Chapter 36: Am I a Hero or a Businessman?!

Summary: Continuing to build up their growing empire of business and ships...

Warning! Chapters 34-36 were posted back-to-back! Make sure to catch them all!

Chapter 36: Am I a Hero or a Businessman?!

Aayla was quite pleased with her current work. True, she'd only escaped the headache Izuku and Celeste were bashing themselves against by finding other business opportunities. But the things she'd found to do were much more interesting to work on, made all the more so by Mei's enthusiasm for most of it. She'd outright laughed when Celeste had practically begged her to 'either find something useful for Mei to do, or take her back to Ossus.' Apparently, while the Shades of the Past had gotten some serious improvements from Mei's time aboard, Mei had also driven Celeste slightly nuts even before Celeste had been saddled with another tagalong.

Now that she had Allaya Djo to deal with, it was worse. Particularly since Allaya wasn't particularly pleased with her current use as a 'base model' for how much and what type of education a 'backward, backwater, slave' would need to be brought up to a useful point for the shipyards. Being used as an example of such an education-deficient soul was a needed reality check for the Dathomiri woman, but it certainly wasn't making her happy. Which made Aayla all the more pleased to have escaped with Mei to her current task. Which, at the moment, was essentially acting as a handler to reign in Mei as she ran half-wild planning and making alterations to the smallish local shipyard that they were now fifty percent owners of.

Funnily enough, it had actually happened because they were looking for a few more transport ships to buy legitimately, instead of making them with the IES-Beta Shipyard. While they could, would, and were, making more ships with their slowly expanding hidden shipyard, having no visible source for any of their ships was a potential long-term complication. Buying a few more would both give them more models they could replicate, as well as provide a paper-trail someone could find to prove that they were buying ships.

It had been that task they were engaged in when Mei stumbled across a design she was legitimately impressed by. The brand-new vessel had been going for a song, despite being well-made, well designed, and possessing a few genuinely innovative features that had drawn Mei's attention. Features such as a honeycomb internal hull frame, which provided much greater structural integrity but upped the cost of manufacture for the design. It was a medium transport ship, so the cost increase actually wasn't that bad and had a major benefit to its lift capacity by reducing the need for other structural support, allowing for bigger cargo holds. It hadn't taken long to discover the reason why the vessel was so cheap, either. It was, for all intents and purposes, a prototype being sold off because the failing company that had made it was in the process of going under.

Which had led them to one of the smaller shipyards in the system, owned by a failing startup named Evolution Shipyards. They'd let her land with the Wandering Fate only when she'd forwarded data proving it was registered to a recently-founded Transport Business out of New Cov, with her claiming to be a representative. That technically wasn't true, since they hadn't wanted any known Jedi on the books as such due to certain laws. But once things had reached the stage of needing actual authority, it had been easy enough to send the paperwork to Izuku for him to sign.

The result was that they now owned fifty percent of Evolution Shipyards, which included the yard itself, and they had first right of refusal on every ship it built. As well as a discount on said ships, of course. They'd already bought the prototype of the new ES-23, and now all that was left was for her to let Mei bully the engineers a bit more, so they'd add some better defenses to the ship. Also possibly to let her bully the Shipyard techs some more, too. Since they'd already been forced to admit that Mei's suggestions toward automation really would cut down on production time and costs. But…

"Mei, no. The shipyard doesn't need guns. Or a complete overhaul to take advantage of frame changes."

Mei tried to protest…only for Aayla to whap her on the head with a 'paper fan' as Izuku had called it. The action derailed Mei into protests at someone other than Izuku doing that. But that was fine, she was now busy enough arguing with Aayla to leave those poor, half-frightened techs alone. Mei wrangling was actually sort of fun, if you had the right mindset. Aayla didn't know what Celeste had been complaining about! Worse case, you just distracted her with a hug and head pats until she stopped squirming and calmed down. Hmmm, maybe that was the problem? Celeste didn't seem like the huggy type.

Besides, this was much better than the suffering she could feel coming from Izuku's side of the bond as they tried to sort out everything needed for a training academy that was intended to teach certification in half a dozen different fields. She winced as she reached out to confirm her progress with him and got the feeling of a pulsing migraine back. He'd been using his ability to absorb knowledge from people too liberally since arriving in system. She was going to have to convince him to slow down on that, particularly as he wasn't going to retain it well if he tried to keep up at this pace. Well, she could think of several ways to convince him to take it a bit easier. Maybe she'd start with a hot oil massage? Full body, of course! Just to be sure she got all his aches and pains, of course!

It would take them a couple of months, but by the time they left this system, Aayla was confident they'd have a pretty solid start on their logistics and personnel pipeline…

... ...

Izuku twirled and spun, lightsaber flashing out to deflect a trio of blaster bolts even as the lightweight shield hexagons Mei had added to his gear formed up to block half a dozen more. Those shields, made of extremely heat-resistant ceramics lined with just a bit of phrik, were quickly becoming a signature of his personal combat style. He would never reach the same level of mastery with pure lightsaber work that combat-focused Jedi gained. He just didn't have the time. But his ability to multi-task with telekinesis while fighting in melee was better than anyone in their group save for Celeste, who was just a flat-out combat monster. Which meant that Mei's suggestion to add the mobile shields to the mix was working out into an extremely effective fighting style. Something readily in evidence as another of his opponents went down to the shield he had bouncing around among them, and a second was taken out by reflected blaster fire. Only two left now.

"Enough!"

The fighting came to an immediate halt, the last two 'enemies' slumping in relief, at Master Tholme's call.

"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should be glad your boss will mostly be in front of you, causing havoc for slavers and pirates."

More than a few weak chuckles and groans came from the heaps of 'defeated' enemies that were righting themselves. Many of them were nursing nasty bruises from Izuku's shield, even if he'd tried to keep the impacts from being too hard. All of them were clearly thankful for the rather solid and high-quality armor that had taken the brunt of the blows. The deep blues of the armor all bore the silver sigil of the new unit they belonged to, a now-officially registered mercenary outfit called the Shattered Shackles.

The fact that many of them were ex-slaves wasn't obvious. The fact that they were being trained by retired Atarian Rangers was surely nothing but coincidence. And the presence of a pair of Jedi helping set up their academy was, of course, entirely incidental. After all, even if someone knew to ask them, their official 'boss' was simply friends with a Jedi-Padawan pair and the Jedi Master had called in a favor to get his trainee some simulated combat experience against professionals…

... ...

"You know, this particular business seems almost wrong somehow. Mei introducing your contacts to some of the outfits from back home isn't helping overly much, either."

Izuku looked around at the casino/hotel, shaking his head in disbelief as he saw a Twi'lek dressed as a bunny girl practicing on an elevated pole dancing platform. The entire spectacle was only made more surreal as he saw a half dozen colors of the same outfit being worn by the waitstaff and dealers practicing at the various tables. Smart but skin-tight tuxedoes filled out by handsome men were present too, looking straight out of a host club. The only thing that kept it from looking like some sort of gambling den in the tourist traps of Japan's entertainment districts was the fact something like seventy percent of the beings in those uniforms were various alien species. Twi'leks, Zeltrons, Mirialans, and many more.

Of course, a peek out one of the widows would have done the job too. Their newest acquisition was floating through the upper layers of a gas giant named Bespin, aboard the flying city and mining platform known as Cloud City. Izuku had no idea how the place had come to host an extremely robust resort and entertainment district, but it did, and they'd chosen it as the location of their newest business. Their most bizarre, too, as far as Izuku was concerned. Though Aayla didn't seem to share his opinion…not entirely, at least. While a bit bemused, she seemed to be taking the entire thing far more in stride than he was.

"Why? Because eighty percent of our scantily clad entertainers and staff are ex-slaves? Not everyone wants to learn entirely new skill sets when they escape slavery Izuku. And quite a few of the less traumatized didn't hate their professions so much as they hated the fact they weren't getting paid and were at someone else's potentially fickle mercy."

Aayla gestured in the direction of the Twi'lek still practicing, visible again as they reached another part of the circuit they'd been walking around the upper promenade of the new facility.

"A fair few races and cultures, like Twi'leks and Zeltrons, don't see anything wrong with being dancers. The other staff are comfortable with their jobs and know that here, at least, there's upward mobility and good pay. Being a little bit of eye candy in exchange for that? Well, the ones that choose to come here are the ones that don't have any issue with that. That's not the case for a lot of freed slaves, of course, but for the ones that are? Why not give them a safe place to use those skills?"

Izuku sighed, knowing she was right, even if it was still weird to his own sensibilities. All of these ex-slaves had been given the same chance to go to their rapidly expanding training facilities on New Cov, or to the recently fully booted up Academy on Allanteen VI. Or, of course, to go to a more normal charity that would help them out. All those that had come here instead were the ones that wanted to. Bespin was even relatively safe, as Mid-Rim worlds went. At least for well-paid workers like those at the Lucky Rabbit would be.

"Besides, Izu…you know that Borgan has been bugging us for the last month to push on a trade route this direction. With the new ships that we're getting from the Allanteen yard, and enough trained crews for them, he wants to expand. The agricultural goods and plasma from Naboo, and the Tibanna Gas from here from Cloud City, will sell well at a lot of the ports they already hit. Naboo in particular is a big importer for a lot of our tech goods, too."

That was true, even if the fact he knew that made him feel far too much like a businessman instead of a Hero. Still, it was the business empire they'd been rapidly expanding on for the last eight months that was paying for all the good they were doing. Helping the slaves, training and arming the Shattered Shackles, and even letting them help pour funds into the Underground. The new trade lane that the man they'd finally found to run their overall Trade Fleet wanted to create would take them out toward the galactic west on a decently long spiral. Hitting Naboo, Eriadu and others, before terminating in their new holdings at Bespin. It would likely triple their current profits in a year or two while proving plenty of places to expand to. They were already making tens of millions of credits a month, but they could frankly use as much money as they could get. The galaxy was a big place and their ambitions were daunting, after all.

Still. He was happy that this was the last business he'd be setting up himself for a while. Now that they had manpower trickling in, and a diverse set of places to send anyone they rescued who was interested in joining up, it was time to actually start hitting the slavers much harder. But first, they'd be doing a bit of information gathering to figure out where to target…

... ...

As they walked the auction floor, it was only Aayla's calming presence that kept Izuku from violently relieving half the room of precious consciousness. He couldn't even bring himself to properly enjoy the way her hips swayed in the slave-girl outfit she was wearing, as upset as he was from seeing all the other slaves on the auction floor. The ones that weren't secretly free and, instead, were being sold off to the highest bidder. Of course, he was able to comfort himself with the knowledge that they would be helping many or most of these men, women, and others. It was literally the entire reason they were here.

Well, actually, most of the reason they were here was as a visible justification for the presence of Shades of the Past. It was actually Master Tholme and Celeste, both of whom were quietly moving around the hangars of the station and planting trackers, that were the real teeth of this operation. Meanwhile, Aayla and Izuku were walking the main floor of Manpower Station, a sizable space station on the western border of Hutt Space. Most of the worlds in this area of space were 'independent.' Which really meant that many of them served as unofficial trade ports where it was easy to legally move goods from Hutt Space into Republic space, when those goods would be illegal in the latter.

Spice was a common trade, of course…but so were slaves. Both for the legal and illegal markets. Manpower Station, in particular, was a clandestine port to shift slaves captured illegally in the Republic into Hutt Space in one direction. In the other, it moved slaves that were officially 'legal' from Hutt Space into the Republic. Mostly focusing on pleasure and service slaves under 'indenture' contracts, since those were the most 'acceptable' types to see in Republic space.

It meant that the main floor was mostly showing off just those sorts, with the more illegal movements hidden behind closed doors. Twi'leks of various colors were a common sight, as were Humans, Zabraks, and Nikto. There was a scattering of other 'highly desired' slave species as well, such as Togruta and Zeltrons, mixed in with some more exotic options. Aayla, dressed in gold chains and half-transparent dancer's clothes, got appreciative looks from the many buyers. Said buyers often being accompanied by slaves of their own, their rarest 'servants' being shown off in the same way that Izuku was pretending to display his own 'rare slave' in the form of a Rutian Twi'lek like Aayla.

"Oh, that one is super pretty, Master! Look at the head tendrils!"

Izuku took a subtle deep breath as he followed Aayla's pointing finger to a miserable looking slave who was, in fact, quite pretty despite her obvious misery. That misery was attracting just as many sadistic buyers as it was pushing away others who were at least slightly less vile. The woman in question was a striking pink with numerous drooping tendrils floating around her head in place of hair. Izuku didn't recognize the species and tickled at their bond to ask Aayla about it. Thankfully, her 'airheaded slave' voice wasn't present when she fed him the information.

"She's a Mikkian. Not a common sight in the galaxy at all. I only recognize her as there are a pair of Mikkian twins that are Jedi Masters. They're a highly honor-oriented species, likely got caught in some sort of indentured contract scam. Some extremely useful sensory abilities and she feels like a somewhat weak Force Sensitive, too. Definitely one to add to the list. She'll vanish onto a Core World we can't touch if we don't.

Izuku nodded, using the 'purchasing' datapad they'd been provided with to check her price. Since she was relative unknown, there were only a few bids so far…and there was a buyout option with her 'indenture price.' High, but not nearly as much as it should have been if her 'owners' knew what they had. He quickly tapped her buyout option and added her to their purchases.

"Done. She had a contract buyout option."

Their current task was a distasteful way to help these slaves, and Izuku hated not being able to do things more directly. But they needed to keep their cover. Partly because these were legal slaves heading into the Republic…but far more because he was playing the role of a rich slave owner at the moment. While both they and several groups from the Underground would be hitting many of these buyers before they reached the safety of the Republic, Aayla and he were winnowing through the legal slaves for ones the Force and simple sanity said were most at risk. A dozen such 'purchases' were already completed. He hated letting the slavers have the credits, but the slaves would at least be freed at their next port of call and given the same options as all their other rescues.

"Cheer up, Izu. You know that we're going to save a lot of those here. And the trackers on the illegal traders will finally give us some major targets from big slaving groups. We're making progress."

Izuku sighed and used a bit of the Force to initiate a meditative technique Master Fay had taught him, letting his darker thoughts go. Aayla was right. This was just information gathering. And said information was going to let them help a lot of people. Doing his best to focus on the good this was going to do, he wrapped his arm around Aayla's waist. The physical contact helped, even if he didn't feel up to appreciating her curves properly at the moment…

... ...

Izuku sighed as their newest companion practically skipped through the docking tube from the Wandering Fate to the IES-Beta Shipyard, now a fairly impressive installation with a dozen ships under construction and several more docked. Including the one they were here to see. Nikkila, the Mikkian they'd bought at the slave auction, had refused her freedom. Much to his exasperation, she'd instead insisted that she'd pay off her indenture…so long as he cut the many predatory fees that would have kept it building in a way she couldn't escape. Apparently, Aayla had been right about how honor-oriented the species was, and the woman was determined to pay them back for her freedom.

Not that he could really complain. In the last two months they had first hit the 'legal' slave owners before they could reach the republic, then started building up information on a new round of targets from the trackers on the illegal slaver ships. During those months, Nikkila had proven herself to be an incredible asset. She was a fully trained engineer, whose ship had gotten caught by pirates while mapping hyperlanes out near wildspace. The gutter scum running the ship had gotten most of his crew trapped in 'indenture contracts' as a way to skid free himself, the pirates letting him go since his betrayal of the crew would let them make far more profit on each slave by legalizing them.

Her engineering skills alone had made her an extremely useful addition to the Wandering Fate's crew, with them having previously relied entirely on astromechs for anything maintenance and upgrade related. The fact that she was also an incredibly capable organizer who'd dove cheerfully into helping them run the tangled mess that was their greater operations only doubled down on just how insanely good an addition she was.

It was just slightly unfortunate that she got along with Mei like a house on fire. As she proved when she bounced up to cheerfully hug the pinkette engineer who'd come to greet them with her usual manic energy.

"Mei-Mei! It's ready? Really! Ohhhhh, this is exciting! I've never gotten a chance to work on something like this before!"

Aayla, coming down the ramp alongside Izuku, was radiating both amusement and a little of Izuku's own irritation. She interrupted the two giddy engineers in an exasperated tone.

"Will the two of you please finally tell us why we're here. You've insisted this new ship, whatever she is, is important for the upcoming raids. But you've refused to tell us anything about it."

Mei released her own hug of the Mikkian, who had rapidly become her favorite person aside from Izuku. She liked Aayla's hugs a lot too, but Aayla didn't speak tech!

"You bet, Bluey! I didn't want to spoil the surprise before she was done!" She pouted, then nudged Nikkila, who practically bounced in place. "And I totally wouldn't have finished in time if not for her. I was having so much trouble with the hyperdrive."

Nikkila giggled and nudged back.

"You're a genius, girl! But no one learns everything you need to know about hyperdrive installations without a lot of theory mastered. You're just lucky that my previous work mapping new hyperlanes means I know a lot about hyperdrives specifically and was able to figure out what was wrong!"

It was Izuku that spoke up this time, gently getting them back on track.

"Mei? The ship?"

"Right! Come on muscles, she's in the hangar!"

Mei grabbed Izuku and, not to be left out, Nikkila grabbed a bemused Aayla. Both of them towed their 'victims' through the plain corridors from the small docking port they'd linked up with, to the main hangar of the Shipyard. Given that said hangar was decently sized, Izuku had been surprised to be directed to the docking port when they arrived, with Mei casually stating that the hangar was 'full.' Now, as he was pulled through into the hangar, he blinked in surprise, jaw dropping a bit as he realized why it was full. Mei dragged him a few more steps, before releasing him and spinning in place.

"Ta-da! Meet the Defender II! Our first major upgrade in firepower!"

Even without knowing the details yet, Izuku could tell that Mei wasn't remotely kidding. The ship had to be at least a 100-meters long, and quite broad as well. It's profile, from what Izuku could tell at a glance, resembled something like a hammerhead shark from Earth. A horizontally arranged 'hammer' at the front, narrowing a bit at the body, then flaring out into some powerful looking engines. He could see a pair of quad turrets, as well as what he was pretty sure was an underslung ion cannon. And he'd be surprised if that was her entire armament. This was, without question, a capital ship. A small one, but still a capital ship. Aayla got her voice back first, though there was more than a little shock in it when she spoke,

"A corvette? How long have you been working on this, Mei? And where did you get the design?"

Mei beamed at the expression on their faces.

"Yep! She's a corvette! And I started on her right after the fighters! This baby is 112 meters long, 83 meters at the hammerhead beam, and 33 meters tall! I based her on the original Defender design, which was in the Infinity Engine Database. It was actually one of the newest designs, having been added when the growing engine absorbed a derelict several hundred years after it must have been abandoned in Nar Shadda's depths. The original derelict, the Vanguard, was pretty intact, so I had a good frame to work from. And she was very well built for her time. I actually found some historic references that said the class was mostly a Jedi vessel, back during one of the wars with the Sith!"

Nikkila was bouncing in place, the bubbly personality she'd started to show once she'd realized they were trying to free her in full display. She excitedly side-hugged Mei, who squeaked in surprise, her building rant derailed.

"Mei-Mei is a genius! She both scaled up the design a bit, to give it more crew space, and upgraded everything to a modern design. She even redid the hull with her own armor formula! She only stumbled when she realized she had to adjust the hyperdrive to account for the greater size of the ship, and didn't know how to scale up a drive like that. Which is where I came in!"

Mei, looking quite happy in her side-hug, nodded enthusiastically.

"Yep! Bubbles fixed it in, like, three days! Even managed to get a Class 1 drive shoehorned in, instead of the Class 2 I was going to use!"

Aayla couldn't help herself, letting out a low whistle at that. They had, of course, acquired some Class 1 drives for duplication. They'd even had the Allanteen shipyards upgrade the drives of the Wandering Fate and Shades of the Past with a couple of them. But it was unusual, to say the least, to see drives that good in capital ships. The larger the ship, the harder it was to get the exacting calculations for a Class 1 drive right. Apparently, Nikkila was better than they'd realized. Managing to get over the surprise, she prompted Mei to continue.

"Armament? Shields?"

Mei was clearly delighted to ramble more about her newest baby, excitedly answering with no hesitation.

"Shields are something special! I duplicated that multi-generator design the fishy people make for their ships! That was hard, but it will make the ship super tough! As for armament, you can see the two quad lasers and the ion cannon from here. But she has a heavier dual turbolaser turret up top and a pair of capital-ship grade concussion missile launches too, each with a 15-missile magazine."

Izuku got his own concern out a moment later, even as his mind raced at just what a massive jump in capability this ship was going to grant them. Suddenly, some of the larger slaver facilities they'd identified were looking a lot more plausible as targets.

"Crew requirements?"

Mei made a face, which Nikkila giggled at, answering for the pinkette.

"The original design was way more automated than most modern ships. It only needed two crew. Mei's annoyed that her own conclusion was that two crew was actually too few, if the crew weren't Jedi. Half the reason she upsized the ship was to add more crew quarters, which really irked her."

Clearing her throat, the Mikkian's voice took on an officious tone, like she was selling the ship to them as a sales rep.

"The Defender II needs three dedicated gunners. Two for the quads and another to run the dual turbolaser and ion cannon from the cockpit. The missiles can be handled either by that gunner or the pilot and co-pilot. The pilots make the minimum crew five. But we strongly recommend a fourth cockpit crewman to handle the somewhat complicated shield system, along with coms and sensors. She absolutely needs at least one engineer and some astromechs, too. Her power load is a bit complicated, after all. Skeleton crew to use her in battle is six. Recommended crew is a minimum of eight. There are accommodations for sixteen, though. So you can either add either security people or a some additional crew for multiple shifts."

That…was actually a pretty light weight crew requirement for a corvette. Particularly one that was so well-armed. They could easily supply a trusted crew that size at this point, though they were definitely going to need to do more recruiting if they started building more of them. Speaking of…

"She's been tested? And are we building more?"

Mei's answer was prompt and very satisfying.

"Yep! I ran her through a full battery of tests, and I have three more just like her building. The hulls are already done, but I'm holding off on having them finished until you test her in the field. That way I can fix any major bugs before I have the shipyard do the interior work!"

Izuku's smile widened. Oh yes, he had a feeling it was about to become a very bad time to be a slaver on the outer rim.

"Amazing work, Mei! As always! Why don't you give us a proper tour…"

... ... ...

A/N 1: So, if you caught the mentions of time moving, this chapter served to push us through most of 30 BBY. WIth Izuku having arrived in early 31 BBY.

A/N 2: IMPORTANT! There is a Poll currently ongoing over on my Page. It is open to everyone, even non-patrons, and is for determining if this story will be a multi-pairing or just Aayla/Izuku! Head over there to vote!

A/N 3: On that note...I only mention this once per release, but my stories have a page where some early access content is available. In example, I just released chapters 37-39 of Displaced Hero there, giving it just over another 16,500 more words which will remain in early access until next month. Similarly, there are at least a few Early Access chapters there for ALL of my stories, though NONE of them are ever permanently paywalled. All fanfiction content I make ends up here eventually, as new content for each story is released.