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Chapter 63 - Insidious plans and new opportunities

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Cinnagar is not a good name for a city. So I decided to rename it. But it's hard to come up with a name for your capital city, so I gave up trying and concentrated on the city.

It's been two weeks since I started experimenting with the nanodroids. I was encouraged by the results, so I decided to divert my attention to construction for the time being.

Architectural plans were in abundance in the construction headquarters. Everything was here as three-dimensional images. The city looked quite beautiful; it was not for nothing that I had hired a good specialist to be the Minister of Construction and Restoration. The city was remotely similar to Corellia, but it was different - for one thing, it was big. There was an unlimited amount of space for it, so all the space was used. The outskirts of the city - small two and three-storey mansions, each with its own yard, hangar for speeders and droids, and everything necessary. The reason is simple: there's a surplus of space. There is too much of it, and the population is too small, so the space was occupied by "fillers" - these very mansions. Each of them occupied as much area as a football field and, theoretically, was intended for living from two to twenty tenants. Such a place was a perfect combination of village and farm amenities in the form of a yard and a shed, and urban charms in the form of a modern, comfortable house.

- What's this? - I nodded at the city centre.

- That's the Imperial Palace, of course," the architect said immediately.

- No, no, no," I refused, "it's too fancy. It looks like some kind of religious building. Redesign it. I need a functional, beautiful palace, without excessive elements and gigantomania, so that it does not seem as if it is about to collapse under the decorative elements. Just don't take as an example already known architectural styles, with the exception of the styles of the Korossa Empire. Still, this region is the heart of the galaxy and its oldest part. Even Coruscant was colonised much later than Koros...

- Very well, your majesty," the architect bowed immediately, "we'll redesign it!

- So... if the locals have architecture, it can be used, but only partially. I prefer Corellia, so you can buy the building designs for Coronet and build.

- I'll do it," the architect said again. I left him alone and walked out.

A construction droid, with the help of the usual ones, built the house in one day, and in three days the house was already finished and ready for occupancy. There were two hundred large droids and whole colonies of small ones working here. The droids continued to methodically assemble the city - district by district. Now there were twenty-seven districts with twenty plots in each. The last pieces of ruins were going into the droids' jaws, and the city began to grow. Of course, not everything was going as smoothly as they would have liked - there were always the occasional glitches that were inevitable with such massive construction. But gradually they became fewer and fewer. If it goes on like this, the city will acquire its final shape in six months.

Another idea of mine was nanobuilding. That is, to create a very, very large colony of droids that could build an entire house. They were already confident in building small objects - they could assemble an R2 droid out of rubbish without any problems. True, the problem with empty memory persisted, but it was solved by firmware.

All this remained an idea - too irrational use of such a valuable resource as droids. They should be used for precision manufacturing - they would be much more valuable there.

With droids, I can create exactly what I want - powerful fighters. I've already calculated that one would take a nanobrigade of ten trillion droids and a control computer two days to complete. The duplicator stamped droid-collectors in larger batches - the cube-crystal, which was actually a case of freak and equipped with "pores" through which droids could leave it and return, was the size of a rubik's cube, so it fit perfectly in the hand. And the number of droids was increased accordingly - from two billion to three trillion. This team could build a fighter jet in a week. I didn't invent the Star Forge, but... the principle is similar. And besides, no one told me the Star Forge didn't use nanodroids - the Rakatans are far advanced in their scientific experiments, and the idea of creating a microdroid is on the mind of anyone who designs new droids.

Powering these babies was also an obstacle to autonomous operation - the droid had a small storage cell. It was enough for him to be near an electric current, just under electromagnetic waves, and the energy cell, through induction, received a charge, on which it worked for about ten minutes. It is clear that for stationary work it was enough to provide in the place of work electromagnetic fields, which charged the droids. It was simple - we put unshielded cables and let current flow through them, and that's all. The electromagnetic field is ensured. Such a scheme was suggested for powering devices in the macrocosm, i.e. large, but it did not become popular - the efficiency is too low, the conductor would just warm the air. But in the case of nanodroids the scheme worked a hundred per cent - you can't put a reactor on each of them and you don't want to complicate droids, so it's really better to feed them in this way. And consumption... They ate up very little of all the current they used.

The main thing I was striving for was to make my system independent of resource prices. That is to export not only and not so much raw materials, but also finished products - history knows many examples when planets that built their economy on the export of raw materials became hostages of their position. On the one hand there is money, but on the other hand there is no own production of weapons, computers, household items. Thus, the state fell into a double trap - on the one hand, its economy depended on the prices of raw materials, which it traded and in case of market collapse received a tangible blow, and on the other hand - its own production of technological goods does not exist, so the country also depended on imports of goods, and blocking the trade embargo air, you could throw the country back to the Stone Age. Such a state was dependent on two main external political forces - importer of resources and exporter of goods. In my case, the importer, that is, the one importing my goods, was Corellia and the KMK. And the exporter was most of the galaxy in the form of the central worlds. Their production was usually located on backwater planets where labour was cheaper and the environment was not spared.

So reforming the economy from commodity trade to high-tech trade is one of my strategic goals. But the commodity economy is simpler. It is not just simpler - it is simple. You agree on payment, delivery of goods, production, and that's it, just export resources and import money. And it worked, allowing me to receive large sums of money by galactic standards. The second transport left - I took it out without going into normal space, so if anyone was waiting for me in the Coruscant sector, it was worse for them - I told the Justice that there were important cargoes and pirates might show up. If they do come, in a couple of days the whole party will probably think it's a lure of the Justiciars. And most importantly, they won't be far wrong.

The construction of a well-armed and patrolled station was nearing completion, so I waited. Just waiting. Right now, every tranche into the system is a tedious endeavour. But necessary.

I had some ideas about that, so I decided to see what we could do about travelling in the system. It was difficult, but not unrealistic - I knew from hyperspace theory that hyperspace near the source of the disturbance was like a stormy sea - it was constantly changing, making navigation impossible in principle. So static routes were impossible. However, there was a way to travel in such a sea - a special kind of hyperdrive. I have only heard about it - the problem of navigation near black holes and in a cluster of stars has long troubled the minds of architects. They had created a "balancer" station that could create a relatively straight route for several millennia, and for travelling in hyperspace they had created hyperdrives of a special layout. They emitted perturbations of such directionality that they stabilised the hyperfield around them, that is, they moved like an iron, smoothing hyperspace around them.

But I'd just started experimenting. Surprisingly, it was easy and effortless to create a hyperdrive. Only a test flight showed that outside the core this wundermachine is categorically impossible to use - its speed is at the level of the tenth class.

Having finished with the architects, I took a quick step to the financier, Joey. He lived in a separate office with a couple of big blocks. It's no good working from a yacht, but when it's the size of a cruiser, it's possible. The corridors of the yacht were still deserted, but this time it was possible to meet people walking around - the population of the ship was one and a half thousand people - the ministers themselves, their assistants and subordinates, and the service staff hired by them.

The Minister of Finance dwelt in the bow, in a spacious office, with two large offices in front of him. I entered, startling by the appearance of my supreme personage all the clerks whom Joy had crowded into his fiefdom. Ostrander himself was in his office. After knocking for decorum, I opened the door and stepped inside.

- Joy?

- "Your Majesty," he stood up immediately, but I stopped him: - You don't have to get up, I'm on business..." I walked into the financier's fiefdom. It was cosy and, in comparison with other ministers, luxurious - after all, Joy was not a young specialist, so he was used to cosiness and luxury - the finishing of the office was almost the same as in my office.

- Yes, Your Majesty," Joy asked a little ingratiatingly, "did you want something?

- I do. I need data on the share prices of KMK, Kuat Drive, Incom, Industrial Automaton, Quandex, BlasTech, Taim and Buck.

- Just a second... - Joy typed something on the terminal and in a minute the graphs I wanted appeared on the big holomonitor.

- May I ask? Why are you suddenly interested in rates?

- I usually follow financial news through my droid, Erdva. It has a powerful computational core and advanced AI, so it can model market behaviour and track important changes better than specialised machines. But he's busy with a new toy right now, so I had to come to you. And for one more reason..." I sighed, "what is the forecast for the impact on the markets of our resources?

- The usual," Joy nodded, "KMC is reducing the value of its ships. It's common practice for them to become obsolete, but now the rate of decline has increased. The freighters they're famous for are now worth fifty thousand each, which is ten thousand less than a year ago. Especially along with this they have announced that they are preparing a new series of freighters for release. True, the price is corresponding - one hundred and twenty thousand, but they promise a standard hyperdrive of the first class, while on the others it is a great rarity.

- And the others?

- KMC shares went up - the company announced itself and its active activity. Yes, and sales increased. Kuat Drive and RAF lost a couple of points, the others have not reacted yet. The market of companies supplying components for KMC has grown significantly - two companies, Quandex and Coensair, competed for the right to supply their sublight engines to the new freighter. Koensair won the tender, and Kvandex shares went down in price. A big order went away from them. BlasTech has been growing steadily for four years now, since they got a lot of orders from planetary governments and the Republic.

- I see," I nodded, "in that case, we'll wait for a surprise from KMC, and then we'll start buying up some of the smaller scrap metal companies. Uulshos, Trilon, Sline and Korpil, Prax Arms, Locris, Golan Arms, GoCorp, Accutronix.

- I'm sorry, why do we need this? - Joy didn't get it.

- I suppose for profit," I said, "we're going to need a variety of manufacturing and engineering people. I've been thinking - the most realistic way in our variant is not to look for them on the free market, on adverts, but to gather a kind of "league of small industries". According to my calculations, if the majority of these companies will unify their component base, as well as join forces as related industries and concern themselves with quality training of engineers, the quality of their products will increase many times, and the cost of production will fall by thirty to fifty per cent. And these are just sketches. Of course, we're not talking about a quick purchase or a purchase at all, but it would be better to invest some of our money in this business and at the same time make sure that they don't collapse because of the work of the Techno-Union.

- Wouldn't it be easier to just hire them to build us industrial facilities? - Joy wondered, -or better yet, we could order everything we need from KMC.

- And create a competitor? - I didn't get the humour, - KMC is good, of course, but we need a wide range of technical production facilities. We are not talking about influencing these corporations, but we should buy shares gradually. We'll need them.

- You got it," Joy nodded.

- That's good," I nodded. "By the way, it wouldn't hurt to talk to Lin and Sin about it. If they are going to place orders with these companies, it is definitely better to buy up the shares.

I said goodbye to the minister and went to my room, and sat down on the sofa in the laboratory and thought for a long time. MandalMotors promised to provide us with an experimental model of the fighter in four months, in five months the first "Venators" would be off the slipway - thanks to the elaborate models and the injection of funds, their design was going at a rapid pace. The first ZR would see the light of day only six months before the Venators entered service. That said, it was the lack of a fleet that kept me from opening up navigation in the system.

I'd already done everything I could - there was no point in worrying about it any more.

* * *

Three months later.

* * *

I flew out with Syn to pick up the prototype fighter. The prototype itself was, roughly speaking, an unfinished working model with a lot of flaws.

Together with Sin, on the corvette "Gozanti" we took off and when the ship entered the Coruscant system, I gave control to the pilots, with the order to fly to Coruscant and, going to my cabin, asked Erdva:

- Erdwa, can you connect me to Cinna?

- I can," the droid replied immediately.

- I sat down on the couch in my quarters and prepared to talk to the chief scout. Cinna's hologram appeared a few minutes later.

- Your majesty? - Cinna was surprised.

- Didn't expect it? Yes, good morning.

- Good morning to you too, your majesty," the holographic face of the nerd nodded, "what can I do for you?

- A few questions of interest, Cinna," I nodded, "how are things in general and how are things in particular. What new things have happened?

- I apologise," the nerd sighed, "due to the demands on communication standards, it's become more difficult to submit reports.

- It's nothing," I said, "it's just temporary until we get the communications hub up and running at the cargo station. I'm in the Coruscant system now, on my way to you. I have a gift.

- I'm intrigued, your majesty," the nerd replied and I switched off the connection.

It took us about an hour to get to Coruscant, during which time I had time to check and recheck my gift and finally the ship entered the planet's atmosphere. Shin, like me, walked out to the ramp and as soon as the ship landed we walked out together on the landing pad of the five hundredth house. Coming out to meet us was Lin, who immediately greeted me:

- Anakin, you should have warned me!

- Why, are you having a party here? Why am I not invited?

- No, not at all," Lin smiled, "I'd just let the engineers know to show their work.

- And already there is something to show? - I was surprised.

- No, not yet, - Lin sighed and headed towards the flat, and we followed him, - the development is in full swing, but no serious progress has been made yet.

- I see, - I sighed, - by the way, where are the engineers settled?

- Right here, in the flat, - Lin nodded at the entrance to our residence, - although they have a laboratory, I offered them to live here... - Lin was a little embarrassed, but he didn't show it.

- So, tell me, what's the joke? - I smiled, "You really like this girl, don't you? Tia?

- Well..." Lin smiled, but didn't say anything. But I realised I'd hit the mark.

- Well, don't worry about it. It's up to you, I'm not in your way. By the way, I just need an aerospeeder to go to someone's house.

- Yeah, please," Shin waved towards the hangar, "there's a few here, the green one's mine. Take it.

- Thank you," I smiled and grabbed the case, heading in that direction. I told Sin to wait for me in the flat.

The way to Cinna's brothel didn't take long, and it was too easy for my taste - the speeder on Coruscant flew on the aerial route, with the help of the navigator, so I didn't even participate in the flight. Erdva took the passenger seat, and together we flew to the brothel in five minutes. By the way, Lin's speeder is good - not like my old ones. I'll have to work on it later... or not later, but now... in any case, I have nothing to lose - it's a long way to Mandalore.

I parked the speeder next to the brothel and walked through the hall, heading towards Cinna's office. I was met by guards and, a few seconds later, by the owner of the brothel.

- Your Majesty," Cinna bowed, "what can I do for you?

- Not here," I walked into the office and Cinna followed me. Entering the familiar office, I sat down in a chair and asked the nerd:

- Well, how is the work on the previously announced directions?

- Not bad, - Cinna answered immediately, sitting down in his chair, - I have already taken a controlling stake in forty per cent of the Alderaanian media, through front men and front companies and funds. The galactic ones are worse - there are no controlling stakes, and their value is high. The largest stake is currently held by the StarMedia Media Group, twenty-five per cent. And it cost us almost a trillion.

- Not bad," I grinned, "the main thing is that we have the package itself.

- The studios we don't need are included," Cinna nodded, "film studios, theatre studios, music funds... we hardly need them in our business, but we have to buy them.

- That's okay," I nodded, "it's an investment, not a one-time purchase - the money will come back, and besides, they may find a task for it later. All right, it's all general. What about the plan of attack?

- Oh, it's better, - Cinna nodded, - there are already several plans. The working variant hasn't been chosen yet, but in the process of elaboration we'll remove this issue.

- The main thing is that the story does not come out, - I sighed, - and then we'll sort it out. So, what are the plans?

- The first one, - Cinna nodded, - is, as you said - a two-front game with sudden exposure. We'll stage a series of high-profile cases for both sides, then make a big fuss about them. One option is attempted assassination to seize the throne. Same on the Authority's side.

- And the other option? - I raised an eyebrow.

- Corruption scandal, sex scandal, political scandal and a combination of these versions.

- How can you tell me," I asked Cinna, "how can it be combined?

- For example, first the press gets information about Bale Organ's abnormal sexual behaviour, or even rape. We find the victim. At the same time, unknown assailants set up an assassination attempt on members of the Antilles house. The rape victim says she or he was bribed or threatened by Antilles to testify. If necessary, we can set it up to really look like a hire on Antilles' part, so that no Jedi will know if she's telling the truth or not. At the same time, information pops up that the assassination attempt on Antilles was commissioned by House Organa, so both houses are implicated in the dirty methods of war.

- Wait, and the proof? - I asked, - the press will need facts and proof.

- We'll organise the evidence. For example, the testimony of Bale Organ's victim, the testimony of the mercenary allegedly hired to kill Antilles..... After all, what prevents us, through the press, from paying the mercenary more than his alleged employers and "bargaining" the information we need from him on condition of anonymity?

- Still, it's too little, - I disagreed.

- Then there will be a second round! - Then before the story gets out, the Antilles will have time to strike again and expose Organa's involvement in, say, a xenophobic conspiracy.

- No, that won't work," I gritted my teeth, "it's too playful. It's not exactly Organa's personal interest. If we, say, use partly true information and partly staged crimes of the House of Organa? They're the ruling house, it takes dirt that the Antilles can allegedly put out to discredit them. And more importantly, they need a scandal for the press.

- Well, then we can press for political inconsistency, - nodded Cinna, - for example, to provide cases of massive use of illegal pressure methods by the House of Organa....

- No, we need something more high-profile... - I thought, - tell me, if we buy a small arms factory in the name of some left-wing company, where your agents will work, and then finance several local wars through it, will it hit the House of Organa hard?

- If you make this organisation look like it's under the control of the Organa Mazicia..." Cinna thought, "that would destroy them. You bet - the main peace-loving pacifists are supplying weapons to their allies and fuelling civil wars!

- That's nothing. We could, for example, buy a hundred or two slaves for the organisation's assembly plants, and then, as a result of an investigation, set them free. We can't fix their memories, but we can arrange for a Bale Organa impersonator to visit their workshops.

- Genius! - Cinna jumped up, "That's brilliant! But really, do you factor in the cost? It will raise the cost of the operation by trillions of credits, and after all, last time we talked about the press having to do ninety per cent of the work....

- Well, let them do it," I snorted, "right now the press has only one job, and that's to make a scandal. Well, we'll increase the scale of costs a little....

- A little is an understatement, - nodded the nerd, - military sponsorship will cost us several hundred billion credits. And to make it look like the company's been there for a while, it's going to take a lot of work.

- I agree," I nodded, "it's going to be a lot of work. But I believe in you - you have the funding. I'll give you a new wave of tranches for this purpose. You don't have to take money from Joey for the operation yet... by the way, what shall we call it?

- Hmmm..." Cinna thought for a moment, "Operation Change of Leadership.

- Great, - I smiled, - in that case, wait. I'll fly to you and bring the valuables for the required sums. Meanwhile you prepare specialists and the ground for the operation... by the way... - I thought, - why did I come? I wanted to see how things were going on Naboo.

- As I suspected," Cinna nodded, "it's a cold war. And they want to marry off the queen....

- What?" my eyes widened. "Married? Padmé?

- Yes," Cinna nodded, smiling, "the girl is seventeen years old. It's normal for people of her kind to start families at fourteen, or even earlier. So I don't know why Amidala is still a wench.

- I'll ask you again for more details," I sat back down on the chair I'd risen from, "who to marry, why, why?

- Well... first a question, your majesty," Cinna nodded, "are you asking me this for interest, or do you have a thing for the queen of Naboo yourself?

I scratched my earlobe and thought.

- I don't know, Cinna, I just don't know. I just... I didn't think she'd find a man before I saw her again....

- 'She hasn't,' Cinna shrugged, 'she has a list of suitors sitting around waiting. The queen herself opposes it, and her entourage, including her parents, pressurise her.

- Strange. I didn't think it would go this far," I said, thinking, "I wasn't going to meet her yet, but if it goes on like this, I'll have to visit Naboo. And as a bride candidate..." I thought for a moment. The situation with Padme is ambiguous - it seems that we are not close friends, but something attracts me - a beautiful girl, a queen, and younger than me by only five years. But there are other girls just as good. The same Satine Kriz, and by political necessity, everything says that it is better to send matchmakers to Satine. But alas, she's not my type. I feel that she has nothing for me, and me too. Though she loves someone, but I don't know who, she hasn't seen any favourites or lovers.

- If she's a bride candidate, you tell me.

- What would it change? - I raised an eyebrow, - by the way, have you not heard?

- What?

- Some people are proposing to introduce polygamy in the empire. As an anti-crisis measure to improve the demographic situation.

- I've heard," Cinna nodded, "it's a job. Vektisa Zerter, head of the Department of Social Development of the Empire, proposed it. She is a member of Joey Ostrander's political group, though as the head of a department created by Joey she does not have enough power and influence.

- Yes, she does," I grinned, "don't think I don't listen to the advice of my subordinates. Although I have the last word, it is impossible to pull the whole empire alone, that's why such minor officials have a decent power - on the one hand their activity is not regulated by me personally, and on the other hand they have their own plans and realise them.

- Do you agree with her proposal? - raised a furry eyebrow nerd.

- I do. Not that I need it, but as an anti-crisis measure, polygamy has been used for a long time. Besides, she's got Joey to fund a programme to promote polygamous marriages and encourage people to have children. Those who have two wives will get preferential treatment, and those with more than one child will get substantial incentives, including tax breaks.

- I hadn't heard that," Cinna nodded, "That's right, actually, and forty per cent of human cultures in the galaxy have polygamy, so it's not surprising that she got the funding.

- And you couldn't hear it - eavesdrop, but don't send spies to mine. I might accidentally confuse them with enemy ones, and then I'll settle the matter short and hard.

- I didn't send any," Cinna shrugged, "I only use general sources. By the way, Kevin Andersen keeps a news feed where government decisions and programmes are published. This news is on it.

- Okay," I nodded, "we're done. Keep me informed about the Queen of Naboo's fiancé, and we'll figure it out. By the way, I came in person on an important matter," I stood up and took the case and put it on Cinna's desk. I opened it.

- This is my gift to you.

- And what is it? - Cinna looked at the contents of the briefcase. There was a computer, remote controls in the form of comlinks and a transparent container with small black balls inside that looked like poppy seeds.

- This, Cinna, is the last word in espionage. Nanodroid scouts.

- Really?" Cinna was surprised, "Where?

- Right here in these containers," I shook a container of smaller containers, "There are ten spy droids in each small container. They're about two thousand nanometres in size. Like four bacteria. And yet they can record video and sound, no worse than a normal surveillance camera.

Cinna pulled a comlink out of his briefcase:

- What's this?

- It's a control panel for the nanodroids. Everyone can control one nanodroid unit - each unit is ten droids. Detailed instructions are here, - I nodded at the computer, - this computer can control droids at a decent distance, and if there is a holonet on the planet, then through the holonet in real time. It's only necessary to place the transmitter at a distance of five to ten kilometres. That's the maximum distance, though.

- Wonderful, - Cinna almost choked with joy, - but nanodroids cost a fantastic amount of money! And besides, no one in the galaxy has ever come to the point of using nanodroids in such a way!

- I understand," I smiled, "but I have. I'd like Koros to be considered the capital of high technology, so I started small, with nanodroids. There are a thousand blocks, ten droids in each. They can be used together if necessary, but the need to control each droid individually creates a technical hurdle. We need a high-performance computer with a good processing core.

- I'll get it! - Cinna nodded cheerfully, looking at the case as if it were manna from heaven, "I'll have everything. Oh, Hutt, there's so much you can do with nanospies!

- Theoretically, no scanners will pick them up. They're too small.

- That makes things a lot easier," Cinna nodded at the case, "With this equipment, I can wiretap anyone in the galaxy, even the Chancellor himself!

- I don't want the Chancellor," I disagreed, "I'm only interested in Organa, Antilles and Amidala for now. Do we already have a man in her entourage?

- We do," Cinna nodded.

- In that case, send me a list of her suitors. I want to know who they want the Queen to marry....

- I'll do it,'' Cinna said, and we said goodbye. The new toy for the spy was a balm to my soul - I could see in the power, such pure, genuine joy, as if I had given a child a long-awaited toy.

Shin was waiting for me in the flat, along with Lin. Once inside, I nodded to both of them:

- Cyn, we have to go. The slayer is waiting for our attention.

- Well," the military man sighed, looking at Lin, "I'll see you later.

We took off immediately. As soon as the ramp of the corvette closed behind us, Shin, walking beside me, said:

- Why didn't you, your majesty, tell me about the droid?

- What droid? - I didn't understand.

- You forgot? The droid. Lin gave me the blueprints of a new droid, he said that it was made to your order...

- Oh, yes, I forgot," I nodded, "and what was the result?

- Remarkable result. The droid is much more mobile, less vulnerable, and thanks to its more powerful reactor and smaller size, its shield density has been almost doubled. A remarkable battle droid, and a heavily armed one at that. Lin also crammed a heavy blaster and a missile launcher with ten small missiles into it....

- Really? - I wondered, "Cool.

Shin grinned, "Your Majesty, you sound just like your son.

- Well, he is a son," I returned the smile, "to be like me. We'll pick up the droid on the way back, but for now we'll concentrate on the ships. We'll visit the other shipyards where our orders are. By the way, where are our orders?

- MandalMotors, KMK, Kuat, Incom, RAF, BlasTech, Zzerka, Industrial Automaton, Mer-Sonn ...

- Oh, that's a lot of stuff. Who's got what?

- MandalMotors has a fighter and armour order, Kuat has station construction and heavy landing speeders, landing bots and transport ships of various sizes, right down to the acclamators they've promised to convert into landing craft. Incom - reconnaissance high altitude speeders and motorised speeders, as well as patrol speeders. BlasTech - carbines, pistols, sniper rifles. Zzerka - heavy blasters, machine guns, multi-barrels, grenade launchers and battle droids, ground vehicles. Industrial Automaton - R2-series droids, deeply modernised, technician droids, secretaries, loaders, archivists and other servants, there are also two dozen small companies - BioTech, producing individual first aid kits, Aielix - military uniforms and footwear, as well as a lot of orders for household items. From kitchen supplies to tech tools.

- Okay, let's visit MandalMotors and KMK, see where our projects stand.

Shin just nodded and we split up, each doing our own thing. Me, soldering an aerospider in the hold, and Shin, disappearing into his cabin and barely coming out.