Customs cleared her willingly and she set her steps toward the palace. She could sneak in the back entrance with the cooks, and that way get to her father. Alderaan wouldn't be alone in providing the Jedi with money, men, and materials. Soon crews from Sairune would be running ships built by Sairunese engineers in the Jedi's secret dockyards!
And Sairune didn't go in for the silly, pacifist image Alderaan wanted, so they could get plans for weapons and starfighters in a hurry just by deciding to modernize their defense force.
"Oh, Ranma. Please be alright until I get back." She whispered inside her mask.
===========
"Yes, I'd like to keep this as quiet as possible, but our mine output is falling off, and, well, we've got contracts to fill." Ukyo presented herself to the yard foreman as representative of a mining company willing to augment their production with melted scrap. Outside the small monitoring station a handful of outdated picket ships floated as sentinels over their herd of slumbering starcraft; transports worn out of useful service drifting near obsolete warships.
She slid a hefty bribe of credits across the table.
The greasy bureaucrat took the proffered bribe with a greedy smile. Already he could see his income taking a sharp rise upward, and a paper-pusher in this kind of backwater doesn't see too much off-the-record credit. "Yes, I understand perfectly. Fortunately," he licked his lips, pretending to check his maintenance log. "Yes, it seems we have scrap orders for a large number of ships. Bulk cruisers, mostly..."
The wary bureaucrat was actually being cagy. Bulk cruisers were older than Dreadnoughts and hardly better in a fight than an Invincible, and they cost more to operate than two Victory Star Destroyers.
Ukyo didn't bat an eyelash. "That will be fine for bulk metals. But to get modern alloys for my customers I'm going to need something else."
Having been convinced (no pirate could operate a bulk cruiser, they were too expensive to run) the desk-jockey took her as a legitimate, if somewhat shady, customer and settled down to deal in earnest. He made it quick, giving her most of what she wanted in a steady supply for a very good price.
He couldn't afford to haggle long, there was a representative from a nearby Moff wishing to augment his private fleet arriving in just an hour. There were some very good Victory SD's he was thinking of selling the man. Just as he was willing to sell some to his rival, arriving in another two weeks.
Ukyo left the monitoring station shaking her head. Combat warships for scrap metal price! Ranchan sure knew what he was doing. They weren't even paying the full scrap metal value for them! Just a bigger cut for the foreman and suddenly they were on close-out special!
Although she'd had to take some bulk cruisers to get more of the Dreadnoughts they really wanted (a hundred delivered on this contact alone!), alot of those old hulks had been cycled through various system navies after being retired from Republic service. There would be good systems retrofitted in some of the bulk ships they could pull out and use, everything else could be melted for scrap in truth, and Boy! She knew they could use the metal!
If nothing else they'd use it in refitting those transports. You didn't need modern warship grade hull alloys to rebuild a freighter. Get the systems overhauled and you practically had a new ship. They could even cast new engines by smelting down materials from the old. Adding Ranchan's fuel-scoop idea and solar panels would boot the cost up at first, but then save them a fortune in operating their freighter fleet long term.
The Empire wasn't decommissioning transports as they were old warships. And if the Jedi wanted to wage a war across the galaxy sooner or later they'd need cargo ships. But for right now they'd use some of them to spawn a few, small shipping companies; some for smuggling, others totally legit.
Ukyo wiped sweat from her brow, sighing as she looked out the viewport at the stretching lines of hyperspace on her way to another naval reserve yard. Another Jedi was following an hour behind her to this one, and another swinging by two weeks later, she couldn't recall their cover stories. Cologne had them all mixed around on crazy flight schedules to throw off tracking or pursuit, in case it became an issue.
She thought again of refitting freighters for transport companies and smiled.
"We'll need the money!"
===========
"Yes, second millennium Corusca stones. Quite valuable." The jewel broker understated the issue, laying aside the scanner. "Are you sure you want to part with them?"
"I'm not sentimental." Cologne returned. The jewels in question were part of a haul taken from the belly of the Victory that had been escorting her in a dungeon ship - a secure way to transport tribute taken by order of the Emperor, looted from those that opposed him.
The ancient Jedi felt the late, lamented owners would approve of this use.
The odd gem dealer, almost as old as she was, nodded and began a draft on the Imperial Bank of Coruscant for several millions of credits.
"I prefer cash." Cologne smiled, adjusting his surprise with the Force.
The gem dealer handed the draft to his assistant. "Get it cashed for her."
===========
"Target aquired."
Shampoo slid across to the Tac-Board, angling herself between the seats of the other bridge crewers. There, glistening in orange dots, were two Imperial cruisers escorting the tax revenues of Tapani sector, one of the single richest outside the Core.
It would be wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and they knew about it only from the codes lifted from Naga's Victory SD. Fleet encryption algorythms could change, but right now they had decoders equal to the Imperial Navy itself.
And, coincidentally, they were lurking in space waiting for this shipment in the territory of a very greedy Moff.
The purple-haired Jedi gave a catty grin. "We attack!"
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(Posted Thu, 18 Mar 2004 00:07)
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