, as that was basically impossible with how the droids were programmed, unless he was dead and then it didn't really matter. Though it has been known to happen.
With the rest of the open space of the property being left for future scrap and parts storage, Harry was extremely happy with the work they had done over the last three weeks. In fact, two of his neighbor's, who were merchants, came over to inquire about what was going on with the new building and style. Harry had happily told them about his building project, and that he was building a home and possible future shop. It seemed to reassure them when he told them that he had no plans to go into business anytime soon, as he had many personal things he wanted to handle first.
Harry musings were interrupted by the sound of a landspeeder pulling up to his gates. Looking behind himself, he saw what looked like his delivery arriving. It was a series of three crates that were on grav sleds behind the landspeeder, and two men got off.
"Hadrian Peverell?" the Rodian passenger asked Harry as he approached.
"Yes, that is me, I am guessing this is my order from Sim?" Harry asked, looking over the three metal crates. They were roughly about 1.5m in diameter with one being a bit longer than the others. As he was looking them over, a droid attached to the back started to get off and unload the crates.
"Yes, three crates with delicate technology." The Rodian said, looking at his padd. "Now if you could just get the rest of the payment we can finish unloading these and be on our way." the man finished. Honestly, Harry was quite surprised at how professional this group was. They were even better than the reputation that Polukas had heard and the opinion he had started to form about them.
"Yes one moment." he said before walking into his shop again and out of site before summoning a small chest from his pouch he had prepared beforehand. Once he had the chest in hand he made his way back outside, closing his shop door as he walked out. Handing the chest over to the Rodian that seemed to be in charge, he spoke again. "Please confirm that it is all there." he told the alien.
The Rodian pulled out quite a different looking device than the one used by the previous owner of this property, and opened the chest before waving it over the coins. It obviously performed the same duty as the Elder Rodian's had, as the man in front of him quickly closed the chest with a smile. "It seems all is in order. It has been good doing business with you. Sim mentioned you may want to use our services in the future, here is our local communication frequency we can be contacted at." the man said, handing over a Data Card.
"I will do that, and if your group keeps up this quality of service, I may end up using you more than I expected, but that will be for the future." Harry said as he showed the two men to their speeder which they quickly took off on after making sure their worker droid was reattached to their sled.
Looking at the crates, Harry started to get really excited. He already had some of the stuff he needed to have done, already installed, and was just waiting for the transceiver before he could start using the Holonet.
"R3, I need your help over here installing and setting this up. Get a few of the Elves and droids to help." he yelled back to the shop where he knew R3 was around doing some minor work on something. "I can't wait to start getting this connection established and expanding my knowledge base." Harry had already gotten a plan together on what he wanted to learn, and how he was going to do so. He reminisced on his plans as he watched the hilarious sight of an R2 unit get hoisted up by Elf magic to the roof to install an antenna dish for the transceiver.
First on Harry's list was getting general knowledge of the galaxy, like the date. You would think that was something that would be easy to know, but no, no it wasn't. Who you asked would entirely change the year, and even some electronics changed the month and day. These were the things he needed to learn and iron out. Even the memories he stole were only of a little help pointing out that often many planets had their own calendars, and not everyone agreed on the calendar to use galactically. Thankfully he had the time turner he stole from Dumbledore before leaving, and the ability to use his mind palace to quickly sort and tabulate what he learns.
Sure, he had an amazing starting point from those memories he stole, however, the amount of knowledge he had was simply not enough. It certainly didn't cover all the areas he was interested in, and was quite out of date in certain respects. Therefore, general knowledge was his first target for learning.
Next on the list was improving his engineering skills with all types of tech, but especially droids and starships. Those two categories themselves had tons of things he would need to learn about. Though he would leave some things to the droids, like medical knowledge, or even the ability to calculate hyperspace jumps. He really didn't need that type of knowledge and felt it would simply be wasting long periods of time to try and obtain a decent understanding of the topics.
Finally with a proper Holonet connection, he could now order things to be picked up by his new smuggler friends. There was tons of stuff he imagined he wanted but didn't even know existed yet to truly want it. Thankfully there was online banking and Credit Chips could be drained via a proper terminal to use with the Holonet. Though he had few credits, only those he had stolen from Polukas. He would need to start trading some of his Peggats for credits soon if he wanted to maintain his Holonet connection and make more orders in the wider galaxy. It was kind of difficult to try sending gold through the HoloNet...
"Master, we are finished." his trusty R3 unit said, breaking Harry out of his thoughts as he looked around to see the three crates empty and the transceiver on the roof installed and ready for use. It was honestly just a tiny dish and a tall antenna on his roof, but there was a larger control circuit inside, and four holo tanks to go with it. He had them installed in different rooms, so that he could possibly use his Time Turner to connect to the net from more than one terminal at the same time.
"Thank you R3. This is truly the start of our bright future. There is much I have to learn, then we shall start making major changes around here." he said chuckling happily to his R3 friend who was quickly growing on him. R3 whistled happily along with Harry as they both made their way back inside.
Harry looked over R3 and noted how clean he looked. Harry had been a bit worried when he had first got the droids that they and the House Elves would not get along, but apparently his fears were unfounded. The Elves seemed to adore the droids, and took to taking care of them, ensuring they were in tip top shape and clean as a whistle. To say the droids were happy was an understatement, as according to R3's understanding from the older droids, it was rare for organics to treat droids so well. That kinda made Harry a bit upset when he heard that, and made sure to promise to himself to treat his droids well.
Walking into his new building, he went to the back and up the stairs to his personal residence that took up the entire second floor. It didn't have much in it at the moment, as he still used his manor in his trunk. What it did have was two rooms with HoloNet terminals for him to access. With that thought, he quickly got to work on getting a concrete idea of what this new Galaxy he found himself in was like.
Over the next three years, very little interrupted Harry's schedule of learning, food, tinkering, more food, time travel, sometimes sleep, and repeat. There were a few instances of note. The first being that he learnt a bit more about Podracing from a local when he left to purchase a few things early on in his Holonet spree, and went to a race out of pure curiosity. From then on he was a major fan of Podracing, and was seriously thinking about giving it a go sometime.
It was kind of brutal, but the fast paced racing action was amazing, and seriously reminded Harry of flying around on his broom, just faster. The idea of basically having a small repulsor craft strapped to two huge honking engines designed for something far larger just tickled his funny bone for some reason. The sounds they made and the atmosphere of the crowd was some of the best fun he had since coming here, or ever really if he was being honest.
The fact that he was making a killing betting on the races didn't hurt either. Harry almost always, unless he was just having fun, bet on whichever racer gave him the best feeling from his magic. He had developed quite the reputation as being a skilled gambler amongst some of the more wealthy patrons of the races. He would also accept payments in credits for someone losing a bet with him, which made him stand out even more amongst everyone else as few accepted credits here. But dammit he needed those credits if he was to enact any future plans he had been developing.
Those winnings and the reputation he had built since arriving, of throwing fairly large amounts of money around with his purchases, led to his second event of note. That being a group of six men trying to break into his shop to kill him and steal his money. They were actually fairly well equipped as they had heard about him having a few droid guards.
Unfortunately for them, they certainly didn't anticipate there being magic involved, as Harry's studies were interrupted by an Elf popping in and letting him know the six had been stunned trying to break into the back door of the shop after overcoming the aversion wards. Harry quickly went out to discover six men whom he could only describe as criminal goons laid out on the ground. He systematically went through each of their minds and saw what they had planned.
They were going to kill him after they had tortured him to ensure that he told them the location of all his money and any account details he may have with the Galactic Banking Clans. That being said, not all of them were on board with that plan, in fact one of them was basically being forced here due to necessity and circumstance. Those circumstances being that he was stealing to afford medical care for his family rather than to enrich himself, and usually did not participate in operations like this. Nor was he fully informed of this group's plans.
Harry took a bit to think about how he was going to respond to these criminals. This world, and quite frankly most of this galaxy, was a hard place. There were no jails or authorities he could turn these people into here. Therefore he waved his hand over each, casting a Sectumsempra as he did so, except for the odd one out. He didn't even bother waking them up, so as he cast each spell they only woke up briefly to gasp and die from their terrible wounds.
It seemed the spell was a bit more powerful here as each had even deeper gouges and in dozens of more places than he expected. Their bodies had almost been minced to a point, it was kind of gross. With that terrible image ingrained in his mind for all time now, he levitated the bodies around his shop and out the front Gate and deposited them in the middle of the road in a pile. Thankfully it was night, and there were few lights so no one could see him, not that it mattered much.
Walking back around his house he used a few spells to clean the area up and then levitated the still unconscious sixth man who didn't want to be here. After he had him on the ground by the bodies of his friends he enervated him, which had him waking up in surprise mumbling and looking around seeing the bodies and screaming.
"Shut up!" Harry said booming, looking down at the man in anger. Even if the man didn't want to be here, had Harry not had the protections he had, then this man would have been party to his murder. "You are going to spread the word about what happens to those who fuck with me." he said pointing to the pile of mutilated bodies. "Now get going, and make sure you spread the message so that others know not to screw with me or mine. Or I will know and come looking for you." Harry said ominously, walking away, not even bothering to look back before he closed the gate to his compound.
That event blew over fairly well, and gained him quite a bit of respect from the rougher side of the city. In fact, Harry was surprised that everyone just seemed to shrug it off, and he even got multiple compliments on his style in handling the situation. His hired protection came around asking him if he wanted them to take some revenge for him for that attack, but he turned them down saying he had handled it this time, and even gave them a small tip for checking in with him first.
The final major event that occurred of note was that one of the medium sized parts merchants came by asking him if he would be interested in purchasing his entire stock of parts and scrap, as he was planning to move operations to Bestine, the capital of Tatooine, but costs to move the parts over would be more than purchasing new stock there. Harry's magic encouraged him to do so, indicating this was a good thing, so Harry went over with his trusty R3 to check out what was for sale.
It was actually a decent amount of stuff, far more variety, quality and quantity, than what came with the purchase of his property, and this was reflected in the price. There were even a few mostly intact fighters, and two shuttles. It was no wonder he came to him, as he was one of the few around in the business that was known to have some money on hand, because he wanted 10,000 Peggats. That was about 400,000 credits, which you can buy a lot of stuff with, like a brand new freighter from Corellia, with a good amount to spare for aftermarket modifications.
That being said, after he and R3 went through cataloging things, then tabulating a value, the price was not bad. There were quite a few working components including hyperdrives, deflectors, repulsors, circuitry, sensors, and even a couple large dismantled laser cannons. There was also a ton of scrap and machines needing to be broken down for their parts still.
Harry ended up agreeing to the deal even though he wasn't actually running a shop, as there were a ton of things he could use to test out his newly acquired skills on and would even help him know what he still needed to improve on. Though he did get the man to agree to organize delivery of everything to Harry's property on his dime, as part of their agreement.
He had his droids, along with his Elves helping with their magic, to dismantle, repair, and catalog all of the newly acquired machines and parts. It was going to be a fairly long job but he had quite large hopes for them working together, and success here would mean Harry would not be needed to repair each and every part. With the droids handling and directing the Elves, he didn't feel quite as apprehensive as with the Elves handling something so large themselves.
Other than that he basically spent three entire years learning anything he felt he wanted or needed to know. It wasn't hard, as all he needed to do was pay a few credits here and there for some information or access to certain learning institutions, but most of it was freely available in some form on the Holonet. It was the state of the Galaxy that shocked him mostly, and quite frankly excited him as well. It was going through a period of rapid change, but at the same time tensions between certain powerful groups were at all time highs. It was quite easy for him to see, and he had only spent a small portion of his three years on general studies.
It also meant there was a good chance that a few wars may break out in the galaxy in the near future, and there was already a ton of contention over the recent shortage of Bacta. Mostly between certain groups within the republic senate and the trade federation, however those tensions spilled over to others around them. This meant many companies were coming out with new models of ships, fighters, droids, and other pieces of technology. A great time for him to be making a start at things.
Like he said, it was exciting, and opened up a ton of routes to prosperity for him. There was ample opportunity to make credits, and with how unregulated some things were, the only things he couldn't purchase was straight up large military hardware. But he wasn't blind and that meant him being out here, outside the republic's purview, allowed him a ton of freedom to prepare for whatever shitshow might occur in the galaxy.
The first thing he needed to do was establish himself in a more concrete way, and opening a shop here would be a great start. All he needed to do was simply register his 'company' as a foreign entity with the Republic, pay dues and taxes, and he would gain access to legally being able to purchase ships with more armaments than were allowed on civilian vessels. Still a far reach from straight up military craft, but it was fairly close. The only thing really regulated was larger turbo laser cannons on ships, and certain larger vessels.
However, to do that required him to make even more preparations than he already had done. He needed to decide exactly what he wanted to do with his shop. Most likely if he wanted to operate a nicer establishment, he was going to need at least one ship and many droids working for him. He could not rely solely on people coming to sell him broken machines and scrap to get his supply of parts.
Though there were many items outside of 'parts' that he thought he could sell that would make a killing, like water, for one. It wasn't hard for him to use magic to make water. He also still wanted to do a bit of cooking, so was also thinking about introducing Bantha Jerky. There were just so many possibilities, but so much to get done before he could truly get things going.
Three years of learning did give him a few good starting points though. During his studies he had done some extensive reading of the various fighters, and ships that were in common use and those just recently released. Learning about each of their components one by one, and how they worked. One problem Harry had though was that he didn't have anyone to crew his ships other than droids. That meant he spent quite a bit of time thinking how he could modify certain fighters to operate on a droid brain rather than a pilot. He also looked into what was required to crew a ship entirely with droids, which, apparently, wasn't that difficult, just costly and thought of as unreliable to many.
So he got started. The first thing was getting proper republic identification. Thankfully, there was no need to go down to the local constables or the American DMV, which, even in England, he had heard horror stories about, as it could all be done through a proper holoterminal. After that he created and registered a foreign company that dealt in technology and mainly operated outside the Republic in the Outer Rim.
It was crazy to him that it didn't even matter that he wasn't operating on a Republic planet or anything. He was technically still in a free-trade sector open to expansion by new companies in the Republic. In fact, it was even encouraged for foreign companies to register in the Republic as the Republic wanted to eat into monopolies the Trade Federation, Techno Union, and other massive companies had formed. He did not even have to pay any taxes, just yearly fees to keep his company charter to operate in the Republic with the freedoms he now would have.
With his company now under his command, he could make purchases in its name. He didn't rush into things though, and really thought out what he would need. Tatooine was not the safest of planets, but at the same time not the most dangerous either, but if he started doing good business he would attract the wrong types of attention. Meaning that any ships he got would need to be fairly robust, and even possibly have fighter escorts. So he reviewed the ships in his head that he had studied, and even did a few additional searches on the holonet, discarding nearly all he came across.
It didn't take him long to finally pick out which ship he wanted, and he decided to go with the relatively new CR90 corvette. Even without his license from his new company he would have been able to pick one of these babies up, however with his license he could get it with a lot more armaments' than the basic civilian transport model.
The hilarious thing was that even though he bought it with a certain loadout, the Corellian Engineering Corporation sold 'aftermarket' upgrades at the same time. Basically the reason was that they were not allowed to sell a new vessel with certain equipment preinstalled. But them selling the ship and then installing them after you bought the ship was perfectly fine. Ahh bureaucracy at its finest.
It did cost him a good chunk of the credits he had made gambling on pod races over the last three years. He had about eight million credits, so he was able to easily purchase the CR90 which cost 3,500,000 brand new. He had them make significant modifications to it though, so it cost him nearly five million in total.
The CR90 was a 150m long, 49m wide, 35m tall Corvette that was borderline a military vehicle, in fact with only few modifications it would certainly be classified as one. There were also dozens of variants to choose from. They ranged from civilian people transports or cargo haulers, to pirate hunters or blockade runners. Harry chose to go with a hangar variant that traded quite a bit of the non-hangar cargo space for additional crew complement and an area for a small hangar to carry a few fighters in it.
His reason for choosing to do this was mainly because additional fighters in space could possibly come in handy in the future, and allow him to move to and from his ship in space without having to dock or do something similar. Secondly for cargo hauling, he really can just use expanded spaces, or trunks to store whatever he, or more likely his droids, were hauling around.
The most important thing was that it was highly protected, had ample armaments, and even more protections as pirates were his biggest worry being based far outside the Republic reach. Another big feature was the fact that it was extremely fast with a wall of engines to the rear, even out running many fighters and smaller craft, hence why it was often used as a blockade runner. It came with: 2 dual turbo lasers, 6 single turbo laser cannons, 2 percussion missile launchers, 3 external docked interceptors, room for 4-6 fighters in the hanger, space for a complement of 30 crew, 6 escape pods including two 12 person pods armed with each with one of the dual turbo laser cannons and a hyperdrive, special ceramic ablative based armour and a ton of other details that made it an amazing ship.
Normally it came equipped with a class 2 hyperdrive, being one of its few drawbacks, but Harry was able to get it upgraded to a class 1, hence part of the extra cost. All around it was a small, floating, football stadium sized fortress. That being said, it didn't cut creature comforts out from the equation with the executive quarters on the top of the ship in the most armoured region being top quality for even the highest class of travelers.
Harry was quite happy with his order, and was told it would be ready to be picked up in four months. The delay was mostly due to the recent increase in orders of ships out of Corellia and his requested modifications. Also the fact that he was a new customer, and because hyperdrives were finicky and not something to be modified on whim. The time frame didn't bother him at all, as he still needed time to organize a shipment of droids from a few companies to be sent to Corellia to pilot the ship back to Tatooine for him anyways. Harry really only planned on taking R3 with him when going to pick up the ship.
The CR90 could be temporarily piloted by a single person or droid, however to be properly operated it needed about 20 droids to keep it running and fighting in top shape in battle. There also needed to be a number of maintenance droids, and mice droids to ensure it was well maintained. Harry also had quite a few ideas on some modifications he could perform with his magic to aid things along slightly.
The other thing he looked into was getting a few fighters to travel with his ship at all times, escorting it wherever it was traveling. He even had a few ideas on which ones to choose, but first felt he should get the ship, so he could use it to pick up the fighters, rather than trying to get them shipped out here via smugglers or other means.
The main reason he needed to get them here to Tatooine first was that he needed to replace their cockpits with droid brains and sensor packages. This was entirely because he had no pilots he trusted to fly them, and sticking a droid pilot into a fighter craft and not integrating it right into the design was a good way to get something blown up, and was just downright inefficient. That and it significantly reduced the machine's total performance, not something Harry wanted.
Looking over his remaining credit balance, that he was keeping track of on a padd, made him wince at the just at little over three million remaining. It really sucked that there was no one here to really exchange his gold for credits. Unfortunately he had more things he wanted so he started going through various catalogs, and bought parts, and other things he thought he may need out here. He had them all shipped to a temporary warehouse he was renting to store all the things he was going to pick up on Corellia.
He also put in an order for twenty decent battle droids that cost 8500 credits each. They weren't amazing or anything, but were far better than average and would most likely get the job done for now. They also didn't require a central controlling tower as many other cheaper models on the market did. Unfortunately, unlike the rest of his purchases, these were limited and he had to apply to gain access to larger numbers for his business. Really, this just meant he had to prove the scale of his operations to a certain extent before getting additional approval to maintain a larger complement of armed droids.
With all his orders made, including a bunch of spare parts for commonly used ships for his future business, he was set for his arrival at Corellia. However, there was tons to get done here on Tatooine first before he left. Right now his shop was basically empty, and he had not even put a name for his company out front yet.
He had a few good plans and ideas he had come up with during the last 3 years, that he quickly called Dobby, and R3 over to explain them to, and even passed a Padd to R3 with even more express directions. He then set them about their tasks, as he went to his workshop which he had Dobby move a couple landspeeders to. He wanted to make his first real product of his own, whether he sold it or not would be another question.
This was going to be a test of his new capabilities, as well as his ability to create something from almost scratch. Well not quite, as he would often use components from other companies, but it will almost entirely be of his own design. Magic really helped in the manufacturing department, as he could simply transfigure existing plating, and frames into what he needed. Making fitting components and parts together that much easier.
His product plan for his landspeeder was for desert planets like Tatooine, more specifically a landspeeder that can travel safely through things like a dust storm. The idea was fairly basic, but he was going to use a particle shield to deflect sand from the craft and those inside, so it was going to be suitably complex. The particle shield will help prevent injury, but also stop the engines from getting clogged with dust and shutting down.
Finally he was going to include a set of sensors, with a holo readout over the front windshield to allow the pilot to still navigate without sight. It would also play a secondary role in ensuring you could see any incoming large lifeforms, such as a Krayt dragon, or even a group of Tusken Raiders trying to ambush you a few hundred meters ahead.
The only two things on the entire landspeeder that were going to be entirely of his own design were the sensor readout plus computer system, and the low powered particle shield, as everything he had access to was simply too powerful for the job, and wasted too much power or created far too much radiation for some reason. This would be a true test of his talents and may actually end up popular with some people here if he could pull it off. Though it will cost a bit more than a standard speeder for sure, and that was all without him doing any improvements with magic.
With his plan set, he started to use his magic, his ever handy mechanics tool, to start taking apart the few scrap speeders in his workshop. He wanted to get the frame done first, and he wasn't doing anything drastic, just modifying an existing X-33 frame, that seems to be a common type of landspeeder out here on Tatooine and was built by the SoroSuub corporation.
First things first was ensuring all the standard components were installed correctly including the repulsors on each side, as either of them being out of alignment could drastically reduce the quality of ride. Even shake the entire craft to pieces if it was bad enough. He was able to make a few modifications to the standard power distribution network used by the X-33 landspeeder and many more, this meant he was able to squeak a little more speed out of it. This should theoretically bring it up to a max speed of at least 300 km/h.
Installing the deflectors and getting the settings just right took quite a bit of trial and error for him, and a lot of manufactured sand storms using his magic. It was quite the site to behold when he finished after nearly two months. In the future it should take him far less time to create another one of these, as he already knew what to do, and didn't need to design things from scratch. The same could be said for designing something in the future, as the whole process had been a learning experience for him.
It was a sleek speeder, made out of three colours red, black, and gold, and ended up being just over 3m long. It had enough space to hold two riders and even, unlike the frame he was working from, includes a small hardpoint with proper power hookups for someone looking to add a bit more punch to their vehicle, or even a far larger dual reflector setup.
Figuring out the power distribution system, and various auxiliary components included in that took quite some time, but he was happy with the results. It was quite amazing how powerful some of the engines and power sources he had available to him were. Sure he needed to install a better power core than most speeders, but that would only slightly increase the cost of this bad boy.
Walking around it and doing one final check, stopping periodically to test that something was installed securely and properly, he was finally satisfied. With that done, he started to close all the panels and hopped inside. Inserting the key, he saw the lights turn on as electrical power was sent to most of the craft. All it took now, was a push of a button to start her up, and he did so.
The craft lifted off the ground and hummed smoothly, clicking a few buttons he made sure that everything was running correctly, and all the green lights on his readout told him it was. Harry started to burst out laughing.
"HAHAHAHA" he could barely contain his evil laugh in his excitement, as this truly was a major step in his new life, and that was while doing something he quickly realized he had a true passion for. Pulling out of his workshop after sending the signal to raise the workshop door, he drove out smoothly. On each side of the landspeeder had a HPI logo done in gold with a spine in the middle of the letters made out of black, red, black to highlight the whole ensemble. Harry had decided to just go with something simple for his company name and had chosen Hadrian Peverell Incorporated. Beside the logo was LSD-01, which stood for Land Speeder Desert Model 1.
His company fell along the lines of a lot of others in the galaxy choosing to name their companies either after the planet of their origin, or a founding member. However these thoughts were out of his mind as he drove through the city to get outside it boundaries and test his new landspeeder over the dune sea. It certainly didn't disappoint, as he quickly gained speed, looking over his instruments to see if his new sensors were working.
It seemed so as it was already picking up what he expected was a herd of Bantha 420 meters to the north-west of him. However what was most noticeable was the fact that there was no dust, none whatsoever making it into either the engine ports, or the cockpit. It was quite amazing, and if it was not for the slight wind a windshield wouldn't even be needed. The small installed cooling unit was a nice addition too.
He blew past and over sand dunes getting lots of air. He loved coming out this way to the dune sea, as there were fewer people to watch him and allowed him some play time without worry. After nearly an hour of horsing around, he took the speeder back into town, garnering a lot of looks at his new landspeeder, obviously admiring the colour scheme, at least that is what he felt. The speeder was distinct from others, as it was entirely of his own making and didn't look like it was pieced together from other models like a lot of custom jobs did.
Before he returned to his property, he had one final thing he needed to take care of before he could bring his ship back here, and that was actually getting a proper landing site for something of its size. That was why he pulled into the secure parking at the spaceport, and tossed a Peggat to the lot guard as he walked out of the area towards the main offices of the port not caring that he just overpaid. He had a reputation to maintain as a good tipper that he had developed while going to the Podraces. It was amazing how many people went out of their way to help you when there was a chance at a monetary reward.
The space port was not busy like one expected an airport from Earth to be, well at least not here on Tatooine. That being said there were still ships coming in and out every hour or so, so there was ample traffic to keep it in business. Walking up to the protected counter, he approached the furry alien he had no name for.
"Hello, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of the space port management authority?" he asked politely, as it never hurt, and didn't cost him anything. It was only when someone else was rude to him did his attitude change.
"Around the corner down the hall and the second door on the right." the clearly uninterested alien said without even looking up from whatever he was reading through.
Walking past the booth, and down one of the side hallways he quickly made it to the second door on their right. Knocking on the door, he got a reply nearly immediately to enter.
"Yes? How can I help you?" asked a human just after the door softly opened up as he looked up from his desk.
"Hello my name is Hadrian Peverell, and I recently purchased a ship and am now looking for a permanent docking slip for my use." he said while taking a seat that the man had indicated for him to do so with his arm motion. This guy in front of him seemed so energetic that he had to be using some drugs, but that didn't seem to take away from his personality, as he was one of the warmest or 'bubbly', people he had sensed with his magic since arriving on this planet.
"Oh yes the new merchant and skilled gambler, and the one who has been remodeling his place for sometime now." the human said as his excitement seemed to grow. "It is nice to finally meet you, my name is Jacabr Madwhi, and I manage and operate this here space port for some off world parties." Jacabr said, offering his hand to shake. "Call me Jacabr, and now what exactly can I do for your Mr Peverell?"
"Hadrian is fine. I have recently made the purchase of a decently sized star cruiser to safely haul cargo to and from my shop when I finally get to opening it up in the near future, hopefully without having to worry too much about pirates." he replied.
"Mmm, hmm, and the dimensions of the ship?" Jacabr asked while grabbing a padd and recording what he was saying.
"About 150m long, 50m wide, and 40m tall." he answered the man's question.
"Ah, that's quite a bit bigger than most vessels we get out here, and may pose a problem. While we do in fact have two docking slips available for purchase at the moment, we do not have one that can fit your vessel." Jacabr said apologetically.
"How much would it cost to then have one built for my ship?" he asked, having most likely known this was going to be what he was going to have to do in the first place anyways.
"Hmm, quite a bit more expensive, however it does leave us with quite a few more options than before." Jacabr said once again, getting excited.
"You don't say?" he asked, not quite sure what the man meant.
"Yes, yes if we are building an extension to the space port, there is no reason we can't make it a bit larger if we wanted, or add in some features for that section that may be missing in others." Jacabr replied happily as Harry clearly didn't need his magic to tell him how excited Jacabr was getting. It seemed the man was taking the opportunity to get Harry to invest in this spaceport, or at least taking the opportunity to pitch his ideas.
"That is possible, and I would retain ownership?" he asked, quite surprised at what the idea could mean for his business.
"Yes, Yes, you will just need to pay a small fee yearly to the owners of the spaceport to maintain operations through the existing establishment, otherwise you own the property outright and it would be simply run and operated by us here at the spaceport." Jacabr said as he looked through the tower of Padds that were on a large side table beside his desk, before he found the Padd in question he wanted. Clearly the man was organized in his disorganization, at least that side of him isn't reflected in the space port around them.
"Yes, here it is." Jacabr continued. "You are not the only person to inquire about getting even temporary landing permission for a larger vessel. They mostly have been turned away, but if you could fund an expansion, of say another larger port we could open up this space port to a far more diverse clientele." the excited man said before handing over the padd to Harry.
Looking it over Harry could see that there were plans for an expansion of the space port with two large corvette sized landing pads, as well as 5 additional small 75m square pads. The whole place was to be surrounded by solid 50m walls, and it even included a retractable roof to be deployed during sandstorms to prevent sand from getting into the hangar area. It was quite ambitious seeing that there were two slots for sale already at the moment for smaller ships.
"This is adding quite a bit of capacity to the space port, did you not say there were two slots already available for sale?" he asked fishing for more information.
"Yes, but they are privately for sale, and no longer owned by the space port, therefore we can not rent or lease them out to arriving ships." the man said, explaining as he pulled up a large map of the existing space port showing him what he meant. "Of the ones we do have they are almost always full, or in some cases booked in advance." he said. Apparently this space port was a bit busier than Harry expected, but he did know this was a key stopover for trade from the Corellian Run hyperlane and into Hutt space. And unloading cargo was slow business.
"And the cost of building this, and what would be the rate of return on my investment?" he asked, as he knew that it wasn't going to be cheap.
"Hmm well as you know ships could simply park outside town and try and unload out there, but we both know that would be a mistake, and so do any captains charting courses to Tatooine. Besides not having fueling and maintenance services out there, they will most likely run the threat of getting their ship broken into or worse stolen before the day is out." Jacabr explained his thoughts to Harry, who was in agreement with the man. "That means we should see high demand for spots on this extension. If you swap over to the other document on the Padd you can see the breakdown of costs, and various additions we could add on for more services we can offer, and their respective increasement to the ROI."
Harry saw Jacabr was right after hitting a few buttons on the Padd, and was quite surprised at the cost displayed. It was a lot lower than he expected. He thought building a spaceport was going to cost millions and millions of credits, but apparently he overestimated the cost. Looking through the list, it did start to kind of make sense to him as there were only a few expensive pieces of technology included in the build.
It did still come with a base cost of 1.5 million credits or 37,500 Peggats, and looking over some of the additions he was sure he would want to add them on if they went ahead with this idea. Like the additional security, automated droid ground crews, shields, defenses, fueling and other things like that.
"Hmm this is quite interesting." he said indicating his real interest in the project. It would honestly be a good investment for him if it actually panned out, and it gave him far more control and security for his future ships he may have. "And how long would it take to pay back my investment into this operation?"
Jacabr put his finger to his mouth and started humming, clearly thinking about the question and not just spouting off some bullshit. "Three to four years to see a full return, unless something drastically changes. May be lower depending on the number of spots you personally use." That truly shocked Harry, as that was an amazing ROI, and made him wonder why no one else was doing it, and then it hit him. There simply wasn't money in the outer rim, and those who did have it like the Hutts or other criminals, were simply not that interested in legitimate business. Their loss and Harry's profitable gain then.
"I like this idea, however I would like the plans changed a bit to include parking for at least 20 ships sub 15m in size, so small personal shuttle or fighter craft may find secure slips as well." he said to the volcanic eruption of excitement and happiness coming from Jacabr that he felt via his magic. "Now, besides the small fee to the owners of the space port, how much will having your crew manage the new addition cost?" asked Harry.
"We take only 3% of the revenue from renting out and managing the operation of the facility." Jacabr said honestly, and that was a cut Harry could accept, as it was beyond fair is his mind. "What other modifications do you want to make?"
"Well I think a serious upgrade in security and protections available would be a good first step. However I am open to suggestions you think will be beneficial, you are the professional here after all." he said with a smile and a laugh at the man in front of him.
That started them going into a detailed discussion on all of Jacabr's ideas. While both of them thought there might even be a market for additional landing sites, they were gonna stick with this plan first. By the time they were finished discussing things, they had added a substantial fueling facility, and even a power generation site to take the spaceport entirely off the 'grid' and add power back. Something that would make him more money as the other owners would now be paying him for power, and they could also sell any excess to the city, or store it in power cells for portable power.
All in all, it looked like it was going to cost Harry a pretty penny at 105,000 Peggats or 4.2 million credits, but that didn't worry him as he still had just under 250 million galleons in his trunk, so he won't be hurting for funds anytime soon. Thankfully he had gotten that extra 100 or so million before he left by robbing the Death Eaters blind. Just thinking about that brought a smile to his face. He pulled out his communicator, and then organized with R3 and Jacabr to send regular deliveries of Peggats to fund the project over the coming months of construction. After that they both signed an agreement and their business deal was commenced.
It would take just over 2 months to get quite a bit of the foundations for the extension done, enough so that he can securely land his ship without issues. It would take a further 5 months to finish building the port facility and installing all of the equipment. The power plant would take some time as parts needed to be brought in from off world. In fact it was something that Harry may even handle himself if Jacabr can't find someone reliable to do so. Thankfully the spaceport was on the edge of the city, and could easily expand outwards.
"Here is my personal communicator frequency." Harry said, handing over a data chit, which he had basically adopted as a business card as well and had his company's name and logo on it, with information about his company stored in it. "If there are any problems, feel free to contact me." he said as he made his way back out of the office towards his new speeder. At the parking lot he saw the floating guard looking over his new creation with quite a bit of interest. "I see you like what you see." he said as he walked up.
"Yes, I have never seen its like before, and is that some form of a micro deflector I see installed, and what is it used for?" The Toydarian asked exuberantly.
"It is the recent prototype I have created, and the first new product of my brand new company. It's called the LSD-01, and is designed for planets like this one and for being able to safely navigate the desert, even in a sand storm." He said to hovering Alien, who seemed extremely excited about what he was hearing. It wasn't hard to spot the fact that this guy was this planet's version of a petrol head, and probably loved pod racing as well.
"Are you going to be selling them soon?" the small Alien asked, not taking his eyes off of the speeder as they kept moving around the pristine body checking things out. "I know of quite a few who would be interested in a speeder that could handle the desert like a smooth talking Correllian." he said to Harry, finally looking up at him again.
"Yes, most likely orders will be taken when my shop opens, as for a price I am not sure, but as they are being sold brand new, they most likely will cost about 14,000 credits." he told the alien while hoping inside his craft. That price was just above the cost of a new landspeeder of similar design, but without any of the extra features Harry had installed.
"Hmm, interesting. I could see these becoming very popular with the more affluent parties here on Tatooine." the man said, commenting. Harry understood, as you could get a good used landspeeder for about 5-8k credits. However it would not be nearly as nice or advanced as Harry's new model. "How fast does she go?"
"My latest test", his only test, but he didn't say that "has gotten her up to 305 km/h." he said to the alien who turned to him in shock and excitement at the fast speed.
"Yes, definitely many will be interested, if only for the speed for some." commented the Alien while taking one last look over the speeder as Harry took off out of the secure parking space the port offered, after saying goodbye. This world may be full of a ton of criminals and unsavoury types, but dammit if there was not a large group of simply good people trying to get by.
Harry had already organized a passage with Sim and her people to Corellia, for himself and R3. However that was still a few weeks out, which meant that Harry had some time to waste. So of course he went to work on another project.
This time he was taking apart a few droids, mainly pilot droids, but an astromech too, and was modifying their droid brains and circuitry. His goal was to make a consolidated droid brain he could insert into various craft to replace organic pilots. Sure there were those already available, but they were all so incredibly limited in ways Harry could not understand the reasons for.
It took nearly all the time he had left over, but he felt he had developed an incredibly advanced droid brain to install in starfighters, or other spacecraft. It had two actual droid brains inside its casing, with the second slaved to the first. This allowed the fighter control unit to simultaneously perform all the duties of a pilot, but also coordinate with other craft in a battle field. This allowed it to be able to make tactical and strategic decisions by itself and intandem with other units at work.
There was quite a bit of extra processing involved, so Harry had each control unit connect up locally with each other to increase their computation power to maximize their performance. This also allowed them to increase the speed of any ships navi computer they are connected to for larger vessels he may put them on. While one of these couldn't fly his new CR90 without additional crew help (or major modifications), it could feed tactical and sensor data from other ships equipped these units with them to the pilot droid who was actually flying said ship or be combined with a pilot droid to do it itself.
He was honestly extremely happy, and it allowed for him to have unmanned skilled fighters that would learn and transmit what they learned to their fellows so they were always improving. This also helped propagate their learning as they constantly connected up with their fellows in local systems. It was quite amazing, now he only needed to take a few concepts and ideas from Earth, and change some technology and code here to create quite the game changer. That being said, he still had quite a bit of programming to do before it was really ready to be used. That was another skill he had spent quite some time over the last three years picking up, as it was clear to him that anything he made would need at least minimal coding of some kind, if not a lot more.
He had quickly realized there was zero chance he would be able to sell these droid control brains to others, for a few fairly obvious reasons. Mostly because they would give someone else a similarly huge advantage, but also because Harry had been reading more about droid rights and laws since purchasing his, and these new control units require the droid brains to not be wiped constantly or they couldn't learn as they were designed to.
Therefore they were going to be something he would keep for himself. The whole concept of droid mind wipes just pissed him off, and was something he would never do to any sentient droid. He had even done some research into the issue. Sure some odd quirks could appear in your droid, and in extremely rare cases, cause them to become violent, but full mindwipes were, to Harry, the equivalent of murder, and not justified in almost every case. All the papers he could get ahold of also showed that the rate droids did go crazy was so astronomically low that in comparison to organics who go crazy and go on murderous rampages, it was not even worth mentioning. It was basically fear mongering at its worst.
So he had explained to his droids in the past when he had learnt about the topic, about his position on mind wipes and restraining bolts. Telling them he would never use them on them clearly made them happy, but he expected them to also monitor and ensure each other's 'mental' health, and wellbeing. Nearly every droid of his was excited with his announcement. R3 even told him that he would ensure he continued to learn more so that he could serve Harry even better in the future. Harry had even started setting aside some funds for his droids to use, for whatever they wanted. After he had made his first Droid Control Unit for his future fighters, he started to build a few more of the control units. It only took him an hour now that he knew what he was doing, and started stacking the small 30cm boxes in the corner of his workshop after each was done, making an odd fat tower.
Hope you all enjoyed the latest installment on the road of 12 days of Star Wars Xmas. Once again thanks for all the reviews and honestly I was blown away by the reception!