Chapter 21

You can make a lot of cash in war, especially a galaxy-sized war, and yet with the exception of stealing some ships, I tried to stay away from making too much profit from either side as both would tear me apart if I pushed too far.

However the war was over and the Jedi had won, now was the time to make serious dough.

Scrap yards and salvage companies were in hog's heaven, as the materials from the Brotherhood of Darkness were harvested. I bought and filled a glassed planet full of salvage that would keep my Eden ships fleet in production for years to come.

I cut out a section of the galaxy for myself near Hutt space. The Hutt clan had their big fat sweaty hands in all kinds of pies, mostly illegal. A myriad of illegal businesses was how the Hutts made their money but it also caused governments to apply heavy embargoes, sanctions and no trade. I could take advantage of this.

My knowledge and time frame were inconsistent because of the many different calendars in this era but there were things I did know, despite how messy the galaxy got and how many people died, the Hutts were able to persuade all the superpowers such as the empire not to attack them. I wanted that.

I would have to make deals with the Hutts and new deals would have to be made when other Hutts become powerful but I knew it was better to have the Hutts on my side. It would never be a stable partnership as the Hutts would consistently prob the deals and see what they could get away with but as long as there was plenty of cash to be made, the Hutt clan would see me as an ally or maybe a pet.

I would clear out the debris from the hyperlanes and give free passage to the Hutts to trade whatever illegal smuggling they wanted and in return, my sectors would be free from raids from pirates, slavers and all kinds of scum. The Hutts and my own vindictive reputation had strangely caused the safest place in the galaxy, right next to one of the most lawless places.

I bought more and traded with everyone. My number one rule was to share the wealth, I made sure everyone got a nice piece of the pie. This caused my own slice to shrink but when the pie is the size of a galaxy then it didn't matter. My empire was stable, profitable, safe and expanding. The Rebupiclic changed their maps to include my new sectors, right beside Hutt space, it was called Bee's Grove.

Bee's Grove had many planets that hosted nothing but Eden ships, growing the galaxy's food. I would send presents to the Hutts, massive containers of hard-to-produce delicacies like Klatooine paddy frog patte or wiggling slow grub worms. It was a nice arrangement with the Hutts that was profitable.

Talking about profits, a Carosite female created a perfect counter agent to the galaxy's second most used illegal drug in the hopes of relieving the suffering and had the foresight to realise that her life was now in danger from the producers of such drug. That's where I came in.

The Carosite were almost perfectly peaceful beings. They saw life as sacred which in turn molded their culture and society to a passive healers. In my opinion, they were what the Jedi should have been.

I used my power to help the Female Carosite. I gave her a world and resources in the Grove to do with as she saw fit, in return I retained one hundred ownership of the counter agent and promised it would be used to help.

If I were stupid, I would create the counter agent and place it in my healing halls for a small profit but instead, I made calls, found all the major producers of the drug and made them a very profitable deal. Everyone gets a piece of the pie.

It was simple really. Illegal drugs were highly addictive and sold well but the market for them was stunted due to the stigma and negative repercussions but now we had a way to negate the negative side. Some would say that what I was about to do was immoral but it was nothing new to what had been done before.

It was simple for someone like me who had the power and cash, I started a legitimate corporation surrounding the once-illegal drug. The old producers of the drug were folded into my new corporation and produced the legal drug with the counter agent for a nice payout or if they were smart then some stocks in the corporation. The old illegal drug that was sold in alleyways and seedy bars was brought out into the light made legal with healthy bribes to the bureaucrat and rebranded as a reliable entertainment product at reasonable prices. No one would lose their homes trying to get their next fix, overdose was a thing of the past, thanks to the counter agent and unified production. The price went down but the supply was through the roof. People would use the drug to get a nice hallucinogenic high after work and when it was time to pick up the kids or go back to work the counter agent would make you a functional member of society

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This was how you should do business. The old drug dealers were now legitimate stock owners of a highly profitable corporation. The money they made could be spent without worry from the law. Death squads that roamed cities ready to kill any competition didn't exist anymore because there was no competition, you either worked for the corporation or you didn't make the drug. There was no reason to illegally create the drug in back shops as there was little profit from it.

I had filled my pocket with cash, fulfilled my promise with the female Carosite and best of all, no one had to die and everyone was happy. Some argued to just take what was mine but a short reminder of who I was and what I could do shut their stupid fat mouths.

My reputation increased yet again and the Hutts were interested in what I had done, they liked the idea of making their illegal gains into something the law couldn't touch, so I pumped cash and resources to the female Carosite to see what she could do. It didn't take long for more Carosites to join the first and start to do their medical miracles. When breakthroughs happened I would incorporate them into the drug corporation or into Bee's healing halls. To make it fair, I shared the stocks. The Hutts with their greed demanded more but I just said that they could do it themselves and start their own corporation. Some tried but their reputation and the embargoes placed on them stopped them flat in their way. The Hutts preferred to be feared and weren't willing to share good fortune.

This worked against me. The big Hutt clans were with me as they knew that the criminal world was still a business, they didn't do things without some good reason but not all Hutts were smart and some low-level Hutts thought I would be an easy target for a quick slice of my pie. The Hutts had a coming of age-right, where they had to make it on their own. Unfortunately for me, these new young Hutts didn't have the best information gathering and thought it would be a good idea to squeeze some credits from me. They kidnapped a kid while he was visiting a podraceing track, he was from a family of well-respected farmers who had twenty-seven Eden ships. They paid the ransom and were disappointed when the kid wasn't released. Then the Hutts tried to ransom the kid to me

Those poor misguided Hutts had got bad intel from their enemies. The young Hutts had demanded forty percent of my earning, not realising just how much that was but still demanding it. It had only been five years since the Brotherhood of Darkness was destroyed and yet someone had a genius moment to use the young Hutt's ignorance to destroy them by blocking the many videos of Brotherhood of Darkness members being outclassed and destroyed by me and my money.

With a quick check with the Grand Hutt Council, I made sure that there weren't any untouchables in the young Hutt group. There wasn't, the Hutts didn't care. They lived such long lives that it was common to have many kids out and about doing their misdeeds.

I decided to take care of this myself to send a message to any who would take what was mine. Finding the young Hutts was so easy that I thought this might be a trap. It wasn't. With just a little bit of illusion, I walked into their shabby base and past their hired muscle, searched for the kid using the force, and found him locked in a box

I released him, the poor kid was bruised and shaken up but was still defiant. Pod racing was a scary sport and you needed nerves of steel to participate, I had the force with me and I still wouldn't be caught podracing. I picked up the kid and we both left for the main room that held the young Hutt.

I knocked on the door. The Hutt answered. The look on the giant slug's face was priceless when he saw a human the size of himself causally walk in with the hostage in his arms.

"You've been a very bad and stupid Hutt," I said

What followed was a lot of pain for the slug, with a small intermission of rest when the gang members flocked into the room because of the screams. I did nothing special with the gang members, a simple snap of their necks using the force and I tossed them in the corner. The lesson for today was there were repercussions for touching my stuff, a lesson that I wasn't teaching to the young Hutt but recording for everyone else.

When I was finished with the young Hutt he was a mess, dead and hung up in all his dismembered glory. Tounge ripped out, spine shattered, flesh twisted and finally, his eyes burned out of his skull just so he could see all the things I did to him before I took his sight. I keep the Hutt alive with my force powers and advanced technology just so I could do more to him. The lesson wasn't over when the Hutt died, I stuffed the dead gang members inside the Hutt and pushed him out of the twenty-first floor of the building that they were using as a base. The mess caused by the amount of bodies made when hitting the floor was disturbing. The recording of the whole event found its way up for the public to find. This was the lesson, what is mine is mine, what is yours is yours, don't confuse the two together.

It took a lot of bribes for the law to look the other way and even more cash for the recording to stay up for the public but the message was very loud and crystal clear. It was a testament to how hated the Hutts were when only a couple hundred thousand complaints followed the brutal dismantling of the Hutt. It was clear that I wasn't a soft target and would go to strange and unusual degrees of effort to make that clear. As a nice little cherry on top, I donated the young Hutt's ill-gotten gains to different charitable organisations and supplied the kid and his family with two new Eden ships.