AN :
You guys deserve this chapter, So the next goal is 250 power stones in 24 hours
...
It was hot and humid, so most of them worked without shirts, stripped down to the waist with their only clothes being plastoid helmets, and the sleeves of chainmail-like safety mesh to protect them from the teeth of a misplaced vibro-saw.
...
As Tan'ya watched, an agile, long limbed man in a climbing harness scaled a massive black tree with great agility, using a smaller vibro-saw to remove its massive limbs without even glancing down to make sure no one was near the base of the tree. As he was doing so, teams of young men were coming forward to cut the branches into a size that they could be dragged away, fearfully glancing up on occasion to make sure a large branch wasn't going to come crashing down on them.
Eventually the climber came to the bushy top of the tree, where he started taking off smaller hand sized branches, one of which landed directly on the shoulder of one of the workers below who hadn't moved away in time. The worker clapped a hand to his shoulder and winced, but kept cutting up the larger branch he was working on rather than concern himself with a bruise.
It only illustrated to Tan'ya how dangerous this work could be.
"Why don't they stay clear of the base of the tree while the limbs are coming down?" Tan'ya asked.
"Some of the climbers do. Each one is in charge of their own team and tree, so I let them organize it how they like. The teams get paid for each ton of timber they bring in, not by the hour though. If they want they can wait for all the limbs to come down. Damn waste of time, though."
Sifo looked rather disgusted by the man's complete disregard for the lives and well being of his employees, but Tan'ya thought it was immediately useful to know. On Serreno, the unskilled laborers had almost no bargaining power.
They didn't own the land that was being cleared, and didn't own the tools that were used to do it. All of that belonged to the yard owners, who were themselves under heavy pressure to keep up pace with the many similar operations across the galaxy. In the end if the working lumberjacks pushed operating costs too high, they would simply be replaced with droids.
The same thing had already happened once with Serenno's agricultural sector.
As Sifo and Tany'a were shown around the yard, a man approached Hewno and began speaking to him in Outer Rim Basic.
"Who's this?" He asked Hewno, looking past him at the Jedi and the princess.
"That's the Count's daughter, man, so keep your grubby eyes to yourself. I'm getting a nice little bonus to show her around my yard."
The man's eyes widened and he stood up straight. "Well, we were about to cut into that great black stinker in the gully. We shall wait until they're gone."
Curiosity pricked, Tan'ya called towards them. "What is a 'great black stinker?'"
Hewno looked surprised that she spoke Outer Rim Basic as well as Galactic Standard. He quickly mumbled an apology in Standard, "I'm sorry, Princess. I didn't mean no offense."
"It's fine." Tan'ya dismissed. "I'm just curious, what do you mean by a 'great black stinker'?
"Called a reeksap tree in Standard. Very large, dense wood. Awful smell, stinks for miles around. Resistant to heat and rot. Once cured the smell dissipates. Wood's useful for all kinds of things. Was gonna wait until you left here before cutting it, no offense."
"That doesn't sound pleasant." Sifo looked at Tan'ya. "Was there anything else you wanted to see here or should we go?"
"I'm satisfied." Tan'ya replied. "Before we head back to the capital, I did want to see one of the villages, though."
At the mention of one the villages, Hewno immediately looked worried. "Not safe for decent folk, Princess."
"Why aren't they safe?" Tan'ya asked, curiosity piqued.
Hewno looked like he was at a loss for words, and looked to Sifo for help. "Mister Jedi, they don't like us out there in the rurals. Definitely hate offworlders like yourself. Might just disappear you into the jungle. Princess never found again."
"Lies!" The man who had been speaking with Hewno in Basic suddenly spoke up in somewhat poor, thickly accented Standard. He sounded genuinely offended. "You shame us!"
Hewno turned to the man, looking angry. He spoke in rapid Basic, "You inbred cur. We can't send the Count's daughter out to one of the villages, they'll take her hostage! Or worse!"
"We are loyal to the Rider Count! He brings peace, and drives out the alien! His child would never come to harm."
"I'm sorry, what was your name?" Tan'ya interjected.
"I'm honored to tell you. Phlelen, son of Am'Phlelen." He bowed low. "If the Rider Count's daughter wishes to see how my family and I live, it would shame me to deny her."
Tan'ya looked at Hewno, smiling. "Then I suppose we can borrow your speeder?"
Various emotions warred across his face, before he finally accepted surrender. He turned to Pellen. "Go tell Werso that his team is on the Stink Tree, then get back here. We'll all go together."
Phlelen ran off to follow his instructions, while Hewno muttered to himself angrily and stomped around to the back of his speeder. From the trunk he took out his blaster and shock stick, strapping each to his waist, before pulling on an extra layer of safety with a chainmail mesh in a jacket shape.
"Why did you want to see one of their villages so badly?" Sifo bent down to ask Tan'ya in a murmur.
"Official surveys only convey so much." Tan'ya answered. "Nothing beats doing your own field research."
"You say that like you have experience in the issue." Sifo replied, before standing back up straight.
For a moment, Tan'ya's mind raced. Had Sifo realized she wasn't just a child? The excuses she came up with died on her lips when she saw the amused smile on her Master's face. He thought that she was only pretending to know what she was talking about.
"It's true, though." She defended. "Time and time again, throughout history, the general who understands his soldiers and local terrain better triumphs over superior numbers, again and again."
He gave her a nod, and didn't say anything further.
Tan'ya was relieved that he accepted her hastily thought up excuse. The truth was that she wanted to visit a village for an entirely different reason to what she'd told her master, one that if he knew he would never allow her to go. In the remote corners of Serenno, away from the spaceports and the cities, a particularly special weapon was rumored to exist.
One that she knew a Jedi Master would never approve of.
After Phlelen's return they finally all got back into the speeder car to fly to his home village.
On the way there, Tan'ya asked Phlelen, "What do the villagers speak?"
"Hlelus." He replied, and at her confused look he added. "Almost every region of the planet speaks its own unique language or dialect. Men who speak Basic are considered well educated."
"What do the men in the yard speak?"
He searched for the right word for a moment, then shrugged. "It's not a language. There's a few words and phrases in Basic that every man remembers, and a few words and phrases from each village get blended in there."
A kind of pidgin language then. Not a true dialect, with a culture and history behind it, but a kind of working hybrid that just barely allows people who don't share a tongue to get by. No wonder all of the teams seemed racially segregated. Having people you couldn't communicate with easily on the same team would be potentially dangerous.
"How many people can read and write?"
"Hewno is the only man here who can do that."
Tan'ya glanced over at Hewno in the driver seat, and found him looking back at her in the rear view mirror, a slightly worried expression on his face. Perhaps he was worried she was going to disrupt his business?
"How did you learn Standard and Basic, Hewno?" Tan'ya asked him.
"...Mother was from the forests, but she married a man from Illentia. Father made sure I was educated offworld, so I grew up speaking Basic, and picked up Standard in boarding school. He died in the war, I've taken his yards." Obviously it wasn't a happy topic, but it was useful to know.