While I had guests on Nirn, I quickly came to the conclusion that I couldn't leave to go on missions. The Rogues probably wouldn't have minded, and there were several days that I really only saw them once or twice for a meal or just a short chat, but they were still my responsibility. While they were here, I needed to be here as well.
Fortunately for my bored team, just because I was stuck on the planet didn't mean that the entire 1st Fleet was "stuck" watching over Luke and his cohorts as well. So, when a mission to bust a pirate base came in, I gave Tatnia my blessing to take 1st Fleet out under her command, so she could take care of business. Ahsoka, of course, joined them, despite wishing to stay home and keep me company. They would already be down their mage, depriving them of their Jedi would be too much.
Despite hating the fact that I was being left at home, I did make good use of the time that they were gone. First off was making sure that, in between competing with my pilots, working with some of the Jedi, and flying around, Luke had some actual, boots-on-the-ground fun. Three days after the 1st Fleet left, I invited the entirety of the Rogues to go fishing. Our various fishermen were beginning to realize there was money to be made offering fishing trips to people looking to have some fun, which made finding a boat for us relatively easy.
Of course, not all of the Rogues were interested, but nine of them, along with myself, piled onto a large boat and headed out from the docks of our new fishing village.
The village itself was growing nicely, with the temporary buildings being slowly replaced by permanent ones. People were starting to set up signs, and I could already see plans for a small fish market being set up. The village, now called Port Green due to the green color of the water on sunny days, was only a short drive by air speeder, so I could see the fish market becoming popular, especially for restaurants looking for good deals on bulk sales.
The dock was also looking good, having been the first thing we replaced with a permanent version. What had once been a crude log dock, built from some of the larger trees around the village, was now built with secure duracrete, with some sort of non-slip polymer deck. It did not have the same rustic look, but it certainly looked like it would last forever, and was significantly safer.
The fishing trip with the pilots was fun, and we ended up having a fish-focused cookout when we returned, cooking up most of the fish and sharing with quite a few of my Nirn-based starfighter squadrons, since there was no way for the Rogues to store or keep the fish once they left.
Despite enjoying my time with the Rouges, my week was far from all fun and games. I did quite a bit of work, including spending two days stuck in negotiations with several different suppliers, trying to get my hands on the manufacturing tools needed to finally start producing the energy warheads that Miru designed.
The warheads basically worked by setting off a mid-sized plasma explosion, which would destroy the missile. In the process, it would also reveal and destroy a pressurized vessel containing high-energy gas at the center of the rocket. The plasma explosion would compress the gas even further, creating a high-energy reaction that would detonate with a force several times greater than the original plasma explosion.
Apparently, Miru was stealing a theory used in many power cores, letting the detonation run free rather than keeping it smaller and containing the reaction to turn it into energy.
Several squadrons had been outfitted with them to test the missiles, and the result had been encouraging enough to put them into production, they were far from perfect.
For one, they were not as powerful as proton torpedoes, which was something we knew from the start. To put it in exact terms, they were around seventy-five to eighty percent as effective. On top of that, we found that they were less penetrative than their competition. Rather than digging deep into a ship and detonating, tearing chunks out of its structure, the plasma dart tended to detonate much more shallowly. It still did a good amount of damage, but the dart couldn't punch as deeply. It still did good damage to shields, though, again, not as much as we had hoped.
Thankfully, Miru was able to counter some of the flaws by adding reinforcement to the dart, allowing it to penetrate slightly deeper. That did mitigate some of the problem, but unfortunately it still didn't penetrate as deeply as we would have liked.
Still, the dart was effective enough and cheap enough for me to call it into direct service. Yes, the darts were all around moderately less effective than their more commonly used cousins, but they were cheap and would be easier to produce, meaning we could use them more freely.
Yes, that did run counter to my usual outlook on equipment, but the missiles were a special case. Without a solution to our supply problem, we weren't using missiles nearly as often as we could have. That meant that supplying an alternative, even with a hit to quality, was a net positive, as it gave our pilots and capital ships a new, high-powered option that they didn't have to get special permission to use.
We decided that, to keep things simple, our proton torpedo supplies would go to our starfighters, while we would stock our capital ships with plasma darts, as they actually had a better range than the torpedoes. That way, there would be significantly less stress on the torpedo supply chain. Since they were still being recovered from every source we could find, the proton torpedoes wouldn't be as much of a bottleneck anymore, and our starfighters wouldn't have to hold back from their use nearly as much.
This also meant that my capital ships would be able to finally start using their missile systems. I had long ago restricted their use, just as I had with the starfighters.
All of this meant that, if I wanted to keep up with the growing demand for more plasma darts, we would need to massively step up production. Currently, the missiles were basically being handmade by Miru's subordinates, and in order to produce them in bulk, we would need the proper tools and equipment. We were already setting up a production site, mostly buried under the moon's surface, where most of our growing industry was stationed.
The moon was turning into a network of automatic factories, refinement plants, and underground transport lines. Not many people lived up there full-time, thankfully, with about thirty percent commuting and the other seventy percent spending workdays there, returning home for their days off.
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It took the better part of two days, but eventually I managed to negotiate for the proper equipment, with the help of one of our merchant specialists, a Twi'lek male with a deep accent, which sounded French to my ears even though I knew it wasn't. The equipment would be picked up by our shipping fleet within the next week.
Beyond that, I spent my time working with people, weighing in on the various groups that had that had popped up and were working inside Vercopa and on Nirn. Over time, we had several groups, almost pseudo-unions, pop up for various groups. These groups picked their own leaders to communicate with multiple individuals, including myself, in order to bring up issues and organize solutions. The shopkeepers had voted an older Weequay to speak for them, while the farmers had a Zabrak around my age. It was a system that worked surprisingly well, but only because everyone was mostly friendly and professional with each other. I held no doubts that the moment people got the idea to try and consolidate power, to form a bloc of some description, there would be significant problems.
After a few days of working with our various group leaders, I decided to finally attempt what I had been putting off. The massive time commitment for Master level spells had really made me anxious about attempting the process, but with the time I had, I didn't really have an excuse. So, I let everyone know I would essentially be in seclusion for around a full day, and that I should only be contacted for a legitimate emergency, before locking myself in my home.
The first task I needed to tackle was picking a spell from the many options. The Master spell list, by far, had the most spells that I didn't recognize. Part of me wondered if that was on purpose, since I seemed to remember the Master spell list being pretty sparse in the game, so it was possible the entities filled in the gaps to make reaching that point worth it in terms of personal magic.
It was difficult, even when using the process of elimination, to finally settle on a spell. Conjuration had permanent versions of almost all the summons, while Restoration had several powerful healing spells, including one designed to treat old, stubborn wounds, something that had stymied my healing several times before. I was pretty sure I could restore whole limbs by stacking the master level spells together, even those lost quite some time ago, though it would not be an easy process.
Destruction offered some intense elemental spells that I was pretty sure made me a legitimate anti-starfighter-level weapon. Alteration offered versions of their spells that I could cast on myself and multiple other people, though a lot of those were pointless for us since we wore so much armor. Illusion had even more powerful and wider-spread ways to mess with people's minds, including a mass invisibility spell, which immediately went to the higher end of my list.
After skimming through everything and actually writing my options down, I finally settled on learning the permanent version of Conjure Mage Construct. This would create a permanent Mage construct that was capable of casting Expert-level spells and below. While the other options were extremely tempting, none of them were as good as creating a whole separate source of spells. Just having the construct around to heal would be a massive advantage, but its flexibility was its best feature. It would basically be a whole other source of mana that I could command with a thought. It even had potential as a utility, as I could let them handle transmutation duties as I did other things.
With my decision made, I quickly settled in on the couch, grimoire opened and propped up on the coffee table. I took a long breath, glanced over at the time, before finally starting the process. This was the first spell I had learned in a while, and while a lot of it had been ingrained into my head by repetition, it still took a minute for me to get the hang of it again.
I wish I could say that time seemed to fly by, that I was so focused on my task that it hardly felt like ten hours, never mine twenty or more. Unfortunately, that was very much not the case, and by the time I hit the ten-hour mark, I was miserable. The couch, while comfortable, was not supportive, and I was absolutely starving already, which did not bode well for what the next ten hours looked like. Still, I was just about halfway there, so I wasn't about to give up.
By hour fifteen, I was starting to seriously struggle. My stomach was empty, my mouth was dry, and my back, legs, and butt were sore, despite frequently standing and doing what little stretches I could without losing my focus. I was not having a very good time, but I was also determined to finish what I started. Way too much time had been invested to give up now.
Finally, after twenty-one hours of hard work, at least mentally, fixing the spell matrices to match my magic and soul, I successfully cast the spell. Of course, I immediately cast it over and over again, only pausing to let my mana regenerate. Only when the spell had finally settled, and I could cast it reliably, did I sag in relief.
Of course, I only stayed there for a moment before jumping up and rushing to the bathroom. I had been smart enough to dry fast before attempting to learn the spell, but that could only do so much. When I was done taking care of business, I rushed to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and ate straight out of it with a groan of happiness. Finally, when my grumbling stomach was sated, I drained two glasses of water, filling a third and taking it with me as I made my way to the bedroom. I placed the cup beside my bed to drink later, before collapsing onto the bed. I barely had enough time to lay my head down on the pillow before I was out.
Waking up quite a bit later was an interesting experience, as I had completely forgotten I had a mage construct summoned from when I was practicing my spell. I opened my eyes, rolled over onto my back, only to see the construct standing beside my bed, waiting silently, staring at the wall.
Pretty sure the neighbors heard me scream.
Despite getting more than eight hours of sleep, I was still not feeling even close to a hundred percent. I ended up spending most of the day recovering, resetting my sleep schedule, and probably eating more than was really necessary. I did have a few comm calls, but besides that, I spent most of my time recalibrating.
Honestly, it wasn't that bad. I could have likely been functional after sleeping right after, but there was no real reason to push myself.
When my team and 1st Fleet finally returned, I was happy to hear that the mission had been a success. We collected a half dozen bounties and managed to snag five starfighters and two larger ships. The latter was already being reported to the Rebels for sale, while the starfighters were being inspected so they could be posted at our markets.
Once they made it down to the surface, I met up with the team for a debrief. Their story wasn't overly complicated, as the mission had been pretty straightforward, so we eventually moved on to sharing a dinner. When we were done, Ahsoka and I headed home.
Just two days later, it was time for Luke and the Rogues to head back to Alpha Base. They had enjoyed their partial vacation, and both my pilots and the Rebels had learned a lot in the process. While Luke insisted that they could catch a ride with any of my fleets, I made the choice to take them home personally.
After a small goodbye party, where plenty of the Skyforged pilots showed up to say their goodbyes, one of our transports descended and picked all of us up, including my crew, taking us up to the Hope. Once we were on board, I took some time to talk with some of the captains and leaders while our fleet prepared, the soldiers and crew returning to their posts from their shore leave. When everything was set, we made the jump to lightspeed, leaving the planet behind.
