A single station floated in orbit above Serenno with a nearly finished, sacanium plated battleship cradled in its arms. Deep Space Demolitions and Removals had been claimed as a prize of war, and had itself been recycled. Refurbishing the station's interior had taken a lot of work, as had tracking down a point of origin for all the slaves being trafficked inside.
The life support had been filthy, and so its machinery had needed to be almost entirely replaced, the vents scrubbed and cleaned out to get rid of the smell of mold and rotting food. The original purpose of the station was to tear apart ships, not put them together, but it was easily large enough for an entire cruiser to park inside it, and there was no other way Tan'ya would get her hands on a similar station.
It had taken three years to finally remove all the unneeded parts and gradually transform it to meet Tan'ya's needs, and even after that, it took another three years to complete the creation of its first ship. Normally it wouldn't take so long, but it was the first starship Serenno had ever manufactured, and Tan'ya wanted to ensure that it was done right.
Until now, the humble House Fleet had made do with ships purchased from other worlds, or taken in battle. These days the House Fleet stood at ten ships; the original three Hammerheads and two captured Coronas, along with another four CC-21 combat cruisers manufactured by Botajef Shipyards.
For all the media interest in the sudden rise of House Serenno and its 'Pseudo-Feudal Empire', ten cruisers was a paltry amount. They weren't even genuine battleships, just mid-sized battle cruisers. A large force like the Trade Federation's would easily be able to overwhelm and destroy this meager fleet.
Tan'ya knew that her fleet wasn't what frightened the Federation. The thing that really had Grib Siv scared were the shipyards at Botajef and Raxus Prime. Between those two worlds they could output a third of what the Trade Federation's own yards could, but that gap was closing. Right now, the Federation was still the mightiest power in the Outer Rim, but in ten years would that still be the case?
If Tan'ya was in their shoes, she would take action now, while the advantage was hers. Crush the upstarts, make it clear to the Galactic Audience what would happen to the Federation's enemies. Knowing this, Tan'ya was facing a war in the near future, a war that she dreaded in some ways, but anticipated in others. The Alliance had a plan, one that could work. If it succeeded, the Trade Federation would never be a threat again, but if it failed they would lose everything.
Now, berthed before her eyes, the final pieces of the SHF Naboo were coming together. Named for Count Dooku's crushing victory over the Trade Federation's fleet, it was to be the first of its kind. A sacanium plated, heavily armed battleship, named as a direct insult against Grib Siv and his allies. Looking out at it, Tan'ya couldn't help but sigh sadly, knowing that it would be completed too late to see the coming battle.
She swirled the cafstim in her cup, took a sip, and leaned forward to look out the window at Serenno below, and the jagged, splotchy brown scars that were dotted across every continent. They told a story, for those who cared to hear it.
It begins with a disaster for the upper classes across Serenno, Barons and major business owners alike. Their wealth and influence were massively diminished during the tyrannical reigns of Count Ramil and Count Gora, and even now they had a fraction of their former power. The two tyrants had confiscated hundreds of thousands of kilometres of the world's best farmland, forcing out the serfs who had worked the lands previously, and replacing them with droid labourers.
Those same serfs had then been forced to survive by any means necessary, mostly resorting to banditry or the logging industry, leaving deep and visible wounds on Serenno as a planet, as a culture, and as a people.
It was the kind of damage that couldn't easily be undone. Suddenly returning the confiscated lands to the nobility wouldn't see the serfs returned to their ancient homes, as the much more efficient droids labourers now dominated that industry completely. In the end, the only way out was through, and the solution to Serenno's problems hadn't come from increased market intervention, but reduced.
With her father leaving Serenno mostly alone to pursue his greater political ambitions, almost all the day to day work of ruling had fallen to Tan'ya. She had finally had her chance to implement her beloved Chicago school of economic theory.
Her father had already overhauled Serenno's law enforcement and dealt with the pirate threat, providing safety to the population. Then he sourced imported plasma from Naboo, providing cheap energy. Cheap energy had reduced the operating costs of the world's droid labourers, repair shops, and food processing plants, which resulted in food prices lowering dramatically. Starvation, which even ten years ago had been a threat lingering in the backs of people's minds, was now gone almost entirely.
Those were the three pillars of a functioning economy. Security, energy, and food. With those needs met, the people were now able to focus their time and effort on creating new sources of wealth for themselves. Businesses were springing up everywhere, from domestic furniture making to local banks, bakeries, breweries, publishers, marketing firms, holonet and shadowfeed installers, blaster salesman, and the list went on and on. Given the chance, the people of Serenno had naturally flowed like water, filling every available economic niche.
The cheap energy had brought the costs of construction down, resulting in a housing boom, as more and more families found that owning their own homes was no longer an impossible dream, but an achievable goal.
Prosperity was growing, flowing across the planet like molasses, reaching one village, one family, one entrepreneur at a time, slowly but surely filling every corner. If things continued like this, it wouldn't be more than a few generations before Serenno stood as a peer to the rest of the Galaxy.
Unfortunately, things were not likely to continue like this. The plasma from Naboo was subsidized by their government, and ignored the more profitable markets in the Core Worlds. This wouldn't last long. Soon enough, market pressure would draw the shipments away and the loss would drive Serenno back into the misery and poverty it was slowly climbing its way out of.
Plans were in the making to avert this fate.
Looking past the window, Tan'ya caught her own reflection in the viewport and paused, looking at herself. It had been multiple decades since high school as a boy, but Tan'ya was sure that she was the sort of girl that would have fit in with the pretty girls. Perhaps she had a touch of her father's hawkish nose and thick brows, but for the most part she resembled her mother, with brown hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. Nice, high cheekbones, clear skin, and a set of perfect teeth, with soft pink lips.
Unlike her mother, she had an athlete's body, thanks to a lifetime of disciplined lightsaber practice. Her limbs were long and corded with tight, flexible muscles, and she walked with a measured, focused confidence born from countless hours of combat and training.
On some level, Tan'ya was surprised that there weren't more young men who showed open attraction to her, but then when she thought about it, she realised she was the exact kind of woman that would be too intimidating for her peers to pursue.
Currently, she was wearing her formal clothes, with a cape, chain of office, and a long black skirt similar to the one Asajj wore. She had a lightsaber on one hip, and a blaster on the other, something that other Indinoor Jedi had begun copying from her father.
There was a knock at the office door, and Tan'ya turned away from the window, waving a hand after a moment to open the door and see her guests in. M8-ID, her long serving protocol droid, led Admiral Hoves and General Seith inside.
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