19 Chapter 19

Early next morning Renato ended up waking first due to his superior body stamina and the force helping him by reducing the amount of sleep he needed. He slowly extricated himself from the beautiful zeltron in his arms and entered the refresher to get himself cleaned up.

After he finished cleaning himself up, he came out of the shower to see that Talia was still asleep. He was about to bounce when he felt a little guilty about leaving without saying anything to her, but he didn't want to get her hopes up because he wasn't looking for a companion when he slept with her yesterday.

So, to suppress his guilt, Renato made a note and placed it on her bed stand and made her breakfast for when she woke up and scuttled out of the apartment.

As he put his helmet back on, he was immediately greeted with a familiar HUD screen and Paddy's voice in his ears.

"Had a fun night young master?"

"Yeah, it was fun alright. Anyway, what is the status report on my trackers?"

"It is good that you had fun yesterday, Master. I don't know how much longer I would have tolerated you leering at my beautiful holographic body like a pervert. I hope satisfying your sexual needs has somewhat reduced your perverseness."

Renato's lips couldn't help but twitch at her comment. He was about to defend himself when she cut him off and continued with her report.

"On HK-47's status report, he has completely annihilated all trackers tracking you except the government ones as per your request and he asked me to convey this exact message to you.

Statement: While assassinating meatbags is fun Master, I would prefer a situation that allows open killing without consequences so that I may try some of my newest ideas for the creative dismemberment of meatbags."

Renato couldn't help but hold his helmet in his hand. HK's murderous appetite would probably be unsated unless he was allowed to go into a major battle. But Renato quickly regained control over his train of thoughts and decided to continue with the report, throwing HK's comment into the back end of his mind.

"What about the secondary objective of spying against my trackers"

"This has also been fulfilled. It has been confirmed that the people following you were members of the Dac preservation society and some members of the local crime gang.

Their primary goal has been determined to rob you of your belongings, whereas there was also a secondary goal of the Dac preservation society trackers which was to get the information of where you were hiding all of your belongings."

"Oh? So, what was their response to having all of the trackers they sent killed? Are they sending more as a replacement? Are they coming for revenge?"

"This is the real-world young master. People aren't that dumb to immediately to waste more resources after they are hit face first with the fact that they are going against someone who isn't supposed to be trifled with.

For now, at least their instructions are to observe you from afar and try to gauge the strength of your forces so that they may mount a successful attack in the future"

"Hmph, cowards I was looking forward to a face slapping scenario but it looks like it isn't in my fate today. Anyway, it's still 4 in the morning and the meeting isn't till 9 so that gives us plenty of time to explore some other places and still have some time to go back to the ship and collect the merchandise."

"Of course, young master, based on your preferences I have three destinations for you to choose from. Number one would be the government office so that you can observe the workings of a planetary government. Number two is the shopping centres so that you can expose yourself to more of the galactic culture. The third option is to visit the shipyards."

"What are we even waiting for? To the shipyards, we go! To be honest, I am quite shocked that you would even give me the other two options Paddy. Maybe I need to reevaluate the level of your learning algorithms if you had to provide those options to me."

"Oh no, young master, those options were just to maintain the illusion of choice that you like. Even though I know you will pick the shipyard, I provide those options to give you other options as the illusion of choice"

Renato couldn't help but let out a sigh. She didn't have to put him down like that, but it was fine because he had come to like her sassy side throughout the years, he had been with her and while he wouldn't admit it in public there were times that he had noticed that his arrogance had gotten the better of him and he had to be put back in place by Paddy.

Finalising the destination, Renato followed Paddy's directions to a speeder rental and booked a ticket to the shipyards. Within a few minutes, his droid driver had brought him to the shipyards.

Mon Calamari as a species were incredibly artistic in nature and he could already see it in their architecture throughout his journey. The buildings looked like what he would consider Atlantic architecture to look like in mythology.

Long seed-shaped towers with entrances being different for each floor are only reachable by a flying vehicle or the emergency exits. They probably used the same architecture underwater and were only strange from a surface-dwellers point of view. While the shipyard itself looked like a top-down crystal bowl, that was made with transparisteel shaped in triangles.

Probably due to their artistic nature, there was a 24-hour tour of the shipyard provided by a droid to show off their artistry in their shipbuilding. Renato quickly paid the tour fee and immediately the droid started taking him around the building introducing its various parts and their functionality.

Throughout this entire scenario, Renato was constantly comparing the knowledge of shipbuilding technology of the Halo universe and the Star Wars universe. By the end of the tour, he had finished his cross-examination and the results were kind of mixed.

Both manufacturing techniques had their plus points. The Star Wars universe, due to its advanced material sciences in many areas, had much larger machinery capable of carrying bigger loads. There was also the fact that due to the superior nature of the learning algorithms of the Star Wars universe the amount of time required to break-in a new manufacturing line was deceptively small.

Whereas the Halo universe, due to their less expensive anti-gravity tech, had managed to capitalise on it and used it for moving larger parts instead of heavy machinery saving up on a lot of factory space so that more manufacturing lines could be fit in the same size of the Star Wars factory.

The best part of the whole ordeal was the fact that he found that both manufacturing techniques weren't mutually exclusive to each other and could be combined together without much effort put into it.

The next best part was the observation of the ships that were being built themselves. The ships were truly a work of art and looked beautiful with their organic curves on the outside and their paper-thin gapped panelling on the inside of their ship.

But like all works of art, beauty comes at a cost. In this case, the cost was the manufacturing and repairing cost. The ships, while beautiful, would be horrible to put into mass production. Just the curved panelling alone had a failure rate of over 23% in manufacturing.

Not to further the point of the amount of work that needed to be done to remove the panels if they only had a paper-thin gap between them. Unless you had yourself some Huragoks like him, the ship would be a nightmare to keep running without a highly skilled crew.

In the end, Renato still felt a pang of jealousy. One day maybe he could solve all these manufacturing difficulties so that he won't need to compromise on the art factor of ships. Not to diss Sliepnir or anything but Renato felt that the ship could look much much better if he didn't consider the future mass manufacturability of the ship.

As he finished his tour Renato was happy to get some things done productively and headed back to the ship to collect the merchandise as it was already 8:30. After reaching the ship he looked around to see that HK was in the charging dock and Orbo was up and alert, acting as a lookout for the ship.

Renato rubbed the head of the droid as he went through the items to separate the things that he was going to auction today. It only took a few minutes as he did the task with his telekinesis. He moved all the items to a gravity sled which had a dome to hide the contents of the sled.

Finished collecting the items Renato was heading out when he saw that Orbo was following him around.

" What is it, little guy?"

"Beep boop fwoop foop"

"This…. What about protecting the ship" The droid just turned around, pointing towards HK. It was only now that he noticed that even though HK was connected to the docking station his power cells were actually charged.

Renato immediately understood, it was just HK in his standby mode but he actually finished his charging already. Orbo's request to come along with him made Renato hesitate for a second as he considered all the questions that would be directed towards him about the droid, but in the end, looking at his cute mannerisms Renato lost the contest.

"Fine, fine, you can come with us"

Renato once again called a speeder rental and this time attached the gravity sled to be towed with the speeder and set the destination to the Byrtal auction house.

Arriving at the auction house, the first thing he did was park his gravity sled with the goods in a paid locker service offered by the auction house. He was going to take out the goods only after the transaction with the Sukeesh (Quarren shop keeper) was complete.

He only had to wait only for 10 mins more before Sukeesh appeared at the auction house. As soon as he spotted Renato he immediately walked towards Renato with haste, probably to gauge if the deal was still on or not after yesterday's debacle. Renato decided to play dumb because he still needed this guy for his connections with the auction house.

"Ah! Looks like you are early as well Sukeesh! I just arrived at the auction house myself," Renato said with fake pleasantry.

'Obviously, the guy was startled by the complete difference of treatment from yesterday but he quickly recovered and said while putting on an ingratiating face.

" What a coincidence! I hope our paths will cross again like this in the future as well sir because if this deal works out, I will simply sell my pawn shop and kick back and relax"

No, he would not. Renato could read his mind and he already read that this guy was going to spend all the money he earned in this debacle paying to the Dac preservation association for causing the loss of the trackers yesterday.

"One can only hope Sukeesh, One can only hope! Anyway, I think it is about time for our appointment don't you think?"

"Ah~ What? Ah yes to the appointment, right this way sir! My contact from the auction has already booked us a testing room and will be waiting in the room. Better not waste his time as he is generally considered a busy man.

By the way, that is a unique droid that you have there. It looks like an astromech but I don't seem to recognise it."

"I would be astonished if you recognised him, Orbo is a unique droid that I made myself."

"Ah, I didn't know that you were a droid maker as well! We can continue this conversation afterwards. We have to meet the auction house representative otherwise we risk running late."

Renato nodded to show his acceptance and the quarren quickly led them through the auction house to a domed area that looked a lot like an indoor sports arena. Entering the area, it was obviously a staging area for items that were going to be auctioned.

There were multiple types of crafts like personal speeders, droids, grain samples, etc. The area was mostly empty except for droids doing maintenance, which pointed out that it still wasn't open to the public yet. It was fair considering that if they auctioned undependable items the reputation of the auction house would take a hit.

Moving through the various exhibits, they reached a Mon Calamari who looked to be a person in a high position based on his clothes.

"Ah, Sukeesh! one of my wild cards! I can never anticipate what you bring to the auction but if I have anything to go by with our previous dealings, I expect to at least get a decent amount of influence in the company."

"Of course, Sir Jhus! I have found an incredible item that if you were to successfully auction would raise your auction house to new levels of fame! Let me introduce you to this gentleman, who claims to have found a perfectly working personal shield from the New Sith Wars era."

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I go by the codename Isu. I hope this will be a pleasurable exchange"

Immediately the fish-like eyes of the alien widened by a considerable fraction and Renato could feel the excitement radiating from the person.

"Truly! Mr.Isu If what Sukeesh says is true, I will immediately grant you a platinum membership to our auction house. There are many benefits for an Aurodium membership of our auction house, including but not limited to minimal charges for auctioning anything with us, as well as sending you exclusive news about any new auctions. Not to mention the free amenities we provide at any of our affiliated clubs.

But these details can be discussed in the future, first, let's test the item first."

Finishing the speech in superspeed the Mon calamari, typed something into his datapad, which then turned the display on the door outside to not available. Then they started heading towards a mannequin display. As they reached the mannequin, Renato quickly disengaged the shield generator attached to his belt.

While Renato had better shield generators, he specifically wore the ones from the ship to make the ruse more believable. As he handed the item to the Mon calamari in his peripheral vision, he could see a hint of greed on the face of the quarren before it promptly turned into frustration and couldn't help but give a smirk inside his helmet.

Jhus took the shield generator from Renato and attached it to the mannequin, and they moved backwards for a bit of a safe distance. He pressed a button on his datapad and within a minute a cam droid rolled up to record the test.

He then reached into his clothes, pulled out a blaster pistol and started firing at the mannequin causing a shimmering circular shield to form around the mannequin. However, it only took 3 shots before the shimmering field disappeared.

Following a closer inspection, Jhus exclaimed, " Ah! The powercell is out! But I remember it being a full charge. I remember it being said that a personal shield in the new sith wars would at least last for 10 shots. Why did it fail?"

Renato stepped in to explain, "That is probably due to the fact that blaster technology has further improved since the new Sith wars."

"Ah! That would do it, but it is still such a pity that if it could stop 10 bolts it would have surely been a blockbuster item for the auction."

Renato felt confused why Mon calamari felt it was a pity, it wasn't the shield that was the reason it was valuable, it was the radiation shielding aspect of the shield that was unseen in the galaxy. As he quickly went through their entire interactions his eyes widened in realisation as understanding dawned on him

It was cognitive dissonance from his extensive knowledge of Star Wars lore, and Paddy's help made it seem like most of the stuff he knew was common knowledge, but in actuality, it was anything but. Both the Mon Calamari and Quarren probably didn't know the radiation shielding aspect of the shield and were probably just treating it as a 4000-year-old antique piece.

"It looks like you don't have much information on the shield technology used in this shield, the reason I am selling it isn't because of the strength of its shield or the antique nature of the shield. There is a lost technology in this personal shield. I can tell you the technology in question but I would like to trade in a favour"

Sukeesh eyes went wide in tandem with Jhus's as soon as he heard Renato say the word lost technology. The Mon Calamari seemed to be weighing the option to trade in a favour while staring at the personal shielding before his eyes widened as if getting sudden inspiration and he turned towards Renato agitatedly.

"I think I know what the lost technology is. Please wait a moment while I confirm."

Renato was surprised and amazed at the guy's quick wit, he avoided trading a favour by deducting the reasons himself. From there all it took was a few minutes for the guy to bring in some measuring instruments and check that there was in fact no radiation from the shield generator or on the mannequin.

The whole time Sukeesh was just standing there confused, not understanding what was going on until he brought the radiation metre. From there it was a look of greed toward the shield. After the Mon Calamari confirmed that there was in fact no radiation, he had a look of pure happiness.

"Mr.Isu I would be delighted to auction your shield at our auction house. But I would request you to give us a week of time to organise the auction due to the special nature of the item. We can further discuss the details of the profit-sharing ratio in my office.

Thank you for introducing Mr.Isu Sukeesh, I will make sure that your end of the cut gets deposited to you."

Sukeesh seemed unwilling to leave but knew that his part of the job was done and staying here any longer would be counterproductive.

Moving back to the room it was time to start discussions.

"So, this isn't the only thing that I am going to auction, I also have…."