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"Harry, take the controls keep us heading in system on this heading, I am going to be busy for a bit." Harry jumped to obey Fay's command while she closed her eyes concentrating on her Force powers. Both of them felt it, a wave of energy emanating away from her and out throughout the entire star system, acting almost like a radar ping for a moment before finding its targets and narrowing down like sunlight through a magnifying glass.
Through the Force Fay found the minds of each of the ship's captains. Once she did, she reached inside them, shutting them down in turn, literally cutting the connection between mind and body for the moment, sending them into unconsciousness. She wouldn't keep them that way, that was beyond cruel after all, but it was a much more peaceful solution then boarding the ships would have been even if she allowed Harry to use his abilities.
None of the captains or their crew was Force sensitive. They couldn't fight back, and fell to her soft assault far more easily than they would have to any Guardian boarding their ship. Their seconds in command fell similarly, and then, as Harry guided them forward, she widened and softened her attack almost, putting dozens of pirates to sleep in the next few moments. Only one ship at the far edge of the formation was far enough away to even try to escape her unseen, unstoppable assault, and it did not succeed.
No other Jedi could have done this. No one else had the sheer mastery, the deft touch that allowed her to reach so far, touch the minds of her targets from this range. And even to Fay this was a difficult task. Sweat appeared on her forehead and her hands clenched around one another as her attack continued for several moments while Harry flew her yacht closer to the planet.
"Done," Fay said at last, wiping a weary hand over her brow. "Please contact Tenaab's government and relay it to me when you get to it Harry. Tell them to shut down their defenses for the moment, and not target this cruiser."
Fay leaned over to the navigator's console, nearly falling to the side as she did, but righted herself quickly, her strength returning slowly. She pointed at the symbol of one of the larger pirate vessels on the radar.
Harry did so, searching through the planet's communication frequencies looking for a voice that sounded as if they knew what they were doing, and were calm enough to understand that circumstances had suddenly changed. After the first few frantic signals he picked up, Harry realized this was going to be a while. "Why that ship Master?" he asked, looking over his shoulder only then realizing that Fay had gone.
He still heard her voice however as she moved through the ship towards the landing ramp. "Because you're going to dock us with it, and then I'm going aboard. I sense something different about that ship."
What she had sensed was that this ship had already taken some cargo, a cargo which made Harry's blood boil. He knew that slavery was allowed in this universe, not even just allowed but condoned in many cases, even knew the reasons behind it on Ryloth. The Twi'lek homeworld had literally nothing else to offer offworlders, it had never developed any kind of hyperspace technology or heavy industry of their own. The very nature of their world fought against it.
But to once again see slavery like this after nearly more than two years among the Jedi knowing that the Jedi didn't actually fight against the slave trade in any meaningful way was a blow. He looked at the slaves chained to the wall of the ship's cargo hold, most of whom looked as if they had been taken in raids, shaking his head.
"The Jedi don't do enough to fight this brand of evil," he said aloud, moving forward to help Master Fay free the slaves one after another. She had already retrieved the device from the ship's very limited, very crude, medical center to remove the small bombs set into each of their necks.
Fay sighed but nodded. "It's too deeply entrenched, has too many factors, and unfortunately the Jedi Order tends to look inwards at the Republic rather than out to the Outer Territories and the Hutts."
Of course even in the Core Worlds there was a certain amount of slavery, though nowhere near to the extent practiced elsewhere. That was much more personal sort of slavery, but it was still vile for all that.
"I could make it my personal quest to change that state of affairs," Harry said, his voice deadly serious, as he helped one young boy who looked about three years older than himself except for the fact that he was emaciated to his feet. Luckily for Harry's state of mind there weren't any women aboard this group, these were all laborers rather than pleasure slaves.
"I think you will find that some things are beyond even Jedi, my young padawan. Doing what you can when you run into the issue is the best you can do for the most part." Fay said, sighing again.
Harry, Master Fay and Lily were soon joined by several shuttles coming up from the planet below to take possession of the pirate ships one after another, while the pirates remained asleep. The pirates were taken down planet and summarily executed to a man. Regardless of circumstances, piracy and slave-taking were still nominally illegal, and carried the death sentence in most Republic systems save for a few, as Lily put it, bleeding heart, Core Worlds like Alderaan and Chandrilla.
The trio remained on Tenaab for a time while Master Fay did what she could to help train the locals in how to use their new ships. The largest four ships Master Fay sent to Gizer, a system somewhat further out along the Perliman Trade Route, to be retrofitted and rebuilt as system defense ships.
Of course when the Gizer's governor was told what had happened, he ordered the systems construction yards to take up the job gratis so long as they in return got a deal on food supplies from Tenaab.
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