Chapter 17

Year 3, Day 15, Solitude, Terra Prime.

After the third time Alexander had woken up screaming inside the CCN he had decided to build Solitude. As useful as the CCN was, there was just something about it that disturbed the primitive part of his brain. He theorised it was the total lack of ambient sounds, the oddness of the light that came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, or something else, but whatever it was, spending too much time there was bad for his mental health.

When Alexander was at Endeavour he was always being sought out, he didn't mind that, not really, he had after all set himself up as the leader; but there were times that he needed peace and quiet to plan, to work, to just be himself.

At first he'd considered recruiting labourers from different universes and putting them to work, but quickly discarded that idea, he'd have to oversee them. He didn't want to use the local Terra Prime workforce either, he wanted a retreat after all. It was only after much deliberation and hesitation that he bit the bullet and purchased a dozen Star Wars universe droids capable of doing the work.

All the reasons he didn't want droids on Terra Prime were still valid, but he just didn't see any other option. Not unless he wanted to do the work himself, and that wasn't happening. He did do everything he could to limit the possibility that they'd go nuts and revolt though. He made sure he got the most paranoid restraining bolts in existence fitted and once they were done he disassembled them and stashed them in three different secure faraday caged rooms, one room for the bodies, one for the heads, and one for the power supplies.

Above ground the entire thing looked like a sprawling Roman Villa, two stories, wings arranged in the traditional squad, with a central courtyard, white walls, red brick roof, large windows in every room. It was a beautiful, sprawling, complex, covering almost four hundred square meters, situated on a flat grassy plain in what would be on another world the English countryside.

Alexander had always found amusement in being called an antipodean by the British, so when it came time to choose a place for his home away from home the choice had seemed natural.

However what was visible on the surface wasn't the point of the exercise. Oh it was nice, and Alexander had spent many an afternoon enjoying his villa, but what was underneath it was the important part.

Eight floors, each covering nine hundred square meters and raising six meters, descended deep into the bedrock. They weren't pretty, just ferroconcrete floors, walls, and ceilings, with the environmental equipment necessary for life underground sitting exposed. As unattractive as they were they served their purpose, storage and lab space for Alexander's private endeavours that he couldn't or simply didn't want the people in the actual Endeavour knowing about.

Most of the space was empty, but Alexander had always been a firm believer in planning ahead. The secure droid storage vaults were on Sub-Level 7, with SL8 being the highest security area designated for some of the more esoteric items Alexander was planning on acquiring in the future, at least those things he wasn't planning on storing in an asteroid outside the Galaxy proper, but he hadn't gotten around to starting construction on such a storage facility yet.

At the moment Alexander was in the Armoury section of SL1. It was as big as an average sized store, cages and lockers lining the walls. There was enough hardware in that one room to give a redneck militia member a fatal gunboner. Weapons and equipment ranging from conventional 21st century pistols, all the way up to man-portable anti-starship weapons from the Star Wars universe.

Alexander was looking at the spare sets of Clone Trooper armour he'd stashed at Solitude and considering them. They were good, light-years ahead of anything the military of his own world had, but they were mass produced 'government' quality equipment. He'd worn them long enough to realise that they could be better, far better. So far he'd restrained himself from 'upgunning' himself when compared to his rank and file troops, but more and more he was considering solo missions that he didn't want anyone to know about, and for those missions troop morale wasn't an issue.

Nodding to himself Alexander brought up the dimensional travel menu and faded from view.

***

Nar Shaddaa, Star Wars Universe, 14 B.B.Y

Alexander checked his belt pouch again as he continued looking for the shop he'd been directed to. He hated Nar Shaddaa, it was like a planet sized red light district, every time he visited he felt as if he was submerging himself in a pig shit. However it was also the best place to shop when you wanted something no questioned asked. Finally he came to a small hole-in-the-wall shop with what he thought were the correct markings.

He walked up to the door and tapped on the keypad, which came alive with a hiss, "What you want?" a voice echoed out of it's speaker.

"Bonos sent me, I want a custom job" Alexander replied, leaning towards the speaker.

The speaker buzzed and the door opened. Alexander dropped his hand to his side arm, before visibly restraining himself and heading inside. If anything the interior was more dilapidated than the outside, it was a thin room, large piles of what Alex could only call junk lining each side, with a counter and a thin path in the middle. He reminded himself that looks could be deceiving, and made his way along the long counter. Near the end was a small yellowish Alien, about a meter and a half tall, thin and spindly, with eight legs and four arms. It was hideous, it's face misshapen and angular, it's twelve eyes blinking in sequence.

Alexander restrained a shudder and moved towards the being, "Are you Nerous?" he asked.

"Yes, yes, you want, you pay, yes, yes" the being nodded rapidly, it's mandibles clicking wildly.

Alexander rolled his eyes, his translation software wasn't perfect, but he got the feeling this guy was playing it up, "Yes, I pay, if you can provide what I want"

"Proof! Proof!" The Alien squealed.

Sighing Alexander reached into his belt pouch and felt around, finding what he was looking for he pulled it out and slapped it on the counter. It was a single coin, roughly the size of an Australian fifty cent piece, except round and made of solid gold. However it wasn't the gold that drew the Alien's considerable number of eyes.

In the Star Wars universe, in any space faring universe really, gold wasn't worth much, it was simply too easy to get with asteroid mining, but there were other, much rarer elements that could take it's place, and on Nar Shaddaa that element was Aurodium. The gold coin was just the housing for the three small chips of Aurodium sitting in the sent of it behind a clear material, a little over three grams of the material. It didn't sound like a lot, but three grams of Aurodium was worth close to five million Galactic Credits, enough to buy two state of the art starfighters, and best of all it was a non-traceable currency.

"Mine!" The Alien squealed and made to grab the coin.

Alexander didn't reach for the coin, but rather the Alien's 'hand', which he slammed hard into the counter. With his other hand he reached down and snapped up his blaster, in one smooth movement it was primed and aimed at the creature's many eyes.

"Yes, yours, if," Alexander said keeping his voice level and calm, "you can provide what I want." He slowly released the Alien's appendage.

For a few tense moments Alexander kept his blaster steady, ready at any moment to trigger the transit macro he had set before even setting foot on the moon, but the Alien seemed to think come to a decision. Nodding quickly it pulled it's arms around itself like in a hug and rushed towards the back room.

"Come, come!" It said over it's shoulder.

***

A little over a week later Alexander was once again standing in the armoury of his safe house admiring the work of art in front of him. It had been obscenely expensive, costing the equivalent of thirty million galactic credits in aurodium, and if Alex hadn't stolen it in the first place he might have had buyers remorse, but as it was all he felt was smug satisfaction.

From the outside the armour didn't look that impressive, just a slimmer, more stylized version of the clone trooper armour he had been wearing previously, only in matt-black instead of the bog standard white. However looks aren't everything, and the armour proved that conclusively.

It was made of an alloy consisting of more elements than Alexander cared to think about, but he did know one of the main ingredients in it was Beskar, or Mandalorian iron, a hyper-expensive metal found only on a few worlds in the outer rim. Beskar was famed for it's ability to resist energy weapons, and the Alien armoursmith had claimed it would withstand a shot from a starfighter, though Alexander doubted that; what he did know, from a demonstration, was that it could stand up to a lightsabre, and that was impressive.

The armour itself was actually lighter than his previous set, and the electronics in it dwarfed the already impressive abilities provided by the military issue gear. At his behest the entire electronics complement had been designed to be modular, so he could upgrade it with extra-dimensional technology when he got the chance.

If it was a car Alexander would say it was 'fully-loaded', every option had been taken, the one he most liked was the 'smart-paint' outer layer that allowed him to change the general colour scheme as he wished. He wasn't sure how it worked, but he had been warned that if he took any hits he'd have to reapply a new coat over any damaged sections, and he had been given a number of large tubs containing what he needed.

The one thing missing was an energy shield. He knew the SWU had the technology at some point, but apparently man portable shields were 'lost tech', so for now he'd have to make due with something that could turn aside an artillery shell and tank a heavy plasma cannon at point blank range at the same time.

At least until he could nick something that suited.

All in all it had been a productive week.