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***

Three weeks later.

***

We were too lazy to sit on the barque. We sat for a day, after which a yacht appeared near us, landing a dozen kilometres away. The captain got on the line and I asked him to send two men to replace Julian and me. It seemed simple - the droids had the instructions, the people were there, so were the technicians.

The kappa arrived ten minutes later, and in it were three passengers who were to replace Julian and me. Ju explained to the tech the intricacies of the job, then the two of us flew the kappa back to the ship.

When I arrived, I locked myself in my quarters and thought long and hard about what we were going to do. I sat and thought for six hours, reading codes and laws, the constitution, studying other historical and legal sources. I didn't come out until Shiai came to see me.

- Dad? - He came into the cabin. What are you doing?

- Oh, I'm glad you came by. I'm reading the laws. Useful, but terribly tedious. How are you doing? How's school?

- Mekoi's good," Shiai looked down at me.

- Well, well... and with Nyner?

- Well..." Shiai hesitated.

It's understandable. The teacher, a Mandalorian named Niner Cassados, was a stern, sixty-five-year-old bounty hunter. He was training Shiai, and in the harshest way possible. Shiai, raised on Jedi tales, had relied on the Force in his youth, but he had forgotten that no Force can save you if your knees are shaking and you're afraid of the enemy. Unlike him, I'd grown up on Tatooine, a planet where I could be killed, and I'd had to be tough on my enemies and everyone else from the start. Shia was fortunate enough to spend his early childhood with his mother, on a prosperous planet where drunken pirates didn't shoot you in the forehead for looking at you sideways. In addition, the use of force can sharpen senses and speed up movements, but for this it is necessary that these feelings and movements were, and he knew how to use them correctly, and in time. That's why Nayner was studying with Shiai, three hours a day, martial arts, tactics, weaponry, strategy, history of warfare, and the "flight analysis" of certain naval leaders and commanders. And three hours were allotted for Makoi. I was thinking of shifting the schedule and giving Cassados an extra hour or two, but I remembered how important it was for the intelligent to be well-rounded. What I've accomplished so far, I probably never would have achieved with primitive force methods.

- I see," I grinned, "you're slacking off again. It's all right, not everyone likes everything, but alas, there are things we have to do. It just so happens that you were born with the gift of power. Considering your parents are Jedi masters, it's not surprising, and you can't hide from it. And if you want to get anywhere in life, you're going to have to work hard at the beginning. It gets easier from there.

- I see," sighed the boy, "and why did we come here? - He came closer. I think he's a little afraid of me and shunned me. I happen to be a strict and busy father who hardly has time for his son. No, if I have to choose between the galaxy and Shi'ai, then fuck galactic politics, but no one's put the question to me yet. Fortunately.

- We're in the deep core sector. There was once a large empire called Koros, named after the capital, the planet Koros. There are many other planets with long histories, like Tython.

- That's the planet of the Jedi," Shiai smiled.

- It's also long abandoned, like the rest of the sector. But we'll see what's what, and what we can get out of this sector.

- I wondered how we could actually legalise mining. It's a complicated legal problem - you need a licence to mine, and you need permission from the authorities. There is also mining outside the country, but it is illegal and the extracted material is smuggled, usually in small quantities. The central players in the mining market will not let a potential competitor in, so the laws have been optimised to minimise the likelihood of accidental market dislocation due to discovered deposits.

- But then it's enough to just buy the sector," Shiai replied after a moment's thought.

- I've thought about that too. Unfortunately, there was nothing of value in the holonet for my case.

Just then, Julian walked into my quarters.

- Hi... oh Shiai, hi to you too!" they both smiled heartily, "how's it going?

- With a squeak, - I honestly admitted, - the precedents are few, there are more cases when people like us just quietly slapped in a dark corner, or removed from business with the help of economic pressure....

- Yeah... you were right, money is not only good, it's dangerous.

- Depends on what kind of money," I glanced at Shiai, who was listening to our conversation, "the sector itself is a dead zone, but still under the jurisdiction of the Republic. That's encouraging - if I can convince some individuals that they can suck up the resources of the core with my help, their loyalty to us is assured.

- And you're just going to trust just anyone with resources? - Julian wondered, "That's a lot of money!

- Don't worry. I have everything under control. The main thing now is to do the right thing in time and to protect ourselves from attempts to harm us by means of the law. I don't have the slightest chance of signing over the property to myself as Anakin Skywalker, an ordinary citizen, but there is a trick....

- Well? - Julian sat down on the bed next to Shiai, and I turned around with the chair to the listeners:

- You don't have to buy or privatise property... you can simply declare yourself the next emperor of the Koros Empire. This one will be much harder to challenge, since all the emperors are long dead.

- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," Julian raised his hands, "Koros has been uninhabited for a long time, we've been there. The Empire is dead...

- No, it isn't, my friend. The Empire may cease to exist with either physical or political annihilation. But the planets are still in place and habitable, and no one has conquered the system or declared themselves the next emperor. The laws of the republic are no hindrance to us, they don't regulate the inner workings of the empire, and the constitution allows for becoming a monarch provided the majority of the aristocracy is not opposed. That is, they either abstain or vote in favour.

- Or if there are none at all..." Julian finished for me, and then smiled, "That's a fine plan. Only you have not taken into account something, you will not be recognised by the republican authorities. They don't want such a powerful competitor on Coruscant's doorstep. Unless, of course, you know the Chancellors, then you have a chance... alas, anyone can declare themselves king, but it all comes down to recognition by the Republic. If they recognise you, you're king. If they don't, you're a laughing stock.

- You've made a very good point," I replied to his sneer, "I have a chancellor I know... Finis Valorum by the name of Finis Valorum... somehow he owed me a big debt. I have no leverage on him to repay the debt, but I can ask him to sign a couple of documents. Especially since I'm loyal to him and in case of anything, I'll help in any way I can....

Ju shook his head:

- You're not lying?

- I'll be a bastard. But it's going to cause us a lot more problems. Mostly for me, if you don't help me...

- I'll do what I can," said Ju.

- That's the thing, you need managers and bureaucrats and supervisors and so on. No, if you want to help, I can find you a job, and it's interesting and important, but key positions require specific experience and diligence ...

Julian sighed a little, ruffling Shiai's blond hair and stood up:

- In that case, you can count on me. If you didn't lie about the Chancellor... then the plan has a good chance of coming to fruition. All legal issues will be wrapped up in the fact that this is an internal affair of the empire and all dissatisfied can go to the bantha under the tail...

- You got it right, - I got up too, - but before we can realise this audacious adventure, we'll have to do a bit of work with personnel, managers, technicians, negotiate with allies... I think KMK can help us in this matter. After the programme is implemented, of course...

I said goodbye to Julian, after which I returned to the room, collapsing onto the bed. The size of the bed was such that Shiai sitting on it didn't disturb me from lying down and thinking. The plan, of course, is whitewashed, and it's all down to Valorum. He doesn't have the right to decide who will be emperor, but the attitude of the Republic depends on him. And from the economic point of view, it's all in general - without integration into the republican economy, I have no chance to sell goods, accordingly, the sector without the republic as a seller without a buyer - nowhere and nowhere.

Slowly, sleep overcame me.

In the morning I found that I had fallen asleep in my clothes, and even more so when I found Shiai curled up under my side, whimpering in his sleep. Four hours of sleep was enough for me, but not enough for him, so I didn't wake him, but left the room. Everyone was asleep-it was five o'clock in the morning by ship's time. Only the men on duty were standing around the bridge. The barque was still pulling ore from the surface - the captain had turned the ship so that from the main porthole, aka windscreen, it was possible to see how the barque was working. An impressive crater was formed under it, and ore was rising upwards in a thin stream, where it was already smelted. The ship was humped - a large hemispherical hump of cargo hold, moulded into a relatively small ship, corvette class at most. It would have been possible to use the yacht's holds as well, but it was already unnecessary - there was enough money for the first time.

* * *

The extraction ended on the fourth week. The barca loaded the whole hold with a small sand, which glowed faintly in the darkness. Singing steel, in addition to its characteristics, was a very aesthetically pleasing material, so it was used in jewellery, trimmings, ceremonial items and as clothing details. Simply beautiful. The steel glowed with a faint white, inner light, shimmering in the form of sand, like sparkling snow under the winter sun. The barge's hold was filled completely - three thousand tonnes, as per the passport. Julian and I looked at our loot, and smiled as we took in the scarcity. This could have been a burnout. To avoid stumbling at the start, we had to plan the right order of action - first we sell the metal to the KMC, quietly, without disclosing the place of extraction, and then we fly to Coruscant, where I'm already trying to talk to the Chancellor about Koros. I had already tried to find the right words to persuade the Chancellor to help me, so it was just a matter of working, working and working.

The way back even seemed easier - we flew along the route already laid out, and I only corrected the flight, not looking for the way like a blind man in a minefield. We emerged into normal space in the Coruscant system, and in thirty seconds, switching on the navicomputer, we flew to Correlia. I slept, talked to Shiai, Julian, dressed, and prepared for the negotiations. The officials are already known to me.

I do like Correllia, after all. Something elusive. It doesn't look like an alien planet, but like earth, the local concepts are quite earthly, the architecture is futuristic, but of earthly type, without alien exoticism, and the legislation doesn't seem to be earthly. It's a beautiful planet.

The yacht landed at the Korrelia spaceport, exactly on the same spot where it had been before. It's hard to park a giant yacht like this anywhere. As soon as we landed, I gathered all the necessary paperwork, adjusted my business clothes, classic Corellian, and immediately went up to the bridge.

Cal was upstairs, as expected, keeping order. He generally spent most of his time either on the bridge or in the hangar.

- Mr Skywalker? - he rose as soon as I entered.

- At ease. Not in the army. So, Cal, I'm betting that flying to the horns of the Sith, with no guarantee of return, has left the crew mentally exhausted and tired. You don't have to answer that, it's a rhetorical question. I can see the mood of the crew. That's why we'll leave as soon as we unload the barge, which is at least until tomorrow evening. We're giving everyone the night off for now.

I handed the captain a card, saying:

- "Here's 500,000 credits. Give it to the crew, let them have a good rest today and buy everything they want.

- "Aye!" the captain stretched out in his old army habit, taking the money.

The crew was sorted out, the captain was not allowed to say a word, now he could do business himself. The flight to the KMC office was not memorable - all my thoughts were occupied with the forthcoming negotiations.

I entered the company's office completely out of my thoughts and calmed down.

- I need Mr Lort, - I informed the secretary, - office A-28.

- What is it? - She asked without even looking at me.

- The conclusion of a contract.

- What's your name? Do you have an appointment?

- No, alas," I sighed, "I've just arrived. I've got a decent amount of goods on hand that I'm sure your company will be interested in.

- Just a second... - the receptionist contacted the named manager and after talking to him, turned to me:

- Your surname? How much is the contract for?

- My name is Skywalker. Remind Mr Lort that he and I were contracted to mine beskar on Mandalore....

- Yes, yes... - the secretary immediately transmitted the information through the communicator and Lort asked her to let me through.

Just like that, without a hitch. I remembered the way to the office - the fourteenth floor.....

It was like deja vu, as if nothing had changed at all. This time I was already familiar with Lort, so I entered without any excitement. Normal manager.

He was sitting at his desk and fiddling with papers, but just for show. Lort looked up at me:

- Excuse me? Did you want something?

- That's right. Never mind my appearance, Lort-san, the galaxy is full of wonders, even more so for travellers...

- Skywalker? - he recognised me and his face stretched in surprise," I thought you were dead... though yes, you look alike.

- I am," I grinned, "I remember a while ago when we signed the Beskar mining agreement....

- Yes, yes, you haggled for a long time," he grinned, "I remember, I remember.

- But I don't remember that, - I smiled back, - I set a fixed price right away, and you didn't haggle, you signed the contract right away....

- Exactly, - nodded the manager with relief, - so it's definitely you. And with what this time? I remember that last time you screwed the company up quite well....

- The Mandalorians are a tough people, and they don't mess around. Even so, they put on a show for the whole galaxy.

- Yes, yes," Lorth sighed, "a board member died.

- And my beloved," I reminded him, "unfortunately, we were still too persistent and paid for our greed.

- I'm sorry for your loss," the manager said with an unplayful sadness, "but judging by the fact that you're back at my place, you haven't left your business?

- No, of course not. Only this time I will approach the matter with the utmost caution and insurance against ill-wishers. I have a product that you'll probably be interested in....

- Yes, yes, - the manager moved forward, adjusting himself to business, - what do you have?

- Singing steel. Three thousand tonnes.

- How much? - the manager was surprised.

- Three thousand tonnes," I repeated, "exactly three thousand tonnes of singing steel. As you realise, I can't tell you yet where I got it from or where I got it. For security reasons.

- Yes, I understand," the manager nodded, "we don't care, to be honest. Do you have the goods in hand?

- There's a barge full of it at the spaceport. But this is not an isolated case of our co-operation with you, if everything goes well, we may be able to expand our co-operation.

- For now, as I understand, it is premature? - Lort asked.

- That's right. Besides, I have some legal issues to sort out. Will you take the metal?

- Sure," he nodded. "You won't charge me a steep price this time, will you?

- I didn't charge it last time either," I disagreed, "the privilege of mining Beskar bypassing MandalMotors is already worth a lot.

- I agree," Lort said after a moment's thought, "let's not talk about the past. Three thousand tonnes..." he estimated the price on the datapad, then said:

- Five billion. That's a bit below the market price, but given the bulk supply and the unknown deposit... it's a good price.

- I agree," I nodded, not haggling, "it's a reasonable price, considering the deposit and the experience of our past cooperation.

In fact, I had another reason. Obviously, bringing all the metal found on that planet to the market would bring the price down, so the price was well within the level for future deliveries. Legalising, again, there was no way I could do that without support amongst the bureaucrats and connections, and I didn't have any. So this time I had a small selection of buyers - KMK, Kuat, Blas-Tek, a couple of other armour and weapons companies... that's about it, among those willing to buy and pay for three thousand tonnes....

- I'll need a few minutes to draw up the contract," the manager took a timeout. I nodded, not bothering him. It was enough to write only names and other variables - it was a standard contract....

I had to read it carefully a couple of times before signing it. Surprisingly, they didn't try to cheat me. Considering the slightly below-market price, someone, like Lort, would make a good profit on it.

I was on my way back with a team from KMK. They took the barque from me and after looking at the cargo, they took it away to unload it. I had to fly together with them to control the unloading from my side, so that they would not steal the goods. It didn't take long to unload the cargo - in just an hour, after opening the hatches, the barque emptied all the metal sand into a large tank. After weighing and counting everything, we once again signed the papers that the unloading was done, and I was given my barque back. The clerk handed me a card in a sealed envelope, which I immediately printed out and checked the amount. It was all accurate. Having signed the final document, we parted. I now had five billion and a bit in my hands. It was certainly a lot of money for an ordinary citizen, but... my ambitions extended much further.

Now there was funding for further endeavours. I returned to the almost empty yacht in a happy mood and went to bed.

In the morning, the battered crew returned to their places. Outwardly everything looked civilised, but I felt that after such a holiday it was necessary to take a sick leave. More than half of them were hungover, and others, judging by their faces, were remembering their nighttime visits to local brothels. Fortunately, no one had to be rescued from the police - the Mandalorian crew was the kind of gang that the police would be afraid to mess with - they weren't exactly thugs.

When I left in the morning for the traditional Mandalorian formation, which the captain held in the hangar, I had time to inspect the crew. The captain built them like in the navy and they all stood at attention. Finished with the traditions, the captain dismissed them to their places and approached me:

- Good morning, Mr Skywalker.

- Good morning to you, too, Cal. I see the crew had a good time. We leave in twelve hours - I need to get ready for the rendezvous, and the crew needs to get some rest after yesterday and get in the mood for work. One day off a month is not enough.

- Aye! - the captain called out, - any other instructions?

- Not yet, until... - I looked at my watch, - until sixteen zero zero on the ship's time everyone is free. Departure at seventeen zero zero.

I really still had to fly, to tidy up my appearance, to get a new shuttle - the Kappa was a timeless classic, but it wasn't well suited for business flights, too utilitarian and practical. At the same time I was going to sell the yacht "Corona" standing in the hangar. The one that killed Alessia, the one I'd travelled through time on. She was a reminder of a not-so-good past - of two women I loved, and with whom fate had separated me....

The yacht was a marvellous beauty, but second-hand it cost about five million, half of what it had originally cost. At first I didn't want to sell it - I thought I'd keep it as a memento, but as time went on, every time I came across it in the hangar, every time I remembered the time I'd spent with Alessia and Tosi, it didn't make me optimistic. Quite the opposite. So I thought it best to get rid of all the unnecessary memories. I still have good things to remember, like Alderaan and Shi'ai. Especially Shiai. So it was better to get rid of the old yacht, especially if it was badly damaged by enemy fire and six years of downtime.

Accordingly, I voiced my plans to Erdv and took only him. I did not tell Julian - he would have asked me to sell the yacht to him, I know him, he would have, and my aim was to get rid of the yacht for good, not to see it again. But I didn't tell anyone about it - there's no need to show my sentimentality. Only Erdva knows about all my adventures, so he can be trusted. Especially since his anti-hacking defence is almost the best possible.

The shuttles were specific. Kappa did not fit into the standard of a shuttle for a small ship - it was squat, wide, and low. The peculiarity of the hangar was that it had a decent height - on my yacht the height of the hangar was from five to ten metres. There are different sizes of ships, and the hangar should accommodate not only a swarm of small ships, but also one big one, if necessary. Therefore, the height was calculated with a reserve. The hangar on the yacht was enlarged, compared to what it was before the modification - engineers could not expand it, so they made another deck, as on aircraft carriers, where shuttles and ships descended on special lifts. Thanks to this design, as well as storage of almost everything that was in the hangar on the lower, "technical" deck, the hangar itself was free. Only my yacht and the kappa were upstairs. Because of the high ceilings of hangars, the configuration of shuttles was made as much as possible suitable for storage in the hangar - the wings, in which were taken out almost all systems, could be folded upwards. This allowed to make the internal space of the shuttle much more free, especially in comparison with freighters, in which all systems were hidden inside the hull and, accordingly, its insides represented the holds and cabins, connected by corridors and part of the space was given to the systems of the ship. In shuttles there was no such thing - the whole hull is one big cabin or hold, as well as the pilot's cabin.

The largest in the galaxy flea market of old and new ships was just on Correllia - such was the sector, for some reason Corellians often left their world and lived in space, like gypsies. There was also a corresponding market - a large area, several dozen kilometres long, filled with ships of various sizes - from small shuttles to large corvettes. No more were allowed in, there was a market for those. I flew my Corona to the market and parked it in a vacant space and went to the resellers.

At first they didn't want to take it - they said it was expensive and all that... Of course, the finishing alone cost several millions, not to mention the manual assembly of almost all units and the unique configuration of the equipment. But I managed to get the yacht for five million credits. At once we signed where necessary and I went to look for a shuttle.

The most common, as you can easily guess, were the Kappa. They were in abundance, and on their background the others were lost. There was nothing here! By the way, almost any poorly endowed system can produce shuttles, so there were more than two hundred manufacturers in the galaxy. Most of them, in my opinion, were bushcraft. I skipped them right away. Since I went exclusively in the sector with new ships, I was not afraid to miss - behind each shuttle was a series. And there were much less here than in the sector with used ships - they were not put on display all of them, but only demo samples. The sector with new ships was located in a large hangar. It was not, of course, a hulking Alderaanian showroom for private yachts, but a purely utilitarian place of sale, intended not for aristocrats, but for local Corellians. With all that entails.

Separately, my attention was drawn to an old acquaintance, the T3L-Lambda shuttle. It was actively used in the imperial fleet, and therefore, most likely, is not dumb, given the imperial requirements. Every manufacturer could screw up a single characteristic to the maximum, but it was necessary to assess the overall quality rather than individual characteristics. And lambda was probably the best option. In the info-file the characteristics were specified - third class hyperdrive, eight hundred and fifty kilometres in the atmosphere, two pilots in the crew, eighty tonnes payload and the price of three hundred thousand... produced by the RAF.

While I was climbing the shuttle, Erdwa obediently stood in front of the goods and waited for the result.

Since I needed only one shuttle, I approached the seller - an unassuming young man sat near the goods and lazily looked at potential buyers.

- Can I see you?

- Yes, - he got up, showing with all his appearance that his work is a burden to him and he doesn't want to see me - unnecessary trouble. - These two pieces, - I nodded at the shuttle, - will you sell them?

- Why not? - he shrugged his shoulders, - the price suits you? Equipment?

- Passenger, eight seats.

- All right, all right... - he went to the datapad and after a minute looked at me, - where to deliver?

- Spaceport, car park... Erdva?

- Seat 11.

- Oh, just a second, - the young man moved his fingers over the datapad screen and looked at me and said:

- "You'll get one. Payment's on the spot, inspection too. Anything else?

- No, no," I left the young man to continue sitting and poking at the datapad. With a price like that, no wonder he had few buyers - Correllia wasn't the best place to sell expensive shuttles. The kappas were going strong, at thirty thousand dollars.... But, what can you do - surplus production. Shuttles themselves, as a rule, were much more manoeuvrable than their older brothers - freighters, and were equipped with more powerful engines - all the same their task was to deliver passengers and cargoes as quickly as possible at a close distance. And the peculiarities of the design required more complex device, compactness of systems and good protection.

The rest of the trip was not so productive. I was interested in different types of vehicles. My old speeder, which I assembled from a Sith interceptor, failed the test of time and fell into complete disrepair. Unfortunately. After a bit of wandering around the market, I came to a place where small vehicles - aerospiders, speeders, and so on - were piled up. The assortment here was richer than I imagined - there were at least a hundred models of aerospiders alone, not counting the usual landspeeders....

I stopped only when I came to the PT6 model. From the look of it, it was quite an unremarkable speeder, though not a grey mouse of the market. The powerful base, two engines along it for half the length of the speeder, and the protruding cockpit were all protected by finger-thick durasteel armour and redundant systems. The engines were clearly overpowered - it didn't look like a supersonic speeder. It was the fact that the engines in conventional speeders were of the jet or ion type, with round nozzles sticking backwards, while this one had a thin panel along the entire hull, divided into a dozen square sectors. Each segment was powered by its own fuel tube, and a power line in the form of a thick cable. With a hull length of five metres and a width of two and a half, there wasn't much room for passengers, though the interior was comfortable. Selling it, like several others, was a not-young man who immediately approached me:

- Good afternoon. Interested?

- I'm inquiring. How much for the speeder?

- A hundred thousand, - the man immediately replied, - an aerospider based on the speeder "Guardian", armoured, most systems are duplicated....

- Do you have a nest for an astrodroid?

- Inside the hull, - immediately answered the seller, - for the R2 series.

- In that case I'll take three of them," I nodded in agreement.

I was on my way back by speeder. Fortunately, I didn't need to register it anywhere, I was leaving the planet anyway. Other speeders as well as shuttles promised to deliver to the address within two hours.

One of the speeders I took only for experiments with the duplicator. I couldn't create it from scratch, but with the proper technical knowledge, it shouldn't be difficult to modify it. The hangar accepted me, and then I got out and waited for the shuttles. They arrived with the speeders, half an hour later. I'm sure the orders were placed in the same office, so they were shipped together. During that time, I got out of the speeder and examined it from all sides and in all details - inside was a classic, automobile layout - two seats in front, two in the back. What I at first mistook for engines on the sides were just Trunks. Apparently for the safety of the passengers.

The first thing that came to mind was to install armour made of a lighter alloy instead of durasteel armour, which was quite powerful but also heavy. For example, singing steel, only a glowing speeder would be a great target - to remove the luminescence in the singing steel will have to add other metals. Actually, there was no problem with that - the steel itself was more than enough. Such armour could withstand a long line from a laser cannon or fighter fire from all guns without penetration. Such a thing as on Mandalore wouldn't happen, and that's even without taking into account the rather powerful shields....

When the lambdas with aerospiders approached the cruiser, the captain contacted me.

The goods arrived in the hangar - the technicians on duty in the hangar immediately accepted them, and in the shuttles themselves couriers arrived, with whom I signed the purchase documents and handed the money to them.

The captain came down to the hangar to see personally what I had brought with me, the XO was with him as well, and even the navigator navigator. The whole trio turned to me as the courier flew away.

- Mr Skywalker? - The captain asked questioningly, "Why do we need lambdas?

- The Kappa is nice, but it's not really suitable for business flights. It's clearly an army and utility shuttle, not a passenger shuttle. That's why I took two lambdas, one is mine, the other is the ship's, that is in your jurisdiction....

The captain nodded in agreement:

- That's right. Where are we going?

- Coruscant. I'm going to see someone I know. Erdva," I turned to the droid, "before we leave, book a deluxe apartment in the five hundredth house on Republic Street.

- Got it. Just a minute... - the droid loaded, and I, on my lift, went up to my place. Shiai and his teachers were already waiting for me there.

I devoted the rest of the time before departure to my son, and together we learnt how to assemble a lightsaber. Unfortunately, Shiai wasn't an architect, so he hadn't inherited my abilities - his strength was brute, but I remembered how good precision work was at developing abilities, so I joined him in assembling and disassembling the lightsabers I'd inherited from the cruiser's previous owners. Shiai was also very enthusiastic about the idea of working on weapons. Like any other boy his age.