Building the Foundation

[Blagga Vajlicsic Indora]

(( Note: This actually starts a bit before Clockwork but will quickly catch up to the event. To start this thread is only a few days after the first Hutt Cartel Thread which is currently being written ))

Nal Hutta, the seat of the Hutt Cartel, was changing these days. The stagnant planet ruled by the Five Families had been turned on its head. Upstarts, young blood, had executed a bloody coup. The Families, so secure in their positions had not even seen it coming. It was exactly what Blagga and the others had predicted. However, Hutt Space had yet to be taken completely. Much of its core had surrendered quickly, but lesser members of the Families were still holding up in family fortresses around the sector. They would be defeated in the near future, but some had rather sizable mercenary forces with them. Some bloody conflicts lay ahead of them. Some that would involve some serious fire power, and a lot of credits to purchase it.

However, Blagga was not fond of entirely relying on mercenaries. They had their purpose, but they lived for credits. Ambitious ones were the most dangerous, much like he and the others had been. They were liable to turn. He preferred the idea of building a formal military as well. The Hutt sector had the manpower to achieve such as task but under the old ways they had never moved in that direction. Why? Blagga could not guess the reason. They were fools though, and dead to compound their problems. However, they had been powerful and rich. They had had what Blagga desired. Except he desired to have it secured in the tumultuous galaxy.

This Hutt was already looking beyond the borders of Hutt Space. Not necessarily to expand though the idea was present in his mind. No, he was concerned with the growing threat spinward. The Sith Empire seemed locked in a strange battle with the Republic with the Mandalorians caught in the middle. Blagga could already see the war turning towards the Hutt space in due time. Blagga wanted to be prepared for such an event, and as such a fleet would be necessary. A mighty one. One which the Hutts had never possessed. They lacked a shipyard though, which was the first task that Blagga needed to overcome. But he had a plan for that. His eyes were set on a forgotten minimal rich planet of Brakha.

 

[Blagga Vajlicsic Indora]

Brakha in the Brakharst system was a dead planet. No life. No atmosphere. Nothing really to make it significant at all, except for the fact that it was rich in construction minerals. It was incredibly large and dense and so rich that it was a wonder that over the millennium it had not been reduced to nothingness. The problem was that it was difficult to set up a cost efficient processing system. Bases could be built on the planet for mining, but that was costly and the Hutts were keen to not waste. Asteroid fields were significantly easier to process anyways, and Hutt space was large and filled with them. However, never before had a project like this one been mounted by the Hutts. Well there was that Dark Saber fiasco but Blagga preferred not to think on that much. It was a foolish time in the Hutt's history, and quite some time ago.

The Frozen Star, a Tiure-Class Space yacht owned by Blagga, sat not far away from the planet. The Hutt looked at it through the viewport and beheld its opportunity. The Hutts needed this planet if they were going to fuel the creation of a mighty shipyard and a grand armada. All the problems of harvesting it still existed but he was convinced that this was the answer. Everything he could think of was something that had already been tried.

A Devaronian named Avilhar, his chief lieutenant, approached holding a datapad. "Not that it is much news but... we have confirmed that this planet contains enough raw materials we need."
Blagga closed his eyes, and scratched the area right below his mouth. [It is the jewel we need. But how do we cultivate it.]
"Aye, if we use standard methods it'll take years of mining just to get the resources. We might be able to bring it down to a year by using extensive amounts of slaves. But it'd take months just to get the infrastructure in place." Avilhar said with a bit of a sigh.
[We will need to find another way then. Give an order for early stages of processing to begin. Set course to Nal Hutta, I need to think.]

 

[Blagga Vajlicsic Indora]

A few days later Blagga lounged in his newly acquired palace on Nal Hutta. His room was mostly empty. A few guards at the doors and that was it. In theory this room had been used for parties and gatherings, but he decided that was foolish. Enemies could get in that way too easily an eliminate them. Fortifying himself against outside threats was the best way to deal with assassins. The Five Families stilled had some strength and might try and remove the usurpers by any means possible. He refused to end up that way. Not so soon at least. Safety was of the utmost importance to him. With Avilhar out scouting Ylesia, which meant he had lesser individuals with him. He did not like this but such was how it was.

Before him was the was a mounted datascreen. He looked over data concerning his businesses legal and illegal and sent out a few orders. At the corner of his screen was an image of Brakha, the enigma that plagued his mind for the last few weeks. Everytime he looked at it his mind searched for new ideas but none seemed viable. Mining was so standardized now that thinking outside the box typically meant just improving the quality of laser of explosive. His eyes sometimes drifted up to looked through the floor of the room. It was a transparent material, and beneath it was a greenish water. Swimming through it were a pair of dragonsnakes. The Lorda found that it kept those that came to see him rather honest. Lying meant they had a good chance of being thrown into the tank for the creatures' meal. He enjoyed watching them swim through the tank, waiting for food. They were fantastic creatures. Powerful, with massive sharp teeth. They could rend through nearly everything. At least anything that mattered.

[If only I could crack this riddle, like they bit through whatever is thrown at them.] His voice slowed down and grew quieter after the work crack. His instantly went to the image of the planet that he looked at. Could it be broken apart without systematically dismantling it? His fingers dashed over keys as he began to research possibilities.

 

[Blagga Vajlicsic Indora]

Weeks passed and ships went in droves to Brakha. Upon them the best drilling equipment and the largest payload explosives that Blagga thought had ever been transported. Among the ships were mining vessels built to collect asteroids and their mineral wealth. Many of their crews were impatient, feeling as if they were losing money even though they were being paid to remain patient. Blagga also was impatient, and flooding credits into this project at an alarming rate. Well... alarming because nothing had happened yet. Not much at least. Seven extreme digs were under way. They were not cutting away at the planet through mine shafts and then processing the materials or sending them to space for such actions. No, they were just drilling. Drillings straight down towards the planets core.

Many told him that his idea was beyond reach, but their sole reasoning that it had not been done. At least not in this way. Super weapons had been used to destroy rocks like this for various reasons. There was no reason to think that a super weapon had to be used in order for this to be done. After all, the galaxy gun had simply shot an extremely large bomb with a massive drill on it. While an impressive piece of technology the concept should still hold true. Blagga's eyes looked back and forth between the seven displays showing the drills at work.

 

[Blagga Vajlicsic Indora]

Work was slow. As they got deeper the crust got harder, and even more rich with the very minerals they were seeking. However, Blagga did see the long lasting potential of this project. Uninhabited planets that had resources could be completely destroyed and stripped of everything they were worth. Once unreachable veins of resources could be found. This sort of mining could usher in a new age of commerce in Hutt space, which had a vast number of potentially pointless planets just ready to be stripped to nothingness. As Blagga ate a fine dish of Nexu that he had cooked himself, his mouth watered at the potential future for Hutt space that could be found from this business.

As progress slowed on the drilling, his eagerness just grew. The weeks that were passing seemed to go by incredibly slowly. Drills burned out. New ones had to be brought in, and even as he looked over his Empire and securing his life against the foolish other Hutt factions, in the back of his mind was the drilling and the eventual destruction of Brakha.

 

[Blagga Vajlicsic Indora]

Blagga landed on the one of the massive drilling platforms. The floating construction essentially fired a very concentrated laser into the planetary crust in order to burn through it. Many of these large lasers were working on over drive to cut deep into the crust to get into the core. With enough holes being burrowed into the planet Blagga hoped to destabilize it enough to be able to either cause it to implode on itself, highly unlikely though it would be nice, or get deep enough that large number of simultaneous explosions would cause the planet to burst. All around. Much of his plan hinged around these laser drills doing their job.

He slithered out of his yacht's docking hatch into one of the holds of the drill. An Ugnaught approached him, "Lorda Indora, we are humbled to have you here."

Oh, pleasantries. Blagga had been looking to get to business. <Good. It is where you should be. What is the problem here?>

The Ugnaught's face looked solemn, Blagga supposed at least. They had weird faces. "These machines are meant to cut through asteroids or shallowly into the crust of a planet, not two thirds of the way in. We are pumping this thing with all sorts of extra power to get it to shoot as deep as we are but we are already three times as far as we normally cut. At this point the drill is barely burning the ground it is hitting."

<You requested me here why?>

"To tell you in person."

<You are fortunate I was in system or I would have had you killed. Do you have any solutions?>

"We are not sure. We have already maximized the power, and made the laser more efficient. Really, these platforms have reached their potential, and they are already as close to the surface as they can be. Really... aside from a few more meters, which we will reach in a week, we are at the limit here." The fact that it was not kilometers annoyed Blagga greatly.

<Think of something. I will look into other methods as well. For now, keep at work.>