Two hundredish years have gone by since I secretly took over the political underbelly of the galaxy with bribes, crimes, and a smile. In the beginning, there were the usual people who would fight back in the name of justice. They were bright-eyed idealists, full of fire and rhetoric. But after the first sixty years, those who fought for justice grew old, tired, and cynical. They learned from their age, realized that ideals don't pay for retirement, and eventually joined in with getting paid.
My type of politics was no longer a scandal; it was the proper norm. Corruption had been institutionalized, sterilized, and given a nice office with a view.
Thanks to my customized biopod healing tank, the Force, and a lot of ethically questionable genetic research done by the Arkanians, I was still alive and physically at my peak. Of course, nobody knew that. To the public, I was the fourth generation of the "Bee" lineage, the great-grandson of the founder of the Grove. It would be impossible to guess my true age.
The only ones who knew better were the long-lived Hutts. They didn't care about my immortality; they cared about their margins. Business was good, peaceful, and consistent. The Hutts were glad I was still around because, while the underworld is a brutal business, I made it an immensely profitable one. A chaotic underworld bleeds money; an organized one prints it.
I no longer looked at credits or resources with desire. I had so much that numbers lost their meaning. I only looked at projects. My Dyson swarm project had been completed for twenty years. I had six suns semi-covered by a shimmering web of energy-collecting bots. Things were excellent. The energy from the swarm was enough to power all of my projects, with vast amounts left over to sell to developing sectors. World energy shields were placed on my planets, and expensive giant energy weapons were at the ready to target any invaders.
My life was peaceful. The only strife I came across was logistical. And yet, something that I had been waiting for finally happened. I had found a point I could recognize in the endless stream of years.
A new Master in the Jedi Temple took his place on the High Council. A young Yoda, no older than one hundred years old.
This was epic news for me. While I understood that I was in the galaxy of Star Wars, I wasn't intimately familiar with the specific timeline and dates of the Old Republic era. It was all a blur of conflicts and treaties. But Yoda? Yoda was a clock.
At the destruction of the Death Star, the dating system would change to BBY (Before Battle of Yavin) and ABY (After Battle of Yavin), but until that event happened, the dates were just arbitrary numbers to me. With Yoda in the picture and his age being documented, I could estimate the time of the downfall of the Republic and the new age of the Empire.
If my math was right, there were seven hundredish years until the Clone Wars and a further ten to fifteen years until the Empire took over. That was plenty of time. It was enough time to incorporate my being into every facet of life, so that if the Empire tried to get rid of me, it would topple the entire galactic board over.
I decided to offer an invitation for dinner to the new Jedi Master. It was time to meet history face to face.
++++++++
Watching a Republic transport ship land on my private pad excited me greatly. The ramp lowered, and a small, green figure hopped out with an energy that defied his size. This was quite possibly the greatest Jedi that I would ever meet. His combat ability and control over the Force were second to none or they would be, eventually.
The youthful Yoda had a wicked set of hair, auburn and thick, that looked permanently wind-swept, and the bounce in his step showed just how young he really was. He didn't walk with a cane; he practically bounded down the ramp.
I, on the other hand, still had my fat suit on. It was highly upgraded with all kinds of secretly protected technology that I hadn't made public shields, sensors, and enough hidden weaponry to level a city block. I pushed back a massive, genetically engineered fern leaf that was concealing me to make myself known.
"Master Yoda," I boomed, spreading my massive, jiggly arms. "Welcome to the Grove."
Yoda looked up, his ears twitching. "A pleasure it is, Mister Bee. Long, the journey has been, but beautiful, your world is."
"We try to keep it green," I smiled. "Come, my carriage awaits."
I directed Yoda to a speed wagon fit for my size essentially a hovering lounge room. As we traveled toward my home, I briefly looked over Yoda's mind. It was a reflex by now. Compared to other Jedi, Yoda's mind was confusing to look over.
He wasn't any better at protecting his mind than other Jedi Masters, but due to his species and his raw connection to the Force, a strange complexity existed. It was like looking into a mirror reflecting a mirror reflecting a prism. There was plenty to see, but a lot of it was duplications and refractions of light.
Another thing I noticed immediately was that Yoda thought in complete, standard sentences, unlike the way he spoke. Rumors were that he spoke in that semi-backwards object-subject-verb syntax to honor his ancient Master. Now, hearing his internal monologue, I suspected it was true. It was an affectation of respect, not a speech impediment.
We breached through a mass of dense foliage to reveal a circle of Eden ships surrounding a lush green park full of children. My droid parked the wagon and began to leave the driver's seat to open my door.
"Leave it," I said, waving a hand. "Take the afternoon off, Unit 9. Go watch the podraces on the southern track."
"Thank you, sir," the droid beeped happily, taking the wagon to the other side of the planet.
For a brief time, it was just the two of us making our way to my personal Eden ship. I could feel Yoda looking around, his large eyes widening as he paused to look at the kids in the park.
I knew what he was looking at. Some of the kids in the park were playing tag. But they weren't running; they were floating. One girl giggled and jumped, clearing a three-story building with ease. Another boy was using telekinesis to juggle six balls while eating a sandwich.
"Strong in the Force, they are," Yoda murmured, his ears dropping slightly. "Many of them."
"All of them," I corrected gently. "In the Grove, we do things differently than the Temple."
At the Jedi Temple, they took children away from their families and trained them at a young age, severing all attachments. They believed attachment led to the Dark Side. But I took the whole family. Over the many years and generations of people having kids, and those kids inheriting the Force, we had created a singularity. Instead of a single Force user in a family, the whole bloodline had abilities.
Judging by Yoda's eyes, he hadn't seen this outside the Temple walls. It wasn't his fault; any independent Force community usually kept to themselves and wouldn't allow outsiders to investigate for fear of persecution. Plus, Yoda was still very young for his species barely a teenager in human years and possibly hadn't seen much of the galaxy's secrets yet.
Suddenly, the children spotted me.
"Uncle Bee! Uncle Bee!"
The children rushed over to get some free sweets. Some of them literally skipped through the air, while others used the Force to speed up, blurring across the grass to start tugging on my massive clothes. Yoda would have been tackled to the ground if he wasn't one with the Force, dodging small hands and feet with fluid, dancer-like movements.
"Easy, easy!" I laughed.
I reached into my pocket and tossed a big bag of my own brand of fruity jelly sweets like a grenade into the center of the group.
"Scatter!" I yelled playfully.
I watched the kids dive at it with great gusto. There was a slight tussle for the bag, telekinetic pulls fighting against physical grabs, but it was easy to see that the amount of sweets would cause all of them to puke with overindulgence if they weren't careful. Many small hands grabbed what they could with the swiftness of the wind, only for the frenzy to slow down as they secured their loot.
I, on the other hand, opened a new bag of sweets and offered some to Yoda to break him out of his concentration.
"Jelly cube?" I offered.
He sniffed it and politely declined. "Pass, I must. Gelatin, they contain?"
"Smart," I noted, popping three into my mouth. "Vegetarian, I assume?"
"Life, I eat not," Yoda nodded.
Entering my Eden ship was quite a scary feeling for most guests. As we approached the ramp, many auto-guns tracked our movement. Cannons and missile pods quietly shifted in their housings all over the hull. A less experienced being would have flinched. Yoda didn't stir even a little. The Force was telling him he was under no threat and was perfectly safe.
I led the way and offered to take the Master's robe. He declined, keeping his humble garments on, but that didn't stop me from putting my massive coat away and storing my shoes to the side. I led us to my main living area, which doubled as a high-end kitchen. It looked like a huge studio apartment, open and airy.
Yoda sat down on one of my sofas. The size difference was hilarious. The already small stature of Yoda superimposed against a sofa built for my ginormous size made him look like a plush toy.
I turned on my high-definition Holo-Tube and flipped it to the sports channel. One of the things I had to include when making the high-definition Holo-Tube was new content. The galaxy was boring if you couldn't see it clearly. Cash had been generously spread out to produce programs and channels so my Holo-Tubes could host them. It was costly in the beginning, but now new channels sprung up every day without my help. I left it on mute for background ambience.
I moved to my kitchen counter, washing my hands. I pointed a knife at Yoda.
"What do you fancy eating, Master Jedi?" I asked. "I can make anything from deep-fried vegetable fritters to a traditional frog-leg stew with a side of spawn eggs."
Yoda's nose wrinkled slightly at the frog mention perhaps too close to home?
"Simple fare, I prefer," Yoda said. "Jedi porridge, perhaps?"
I snorted. "Absolutely not. I am not serving gray sludge in this house. I will make a vegetable stir-fry with a caramelized nut glaze."
As I began chopping onions, carrots, and greens with rhythmic thuds of the knife, Yoda watched me. He started with idle chit-chat to test the waters, asking about the weather and the trade routes. But he soon started to get serious.
"Your influence in the Senate," Yoda said, his voice sharp. "Growing, it is. Yet, participate directly, you do not."
"I prefer to be a consultant," I said, dicing a pepper.
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics," I said, quoting an ancient philosopher from my old world, "is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
I could feel that the answer I gave greatly displeased him. The air in the room grew heavier.
"Better than them, you believe you are?" Yoda asked, his eyes narrowing.
My answer was simple. "I know I am better than them. They lie with their lips and lie with their tears to get whatever they can get. However, I lie with a smile and tell you the truth with my actions. And by doing so, I make the galaxy a better place."
Yoda answered back with his broken language, shaking his head. "Arrogance, that is. Leads to the Dark Side, arrogance does. A fall, it predicts."
I shrugged, adding a generous slug of brandy to my pan. Flames licked up, and I rolled some chopped nuts in caramel in a separate pan. "My arrogance is well-earned, Master Yoda. And my downfall has been predicted by my enemies many times. But look around. I am still here. They are not."
A slight silence spread across the room, filled only by the sizzling of the pan.
"Do you want some tea and dried lizard tail?" I asked, breaking the tension.
"Tea, I will take," Yoda said. " The tail, you may keep."
I brought over the tea and a plate of chocolate chip cookies that held no animal fats. I sat opposite him on a reinforced stool to enjoy a cookie. Soft and gooey cookies were my favorite thing when drinking hot drinks. I dipped one in my sweet tea and slurped the treat.
Yoda took a sip of tea, his eyes still analyzing me. He carried on asking questions about politics, but then paused as a thought passed his mind. I didn't need to read his mind because he told me almost immediately.
"The underworld," Yoda said. "Deep ties, you have. The nature of crime, you understand."
"It is both honest and brutal," I replied.
"My former Padawan, now a Knight," Yoda said, looking into his cup. "Trouble with pirates, he has. Uncertain, he is. Destroy them, or negotiate?"
The answer I gave was something I knew Yoda would understand, if not today, then in the future.
"Do you destroy them or help them?" I mused, taking another bite of my cookie. "One is the way of the Light Side to protect. The other, the Dark Side to destroy. And yet, there is light within the dark and darkness within the light. To kill them would be bad, but ultimately it might do some good for the victims. However, leaving a void of evil will simply be taken up by a new evil."
Yoda was fully invested in what I was saying. He leaned forward, his large ears perked up. He was so focused on my face that he didn't notice the kitchen behind me.
"The Force is neither Light nor Dark but the Whole, a balance," I continued. "And so too a balance must be filled when dealing with the pirates if you want lasting change."
I dipped the other half of my cookie into my tea. "I remember a wise and clever underworld boss was once asked a question: is it better to be loved or feared? He said if you cannot be both, then it is better to be feared than loved. Fear lasts longer. Love that is bought means nothing. It is fear that keeps people in check."
I could sense Yoda's feeling and it wasn't good. He recoiled slightly, sensing the philosophy of a tyrant. He opened his mouth to interrupt me, to lecture me on the slippery slope of fear.
"But," I interrupted him, raising a finger. "The trick is not to be hated. You treat your allies well, but not too well. You give them too much and they don't need you. You give them just enough that they need you, but don't hate you. If you want to control the pirates without leaving a void in power, then you give them something that they need but don't hate you for. That is how you deal with the underworld. You don't destroy the pirates. You employ them."
Yoda sat back, his mouth closing. "A lot, you have given me to think about."
"Good," I said. "Thinking is what you are good at."
Yoda's face looked deep in thought, wrestling with the pragmatism of my statement. And yet, the look of utter surprise on his face when five plates of steaming food floated out of the kitchen, navigated the air, and placed themselves gently on the table between us was priceless.
He hadn't seen me lift a finger. He hadn't felt me gather the Force because I had been doing it while talking, masking the effort behind my words.
"Force sensitive, you are?" Yoda gasped, his eyes wide.
I picked up my fork and levitated a napkin to my lap.
"I wasn't talking out of my ass when I spoke about the Force, Master Yoda," I gave a small, genuine smile. "Light side, Dark side... I prefer the dinner side. Let's eat."