I trilled happily as I looked over the data. Even with my rather high prices, the passenger spots sold out in less than 20 hours. Even without the cargo, the passengers would cover the fuel cost of the future trip as they paid five times the normal price of a ticket. Sure, the cabins were luxurious for transport, but it's not exactly a pleasure yacht.
The trick was in rich stupid people and a population in trillions. The marketing idea was actually quite simple and went something like this, "See the galaxy's most exciting locations! Never know what your next destination is! What is the next local you will see? Nal Hutta? Dantioone? Mon Cala? Sign up now for the most adventurous journey of your life out into lawless space!"
There where several types of tickets. Per trip was the most common one. You paid for each leg in the journey as it happened and got a 10% discount as well as the right to retain your place on the ship over new customers. In other words, you won't get kicked off somewhere, but if you wish to leave after a few legs in the journey to find transport back on your own, it's cheaper than the second option.
The second way was to pay a big lump sum of cash, once. This would let you stay on the ship until such time that we returned to Coruscant. It's a gamble of course, as we would go where the cargo takes us. It might be ten years until we returned to Coruscant, or it might be the next trip and we made this very clear to them. This option broke even for them after ten cargo runs. They could, of course, jump ship at any time they wanted.
Almost all passengers picked option one, only two didn't.
She was apparently, some kind of teenage princess from the Hapan cluster named Ni'Korish, and the other one was an older male, acting as her bodyguard.
Personally, I had no idea why somebody like her was doing on my ship. She could buy a fleet of her own but it was her decision. My personal guess was that its some kind of rebellion thing. Not that it was any of my business.
Humming, I shook my head and left my cabin. The ship was complete enough that I could move my living area from the Jedi temple up into orbit. I gave a pair of techs a nod as I moved past them on my way down to the cargo-bay. They were re-installing a wall cover after replacing some kind of power relay. There was less than a week left until departure and things were on schedule.
"Mekak," I said in greeting as I entered the small office to the side of the main cargo bay. Well, poked my head inside anyway.
The Zebrak cargo master looked up from his console, "Oh, Captain. Sorry, I didn't hear you."
He got up from his chair and I frowned slightly. "It's a week until we spread our wings. You are the only one that still hasn't given a status on things that are needed before we do. What is going on?"
He swallowed and looked a bit nervous. "Actually... I'm trying to work up the courage to..."
I sighed, "Mekak, I don't eat the bearers of bad news. I am your Captain and you WILL tell me if things go wrong. If it's not your fault, I won't blame you for it. But you WILL tell me. Alternatively, you will tell Commander Swan who will then take it up with me. Now, what is the problem?"
Sighing, he nodded. "Yes sir, I'm sorry sir. We don't have any cargo-droids."
I tilted my head. "We don't?"
He nodded. "Yes, sir. Technically, we could move the cargo containers manually, but it would seriously lower the speed with which we can load and empty the cargo bay even with the cargo accelerator on the floor."
I glanced over at the magnetic strip on the floor of the bay. It made it easier to move cargo automatically further into and out of the ship. You still needed to use the crane on the ceiling to move containers onto it though.
I slowly nodded. "You bring up a good point, cargo-master. How much would a pair of heavy-duty droids set us back?"
He sighed. "That's why I was nervous to tell you, Captain. A new heavy-duty droid goes for almost five thousand credits... and we need at least two."
I frowned. "That is quite steep... and a used one?"
Mekak looked unhappy. "They go for half that... but I wouldn't buy a used droid, sir. You never know what program was left in it, even after a wipe."
Well... damn. Two droids would almost wipe out every credit of profit we made on the passengers.
In the end, I just sighed and shook my head. "Very well, nothing we can do about it. Order two of them, cargo-master. Talk to Commander Swan about authorizing payment."
He just looked up at me before quickly nodding. "Yes sir. Thank you, sir."
I turned to leave and head up to the bridge to check the latest update on the ship.
Hopefully, that solved the problem with him, but I need to remember to tell Swan to keep an eye on him. Frowning slightly, I entered the bridge and moved to coil up around the command pillar where the captain's chair would be normally. They had to cut through the deck above to make room and raise the ceiling enough to install it, but they managed to.
About Swan though... She was working her ass off to handle situations and bring things to my attention. Without her, I would likely have failed already.
I hummed as I noticed the message log blinking on the ship systems hologram that formed around the pillar. I pressed the button to play it. It was a message from the Republic Navy.
They required 800 metric tons of medical supplies delivered from Coruscant to the Republic Navy resupply station 41. The pickup was scheduled to occur in a week and a half.
I brought the map up and checked it for the location. It was a bit out there, somewhat close to Dantoonie.
Nodding slowly, I composed a message accepting the job.
Cargo bay was almost completely filled. Crew compartments were filled... The ship would be finished in a week and I got at least one shift filled... Not that you needed more than one man on the bridge at all times during hyperspace.
I might actually be able to pull this off...