Chapter 73
The shield coins are a great success. Easy to make and cheap with the only major cost being the energy it uses, a useful tool for the Jedi. Several tech-savvy Padawans have modified the shield coins as explosions or stunning electricity currents. Some of the Jedi have adapted to using protective shield bracers, it's the same idea as the shield coin but bigger and attached to the arm. After the death of so many Jedi, they realized the benefits of energy shields. It's about time. If the Clone Wars told the Jedi anything, it would be that battle droids have amazing energy shields that could protect them from return fire and lightsaber attacks. Unfortunately, the Jedi didn't learn that lesson until it bit them on the ass. I, myself, have an amour that is laced with all kinds of tricks and survival tech, not the least energy shields.
I go out of the Grove and make life a little hard for the empire. My favourite thing apart from stealing ships and selling them cheaply to the rebels is to purposely get captured, sent to a maximum security jail and bust everyone out.
It's not even hard to get clone troopers' attention. I can just sit out in a park eating a nice fat sandwich and a trooper with a battle droid will turn up and harass me. They can't help themself, also they use the captured prisoners as free labour that build their starship components. Prison is the perfect time to upload programs into the components that the prisoners make. This is how I and my team of pirates can steal the empire's star ships so easily. I simply scan the starship's identity and cross-checking the serial number gives me easy access to certain areas of the ship by using the corrupted components. It's a piece of cake to take over a ship when you can overload the life support system and watch the crew escape in pods leaving an unprotected starship.
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My pirate fleet is huge. Most of the starships are piloted by droids who are commanded by a Jedi, who in turn take commands from Padmea or Boba Fett. It may sound odd that the Jedi take orders from Padmea and Boba Fett but they are my right and left hands in the pirate fleet and know how I work. I can't take a chance the Jedi will do something stupid and show mercy. If the Jedi want to win then they need to take the same playbook as Palpatine and keep their plans hidden. They can't afford to board ships with their lightsabers attacking everyone until they take over and give the empire further propaganda material showing how crap the Jedis are. That's why Padmea and Boba Fett are the leaders and the Jedi follow orders.
It's not a perfect system because the Jedi are angry at the empire and think they are better generals than they really are. I had to force-choke a young Jedi when he stepped out of line and ordered an attack on an empire's ship-building moon. Thankfully the droids under his orders knew to cross-check orders and refused the order, which caused the Jedi to go alone hoping my fleet and the Jedi in them to back him up. I literally had to drag him back using force choke, it's the ability that has the longest distance use and I was able to use it over the cold expanse of space. I should have used telekinesis to pull out some power cables and stall the ship but the Jedi made me angry. I can't afford my enemy capturing my crew and gaining information on the way I work as a pirate. That Jedi was sent back to the grove so he wasn't a danger to my pirate fleet.
The rebels are a mess even with the Jedi helping them but it's expected because they have little power compared to the amazing might of the empire. The rebels have a good success rate in missions but when they do lose, their most important resources are lost, people. It is too soon for the people in the galaxy to realise how bad the empire is and when the rebels lose individuals they aren't easy to replace. It might have been a mistake to give the rebels so many ships and resources, they are acting very irresponsibly and losing ships and fellow rebels because they aren't aware of how little they have compared to the Empire. Only time and loss will teach the rebels how to become better at resource management.