Legend of the Harp Episode I: Birth of a Jedi

Legend of the Harp By Hemaccabe Episode I: Birth of a Jedi

Legend of the Harp

By Hemaccabe

Episode I: Birth of a Jedi

Chapter 13: Highwaymen

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, Elysia ***

Elysia was a nice planet with a particularly pleasant climate and welcoming biosphere. While she had a variety of industries and a stable, mostly human population, her primary export was tourism. A wide variety of resort and multi-resort complexes dotted her surface, mostly in the temperate zone, mostly near large areas of sandy interfaces between land and water called, "beaches."

It was the perfect place to hold a council of war with my pirates. It was bad enough that Jojo and Fio were now being sought by the Imperial Security Facial Recognition Network, having a set of known pirates all meet together with me at Upsalon seemed like looking for trouble in all the right places. So, to Elysia we went. If there was some drinking, carousing and lying on the beach between meetings, so be it. I hoped such prospects would insure attendance.

In addition to Bearer and Revenge, I had accumulated six pirates. Of course, there was still Captain Mel as well as Valeria and Lawrence

I also had some former Mistryl Shadow Guards and their ship, The Fury along. They had been some sort of all female military unit before they went independent and I had turned them to piracy. They tended to be very fit, wear dark, tight clothes and the leader seemed to enjoy wielding a shock whip. I had been worried that I might get lured onto that ship of theirs and something sordid might happen. At least one benefit of this Change was that I now knew it wouldn't.

I had found a group of female felinoids called "Hani." Their Captain was named "Shatnur" and was of the "Shatnur" clan and the ship was named "Pride of Shatnur." While I had been initially suspicious, they had proven gritty and reliable. I had one personal problem with the Hani. Every HoloNet in every human civilization, and probably some others, has, as a staple, kitten videos. I'd watched a lot of them as a child, before I went to the Temple. Every time I dealt with the Shatnurs, it felt like I was watching a kitten video and it was all I could do not to pet them.

The Empire had occupied a Corporate Sector world called Die Tze. They had apparently caught most of their ships and navy on the ground. Only a handful of retired personnel had managed to escape, stealing some of their own ships. I had recruited two of these ships, Captain Nelson and his three compatriots flew the starship Divide. We also had Captain Crosby with three compatriots flying the Music.

All of my pirates were people who were on one side or another of the Clone Wars, got chewed up trying to do the right thing, and then realized, when it was over, and we were stuck with the Empire, that we had all lost. They were hitting Trade Federation cargoes six a month which was tying the Feddys into knots and giving them fits. They had lost their chief pirate hunter recently and all the other ones they had seemed to be more scared of office politics than interested in finding pirates. The Feddys shipped thousands of cargoes every day, but every loss stung. Especially the ones where no cargo or pirates got recovered. Their insurance rates went up, their profit margins went down, and they became less competitive with their competition. One must remember, in a normal trade, the trader only keeps a tiny percentage of the value of each cargo as profit. When the trader loses the cargo, they lose all. It takes hundreds of successful deliveries to balance one lost cargo, especially if it's a well-chosen cargo.

Once I had the cargo, I'd start sifting and selling. I'd generally let the cargo sit for a few months which wasn't even inconvenient as I always had a backlog. I also wouldn't make an effort to move more valuable cargo first. I enjoyed watching as my cargo selling practices drove the TradeFed cargo tracers crazy. I was taking a big piece of their wealth each month and putting it in my pocket.