Chapter 75
Renn stayed talking to the two jedi younglings for a bit while the other jedi prepared to leave Ilum.
Yoda had told the younglings that they would need to wait for their padawan guide to regain consciousness, but that was proving to be taking some time.
Renn hadn't been concerned about leaving quickly, as he had a long hike back to his ship up on the nearby cliffs, so he had just sat in a corner chatting to Ahsoka and her friend.
He had to admit he liked the young jedi-in-training and that caused him to worry about her a bit.
Renn and his clan had their own history with the jedi, and most of the people he associated with like Jango Fett and Yaddle had quite a negative opinion of the current jedi order.
And this along with the problems his friend Anakin had faced after joining the order caused Renn to worry about Ahsoka and her future with the Jedi, he was also concerned about Ahsoka's friend Scout but to a lesser extent as he didn't know her as well.
Renn worried that the jedi order and their poor leadership would cause the two younglings no end of problems in the future, but he wasn't sure if it was his place to say anything to them about it.
It was similar to why he hadn't tried to stop Anakin from becoming a jedi. From what Anakin had told him joining the jedi had been a lifelong dream for the boy and so Renn hadn't wanted to risk losing one of his first friends by trying to convince him otherwise.
Similarly, although Renn liked Ahsoka, he had known her for less than a day and Ahsoka had been taken from her family to become part of the jedi order at a young age.
So, he didn't want to try and convince someone who had been a part of the jedi order for over a decade to leave based on the fact she 'might' have problems in the future.
Renn decided he would just try to become friends with Ahsoka and then if she did encounter any problems with the jedi order he would just help her out.
But if in the future Yaddle did decide to create her own jedi order he might suggest that to her as an alternative. Although he wasn't sure if Yaddle had actually meant to do that, because she had mentioned her plan shortly after downing an entire bottle of Corellian wine.
After a while a couple of the other younglings came over to their little group, mainly the ones who had found the way Renn had wound up the padawan funny.
The group had then sat laughing and joking for a while before Yoda had managed to wake the padawan up and began organising the younglings to get them ready to leave. After explaining to the padawan why it would be a good idea for him to stay away from Renn in the near, and probably distant as well, future.
When it had finally become time for the younglings to leave Renn had said goodbye to Ahsoka, and the few other younglings who had been friendly with Renn.
Ahsoka had insisted that they keep in touch. Claiming that as Renn was a force user not affiliated with the jedi order it would benefit him if he heard about 'proper' force techniques from a 'super powerful' jedi like herself.
She had also mumbled something about how it would help her as well if she could learn some things from Renn, as he was probably stronger than most jedi up to the rank of knight. And probably a few of them as well.
Renn had laughed but agreed to Ahsoka's request/demand and decided not to mention that he could learn every jedi technique or skill if he wanted to as he had a former Jedi high council member living with him.
The jedi boarded their ship after Renn and Ahsoka had said goodbye to each other and left Ilum to continue to the next stage of the gathering. Constructing their lightsabres.
Renn had then returned to his own ship and left the icy hellhole as well and went on to continue his own journey.
-
It had been almost two weeks since Renn had left Ilum, and the cargo hold on his ship was starting to fill up with different items that he had found across the galaxy.
He had visited numerous planets, moons, and a few asteroids on his journey.
Fought vicious beasts and deranged pirates.
Explored weird cave systems, dense jungles, barren deserts, and deep oceans.
Renn had also collected numerous items that were potentially valuable, including the hides of various dangerous galactic beasts as well as valuables that he had liberated from pirates and other criminal elements that he had defeated during his travels.
He was considering selling most of these items, while maybe keeping a few for the sentimentality of remembering his journey, but there were some items that he had set aside to use when he was forging his armour.
The mysterious crystal he had found on Ilum was one of these items that he would use to forge his armour, and the fist sized crystal was currently wrapped up securely and stowed in a padded case along with the a few other items Renn wanted to use to upgrade his armour.
These other items included a small orange gem, known as a Kohlen crystal, that Renn had discovered in the horde of a self-proclaimed pirate king.
The pirate king had ruled over a small badly retrofitted corvette as well as twenty-five scrawny pirates, and not much else.
This didn't stop him however from skulking across the outer rim, preying on unarmed civilian transports and pillaging small rural settlements on backwater planets, claiming it was his right as a ruler to take and do what he wanted.
Renn had been stopped at a small town, barely bigger than a collection of a few houses and a singular dirt road, and was intending to refill his supplies there before returning to his journey when the pirate king had attacked the town.
The pirate king had sent his crew charging into the town, expecting them to kill or enslave its citizens and cart of anything valuable like they had done to numerous other towns.
But instead of finding scared and terrified townspeople cowering before them the pirates had been met by a soon to be warrior of house Dredd.
Renn had slaughtered the pirate crew. By sneaking around them as they entered the town and began killing them in groups of twos or threes as they spread out to unleash destruction on the innocents before them.
Before long Renn had killed the entire crew and buried his vibro-knife in the want-to-be pirate king's throat.
He had then looked through the horde of valuables stashed in the pirate ship's cargo hold, which is where he had found the Kohlen crystal.
The pirate king had clearly not known what the crystal was used for and had just dumped it in a chest with a load of other gems and shiny things.
But Renn knew what it was and was planning to use it to upgrade his armour.
Kohlen crystals were known to be able to be used to create powerful personal energy shields impervious to lightsabres.
Renn had already been planning on adding an energy shield to his armour for added protection and finding the Kohlen crystal was a stroke of luck that make it even more powerful.
Another item Renn had found and was intending to use for his armour was a stealth field generator that he had found on the belt of a long dead Mandalorian scout when he had been exploring an ancient battlefield from the time of the old republic.
He wasn't going to use the actual stealth field generator in his armour, the device was thousands of years old after all, but he was going to use it for inspiration.
The galaxy had largely abandoned research and development in the field of personal stealth field generation, believing it to be pointless as the downsides outweighed the positives for anything smaller than a starship.
But Renn had some ideas for getting around those faults and creating a new and upgraded stealth field for his armour.
He also had a few other less well known but equally unique materials that he had found on his journey and stored in the padded case with the other items.
Renn sat in his ship's cargo hold and looked around him.
He felt that he had everything he needed to create his armour and also had a feeling that his journey was almost over.
Renn wasn't sure exactly how his journey was supposed to end, and it wasn't as if he could ask anyone. The force was navigating for him after all. He was just going where it told him to.
He figured the force would just give him a sign to let him know it was time to go home when the time was right.
-
Renn watched from his ships pilot's seat as the straight lines of hyperspace shortened to the dots of distant stars, and the universe came back into focus.
A grin spread across his face as he gazed at the system he had just entered.
He watched the swarms of small drone like ships moving through the asteroid field on the systems edge.
The small ships were mining and collecting ores from the asteroids and then flying off with them.
Renn's grin broadened as he followed the ships with his eyes and saw the massive space station, they were bringing the materials to.
Other ships were also flocking to the space station, bringing other materials from other parts of the local solar system as well as some from neighbouring ones. And the space around it seemed filled with activity.
Three sleek hulled frigates patrolled around the systems perimeter and four more floated protectively around the massive space station.
The frigates were all nearly four hundred meters in length and were bristling with cannons and turrets, and they projected an air of strength and power around them.
Renn only sent the frigates a brief appreciative glance before staring at the space station in admiration.
Bastion 1. The current headquarters, industrial base, and shipyard of house Dredd was huge.
It had grown over the years since it had been created by repurposing a single Lucrehulk-class Battleship that had been captured by Renn during the battle of Naboo.
Since then, the space station had expanded using materials from the resource rich asteroids floating on the systems edge, as well as three more captured Lucrehulks.
The additional ships had been captured in various ways and from various locations around the galaxy leading to their disappearances going largely unnoticed.
The trade federation had thousands of droid control ships all across the galaxy and frequently engaged in skirmishes with pirates and other galactic cultures not aligned with the republic, and thus not important enough to be protected by the republic.
And so, after a small investigation by the trade federation the missing ships were just marked as lost by the galactic superpower and ignored.
The three droid control ships had been merged with the original one to create the bulk of Bastion 1 and additional facilities had also been built up around that.
Renn was now looking at this space station and was feeling an immense sense of pride and happiness for one reason.
If the force had led him here as his next location it could only mean one thing. His journey was over.