To be honest, the [Outer Wind] office was pretty small.

At least by my standards. Still, it was one of the most compact fully automated offices on the planet. Was it crowded? Haha, on such a small planet, there was no need for regular transportation. Honestly, if I had brought hydrogen and other gases from neighboring systems, I could have gotten more customers. With all this, there are officially 2 billion Xenos on the planet. I honestly believe that this number is completely far-fetched and untrue. Although the number of people who emigrated from Lothal was really high. It was definitely not the best place to find a skilled job.

But today I had a special guest: A representative of the Trade Federation. His main concern was to control trade in the region. We were competitors, of course, but for now we were neutral toward each other. Things were not so good 6 years ago.

The mercenaries hired to destroy my ships were destroyed by my privateers, so we reached a sort of consensus. It's not that I have much money after paying all the fees and taxes, but if I want to have a functioning merchant fleet, I should do some operations. But today, I had a special reason to meet with this Nemodian.

"Good afternoon, please sit down," I said, pointing to a chair. Oh my God, these are so disgusting.

"Thank you, Alexander, it's a pleasure to meet the best technician in the sector. I hope you have plenty of time before the expo."

"Thank you, yes, quite a bit."

"In that case, I'll get right to the point. You probably know about the tragedy on Eriadu."

"It's... terrible."

Eriadu recently hosted a full conference on Outer Rim taxation. Half of the Outer Rim gathered for the conference, with the entire leadership of the Trade Federation as its centerpiece. They brought battle droids to protect themselves at the summit.

It is not known exactly what happened, but the guard droids shot the Council. No one else was killed. Either the droids were hacked or it was a secret plan all along. The Federation blames the Republic, the Republic says it was a malfunction. It's like a powder keg, I'm afraid we can expect a response from the Federation soon.

"You're right, it's terrible. Management has ordered me to change the prices for this sector."

This is not so bad. Considering that someone with the connections and reach of the Federation is organizing this, it could mean an increase in the price of transportation throughout the Outer Rim. Especially on backward planets like Lothal.

"I am willing to cooperate. But I have conditions."

"Of course we expected nothing less, you can list them."

"I will only raise prices after a month if your prices go up. Also, I would like to get a few hundred B-1s for help on the ship."

"That's... Good. We will send you our decision via hyperlink. I'll have to talk to management about the B-1s. Do we still have reason to talk? If not, I should go to the Expo."

"Okay, thank you for your time."

Now we can move on to something more interesting.

***

[Lothal Development Forum] was a meeting place for all the influential local leaders. The entire [Capitol], leaders of local businesses, representatives of corporations and potential investors were all invited to this event.

It was not a small event. For Lothal, the gathering of humans and other xenos from hundreds of parsecs of space was a big deal.

The stand with my products was located at the edge of the exhibition next to the Lothal extraction company. This is probably the only company allowed to mine in Lothal. In general, they are doing poorly, and raising transportation prices could mean bankruptcy for this company. Not to say that I wouldn't like to buy some official mining on Lothal.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

My stand was not very popular. Of course, why would a bantha baron want my solar sails, and so I was more focused on medium and small entrepreneurs.

[Sunfire] stood on its platform in all its glory. The shiny golden sails were open at the top and sides of the ship, reminding me of a pheasant opening its beautiful tail. But the ship itself could hardly be called incredibly beautiful. The wide, angular cargo frame, the scratches in the airlock area, and the odd combination of pale purple and red colors would repel potential customers from a very rich market segment. I might have to hire a designer to create a model suitable for market sale.

Thinking that my help was unlikely to be needed, I moved to a more central area of the exhibit. In general, I did not know what else to expect from an exhibition in this agricultural world. Lots of different crops whose names I didn't know, some unique dishes for the richest part of the population, and representatives from the next hundred parsecs of space. This is, you could say, the shadow government of Lothal. Phew, what a shame, now I'm even ready to join the interest groups of these disorganized xenos.

But the star of today's demonstration was the Academy project in Lothal. Why wait for people to leave Lothal when you can train them on the spot? It's a brilliant idea for LOThAL, but the main problem is that it's not clear where these pilots, technicians, and engineers will go to work after they graduate. For them, LOTHAL is a place where they won't find work. This can only accelerate the emigration from Lothal. Unless someone starts hiring all those specialists. Perhaps I should think about ships with organic materials.

Even though my ships were certified, I saved as much as I could on life support systems. Why do you need air filtration and temperature control on a ship when all your "employees" have an optimal temperature of -50 to +75 degrees?

"Alexander, it's been a long time, my friend! How are you? I hear the Republic has raised taxes on the outer regions. If you need any help, I can help you."

Kash was a quick-witted, green-skinned Twi'lek. If you needed to find a way to get a slave or some strange substance on the galaxy's black market, she could dig into her contacts and get you anything you wanted.

"I think we both know I don't need any help right now. Especially help that would be probably illegal."

"Alexander, you break my heart, I thought we always had a fruitful relationship. It's probably not illegal, and no one will ever know about the transport of these goods to the right place."

"I still have enough business, Kash, I'll contact you if I need to."

"As you wish, but every day you think about it, you could be missing out on this very interesting opportunity. It's a very interesting job from Cantonica."

"Cantonica?"

"I don't know, we have an incredibly interesting client who is looking for ships to transport unknown materials. The goods must be delivered to Tatooine quickly."

"What? Are you kidding me? That's thousands of parsecs from here, not to mention it's an unknown commodity. What if transporting these things is illegal?"

"I will escort those crates. All you have to do is come to Cantonica, pick up the goods, and fly quickly to Tatooine. Fast delivery will be charged extra."

"Fast, huh, what exactly do you need to move?"

"Interested?"

"Maybe."

"200 special crates in total. Size 2*2*2m."

"Special boxes? I don't like this order."

"Tell me more about the payment."

"I knew I could count on you, Alex."

I thought the adventure was over for this year.

//////////////////////////////////

This chapter prabably will need a rewrite.