A Galaxy of Magic

Chapter 9

( Every character in this story is a legal adult over the age of 18 )

Something jolted Shaak Ti awake. It was nothing dangerous. The Force within her was calm and soothing. In fact, it was more relaxed than it had ever been. She blinked away her tiredness in the dark room, wondering why that was. Being physically close to Harry was part of it, but there was something else.

She reckoned it may be simple Togruta physiology and cultural norms baked into her genes. Her people possessed a strong sense of unity, and individualism was seen as abnormal. During her time as a Jedi and even back when she was a padawan, her instincts were to form a small social group to ensure safety and security. Unfortunately, this went against Jedi teachings, so she was forced to endure. Growing up in the Jedi Temple, she had never felt complete. The unmistakable feeling that something was missing in her life plagued her during her informative years. Shaak Ti did a remarkable job of hiding her true feelings and desires, and eventually, she buried them deep under her Jedi teachings. Still, they never went away … not fully, at least. The desire to form a connection remained strong through her years of emotional isolation and solitude. Was following the Jedi Code the right choice? She had thought about it often, but her answer always came back the same. ‘It is all I know,’ she repeated to herself time and time again, but now, things were different.

The Jedi Order was gone, or at least severely fragmented. The Jedi Code was defunct, and no one was left to enforce it. It pained her heart knowing the Jedi had brought this on themselves. It would have been all too easy to solely place the blame on Palpatine, but he was left to act through Jedi incompetence or apathy. She wasn’t sure which one was worse. In the end, it didn’t matter much. The Jedi Order had been thoroughly crushed and was likely beyond repair. As terrible as that was, it opened her up to a whole new world. It was a world where she could freely indulge herself in her desires for companionship without the fear of being scolded by uptight members of the Jedi Council. The Force inside her seemed to agree. It practically purred in delight the previous night when she pressed herself against Harry’s warm body.

It wasn’t just her female urges of having an attractive male figure next to her in bed. It was equally about Aayla and Maris. For the first time in her life, she could honestly say that she had friends. She now had the social group she had been denied for all those years. It was exhilarating but also terrifying. Decades of following the Jedi Code couldn’t be forgotten after only a couple of weeks. Shaak Ti had never felt so conflicted. This wasn’t the time to let herself go, she told herself. She closed her eyes and tried desperately to go back to sleep. It was a herculean task, but eventually, she drifted off. What she didn’t expect was for her dreams to be filled with various sexual adventures, all of which starred a certain green-eyed, messy-haired human.

A Galaxy of Magic

Harry left the girls who were trying to sell the several crates of dehydrated food packs he had stolen from the base on Felucia. Aayla said that they would sell the quickest, and he had no reason to doubt her. Harry wanted to explore the port city a bit more instead of tagging along when he was of no use to them.

The day was blistering hot, and Harry looked up at the twin suns with a glare. He passed by a row of vendors who all tried to sell him some of their weird foods. One of the vendors tried to sell him a roasted lizard on a stick. The smell was as unpleasant as the sight. He quickly moved on.

When Aayla told him that gangsters ruled Tatooine, he believed her but didn’t expect it to be so blatant. He came upon a humanoid alien whose face looked like it was covered in crusty, old leather. Harry watched as he went from shop to shop, banging on the doors only for the owners to come out and hand him money. Shakedown or tribute payments, Harry told himself as he followed from a distance. He watched him for an hour while his money sack got significantly heavier. Harry wanted that money. He needed it more than the Hutts, that was for sure. Unfortunately, he couldn’t just take it. That could bring big trouble for the shop owners just trying to survive on this miserable planet. No doubt the Hutt goons would come back demanding more after their payouts suddenly disappeared. Harry had a plan for this, though. He continued following the weird-looking leather-faced man until he ducked into an alleyway. Harry jogged forward, not wanting to lose him through the tight twists and turns of the alley. When Harry slipped between the shops and out of sight, he quickly made himself invisible. He quickly moved closer to the alien, who took a sharp left turn. Harry checked over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching and fired a stunner directly at the alien’s back. The red stunner twisted through the air, slamming into the middle of his back. Harry heard him grunt before falling face-first onto the sand-covered ground.

Harry rushed forward and pulled the money sack from his belt. He turned it over and dumped out the dozens of coins. With a wave of his hand, Harry made exact copies of all the coins and magically levitated them into the sack. He placed the sack back on the alien’s belt. After conjuring a new sack for himself, Harry levitated the original coins inside and made it invisible as well. Harry then woke the alien up. He moved a bit further away as the creature slowly pushed himself to his knees. He groaned, rubbing his sore face and head. He shakily got to his feet and looked around, confused as to what had just happened. Harry saw him momentarily panic before finding the money bag on his hip. He sighed in relief. The alien removed the bag and checked its contents. Seeing it was still full of coins, he put it away and continued with his business, seemingly concluding that he had accidentally fallen and hit his head. Once he had turned the corner, Harry made his way back to the mouth of the alley. He removed the invisibility spell from himself and his newly acquired bag before stepping out onto the street. Harry chuckled, pleased at what had just transpired.

The fake coins would remain for about a week before disappearing. Harry was certain he would have handed them over to his Hutt overlord before then. Hopefully, the coins would get mixed in with others, and no one would notice when they disappeared. If it did get noticed, then one of the Hutt’s henchmen would take the blame, and not the innocent shop owners. That was the important part. With his payday secured, Harry looked around but saw no recognizable landmarks or shops. He had no idea where in the city he currently was. That wasn’t a big deal. He told the girls not to wait for him, and that he would meet them back at the ship. Harry ducked back into the alley and apparated to the ship.

He went straight to the tent and washed his face with cold water to clean the sand from his skin and help cool him down. Harry then sat down at the dinner table and poured out the bag’s contents. He began counting and smiled when he reached one hundred and twenty-eight peggats. “Nice,” Harry said happily. It was then that the girls decided to show up.

“You’re here!” Aayla chirped happily as they joined him in the tent. “We had hoped you wouldn’t get lost.”

“What kind of incompetent boob do you take me for?” Harry asked as he vanished his conjured bag.

“I should have never doubted you,” Aayla chuckled as she sat in the seat next to him. Maris went to the sink to wash her face while Shaak Ti grabbed his magical canteen and drank heavily from it.

“Wiser words have never been spoken,” Harry replied. “Did you get it sold?” he asked her.

“Yes. We’ll have to deliver it in the morning to get paid. We got a good price. That alone should cover a good portion of our parts list,” Aayla told him, looking at his coins. “Where did you get that?”

Harry explained how he came upon his sudden influx of cash, causing Shaak Ti to snort. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Only if I get caught,” Harry smiled cheekily at the red-skinned woman. Shaak wore one of her new outfits. It was similar to Aayla’s, though her tight trousers were light gray, and her white tank top didn’t fully fit her busty proportions. It was a bit too small and displayed a generous amount of cleavage. He would have offered to slightly enlarge it for her, but he preferred how the smaller size looked on her sexy body. Anyway, she didn’t seem too bothered by how revealing it was.

“See that you don’t,” Aayla said. “We’d prefer not to lose you so soon after finding you.” Harry smiled at her and patted her leg.

After making them a late lunch, Harry began working on the ship. Maris showed him how to access the ship’s substructure. The crawl space was a very tight squeeze, but they managed. Harry crawled on his belly, squeezing under the main beams of the frame. Maris was right behind him, crawling along with him. “Aayla pulled some blueprints from the holonet, and it showed one main beam going from nose to tail, and then another from one side to the other,” Harry commented as his back scraped against the north/south main beam.

“Yeah,” Maris grunted as she pushed herself along. “The main beams are connected by dozens of cross braces,” she added.

The small emergency lights down in the ship’s bowels were pretty weak, and they could barely see anything. “I’m going to light up the space. Watch your eyes,” he told her.

“Okay,” she said, and Harry conjured a ball of light which hovered next to him. The entire space was suddenly flooded with light. Harry saw every insect nest and grease stain with astonishing clarity. “Gross,” he heard Maris say. Harry chuckled and looked back at her. Like him, Maris was on her belly, and he got a fantastic view of her perky breasts as he looked down her shirt.

“It could definitely use a good cleaning,” he agreed with her. “I can handle it if you want to go back.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. She sounded very much like she wanted nothing to do with all the dirt and grime, but she didn’t want to leave Harry to do all the work.

“Yeah. I can get it done quickly with my magic. Just leave the datapad,” he told her.

“Alright,” she chirped and grunted as she stretched her hand toward him. Harry took the datapad from her. “Use your comlink if you need help,” she said before squirming around until she was facing the opposite direction. She began crawling toward the exit.

Harry immediately got to work. He vanished an untold number of nests and webs before scourgifying everything he could see. He crawled further into the ship until he reached the point where the two main beams connected. He cleaned the area and ran his finger along the joint. He couldn’t feel a weld. Aayla said that shipyards had massive foundries where they cast the frames in one solid pour. He just wanted to make sure because if true, it would make his job a bit easier. It seemed that Aayla was once again correct. Harry scooted to the side and flipped onto his back. He pulled his engraving orb out of his pocket and set it on the floor. He then turned on the pad and opened the application. The orb rose into the air, and he used the pad to fly it into place. He chose a spot right near the frames’ connection point. Harry had a rune set ready to go. He pressed the button, and the engraver shot a laser at the metal. Harry lay back and waited.

Aayla had explained that the metal used for the frame was likely much harder than the metal used for the outer shell, which was logical. The frame was continuously put under tremendous stress, after all. Because of this, Harry would likely have to wait longer for the engraver to finish. This was especially true since he wanted his runes cut deeper into the metal. This rune set would absorb a lot of magic, and he couldn’t risk it with shallow etchings.

At first, Harry was unsure if it would work. He knew that magic and muggle technology didn’t mix well. Thankfully, the entire power system was heavily insulated with a special shielding material he had never heard of. Shaak Ti told him that it had to be protected from the insane levels of radiation and electromagnetism they faced when traveling through space, let alone hyperspace. He, of course, tested it first just to make sure. His fears were unfounded. The technology didn’t show any adverse effects from his magic, which pleased him greatly. He didn’t like the idea of his friends doing all the work while he sat there and contributed nothing. This way, he not only had something constructive to do, but he was also contributing to the crew's safety.

From being in such an enclosed space, he could smell the fumes from the melting metal. Luckily for him, it wasn’t bad, and the orb filtered out all the harmful toxins. Half an hour later, the orb finished, and Harry scooted closer to get a better look. The runes were perfectly cut into the metal and appeared deep enough. The rune set was extensive, with over one hundred and fifty individual runes carved into the metal frame. If everything went according to plan, the frame would now be magically hardened, heat resistant, and magically lightened, just as he had done to the test piece he had experimented on when he first got the engraver. This set had so many more runes because it was permanent. A ton of magic had to flow through these runes without overloading the set. Harry hovered his hand over the set and felt the intense heat radiating from the metal. Harry took a deep breath and began pumping magic into them. This took way longer than on the test piece. A few minutes later, he was still pouring magic into the rune set. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and dripped down into his eyes. Still, he carried on. After another few minutes, the runes flashed, and Harry cut the flow of magic. He exhaled and wiped his sweaty forehead with his forearm. He then hovered his hand over the carvings. They didn’t feel hot anymore. He tapped the metal with his finger a bit further away from the runes, and it felt cool to the touch. He tapped the metal closer and closer to the runes, not feeling any temperature change. He finally touched the runes and was happy to find the metal nice and cool. “Excellent,” Harry said, praising his work. Now, he needed to test them.

The engraver was also able to test a metal’s hardness by firing its laser at maximum power for a set period of time and scanning the depth of the hole it made. Harry ran the test and waited until it finished. The hardness was judged to be beyond the orb’s capability to properly test, which was exactly what he wanted to see. Harry looked at the spot where the laser had hit and found the surrounding area blackened with soot. Harry waved his hand and cleaned the soot away, finding the metal completely undamaged. He then touched the area and again, found it cool to the touch. Harry smiled to himself. The next part would take the longest.

Harry squirmed through the tight space, testing many different areas along the main frame and the connected braces. In the areas where the magical enhancements were weakest, Harry added sets of amplification runes to absorb more magic and strengthen the weakened effects. Hours were spent testing every inch of the substructure, and in the end, eighteen amplification sets had to be engraved to ensure every part of the frame was up to his high standards.

“Harry? We haven’t heard from you in a while. Are you alright down there?” Maris’s voice crackled through the comlink. Harry reached into his pocket and pulled it out.

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “I’m nearly done down here. Give me another twenty minutes and I’ll be right up.”

“Okay,” Maris said, and Harry went back to work.

He finished up and crawled his way back to the exit, which was harder with a datapad in his hand. Pulling himself up through the opened grate, Harry’s aching muscles protested, making him groan in pain. He pushed the grate down with a loud, metallic clank and slowly limped to the tent.

“Well, you’re a sight,” Aayla giggled as Harry stepped into the tent. His clothes were covered in filth, and there was a thick coating of dust and grime stuck to his skin by all the sweat.

“I feel as bad as I look,” he said, stretching his lower back and wincing from the pain. Hours of being in such a tight space really did a number on his muscles. “Anyway, I got it all done and tested everything. You can recalibrate the engines to account for the frame’s lighter weight.”

Aayla explained that weight sensors in the ship’s retractable landing legs sent data to the computer. When recalibrated, the computer used the new data and adjusted accordingly.

“We’ll wait until tomorrow. There’s no use recalibrating before we install the new parts. We’d have to do it again anyway,” Aayla told him.

“How are you feeling? You’ve been down there for over five hours,” Shaak asked, looking him over.

“Sore and achy,” Harry said, still stretching his muscles. “My knees are the worst,” he said, flexing his leg and hearing the joints pop. “I’ll be fine, though. I’m going to jump in the shower and clean up. Then I’ll sit in the tub for a bit and let the hot water soothe my aching body.”

Harry slowly lumbered to his room, where he grabbed some clean clothes. He then jumped in the shower and scrubbed himself clean. After that, he filled the tub with hot, soapy water and got in. He sat on one of the reclining benches recessed in the pool’s wall and sat back with a sigh. Harry closed his eyes and quickly dozed off. He was suddenly awakened by something touching his side. He slightly jumped from being startled awake. He then saw Aayla at his side, her bare breasts above the surface of the bubbly water.

“Aayla?” he asked tiredly. “What are you …?”

“We’re joining you in the tub. I hope that’s okay,” she said with a smile. He tried really hard not to stare at her naked breasts.

“We?” he asked. He then spotted Shaak Ti and Maris coming down the steps and into the water. They were completely naked. He couldn’t stop himself from becoming as hard as a rock.

“Are you girls trying to kill me?” he teased, which caused them to laugh. Aayla hugged his arm, causing it to slip between her perky, soapy breasts.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to control yourself,” she joked. “Now sit up so I can massage your shoulders,” she ordered. Harry sat up, and Aayla moved behind him. He sat between her parted legs, and he felt her hard nipples brushing against his back as she began working on his sore muscles. Shaak Ti and Maris were a little further away, rubbing the soapy bubbles on their bare breasts. None of the women seemed to care that their bodies were so exposed. Maris was, perhaps, a little shy and blushed when she spotted him checking out her sexy female form, but she didn’t cover herself. Aayla was quite skilled in the art of massage and expertly worked his muscles. Harry placed his hands on her knees, and when she didn’t reprimand him, he slowly slid them up her smooth, wet thighs. Unfortunately, because of the way they were sitting, he could only reach halfway before slowly moving them back down. He felt her shudder against him, and her breasts pressed a little harder against his back.

He then heard Maris squeal when Shaak Ti used her Force powers to slash water into her face. Shaak Ti then yelped when Maris used the Force to spray water at her. Aayla giggled as she watched her friends horsing around. Harry happily watched the two women move around, hitting each other with water. Their breasts bounced and jiggled, making his cock strain with need. All in all, it was a pretty good reward for such a long day of hard work.