Chapter 15

I've just turned forty and a lot has happened within the past five years.

The war between the Jedi and the Brotherhood of Darkness seems to have no end. According to the vast amount of security videos I have, both sides haven't learnt a damn thing. They fight with passion and controlled skill but apart from being visually impressive both sides' gains are unremarkable and losses too great. Still, that means I can take what I want from both parties and put it down to the other, just a little sticky fingers here and there.

Bee's Eden School is full to the extreme. A glassed planet from one of the many battles throughout this galaxy has been repurposed, the dead surface has now skyscraper-sized Edens spotted throughout. Each one produced enough food to feed an army. It was a good idea to get the whole family involved as they lived together, played together and were genuinely happy. The force-sensitive individuals handle love and death better than the Jedi and the Brotherhood because they learn from their families. It was small losses that helped to prepare for the loss of loved ones.

Rewarding people for their ideas, such as inventions has paid off massively. At first, they were tiny ideas, like a power cable that increased efficiency by sixteen per cent, or a ship's air scrubber design that looped on itself and made cleaning easier. All of them had their use and all the people were paid according to the invention. A lot of small advantages added to ginormous results. And when massive, world-changing ideas came my way I paid handsomely. There had been several great inventions that went on to become their own business with a trade on the intergalactic stock exchange. The good ideas had their leaders and CEO and I just offered cash in exchange for stock options and anything I found interesting. In short, money, money, money

Bee's Healing Halls and Bee's Food Halls have been met by the public with great vigour and are critically acclaimed. I was regularly seen on billboards, holo-programs and adverts proclaiming my food halls.

I even had a catchphrase, "Hunger is a sin to all the galaxy, Eat at Bee's Food Hall, cheap, cheap, cheap"

Almost everything was going well but of course, there was the nosey Jedi. I didn't expect the Jedi to push their fat noses into my business, especially with the war ongoing. One Jedi and his padawan walked up to my personal Eden tower, I had been watching them through the security cameras ever since they landed and left their transport ship.

They paused briefly at the entrance, I could sense that their minds were at peace. They didn't have an ounce of unease about them. This was good news as they probably weren't here to put me back in prison, Their minds would be laced with all kinds of thoughts and feelings if they were here to attack an escaped prisoner, especially the padawan but the only thing I felt in the boy was boredom.

One of my many secretary protocol droids welcomed them to the first floor which was my living courter and offered a place to sit, a smooth fruit drink and veggie-filled buns to eat. Both the Jedi and padawan were looking at my motto "hunger is a sin" that had been imprinted on a glass trophy when I walked in with a basket of freshly picked apples and pears.

The basket of food was on purpose because my fat suit made me look like a tank and worried some people, The basket was on my arm to subconsciously give the impression that I was a harmless fat farmer.

There were greetings from both sides and sweet pleasantries that went nowhere and would make you sick with diabetes. The padawan finished his bun before the Jedi got to his point. Beating around the bush was causing me to grit my teeth, The Jedi had either read my body language or sensed my emotions because he quickly got to the point.

The Jedi explained that the Council and service corp had seen what a good job my Eden project was doing and wondered if a team-up would benefit both groups.

I sat down on my huge comfy armchair and slowly peeled my apples. The bastards thought I didn't know what was going on, I occasionally put a piece of peeled apple in my mouth while the Jedi explained all the benefits of a team-up.

I knew what they wanted. The war had gotten super spiteful and the Brotherhood of Darkness started to attack and take hostage the non-Jedi service corp. The Jedi wanted to hide their corp members in my Eden project.

It was hard to forget how much of a basterds the Jedi were. An individual Jedi might be pure and only have the best intentions but unlike the light side and dark side, the world had layers of grey. This was the biggest problem the Jedi had, they were arrogant and couldn't bend with the real world. The choices they made could end up hurting the normals and most importantly, me.

Yes, by hiding the non-Jedi corp members they could continue their good work at feeding the galaxy but by trying to hide them in my Eden project they were putting my interests at risk. It would only be a matter of time before the Brotherhood of Darkness found out. By adding the Jedi troubles to me they risk the whole galaxy going hungry.

Something told me that the Jedi and the service corp wouldn't stay to themselves and try to incorporate my Eden project with their service corp. They had already done it with many force-sensitive cultures. I didn't trust them not to overstep my boundaries. I decided to tell them a story. During the past five years making my Eden community across the galaxy, I've had pirates, raiders, salvers and just the worst scum trying their best to cut a slice from my Eden project. The only answer for them was might. My Eden project would hire bounty hunters, killers and the same scum of the galaxy to destroy anyone who thought it was a good idea to mess with the Eden project. There were no second chances for anyone attacking Eden. Brutal efficiency, mass destruction and when it called for it, public execution. This was the only way to keep my Eden projects safe from the scum. If you attacked, stole or were generally a pain to the Eden projects laced throughout the galaxy then you were met with severe repercussions.

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All of this worked well mostly because of how small the enemy was but my reputation wouldn't hold back an army of dark-side users. I had already been visited by the Brotherhood of Darkness. They wanted the food that we grew free of charge but that wasn't going to happen. It got pretty bad when a lone Brotherhood of Darkness ransacked a family and their Eden home to find information about me. They tortured the children to force the adults to give him my contact information.

What happened after that was I met up with the torturous Brotherhood of Darkness member at the family home that he had invaded. As soon as I was in range, I backhanded him so hard that the dark side user lifted off the ground, crashed, and landed on his knees. He didn't expect I would attack him, he thought I was just a powerless fat man. Instead, he found knuckles that could bend metal and break bricks, Of course, he recovered quickly and pulled out his lightsaber, he anticipated a red beam but nothing came of it. My special type of hidden telekinesis had improved throughout the years, I could still only move a coin's worth of material but the power behind that had increased immensely. I had ripped the guts of the lightsaber and twisted them so it wouldn't work.

He was surprised that nothing happened but only a faction compared to how fast I moved to grab his lightsaber hand and crush it with the broken lightsaber in it. He didn't expect a fat man to move that fast. After a couple of powerful gut punches, broken bones and swollen eyes the dark side user that terrorised the family was now captured.

After some fingernail pulling and tooth removal I managed to get contact information out of the dark side user. I contacted a figurehead of the Brotherhood of Darkness using a holo communication. A bureaucratic pen pusher and I worked out a deal. Throughout the deal, I had the weeping family in the background and the torturous Brotherhood of Darkness member by my side in a side hug.

I could see that the bureaucratic pen pusher was at a disadvantage in dealing with me. The way they usually did business was, that they demanded, and if you were smart, you comply but I was an unknown that had somehow overpowered a dark side user.

The deal was done and the bureaucrat was eager to leave but I didn't turn off the connection. Instead, a further message was passed to the Brotherhood of Darkness in the form of me pushing my thumbs into the dark side user's eyes, and a clear cry of anguish wobbled out of his mouth. I left him on the floor for thirty seconds as I cleaned the blood off of my hands. The crying noises from the family had one new addition to them as the dark side user wailed. I could feel the pain and hate coming off of him, so I decided to finish him off, It was no point leaving a dark side user of the force alive so that they might come after you again.

I grabbed his hair and pulled him up to his feet. The man knew what was coming and fought back with his one good hand. A spike of telekinesis ran through the room and latched on to the kitchen knives, each one wobbling as to get ready to pierce my body. It was only then that the blinded dark side user realised that I was a force user, and judging by how I overpowered his telekinesis with my own, a much more powerful one. Before he could say anything, I wrapped my hands around his throat and squeezed. Death wasn't instant, rather his face changed colour as the air was denied to him and the blood pooled on his face, Once he stopped moving I snapped his neck and crushed his skull on the ground. This was the message I passed on to the Brotherhood of Darkness. It was a good job that the dark side users didn't care about their members as much as they cared for a good and profitable deal, that was how I ended the call. I ended up paying the family and healing their children, They no longer wanted to stay on that planet, so they came with me to start again on a glassed planet but with my immediate protection.

The Jedi who was sitting in front of me listened to my tale and the fact I was selling food to the Brotherhood of Darkness. The padawan jumped to his feet and released his lightsaber, he didn't even get a foot closer to me. This was my home and I had complete control over it, the area the padawan was in lost its gravity and caused the rambunctious boy to float away. He tried to fight back but it would seem that the young adult wasn't used to zero-G as he twisted in the air. The padawan being inexperienced, did a desperate act and threw his lightsaber at me. With a quick flick of my wrist, the knife I was using to cut apples left my hand and embedded into the hilt of the lightsaber causing the lightsaber to return to sender.

The Jedi had much more experience with zero-G and instead of stepping in the way of the flying lightsaber to block it, he used his force powers to grab it and stop its motion. He turned to me ready to explain what had happened only to be shocked that I was already on my feet with the massive chair I was sitting on in my hands posed over my head ready to slam it down on the padawan.

Then I saw it, the padawan fear. He was just a kid, he had been taught but not well enough to make proper decisions that could and would affect the galaxy in a negative light. He had attacked with anger and fear not understanding that by striking me down the Jedi would be tainted with the title of killing a great compassionate man who healed the sick and fed the hungry and poor. The poor kid was stupid and young, a mixture that would get him killed if he didn't correct himself.

The Jedi did nothing as he watched on the edge of his chair. He was wise enough to know that sometimes the best course of action was to do nothing. I paused over the young padawan. The action I didn't take caused the padawan to relax and when I dropped the massive chair on the floor causing a loud noise and making both the padawan and Jedi jump, did they both realise that I wasn't going to attack.

I grabbed the floating lightsaber out of the air and released the young padawan from zero-G, to his credit, he was able to twist and land on his feet. I turned my back on them. Both of them were quiet, the Jedi was hoping and the padawan was out of his depths to know any better.

I turned on my holographic T.V. and showed them what I knew. The screen was split into different security images, most showing different battles between the light side and the dark side. There was no clear winner, no one side that dominated over the other, and some of the images showed the service corp of the Jedi being attacked.

The Jedi got the point, but the padawan didn't and so I showed him the last moments of a foolish dark side user who had attacked an Eden ship and was destroyed by my hands.

The Jedi couldn't protect me, they wanted to use me but I had shown them that I didn't need them and I wasn't afraid of either side.

They left. I didn't see them out.