“Jump complete,” Pif stated the obvious.
“Padawan, give the commands,” Nemak ordered.
“Yes, teacher,” I sighed and started issuing orders to the AI.
My sensei had an attack of pedagogical itch.
It’s a good thing, of course, but its direction didn’t please me at all.
It’d be fine if he were teaching me to fly the ship, but after appointing me supercargo, he decided to share the sacred knowledge known as economics.
He himself, truth be told, understood it at the level of an ordinary youngling — that is, he knew money was a universal measure and all that.
After quickly running out of steam, or perhaps realizing the idiocy of the situation — since I’d heard those exact same lectures just a couple of years ago and remembered them better than he did — in short, the master switched to practice.
Yep, he tasked me with learning a standard set of commands and the sequence for issuing them in equally standard situations.
So now I was taking a kind of exam.
What can I say?
I passed.
It wasn’t hard.
My memory didn’t fail me.
We flew to the planet, dove into the atmosphere, landed where indicated.
Good job, A-plus — I praised myself and went to put on my spacesuit.
Still, despite my remarkable body and the Force, breathing methane isn’t my thing.
We suited up, the air was pumped out, the interior compartments were sealed, the pressure was equalized, the ramps were opened.
Alas, using a force field to keep our usual gas mixture wasn’t an option.
The worker specimens of the sentient insects populating the planet, who were now hurrying toward the ship, would die from oxygen faster than we would from methane.
We stood, waited, looked around.
Generally speaking, methane itself is a transparent gas — colorless, actually — but with all sorts of impurities, the insect planet’s atmosphere was yellow-green.
At least, that’s what the sky in their world looked like.
The inhabitants themselves resembled a cross between a spider and a mantis.
Eight legs and a body perched on top.
A pair of long limbs, each ending in something like a triple set of hooks.
Over the course of evolution, the latter had turned into a pale imitation of fingers.
In short, pretty hideous creatures with triangular heads, rudimentary mandibles, and classic compound eyes.
Between the latter protruded three antennae.
A pair ended in peculiar brushes and served for receiving and transmitting low-frequency signals, and also functioned as a kind of sensory complex.
The last antenna was a rather unique thing, a multi-jointed apparatus capable of emitting and detecting ultrasonic waves.
In short, it resembled the echolocation of dolphins and bats.
This marvelous appendage helped the monsters orient themselves underground.
The planet’s spaceport was quite original.
The locals had simply cleared and leveled an outcrop of rock.
And that was it, really.
No division into sectors or pads, no…
anything at all!
Of all the equipment on that solid slab of flat stone, all I could spot was a fuel truck raising dust in the distance.
If I could have, I’d have scratched my head.
But alas — the spacesuit got in the way.
Communication with the natives was conducted through a portable translator box.
Of course, a protocol droid would have been much better, but as they say, “if you can’t get a maid, a janitor will do.” Besides, there wasn’t much to talk about with beings so utterly alien to us.
They operated with completely different concepts and notions.
The teacher stood nearby, supposedly monitoring my work.
Really, he just had nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Not exactly a sightseeing spot.
And sitting in the comfort of the interior compartments — apparently, his conscience wouldn’t allow it.
Be that as it may, the work wasn’t going to do itself, and it needed to be done.
The faster we finished here, the sooner we’d move on to a more pleasant planet.
The light spacesuit didn’t cause much discomfort and didn’t really function in the full spacesuit format.
The helmet served as a filter mask, while the rest of the systems only worked to maintain a comfortable temperature.
The working conditions weren’t as bad as I’d thought.
Or rather, as I’d tried to convince the teacher.
The swarm of bugs that came running turned out to be more efficient than a dozen or two robots.
Right away, they organized something like an ant trail.
I, on the other hand, had to tap confirmations on the datapad at machine-gun speed.
But I managed, didn’t even have to use the Force.
Loading, however, presented some difficulties.
We were supposed to take away precious ores, or rather, their alloys.
They must have been quite heavy, since the natives literally brought two or three ingots at a time.
Another fun little surprise the insects had in store was the complete absence of not just containers, but even a hint of any kind of packaging.
The ship’s AI wasn’t bothered by such trifles when logging the incoming cargo.
But I anticipated difficulties with unloading in advance.
Still, everything brought in had to be somehow stowed and secured somehow.
The planet’s inhabitants simply didn’t understand the point of storing anything in any way other than a pile.
The only saving grace was that each worker specimen would run into the hold, dash about to the center of the compartment, and drop its load there.
Attempts to explain that this wasn’t the way to do it met with no success.
They wouldn’t even listen, let alone try to understand.
In the end, most of the ingots still ended up on the inter-deck lift.
We got a quality express workout in telekinesis.
Especially me.
I’d tap a finger on the datapad and use the Force to toss the scattered ingots into the lift.
The teacher, willy-nilly, had to join the process.
In short, I don’t know about two soldiers from a construction battalion replacing an excavator, but a pair of Jedi can do a lot — that’s a fact.
Personally verified.
Naturally, after the cargo was on board and the local roaches had scattered, we had to work hard.
More than ten thousand ingots across five decks needed to be gathered into something at least manageable for the loading droids.
Otherwise, the unloading process would drag on considerably.
So while the ship was devouring parsecs in subspace, that’s what we did.
The experience of interacting with sentient insects proved quite instructive.
Something to remember in my old age and tell my grandchildren about, if, of course, I live that long.
And I, as a matter of fact, plan to live.
Though, who doesn’t plan for that?
Actually, in light of the coming “Clone Wars,” I’m tormented by rather contradictory feelings and inclinations.
On one hand, the Jedi feel like something close to me.
On the other, I wouldn’t exactly call them my pride.
In short — it’s all very complicated and unclear even to myself.
Either way, having a couple of bolt-holes prepared won’t hurt.
No matter what happens, laying down some safety nets is always useful.
There are about eight years left until the war, maybe even nine, so, quietly and discreetly, a hidey-hole here, a stash there, and look, I might be prepared.
The only reason I haven’t yet run to Master Yoda and turned in Darth Sidious is the clear feeling in the Force that such interference on my part would lead to nothing good.
A rather vague and not very detailed sensation-knowledge, unambiguously stating that the gifted of my generation will, of course, survive, but the grandchildren and great-grandchildren — I’d feel sorry for them.
It’s clear that grandchildren and great-grandchildren are meant in a metaphorical sense.
The slaughter orchestrated by Sidious is somehow necessary for something and for some reason.
Maybe that infamous balance of the Force really does need to be restored?
It’s hard to figure out, oh, so hard.
* * *
We flew from the insects to a perfectly ordinary world, in many ways similar to Earth, except with fewer continents and they were a bit larger, but otherwise — Earth is Earth.
Though, it’s more accurate to call it an Earth-like planet.
In short — blue sky, white clouds, green grass, a breeze.
Beautiful and nothing unusual.
If it weren’t for the rather tight schedule of the route organized for us by the treasury, I’d happily relax, take a walk, tear through a forest, or sit by a river with a fishing rod.
Alas, such joys aren’t in my future for the next few months.
The master praised me for a brilliantly executed operation and said he was proud of me.
Uh-huh, and then added that he trusted me completely.
Was it my imagination, or did he really radiate something like smugness or gloating in the Force?
In short, it was the sensei who got to go for a walk on the planet, or rather, to its second-largest city, while I had to hand over the delivered cargo and accept a new one.
And wait for Nemak too, if he happened to be delayed.
Where would I go without him?
Exactly — nowhere.
All I had in terms of documents were my whiskers, paws, and tail.
A lightsaber might pass as an ID in the Outer Rim, and even then, I suspect, not everywhere.
It was rather amusing to watch the teacher walk on foot across the enormous landing field, but frankly, I even envied that.
Because I had to deal with a pair of Zabrak who had arrived at the head of a veritable army of robots.
Apparently, they weren’t dealing with the bug-people for the first time and were well aware of their peculiarities regarding delivery format.
We greeted each other and got to work.
Why drag it out?
It’s not like the ingots would load themselves.
I stood there.
Bored.
Poked a finger at the datapad.
To put it mildly — tedious.
The Zabraks gave orders to the droids, settled down by the ramp, and didn’t have a care in the world.
They chattered about something in an unfamiliar language, puffing on cigarettes.
Torturing a poor kitten.
Ooh, you horned villains.
I’d knock those very horns right off them.
But I can’t, I’m a Jedi and all that.
Damn, I want a smoke.
Where does that even come from, huh?
And envy gnaws at my soul besides.
The recipients’ robots were advanced — they perfectly understood what to take, how to take it, where to carry it, and how to load it.
Just — rrrr, no words.
I tried checking the horned ones with the Force.
Good thing the teacher wasn’t around, I could work openly.
I could sense the Zabraks without any trouble.
I decided to read their minds, but nothing beyond surface images was accessible to me.
And even those came in snatches.
The datapad was a major distraction, the droids clanking with ingots grated on my ears, and my mood just wasn’t great.
“BOOM!” an ingot banged against a droid’s chest.
“Dammit, you crooked piece of metal, you dropped it half as loud before,” I mentally shouted.
Actually, those loader droids seemed to have hollow bodies.
When they started filling pallets with their manipulators and tapping the cargo against themselves, the ringing and humming echoed through the whole hold — it was awful.
My poor ears.
I definitely needed to think about getting a helmet.
But where would I get the credits for it?
Though, credits are still okay.
The real question is how to convince the teacher to let me use one openly.
Now that’s a real question.
Fine, I’ll make myself some earplugs.
I said goodbye to the Zabraks, so happy the ringing had stopped and the smoke no longer reached me that I wished them all the best.
In return, I got a somewhat unexpected but pleasant speech: They wished me, in a very ornate and verbose manner, success, luck, strength, and…
growth.
Apparently, the last one held some special meaning for them.
I just bowed in response, for which I was rewarded with another round of wishes.
While waiting for the cargo sender, and the cargo itself, I tortured my memory.
When I’d read about Zabraks, nothing about the importance of growth, weight, or size had come up.
But then, many species had long since spread across the galaxy and organized enclaves in other worlds.
It’s not that Zabraks are particularly reclusive, though the open-door policy, even for their own kind, isn’t really their thing either.
Oh, why am I racking my brains over this?
Who knows what kind of tradition or belief might have arisen.
Maybe the ones who settled on this planet millennia ago were sectarians.
Could they have gone crazy about racial-species superiority?
Easily!
And now it’s manifested as something that echoes in such wishes about growth.
Heck, maybe the original settlers were dwarf Zabraks.
The galaxy’s population is unimaginable, the species diversity is enormous, you encounter all sorts of quirks.