"Boss… and, uh, your people—what are you looking to buy?"
"No rush. We walk Bliss Street from end to end first."
"Got it. This way."
The moment they stepped onto Bliss Street, the very first stall they passed gave Max a small, unexpected jolt of delight.
A fake-antiquities stand.
The vendor's pitch had that same oily rhythm Max remembered from the hustlers in certain crowded antique bazaars back home. For a homesick drifter, it was bizarrely comforting.
Max pointed at a crystal pendant and asked with a grin, "All right. How much for that one?"
"Oh, I can tell you've got an eye." The vendor beamed and gave a big thumbs-up. "This was brought down from Centerpoint Station by an adventurer—an ultra-ancient civilization's ritual item. There's unimaginable power sealed inside."
He held up one finger.
"Fixed price. Twenty thousand credits."
"Ding." Max flicked a coin into the air. "Fixed price. Twenty credits. You selling or not?"
"Hey! What kind of talk is that?!" The vendor flared instantly. "Twenty? You're insulting an ultra-ancient civilization—"
"We're leaving."
Max didn't waste words. He jerked his chin at their guide, signaling him onward to the next stall.
They'd barely taken a few steps when the antiquities vendor called after them.
"Sell, sell, sell—wait, customer! In our line of work, everything depends on fate. I can tell this pendant has a special connection with you! Fine, I'll take the hit—twenty credits. At a loss. Just for you."
"May the Force be with you." Max tossed him the twenty. "Keep it safe."
"May the Force be with you. The pendant is yours."
Once they'd gone a little farther, the guide glanced at the pendant rolling between Max's fingers and muttered, "Off that one sale alone, that old shark made at least nineteen credits."
"Heh." Max pocketed the pendant. "The story's fake. The rock isn't worthless, though. It's kyber."
"That's not kyber." The kid played dumb immediately. "That's just crystal glass."
Max could tell the kid was baiting him—trying to get him to brag. But Max wasn't some gemstone expert. He recognized it because the Force reacted to it in his hand.
In a good mood after scoring a "find" right out of the gate, Max went along with the act. "Sure. Crystal glass."
They wandered for a while longer, and Max picked up another lead.
"Boss, look." The guide pointed ahead-right. "That guy is Bliss Street's 'arms king.'"
"Selling blasters out in the open?" Max didn't like how casual it looked. "It's really this lawless?"
The kid pointed up at the sky, voice full of envy. "He's got protection. Serious connections."
"Got it." Max nodded. "Let's see what he's actually got."
"Buying?" The stall owner lounged behind the table. He didn't even stand—just waved them closer. "Everything here is factory-original from the big manufacturers. Better than the backyard junk other stalls push."
"BlasTech DL-18? Commodity junk. Relby K-23? Not worth carrying." Max scanned the table and delivered his verdict like he was reading a checklist. "Got anything that isn't filler?"
"What do you want?" The owner finally sat up. "If you can pay, I've got real stock."
Right then, the guide leaned in with a thumbs-up. "Old Sasso, these are real buyers. They toss fixed-price credits around like nothing. If you've got something good, stop posturing and bring it out."
"Oh?" Old Sasso's eyes brightened. He hopped down, rummaged under the stall, and pulled out an exquisitely made alloy gun case.
"Take a look—Naboo royal-service heavy blaster pistol, the CR-2. High power, high accuracy, fast rate of fire. With a conversion module—"
"All right." Max raised a hand and motioned for him to close the case. "This thing might not even outperform a DL-18 in the real world. Compared to BlasTech, Corellian Arms is basically a boutique shop, isn't it? Only advantage is how generous the sellers can be with 'incentives.'"
Max's tone sharpened. "So, how big was the incentive you were about to offer me?"
Max dipped his head slightly at Eldon. "We've wasted enough time. Chris, give him ten credits for the consultation. We're leaving."
"May the Force be with you." Christopher dropped the credits. "Ten. Keep it."
"No, no, I can't take that." Old Sasso waved both hands hard, then raised his voice as they turned away. "Wait—hold up. I've got something you'll actually care about."
When Max looked back, Old Sasso hurriedly produced a canister like he was presenting treasure.
"A tibanna tank?" Max asked.
"Exactly. But what's inside isn't ordinary rough-refined tibanna."
"Oh?"
Seeing Max's interest, Old Sasso pressed it. "You know weapons. You're a real shooter. Compared to whatever you carry as your personal piece, everything on my table is probably trash. But this isn't. This will make a blaster run better."
"Refined gas?"
"Refined—and tuned." Old Sasso lowered his voice. "Latest refined tibanna developed by BlasTech for a Republic contract, optimized mix. With this, bolts carry a pulsed ionization effect—much nastier on droids and electronics than rough-refined shots."
Max froze.
So the Republic's military-industrial pipeline was already leaking like a cracked tank. The Grand Army wasn't even officially standing yet, and contract-grade "special" tibanna was already on a street table.
Absurdity stacked on absurdity.
Off to the side, Christopher snorted. "Hmph. Rotten Republic. It'll fall sooner or later."
"Chris." Max's voice stayed quiet, but it hit like a slap. "Watch your mouth."
"It's fine, boss." The guide rushed to smooth it over. "This is Coronet City—Coruscant doesn't police this deep."
As they spoke, Old Sasso produced a second canister.
"This one is Mandalorian refined tibanna—Mandalore's blend. With this, your bolts hit harder, punch deeper, and drop targets cleaner than anything fired on rough-refined gas."
Max turned his head.
Christopher's face cycled between pale and flushed, like he'd swallowed something sharp.
In the end, Max spent nearly two thousand credits and bought all of Old Sasso's refined tibanna stock.
The "Republic-contract" gas, he planned to hand to Cloud City's researchers for reverse engineering. The Clone Wars were coming, and Max intended to make credits while everyone else panicked.
As for the Mandalorian refined gas, Max planned to have his people work with Cloud City's tech staff to trace the supply back to its source.
Death Watch had basically no industrial base, so it probably didn't leak from them. More likely it came out of a munitions plant somewhere in New Mandalorian territory.
Once he found the origin, Max planned to go straight to Duchess Satine Kryze and file a complaint:
It's New Mandalorian Year 10 and your factory still hasn't transitioned to civilian production—so what are you, exactly? A "pacifist" government quietly feeding war stock into the underworld?
Squeeze the business, break the pipeline, then have Cloud City step in and take over.
Perfect.
After buying the refined tibanna, Max didn't see anything else on Bliss Street that caught his interest. Once they exited the alley, he had Bazel contact the Fieg consortium to send a landspeeder and take them to their next stop—the high-end private auction.
While they waited, Max settled the rest of the guide fee and chatted with him.
"Corellia's black market—anyone moving medical devices?"
"Yeah. Bliss Street has it. Not specialists, but medical gear turns up. We just didn't hit the right stalls today."
Max gave him a comm code. "If you spot someone selling medical hardware, snap a pic and send it to me. Same deal as today—if it's something I'm interested in, you get fifty credits. Paid per hit."
"Got it. Thanks, boss."
"How old are you? You use spice yourself?"
"Sixteen. Yeah." The kid shrugged. "Kids raised underground… I've never met anyone who doesn't touch spice."
Max let out a quiet sigh that barely showed.
The landspeeder arrived. Time to move.
"Manager Cloud, sorry to keep you waiting."
"Not at all. Appreciate the trouble."
After greeting the driver, Max turned back and nodded once to the guide.
"Kid. May the Force be with you."
PS: The Corellian system contains five worlds (including Corellia) in the habitable zone—an astrophysical miracle. At the gravitational balance point between the "twin worlds" Tralus and Talus floats the massive artificial structure known as Centerpoint Station, so ancient that even Republic science can't fully date it. That's why legends of ultra-ancient civilizations are widespread in the Corellian sector.
PPS: In Star Wars media, different blaster-bolt colors are commonly used for visual readability. The text's "gas quality ↔ bolt color" explanation is presented here as the in-story claim it is.
The "yellow bolts pierce more and hit harder" line is not an official setting element; it's the author's invention.