Early 963 ARR (37 BBY)
This time I wasn't taking any chances. Traveling to Chad, an Outer Rim world that wasn't even a member of the Republic, was theoretically more dangerous than my previous trip to Vulpter and Correlia.
This time I would be supported by Ona's deputy Hursh and our legal officer Ameé. Both were surprisingly young in their mid-20s. There was an awkwardness that came with me being their bosses' boss, but it was nice to be working with my near age peers for a change.
Jestos (who hated his first name of Garne) would be coming along to ensure our safety on Chad. He had provided each of us with ELG-3A blaster pistols. These were low power lightweight models, popular with Naboo's elite when conducting any business they had off-world. He spent a couple of hours showing us how to use them. I had never touched a real gun on Earth and proved to be a terrible shot, but these were really meant as a last resort.
To ensure we were ready for any potential pirates, rather than an unarmed yacht, we would be chartering a CR70 corvette. At around 90 metres long, it was near enough the largest type of ship Theed Spaceport could handle. It was a Corellian design, with a crew of 40, distinguished by its eight powerful ion engines. This VIP transport variant had robust shields and a battery of six rapid-fire laser cannons.
It was among the fastest and most capable ships of its size, only clearly surpassed by its own successor design, the newer CR90. Only the most well organised pirate groups could attack a ship like this, and they would have to be lucky to catch it in the first place.
It was over 500,000 credits to charter for two months given the large crew and insurance for travel to a world outside the Republic. Expensive, but ultimately that's only 500 SuperPADs and this trip was worth so much more to Theed Tech than that.
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The two-week journey to Chad was dull and uneventful, necessitating a journey into the core, and then out along the Perlemian Trade Route until you reached the Outer Rim before a traveling 'south' into the slice for a couple of days. It was all well chartered hyper routes but still two-thirds of the way across the galaxy from Naboo.
The crew of the Creedok (apparently named for a Corellian reptile), who were a mix of duros and humans, made us as comfortable as you can be on a long voyage. As I knew from my time with Zomir, duros love telling stories about their travels and adventures. Our captain, Joom, was no exception and Jestos assured us some of them may even have been true!
Ameé had been on ships before, her parents had also been lawyers and had taken her along on some off-world business. Hursh was from more of what I would call a working-class background, and had been excited for the first couple of days before the novelty wore off.
He had a great sense of fun, coming up with variations on the games, making jokes and really working hard to break the monotony. I think he was also developing a crush on Ameé, which I could totally understand; she had short red hair and green eyes, a rare combination to see on Naboo.
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If Naboo had never been partially terraformed, it would be a lot like Chad. Three-quarters of the planet is covered by water, the rest by hot and humid jungles. The planet is sparsely populated, with only 20 million Chadran-Fan inhabitants, though many more of their kind could be found throughout the galaxy.
We came down to land in the spaceport of the planet's only city, Rebaxus. Despite being home to a major corporation, the city was rather ramshackle, rising out of a swamp, with as many of the buildings being made from wood as opposed to more sturdy materials. We would be staying aboard ship each night we were on the planet, as there weren't any hotels that were both comfortable for humans and secure enough for Jestos's peace of mind.
Having previously been to Vulpter, an unbearable toxic industrial nightmare of a world, I was able to appreciate Chad as at least being a largely natural environment. That was about its only redeeming quality.
As we had arrived late in the day, we tried to find somewhere pleasant to eat and relax, before a good night's sleep and the start of business dealings the next morning. After an hour of wandering, the best we could manage was a rather tired cantina that catered to off-worlders, a poor parody of our beloved Leaky Hyperdrive back home.
We didn't stay long.
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Despite her being a one-metre-tall wingless swamp bat, Kua Tek was really quite personable, speaking Basic with a slight squeak to her voice. We had come to our introductory meeting with a small group of Rebaxan Columni representatives. Aside from the fact Kua seemed to be in charge of this group, I had so far been unable to understand what the various roles were.
Unlike with Arakyd, we hadn't been able to contact the corporation in advance. Communication across the galaxy, to a world outside the Republic, when they are not expecting your call, is somewhat hopeless endeavour. So, the day after we had arrived, we had come to Rebaxan's headquarters. It was by far the most substantial building in the city, an industrial tower of concrete-like materials, but half covered in wild vines and other swamp plants.
Rather than any elaborate plan, I had simply walked up the front desk and asked for a meeting at their earliest convenience.
Two days on from having shown up on their doorstep, here we were making polite small talk with the sociable rodents. They had even put out some food, which was…edible, and extra water which we greatly appreciated in the sweaty humid heat.
Kua was explaining to me that our arrival had caused quite the stir. Despite the ubiquity of their products across the galaxy, Rebaxan didn't really get many visitors. They would instead make their products, largely from materials available in the Chad system, and then send their own traders out into the galaxy to sell their wares. It was an oddly semi-detached relationship with the galactic economy for such a longstanding corporation.
With the pleasantries out of the way, I explained what it was that we wanted. An initial order of one million Reba-5C droid-brains, paid for and delivered in instalments of 100,000. On the ship we had brought credit chips sufficient for the first batch, in the hope that we could even bring some back with us on this trip. We had been paying roughly 200 credits for each by buying them from spare part sellers, so any bulk discount on that would be a win too.
This caused a huge flurry of chatter amongst the assembled Chadra-Fan in their native chitters. After a time, Kua managed to silence them, and politely asked that we come back the next day for further discussion. It was a rather abrupt end to what had seemed a very positive meeting, but I agreed as gracefully as I could. Even before we were out of the room, the frenzied chittering had continued.
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The next day, we set out from the Creedok for Rebaxan's facility. After we had walked maybe 200 metres from the landing pad, we came under blaster-fire.
The next thing I knew Jestos had leapt on me and pushed me to the muddy ground. Jestos, pulled me over to some crates that Ameé had also taken shelter behind. He shouted at me to keep my head down before moving to engage in a firefight with whatever was attacking us. Ameé, who seemed to have gotten over her shock quicker than me, had pulled out her blaster and sent some erratic return fire towards our assailants.
After a few minutes of this, the sounds of blaster-fire intensified, with a mixture of voices shouting in the local chitters and galactic basic. Eventually the shooting stopped, and we crawled out from cover to find a strange standoff.
On one side, a few of the crew of the Creedok who had valiantly come to our rescue, on the other Chadra-Fan in uniforms which I recognised as being the security for Rebaxan Columni. Jestos, who was nursing a minor wound on his arm, and the lead Chadra-Fan were arguing about something, when I noticed Hursh's body on the ground.
Hursh had been killed pretty much the moment we were attacked. The young man, who was so proud to be working for Theed Tech. A man who had risen from delivering packages to Ona's trusted deputy had died on a mission for my company.