Chapter 71

Ten years have passed since Emperor Palpatine took command and lots of happened, of course.

First, the Empire tried its luck with the Grove Collection. They wanted full access to my part of the galaxy but I won't have clone troopers anywhere near me or my things. When they were denied and told to beat it the forces of the galactic empire tried to strong-arm the grove by sending three newly built Star Destroyers to my borders. They had done their homework and knew about the minefields, they deployed a mass of trash that would trigger the mines and leave a clear path for the Destroyers but unfortunately for them, there were other things mixed in with the mines.

The Destroyers moved forward to take advantage and invade which was the last thing they did. An old invention I put together as a child tore the destroyers apart. Simple mining pods equipped with lightsaber lasers buried themself into the ships targeting life support, engineering, and navigation ripped the ship apart from the inside out. The fear coming off the ships would feed any number of dark side users until they were full but it was nothing compared to when several scrap ship hauliers started to rip the Destroyers apart without a care for life.

Comms were blocked and that day three newly made Star Destroyers disappeared. The Empire had to learn this lesson a further eight times, each time the Empire lost dozens of star ships.

The Empire was a hungry beast that wanted to bite down on the Grove Collection and when direct powerful attacks didn't work they sent individuals to infiltrate. They were imprisoned in carbonate and were hung as decoration as a warning. The Grove Collection wasn't playing. Everything from bounty hunters to inquisitors in odd posses were aligned at the checkpoints of the Grove Collection.

The Empire was at a loss to understand how the Gove was able to weed out individuals but it was simple, I use the kidnapped Jedi as a police force. It would be a waste not to use this Galaxy space wizard for my benefit so I partnered them up with my Ausra droids.

Jedi are great at finding other force-sensitive beings but are extremely unflexible in snipping unwelcomed visitors, my droids are not. After the Jedi massacre, some Jedi wanted revenge but fully understood that they didn't have the power any more and those bitter angry Jedi took it out on the invading visitors.

It took three long years of unwanted visitors to find their frozen bodies paraded for all to see before the bounty hunters refused to take any paying job to venture into the Gove and a further two years after that before the Empire stopped sending their resources to interfere.

Instead, the Empire put embargos on the Gove with little to no effect it hurt the Empire because while the Empire wouldn't do business with us, the rebels would.

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The rebels needed food and equipment and the gove was able to provide. Ships were supplied by the now legendary Dreed Captain and his lieutenants, Padme and Boba Fett.

Padme was very good at capturing ships. Boba Fett did what was needed when Padme couldn't. Padme was the tactical mind that caused victory after victory and Boba Fett stood to attention when Padme couldn't bring herself to kill. They made a good team.

Thanks to my unregistered hyperspace routes my team could go where ever they wanted without the Empire's knowledge.

The rebels were still weak and they hadn't found their feet but thanks to my resources they were in better shape.

Darth Vader was also in better shape than he should have been. The battle in Mufasta ended with him losing his legs by Obi-Wan cutting them off but Darth Vader didn't land close to the lava that would have burnt him. He still joined the Empire. I think Palpatine still lied about Padme's death but that was a key piece of information that would come in use later. Darth Vader was hunting for the remainder of the Jedi at a much lower success rate. He would sometimes be successful when Jedi left the Gove to help with the rebels but instead of a kill rate of hundreds or thousands, Darth Vader was only just in the double digits. Without a way to get into the Gove and kill the Jedi who hide there, the Empire worked on its public perception and ways to discredit its vocal enemies.

It was weak, if Palpatine was able to get rid of most of the Jedi then he could freely say anything about them and why they were traitors but thanks to Yoda and the other Jedi I had kidnapped they were able to save even more Jedis and padawans from execution. The Jedi had never been weaker in the past thousand years but they were still here.

The propaganda that came out of the Empire bored me, it was shallow at best and easily destroyed by the remainder of the Jedi. I helped in a small way by making cheap toys of the Jedi and dumping them on planets with high populations. Yoda wondered why I did that but he saw the results when young children would openly play with them on the street and act out the legends. A useful bonus to that was the clone troopers who patrolled would see this and arrest children for being traitors. The clones were smart, and they had battle experience but they were ordered by their Inhibitor chip to find the Jedi and destroy them and anyone harboring the Jedi had to be brought in for questioning. Riots happened when younglings were taken away by the troopers, the propaganda halted as individuals children were taken away and their parents fought back with everything they had. Somehow, recording all around the galaxy showed what the Empire was doing.

Yoda looked at me with contempt "Know this would happen, you did"

"I hoped it would but you never know with one hundred certainly" I answered "Either way it would have resulted in a good boon for the Jedi. Either take the toys by force and have to explain why grown clone troopers are kidnapping children or leave them be and watch the next generation make the Jedi into heroes, win, win"

"Despicable, you have become" muttered Yoda

"I was always a dick, it's just fortunate I never pointed it at you, stop your whining and tell me how many coins you can keep afloat while using lightsaber forms"

"Three" answered Yoda while he tried to wipe his head of the mental picture of dicks

"That's..... good enough" I say while holding out three shield projectors each the size of a coin.

It's time for a lesson.