Rhya Taloon spoke up. "I"ve heard rumors about it. A kind of refuge, they say. Secret. Safe. Impossible to find, yet many find their way there."
"I say we find it," Dexter said. "Ferus has got the skills to protect us on the journey."
Me? Ferus thought. Since when did I volunteer?
Keets Freely gave a long look around at the sweeping machines, the pools of rusty water, and the grimy walls. "And leave all this?" he joked.
Wait a second, Ferus thought. I thought I was getting a guide, not leading a group. He shot a look at Dexter. His eyes were twinkling.....you could say such a thing were possible for a Besalisk"s beady eyes.
Oh, well. He"d been outmaneuvered. But he didn"t mind doing Dexter a favor. He"d do it for Obi-Wan"s sake. And to help find the lost Jedi.
Trever didn"t mind. That was clear by the grin on his face. He liked these people. No doubt they reminded him of the black marketers he lived with on Bella.s.sa.
"Take a vote, then," Dexter suggested.
Slowly, weapons were raised. All seven Erased agreed to go.
"I"ll be staying here," Dex said. "I"m not as mobile as I was. I"ll warn the others to stay low - well, lower than normal - and I"ll wait to hear from you."
As they went to collect their weapons and belongings, Ferus talked to Dexter.
"Don"t think I didn"t notice how you trapped me into this," he said.
"Where"s your spirit of adventure, young Olin?" Dexter chortled and slapped him on the back, sending him shooting forward. He saved himself from crashing into a column just in time.
"I should tell you something, Dexter. If you"re relying on the skills of a Jedi, I dropped out of the Order some time ago. I"m a little rusty."
"I"d rather have a Jedi at half-power than a battalion of stormtroopers any day," Dexter a.s.sured him. "And call me Dex. I have a feeling this is the beginning of a long friendship."
The Erased left to gather the few belongings they needed to take, and Ferus took the opportunity to gain some privacy and contact Obi-Wan. He withdrew into a little-used part of the s.p.a.ce and took out his comlink.
They had agreed on a coded signal before they parted, and Obi-Wan answered at once. A flickering mini-hologram appeared, and Obi-Wan flipped back his hood.
"News?"
"Hey, Obi-Wan, glad to see you, too."
Obi-Wan frowned. "You are supposed to contact me for emergencies only. "
"Well, it"s not an emergency, so I guess you don"t want to hear what I have to say. Bye!"
"h.e.l.lo, Ferus," Obi-Wan said wearily. "How are you?"
"Nothing a few days of rest on Belazura wouldn"t cure. I"m here with your friend Dexter Jettster. He sends his regards."
"Dex! I"m glad to hear it."
"He"s got a death mark on his head, but he"s alive. Listen, I broke into the Temple with Trever and overheard something of interest about Polis Ma.s.sa."
Obi-Wan straightened. "Yes?"
"Darth Vader doesn"t care about it. Whatever it is. In fact, he forbade Malorum to pursue any inquiry."
"That"s good."
"No, that"s bad. Because Malorum is trying to become the Emperor"s right-hand man and boot out Vader. So he"s going to pursue it."
"Do you know what he knows?"
"No, I didn"t get that far. The wall caved in."
"You have to find out. You must be alert for any inquiry into the death of Senator Padme Amidala as well. Do you think you could get back into the Temple?"
"Trever and I barely got out."
Obi-Wan folded his hands into the sleeves of his cloak. "You know I can"t leave here, Ferris. And I don"t want to put you and Trever in danger. But Malorum has to be stopped."
"I"ll stop him for you, Obi-Wan," Ferris said. "I don"t know how, I don"t even know why. But I"ll do it."
"May the Force be with you."
"You know, I"m beginning to realize that it actually is with me. Still."
"Of course it is, Ferus." Obi-Wan"s voice was warm now. "Depend on it. "
CHAPTER TEN.
For the first time since he"d left the streets of Bella.s.sa, Trever felt at home.
The Erased reminded him of the friends he"d made in the black market. Sure, you didn"t want to ask the brothers, Gilly and Spence, what they did before they were Erased, but that was fine with him. He was used to people concealing their pasts.
Gilly and Spence didn"t say much. They were short and compact and heavily armed with various makeshift weapons they trusted more than any blaster. Keets Freely was the talkative one. That guy could chew your ear off with facts about the Coruscant underlevels: How they"d always existed outside of the law. How security didn"t penetrate this far down. Millions of inhabitants relied on their own defensive skills or teams of vigilantes to protect neighborhoods and individual apartment structures with their hundreds of inhabitants.
According to Keets, ever since the Most Evilest Empire took over, things had only become worse. Before the Clone Wars, the Senate tried to keep the place from falling apart, at least. They sent droid teams down for occasional repairs. They even set up med clinics for the poor slobs who had to live there. But now, with the new greedy Senate, n.o.body cared. So the millions of beings slammed into the sublevels traveled in packs and kept a.r.s.enals of weapons to protect themselves.
Trever could have skipped the lecture and picked up the main point - watch your back.
He noticed that Ferus wasn"t too happy about leading the Erased down. They had traveled for hours until they were far away from the Senate and Galactic City, and all Ferus could think about was the Jedi he was searching for. Honestly, he was a little obsessive about it. But still, Trever had never met anyone he felt he could depend on like Ferus. It was worth sticking around.
Their plans were loose. They had to be. The group had decided to head down, all of them packed into one large speeder, and pick up information along the way. Since there were so many rumors about Solace, they felt certain that they would find the way there.
Of course, some of the rumors were pretty extreme.
Number one: Solace was a place on the crust that had escaped the monolithic building boom on Coruscant. It had trees and lakes and was open to the sky far above, with nothing on top of it.
And if you believe that, Trever thought, you believe in s.p.a.ce angels.
Number two: Solace was built centuries ago on the crust, a wondrous place of palaces and towers where all were welcome, and all were cherished, and all were free.
Right, and the Emperor is a humble guy looking out for everyone"s well-being and the galaxy is a blooming garden.
The only rumor Trever truly believed was the fact they already knew: Solace was hard to find.
At the end of a long day of learning basically nothing, Rhya. Taloon unstrapped her holsters to make herself comfortable and stretched out on the sleep couch in the guesthouse they"d arranged to stay in for the night. Gilly and Spence were busy cleaning their weapons while Trever lay down on the other sleep couch, and Ferus spread his cloak on the floor for a bed.
"This is getting us nowhere," Rhya announced to the ceiling. She placed the toe of her boot on the opposite heel and kicked off one boot, then the other. They landed with a thump on the floor.
"You"ve got to ask a lot of questions before you get real answers, sweetblossom," Keets said as he sat astride a chair. "We may not see it, but we have pieces of the puzzle."
"We do?" She waved a hand in the air. "All I heard today was noise."
"There"s one thing we keep hearing. The crust. It"s all the way down - some say it"s even below the crust."
"That"s true," Ferus said. "That"s the common thread."
Oryon shook back his tangled mane of hair. He was in his usual resting position, squatting on the floor. It looked uncomfortable to Trever, but Oryon seemed to find it relaxing. "There is usually a kernel of truth in even the most exaggerated rumor. Keets might be right."
Gilly and Spence looked up from their weapons to nod.
"There"s got to be a first time," Hume said. He was the tall human man who"d been a Republic army officer.
Keets saluted him. "Even a broken chrono is right twice a day."
"So we should go straight to the crust," Curran said. "Stop wasting time."
"Sounds like a plan," Hume said. "I hate to waste time."
Everyone looked at Ferus. "I agree," he said.
"Anybody ever been that deep before?" Keets asked.
"Are you kidding?" Rhya asked. "I never made it out of Galactic City." She looked down at the holsters on the floor. "Then again, I never shot a blaster before, either."
Oryon checked his weapon. "Well, get ready. You might have plenty of opportunities soon."
They left for the crust at first light.
They zoomed down past sublevel after sublevel. There were no s.p.a.ce lanes here, just tricky piloting. Ferus piloted the speeder, not speaking, concentrating on avoiding the other aggressive speeders he encountered as well as broken sensors that suddenly loomed in front of him, crumbling landing platforms, and narrow pa.s.sages.
Coruscant had been built from the surface up. When the levels had become too crowded to bear, more levels were built above. More buildings, more infrastructure, more power stations, more walkways. The deeper Ferus and the others went, the more ancient these structures became.
They left the speeder on a landing platform that had been sh.o.r.ed up with timbers of durasteel and wood. Looking around, Trever could see that improvisation was the name of the game when it came to building down here.
Here at the crust, they entered a century that was committed to grandeur. These long-ago beings built their buildings out of stone, hundreds of stories high, with intricate carvings and balconies, turrets, and towers. The stone of the buildings was cracked and crumbling. Often they were reinforced with sc.r.a.p metal or wood. Their streets were winding and narrow, with alleys leading off from alleys in a confusing maze.
There were no official systems here at all - no power, no water, no light, no ventilation that wasn"t powered by private generators. They walked down through a narrow arched walkway. The stone beneath their feet was cracked and split, sometimes with fissures that were meters wide. They jumped when they had to and skirted the holes. They were the only beings out on the streets. Although above them the suns weren"t setting, it felt like night. The air was dark and close.
This was it - the bottom of Coruscant. The lowest known level.
If they didn"t find Solace here, there was nowhere else to go.
Trever hoped there was safety in numbers. The Erased looked treacherous. He couldn"t imagine that anyone would want to tangle with them.
He found his steps slowing. He felt haunted by what was above. It was as though he could feel the pressure of the millions of lives above him, the millions of structures and machines, a whole impossible matrix of humming life above his head, of millions of beating hearts.
It was enough to seriously creep him out. "You"re uncharacteristically silent, young fellow." Keets fell into step beside him.
"It all feels so... heavy," Trever said.
"You mean everything above your head?" Keets laughed. "Yeah, I see what you mean. It"s kind of oppressive."
"So who lives down here?" he asked.
Keets shrugged. "Immigrants from other worlds, those who came here hoping to do better. Those who lost everything, those who had nowhere else to go. Just creatures living, trying to live. And those who prey off them."
"And those looking for the wonderful world of Solace," Trever said.
Keets chuckled. Then suddenly he reached over and pushed Trever hard. Trever fell to the rough ground.
"Hey, what - "
Then he saw them. The gang had materialized, seemingly out of thin air, but Trever now saw the narrow pa.s.sageway that snaked off the arched walk. Keets had pushed him out of the way of a stun dart just in time. Trever looked up and saw that Oryon had already reached for his light repeating blaster from his back holster. Keets held a blaster pistol in his hand. Now Trever saw the streaks of blaster fire in the darkness, a steady barrage, as the gang moved forward. There were at least fifteen of them, each more brutal-looking than the rest.
Ferus was already running, his lightsaber sweeping in a continually moving arc. The attackers were clearly startled at the ferocity and power he exhibited, not to mention the blaster fire that suddenly boomeranged back at them. They kept firing as they retreated, shouting curses at Ferus and promising to kill him.
Oryon and Hume kept up a position on Ferus"s flank, each of them firing their weapons. Keets and Rhya were only slightly behind, while Gilly and Spence split up and began to chase the gang as they gave up firing and fled.
Trever started to roll to his feet. The fissures and cracks were wider here, and his foot became lodged in a crack as he moved. Annoyed, he tried to pull it out, but it was stuck. Trever squirmed closer to peer into the crack.
A thick, scaly tail had wrapped itself around his ankle.
Trever gave a yell of surprise and tried to pull his leg up. The creature wound another length around his ankle and tugged. He tried to kick at it, but it only hung on tighter.
"Ferus!" Trever called. But Ferus was ahead, with Rhya and Hume, and didn"t hear him.
He looked down again, and this time he saw the dead eye of the creature staring back at him. He didn"t think that the concept of mercy existed in this creature"s universe.
It gave a sudden yank, and Trever dropped into the crevice up to his hips. His other leg now dangled inside the crack, and he pushed away the question of whether this creature had a mate. He kicked and twisted, hitting the creature now with one fist while with the other hand he fished for something - anything - in his utility belt.
Trever felt the familiar contours of an alpha charge.
His fingers fumbled as he tried to set the charge. He managed to do it, but the creature tugged, and the charge rolled out of his fingers and dropped into the blackness. In the flash of light he saw a reptilian body with scales that looked like duracrete. The mouth of the creature appeared to be strong enough to snap him in two.