AN - There are 16 Wupiupi in 1 Trugut. There are 4 Trugut in 1 Peggat (64 Wupiupi in a Peggat) and a Peggat is worth about 40 Republic Credits.

Galactic Wizardry

Chapter 2

Harry was lying in bed in the Captain’s Quarters in his ship. This was one of the first places that he had cleaned up since this was where he’d be living. It was now midway through the year 33 BBY, and Harry had done quite a bit to his ship. He started by cleaning it to the best of his abilities which included getting rid of the many pests that made his ship their home. After that, Harry began stripping the ship of the outdated tech. The computers and damaged power core all had to be scrapped. His sublight engines and hyperdrive were still in working condition and according to his droid, were still of decent quality in this day and age. He’d upgrade as soon as possible.

He had been planning to work on it in the morning, but he had a business deal to take care of. It was late and the two suns had already fallen. Harry took care of the heat through cooling charms and whatnot, so lying in bed in a sealed-up tin can was still quite comfortable. He flicked through page after page on the HoloNet from his datapad, learning everything that he could. While Harry spent most of his time learning about technology and things that would help him fix his ship, he also learned about the galaxy as a whole. He needed to know these things if he was planning to explore it. Now more than ever he was thankful for having the foresight to ask for enhanced learning abilities.

Galactic Wizardry

The sun was blaring down on him as he waited hidden in the back of an alley. Invisible to the eyes, Harry also removed any smells that were coming from him. He had learned that many beings on this planet had better senses than humans did. It was another five minutes before he saw the person of interest walk into the alley. Making himself visible, Harry grabbed the bag on the ground and walked over.

“Are you Touvo?” Harry asked. The being was a tall Gotal with brownish-gray skin and two short, conical horns on the top of its head. It had a very thick beard which told Harry that it was a male of its species.

“Yes. Got the stuff?” it asked in Huttese. The Gotal didn’t speak Huttese very well, which let him know that he wasn’t a lifelong criminal in Hutt space. Harry held up the bag.

“Ten kilos of top-quality spice,” Harry replied. Harry earned most of his coin by robbing the many criminals of this planet. Not too long ago, Harry snuck aboard a ship owned by a spice smuggler and robbed him of everything of value. The spice, datapads, droids, food, everything. He had already sold what he could to the different vendors in the city.

“Got the Peggats?”

“Of course. I’ve got it right here,” he said menacingly and pulled out a blaster. In an instant, Harry apparated away just as a blaster bolt was fired. Appearing behind him, Harry pulled out a vibro-knife and stuck him in the back. The Gotal let out a horrible squeal of pain before collapsing onto the ground.

Harry sighed. This certainly wasn’t the first time that he was nearly robbed or killed. Here on Tatooine, it was practically a daily occurrence. While he didn’t enjoy killing, Harry was very good at it. He spent decades as an Auror and learned long ago to not let killers go free. It was just asking for trouble. The Gotal was breathing heavily and rolled onto his front, trying to stand up. Harry knelt down and stuck the blade into the back of its head. The vibrating blade easily sunk into its skull and killed him instantly. Seeing the dead body saddened him, but surprisingly not as much as one would think. These past months living in Mos Espa really hardened him. This galaxy was a dangerous one, and he needed to be equally dangerous to survive. Putting the knife away, Harry checked the body for anything of value.

First, he grabbed the blaster. Harry examined it. It was a mass-produced blaster of low quality. It would only get him a few Truguts. Frisking the dead Gotal, he found a communicator and a small sack of money. It wasn’t even close to the amount that was agreed to. Harry sighed. This fucker had no plans to deal fairly, and it cost him his life. ‘Good riddance,’ Harry thought.

Leaving the body there, Harry apparated back to his ship. Scavengers would collect the body for whatever nefarious purpose that they had in mind. Rumors were that piles of bodies were cheaply sold to the Hutts to feed their pet Rancors. Harry believed it. He tossed the communicator into a sack of other things to be sold later. He sat down at his desk and pulled out his datapad. Harry sent a message to his contact asking for a new buyer since his last one didn’t make it. Placing the datapad aside, Harry stood up and stretched. It seemed that he now had some time to do some repairs.

Harry wanted to tackle the next main problem … the massive hole that was ripped into the ship. Leaving his room, he made his way to the opposite side of the ship where the Galley used to be. Now it was a complete wreck of twisted and charred metal. A beeping sound made him look back. One of his droids was rolling up to him. R2-A6 was an astromech droid that was invaluable when it came to fixing and maintaining a ship. Unfortunately, the little dome-headed droid didn’t have much to do until he added a new power core and computer. Over the months, he had learned the language of the strange droid thanks to his enhanced brain.

“Yeah, it’s a mess,” Harry answered. Concentrating, Harry released his magic and watched as the twisted metal began to unfold. Sickening sounds of screeching metal filled his ears as his R2 unit warbled and shook in amazement. Slowly, the damaged parts began to straighten and reattach to each other until finally, the hole was gone. Harry breathed in deeply. That took a lot out of him. If it were just regular Earth steel, he would have been fine, but this advanced alloy really resisted his Reparo. His R2 unit began rolling around while using his multiple scanners to examine the area. It bleeped out a message.

“Completely repaired huh? Good. Now I can start adding runes to the substructure before moving on to the panels and plating. Did you finish scanning those runes that I drew into your private database?” Harry asked. The R2 beeped a confirmation. Nodding, Harry got back to work.

It was slow going. He removed panels or flooring to expose the ship’s frame at key locations. This was the easy part. Adding runes to the many different panels of the ship was going to be a headache. Once he had a dozen areas of the frame exposed, he was ready to begin. “Alright. Do your thing,” Harry commanded. His droid beeped and got to work. A little arm extended out and the R2 unit began carving rune clusters into the metal frame using some kind of high-powered laser. Seeing that it was going perfectly, Harry nodded and left the droid alone to do its work. The clusters were quite long and the work was delicate so it would likely take the droid several hours to get it all done.

Going back to the Captain’s Quarters, Harry touched an enchanted area of the wall. That area melded away and exposed a small, hidden storage area where an uncut crystal about the size of his fist was sitting. Harry grabbed the crystal and went to his desk.

When Harry began looking for a suitable substance to make his Ward Stone with, he expected to use something readily available and cheap, like quartz. But he had come across this crystal when an old woman was selling it cheaply. Harry bought it just to test it out. As it so happened, it made for an incredible Ward Stone. It could pull ambient magic even faster than rubies, which was one of the best stones available for that sort of thing. After letting his droid scan it, he found out that it was a Kyber Crystal and was fairly rare. They were mostly owned by Jedi and were used in their lightsabers. They came in a multitude of colors, though his was one of the most common … green. He placed it on his desk and grabbed his datapad.

Harry typed away for around an hour, finishing up his rune matrix that would be carved into the crystal. Once that was done, he composed a 3D-shaped design that the crystal would be cut into. Most magicals didn’t realize that the shape of the stone was just as important as the runes that were carved into it. After he had finished the design, Harry pulled out a special machine that he had purchased for just this occasion. It looked like a small box with glass windows on every side. Harry opened up the door and placed the stone inside. When he switched it on, the crystal began to levitate.

Harry synced his pad with the jewel cutter. Once synced, Harry uploaded the 3D file and hit the start button. He watched as lasers cut the levitating Kyber crystal into the right shape. Little chunks fell away until Harry saw that the perfect shape was formed. Smiling widely, he refrained from taking it out. There was still another step. He next uploaded the rune matrix and let the little lasers carve them into the delicate crystal. This was much faster than his R2 unit since these lasers were specialized for cutting crystals and gems. All in all, it only took about fifteen minutes until it was done. Opening the door, Harry pulled it out and examined it closely. “Perfect!” he said happily.

Harry anxiously waited for his droid to finish carving the runes into the ship’s frame. It was another few hours until it came into his room beeping happily.

“Excellent!” he declared and left the room. Harry meticulously checked each cluster and made sure there wasn’t a mistake. He found none. Going back to his room, Harry took a breath and gathered his magic. Pushing as hard as he could, he injected his magic into the crystal to jumpstart the reaction. Instantly, the runes began to burn bright as the Ward Stone activated. Not being wise to hold onto it for much longer now that it was activated, Harry placed it back on its stand inside of his secret compartment. He then taped the wall and it reformed back to normal. He now had his Ward Stone for the ship. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He then went to the clusters and activated each one. Seeing that everything looked correct, he decided to make sure. “R2? Can you try and carve something into one of the beams, please?”

His droid beeped and began firing his laser onto the frame. After half a minute, he beeped and turned off the laser. Looking at the spot, Harry could see that there wasn’t a scratch. He smiled widely. “Hardening Runes, Cooling Runes, Lightening Runes, all appear to be working fine,” he congratulated himself. Now he just needed to do the same for thousands of panels. He was going to need more than the three droids that he currently had. “Thanks for the help. Go plug yourself in,” Harry said. The droid rolled off to go recharge. Harry kept a small power core in his ship to recharge his tools and droids.

Galactic Wizardry

The following day, he was out getting food to survive on for the next few days. Most of the food in this world didn’t have much in the way of preservatives, so it needed to be eaten quickly before it rotted or molded. He was walking through his often-traveled route through a multitude of back-alleys when he heard gleeful chattering in Huttese. He heard at least three different voices. Going invisible, he made his way to the noise, hoping that maybe he could score a nice payday. Instead, he saw a group of four Nimbanels with their light, lavender-colored skin and walrus-like heads chittering happily as they clamped a slave collar on a young Twi-lek.

Harry had seen this particular Twi-lek before. He remembered her well because she was the only blue Twi-lek that he had ever seen. All others had been a lime-green color, though one other was a milky white. She was usually seen with an older, Kiffar male. The girl was particularly pretty, even for a Twi-lek, and her skin tone was quite lovely. She would rarely be seen without the man with her. Harry didn’t think that she was a slave. Harry noticed that he treated the girl more like a student, or even a father figure. Either way, Harry stayed out of their business. Butting in around here was a quick way to catch a blaster bolt.

Unfortunately for her, her protector was nowhere in sight, and a group of bandits had taken advantage of that.

“A Rutian Twi-lek!” once chittered with glee. “Java will pay us a king’s ransom for her!” The rest laughed and smiled at their good fortune. “Maybe we can have a taste before we sell her?” one other chimed in. When they all cheered, well … Harry was less than pleased.

He suddenly became visible as he unleashed a fierce Banishing Charm. Two thugs were hit and collided with the hard alley wall. A sickening crunch was heard as they bounced off and landed on the ground with a thud. Harry had just enough time to move to the side as a blaster shot whizzed past him. He could feel the intense heat against his arm. He threw up a quick shield just as another bolt slammed into it. Seeing that the idiot was about to fire another shot, he waved his hand, making him spin ninety degrees. A pained cry was heard as the blaster went off, and he accidentally shot his mate. The one holding the blaster panicked when he saw what he had done. Sadly for him, it was too late and a cutter lopped off his head.

Harry felt pain in his upper arm and checked it out. He saw that his clothes were charred and his arm was likely burned. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt all that much, which told him that the damage wasn’t severe. Summoning one of their blasters, he made sure that none of them would ever leave the alley again. When all the nasty business was taken care of, Harry collected anything of value from them. He gasped when he found a security key for a private landing pad. This meant one thing. These scum had a ship nearby.

As much as he wanted to steal it, the computers were rigged so that only certain people could access them. There was no way that he could fly the ship unless the owner gave him access. Some professional thieves could slice the software, but he didn’t have that kind of skill or know-how. However, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t strip it of its parts to use on his ship. Harry’s day suddenly got a thousand times better. He next turned to the unconscious teenager. Kneeling down, he checked her out. She had a harsh cut on her head and was likely the reason that she was unconscious. Waving his hand, he transfigured her collar into sand and let it fall away. Scooping her up into his arms, he apparated them back to his ship.

He gently placed her on his bed and grabbed his first-aid kit. Opening a small packet, he pulled out a damp cloth and rubbed the wound and surrounding area to clean it. Next, he pulled out a small tube and squirted some foamy substance along the cut on her head. He watched as it bubbled up while sealing the cut closed. The cut would be healed in a day or so. Perhaps the tingling of the medicine working had woken her up, because a moment later she gasped and sat up, reaching for something that wasn’t there. Looking around wildly, her eyes finally settled on him. Harry smiled and waved at her.

“Who are you and where am I?” she said, slightly edging away from him.

“The name’s Harry Potter, and you’re on my ship,” he told her. She looked around and scoffed.

“I didn’t say that the ship ran,” Harry countered. “It will once I’m done with it. Until then, I just live on it while I’m fixing it,” he explained. She nodded.

“Makes sense,” she replied and winced, gingerly touching the injured area of her head.

“Don’t touch,” Harry rebuked her slightly. “I just cleaned it and applied some healing cream. Now would you mind telling me why I had to save you from a group of wannabe slavers?” When he didn’t see her starting to talk, he rolled his eyes. “How about starting with your name?”

“Aayla,” she simply said. “My Ma… um, my friend was captured last night. I’ve been trying to find him all day. I finally found out where he’s being kept. I was scouting out the location when I was jumped by that group of thugs,” she explained to him. “They chased me through the streets before I ran into a dead-end.”

Aayla didn’t mention that she had left her lightsaber in her room. Flashing a lightsaber on Tatooine was like a death sentence. Understandably, criminals didn’t care much for the Jedi around here. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. Breathing in deeply and steadily, she did what her Master would have recommended and reached out to the Force. After a moment, she got the feeling that she should trust this man. In fact, she got a strong feeling that she should trust him. With the Force never having led her astray, she decided to lay her cards on the table.

“My friend is actually my Master. I’m a Jedi Padawan,” she told him, looking up at him to gauge his reaction. His eyes widened slightly.

“I’ve heard of the Jedi, but not a Padawan,” Harry said.

“A Padawan Learner is like a Jedi in training. I learn from my Master, and when I’m ready, I’ll take the Trials. If I pass, I’ll become a Jedi Knight,” the blue Twi-lek explained. “But my Master was captured last night. We’ve come here on an undercover mission to spy and report on Hutt activity. Java has been ordering more weapons than normal, and the Jedi Council wants to know why.” Aayla winced when she moved. Looking down, she saw a deep laceration on her hip. Harry moved closer to her and checked it out.

“That’s a nasty cut. Here …” Harry handed her his med-kit and turned his back on her. Aayla blushed and quickly lowered her leather pants. Having no underwear on, she quickly exposed her injury to the cool, refreshing air of his quarters. Doing as he did earlier, she cleaned the wound before adding some healing paste. She grabbed a bandage and stuck it to her hip. She raised her trousers and cleared her throat.

“All done,” she said, placing the kit aside.

“So what happened to your Master?” Harry asked, turning around and sitting next to her on the bed.

“I don’t really know. He told me that he was following up on a lead last night. He refused to take me along. He said that it was too dangerous.”

“Looks like he was right,” Harry chimed in. Aayla winced and nodded. “And you know where he’s being kept?”

“Yes. A group of three are keeping him in a room not far from the alley where you discovered me.”

“And how do you know that he’s not dead?” Harry asked bluntly.

“I can feel it in the Force. I know he’s alive,” she said, sure of herself. Harry nodded. He didn’t know anything about the Force, so he’d take her word for it.

“So how are we going to save him?” he smiled.

“We?” Her eyes widened. Seeing him nod, she went on.

“No offense … I mean, you did save me, but …” Harry held out his hand and a blaster soared across the room and slapped into his palm.

“You’re not the only one with strange powers, little Jedi,” he teased. Her eyes widened considerably.

“You're Force Sensitive?!” she exclaimed excitedly. Harry shook his head.

“No … not the Force. Something else. Though just as useful.” Aayla squinted, trying to think.

“I’ve never heard about anything like that.” Harry shrugged.

“The universe is a big place,” he simply said.

“You’re right about that,” she nodded.

“You can’t tell anyone about me though,” Harry said, looking her in the eyes. She looked back at him and remembered that the Force wanted her to trust him.

“I’ll keep it a secret unless there’s no other choice,” she promised. “Good enough?”

“Sure,” Harry chuckled.

“You know that once my Master is saved, I might not be able to see you again? We’ll likely need to move to a different part of the city and lay low, or possibly move to an entirely different city,” Aayla explained. Harry nodded. It made sense. Harry conjured a card and handed it to her.

“My PCC. Contact me if you ever need me, assuming I have this hunk of junk running by then.”

A Personal Communication Code was something that you could register and pay for. It was like a phone number that you could link to your communicator, ship, droid, home, or wherever and always get your messages and calls. Aayla took the card and looked at it before stuffing it into her cleavage.

“Now let’s go get your Master. Think about where he’s being kept. I’ll look into your mind,” Harry told her standing up. She too stood up and thought about the alley. When she felt him enter her mind, she blushed fiercely. The sensation felt incredibly personal like he was exploring her entire body. It didn’t help that he was a very attractive male and that she was a young, hormonal teenager. When he pulled out, she tried to hide her dark blue cheeks.

“I’ll use my powers to take us there quickly. Hold onto me,” Harry told her. She stepped up to him and hugged him tightly. She kissed his cheek in thanks before smiling at him. He returned her smile, and they vanished.

They appeared in the alley, and Aayla took a moment to get her bearings. The sensation of this strange, new travel made her stomach do flips. It was unpleasant. Shaking it off, she said, “This is the house.” She pointed to a door in the alley wall. Harry nodded.

“Okay. Stand back.” Aayla followed his order. Harry knocked on the door and waited a minute until it opened. Some strange alien poked its head out and caught a stunner to the face. Aayla pulled him away from the door, and Harry jumped it, flinging stunners at the two remaining thugs. Each one caught at least three stunners and dropped to the ground. Harry cleared the room before calling Aayla in.

“Master!” she gasped as she ran up to his unconscious, tied-up form. Harry checked him out.

“He appears to be healthy. I think they’re drugging him,” Harry said, pointing to some small vials nearby. Aayla nodded. She rummaged through their supplies and found the antidote. She was about to give it to him when Harry stopped her.

“I’ll leave you to it and wait outside, hidden. I’ll remain hidden and follow you both back to your home and make sure you get back safely.” Aayla nodded and smiled at him.

“Thank you, Harry Potter. I’ll remember your kindness,” she told him. “By the way, my full name is Aayla Secura. Just in case.”

“Good luck, Aayla Secura,” Harry wished her well. He stayed invisible and watched as the pair exited the house. The male stumbled slightly, clearly still out of it. They safely made their way back to the room that the pair had been staying in. When the door was closed and secured, Harry finished his outing by buying his limited supply of groceries and going home.

AN- Aayla Secura and her Master, Quinlan Vos were on Tatooine in 32 BBY when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were stranded there. She was sixteen at the time.