Standing at the wideview window of my office in Edin, I looked over the city. Where there was once a field of highrises that dropped down into slums, there was now a myriad of mixed development neighborhoods.
Apartment buildings and businesses sprung up like worms during the rain, parks and plazas breaking up the sea of new buildings. Development was still ongoing, evidenced by the construction ships and sites visible across the city, but things were far better.
New schools had been built, businesses from Minda had been invited to expand in order to help jumpstart the local economy.
Las just casually SimCitying a planet. Beginner urban planning is a bit of a lost art in the galaxy. What with the Core Worlds being built up over millennia and most of the Outer Rim remaining a desolate frontier.
Hopefully those slum dwellers are enjoying their home tax subsidies and education grants. Imagine a former drug brewer enrolling in a college chemistry course to move on to bigger dealers, the medical industry.
However, for all that the newly named city of Edinspire and its planet, Highreach, were mostly free of criminals and pirates, the rest of the system was not.
The defense fleet kept the largest pirate fleets and raider warlords at bay, but was stretched too thin to defend from the myriad of smaller bands. Thankfully, the Guild existed, and a new influx of mercenaries and their companies allowed these new prospectors to seek fortune in peace.
On the bright side, no shortage of targets for Veers, Grant, the militia, and the Inquisitor to train on anytime soon. Also that Edin prison system seems like it will be sticking around for a while yet.
Thankfully, there was an abundance of potential resources to exploit. In the Edin system, there were 4 planets and 6 moons. The asteroid belt was small, to the point that it would not be economical to bring out the same setup that Minda had, with a space based refinery.
With all those locations for hidden bases it's no wonder this became a Pirate and criminal hellhole. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the bigger players decided to put small outposts in the area, if only to keep an eye on the Sector's underground.
Plus side, once it is cleared out and its criminal population dead or reformed, Edin will have a lot of space to expand. It might even have population numbers to exceed Minda. Had something of a head start with all that (not entirely legal) immigration.
Edin 3 had a massive scar on one of its sides. There was little indication as to what caused it, but it made for an easy way to access deeper seated ores. The prospecting teams sent out there found traces of Zersium, a key component in the production of Durasteel. I had authorized the building of a mining outfit there, to extract the ore. It would be stockpiled for now, as an in house refinery was built on Highreaches moon.
Once I started selling refined Zersium, it would provide Edin with a steady supply of credits. Thankfully, Zersium is far from the rarest of materials, and since I've had the size of the vein smudged, I can avoid too much attention.
Or hear me out, instead of selling the Zersium, why not ship it to Minda and start making your own Durasteel. If Zersium is the vital mineral, I assume the rest can either be found on Minda or shipped in cheaply enough to make it profitable. Durasteel can go for about 75 credits for a nebulous unit of measurement and add on fees.
Being able to have a more local source of Durasteel to cut down on cost per unit would make a lot of people in the Sector Administration happy. Durasteel is used in a lot of things from armor, to weapons, to buildings, to ship customizations.
Then again Las might not want the attention of producing such a strategic resource would bring. Would certainly make his domain a "vital interest" to any upcoming Imperial Warlord or Rebel Offensive. Being able to source local Durasteel would be a Forcesend on the logistics end, especially once the Empire starts imploding and trade collapses.
The Wretches themselves were powerful, but apparently some Force users of some kind had used unknown rituals or artifacts to make them invisible to both the eye and sensors. It was what allowed them to lie in wait for patrols.
However, the perpetrators had to be nearby to both keep up the spell, and transport any of the creatures away. That was how the Inquisitor was able to track them, by following their Force signature as they made their retreat.
So far, multiple bases had been discovered across the Dala Canyon range. They were hoping to find as many as possible before attacking them in one fell swoop like the Commander had in the initial attacks on Highreach.
Okay this seems less like "one bad egg" and more a whole collection of minor force users with a grudge. Maybe a collection of low ranking Jedi and Padawan who fell? A squad of Nightsisters who heard of Dathomir's fall and want revenge? I am grasping at straws to figure out who this outfit is.
I hummed. "Let's give them something on the smaller side. LECA's have been getting used more and more as time goes on. And with more and more mercenaries, how bout selling some? Specifically, lighter weight variants. The theme for this quarter is a security variant of the LECA. It must be lightly armored, smaller, and more affordable. This should be more than enough to motivate them."
I could think of a few cost cutting measures for a cheaper security variant:
- Remove the walker aspect as the primary form of movement. All those dexterous joints, advanced electronics, and sensitive gyro to stay upright add up. Replace legs with bulkier, more stable, and shorter legs ending in wheels. Perhaps two at the end of each leg. Would fit the requirement to make it smaller. Perhaps keep the ability to walk albeit at a much slower pace only useful for marching or maintenance. Think VOTOMs for the relative leg width.
- The gun is too fancy and long range. Alternative loadout could be a simple one handed firearm, either a blaster pistol or submachine gun. The other arm can have a slab of easily produced metals in the form of a riot shield.
- Simplify the cockpit and take out a lot of the ability to coordinate on a mass scale. Perhaps go all out and replace the expensive metals and armor with glass-like cockpit to look out of. Still airtight of course.
- Perhaps add simple tubes on the back for firing (hopefully) nonlethal grenades in a general unguided direction. Don't include an automated loader in order to simplify production. Make them have to manually load the grenades in a relatively small clip with limited rounds before every deployment.
- General downgrade in metals and material quality. No need to have something as expensive as Durasteel for instance used in the export model. Would help cut down on the weight and might lighten it as well.
This wasn't her LECA, no. It was the Inquisitors, who had apparently sent in a very odd request. She could already see the flaws. For all that it was faster and lighter, its lack of armor would give it a disadvantage as it was still a larger target than most. Even with the shield generator to compensate, she had her doubts. However, the Inquisitor was a Force user, capable of utilizing the Whirlwind to its maximum potential. He likely has a way to utilize such an unwieldy weapon in an effective way.
Given how most Inquisitors are ex-Jedi and how much Jedi liked removing such superfluous things such as "flight assist", "aiming assist", and "most armor" from their starfighters, this is par for the course. Force is their armor, not this silly physical actual armor.
Standing multiple feet above the average LECA frame, her beast of a mech was large. It held a large amount of armor, improved shield generators, and a larger cockpit. Four arms branched out of the torso. The top two held multiple weapons, each strapped to a different side, keeping the hands free. The bottom two arms held large ballistic shields, integrated with smaller shield generators. This allowed the metallic beast to continue to shield itself, even after its normal generators went down.
On its back sat a variety of longer range projectile launchers. However, with all this weight, it came equipped with a repulsorlift backpack as well. Unlike the Inquisitor's suit, hers could not fly, but could pick up good speed when hovering.
Grant: "Behold! I have learned you don't need fancy Force powers to be a killing machine. Just overwhelming superior firepower."
Well any Rebel Base that sees this coming is screwed. Rebel Bases more rely on stealth or difficult terrain, so they don't tend to pack heavier firepower like turbo lasers.
I am imagining rebels hopelessly firing all their blasters and rockets at this thing only to plink off the shields. Their main defense against this would probably be blowing up parts of their base with the LECA in it.
Oookay... Why would an inquisitor use a mecha, what purpose does it fullfill for him? Speed? Just use a speeder bike or a TIE. Firepower? He is a force sensitive trained with lightsaber. I could see Vader being cross with him here for using this "technological achivement" and "underestimating power of the Force". This is all a bit silly.
Can you blame the guy for wanting to play with a big stompy mech and crushing some acceptable targets with it? This is a low conflict zone in the Outer Rim. My guess is Seventh Brother views this as a milk run and wanted to play with a fun toy in order to blow off some stress.
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