Chapter One

Carth Onasi punched the primary emergency launch release on the instrument panel in front of him. Silent alarms were flashing red all across the various screens and read outs. I really shouldn't have waited for this guy. He thought to himself feeling guilty as soon as it crossed his mind. No I have never left a man behind and I'm not about to start now. Even if the guy creeps me out.

Then the pods main engine ignited slamming him back against his seat, black spots played across his vision for a few seconds before clearing slowly. He looked down at the instrument panel, watching the count down in the top right hand corner of the primary readout display.

"Brace yourself back there it's going to be rough." he shouted back to the Sergeant when the count down hit 10 seconds, trying to make himself heard over the noise of the escape pod. The Endar Spire exploded with the force of a nuke. They were less than 200 kilometers away from the Ship when it detonated.

The shock wave smashed into the little pod with enough force, to instantly collapse its weak environmental shields and slam it on it's side, before starting a slow spin. The blast had increased decent velocity by a little more than double the recommended speed for an atmospheric entry. The battle had also forced the Endar Spire closer to the planets atmosphere than he had originally thought. They were already through the planets Exosphere and the friction of the Thermosphere was causing the tiny pod to heat up at an alarming rate. Flames almost instantly covered the transparasteel view port leaving him completely blind, unable to see anything beyond the writhing inferno. His hands flew over the vibrating control panel trying desperately to stop the slow spin the explosion had forced them into.

After almost a minute of watching the temperature gauge climb higher and higher toward critical failure. Along with flames getting more and more violent outside the view port, he gave up with the automated course corrections and slammed his hand down on the Manual control release. Yanking the stick out from under the dash, he lifted it up and locked it into place, desperately fighting the slow deadly spin and hand numbing vibrations coming through the stick.

Another minute and he had actually succeeded in leveling them out. Finally getting the pod steady. The only problem now was speed. They had slowed alot during the spin. But they were still heading down at 167% of safe velocity. Whats more, the pod had become so hot, slamming down through the Thermosphere sideways that the hull was starting to warp and melt.

He didn't have any choice he had to decrease the friction. Grinding his teeth with determination Carth tipped the nose down just a few degrees. Their speed picked up immediately but the hull temperature stabilized. He sighed with relief and smiled.

"Good girl you can get us down there, you just got to work with me." he said activating the reverse thrusters at 5% to start gradually slowing their decent. The mildly vibrating stick instantly became an angry writhing snake in his hand. He grabbed on with his other hand to avoid losing it altogether and fought the tiny pod for control as they shook and rattled their way through the last of the Thermosphere.

"Ok now what did I just say, huh? Just work with me now girl and we will all get out of this in one piece." It was the wrong thing to say. The moment the words left his mouth, the shaking became so bad he thought he might lose a few teeth to it. The stick jumped around with such force in his grip that his knuckles slammed into the control panel painfully, over and over again.

'CLANG!' the sound came from below Carth's feet and he looked down at the floor gaping.

"No! No! No! Don't you dare!" he yelled out loud at the escaped pod, as the deafening 'CLANG!' rang through the hull again. He quickly tipped the nose down another couple of degrees trying to reduce the drag, while at the same time turning up the reverse thrusters to 15%. The shaking got even worse but their air speed and temperature did drop slightly and he smiled feeling triumphant.

"That's it baby hold together just another few minutes I knew you wouldn't give me to much trou...!" he was cut off abruptly when he heard the 'CLANG!' again louder than before. Then a loud 'THUD!' beneath him. A shrill tearing sound and another softer 'thud'. A large object of unknown purpose and importance, flashed past the view port with a subdued "Clanging" noise as it smashed into the top of the pod on it's way to lonely freedom.

For a moment nothing happened they were still headed down. The pod was still shaking badly, but their speed was steady and the temperature was dropping slowly. Then almost every screen on the instrument panel flashed with warning lights and the pod slewed sharply to the side. Alarms shrieked as the temperature started climbing again and shaking intensified to the point he could barely see the readouts at all. The violent bucking of the pod slammed him back and forth against his crash webbing.

In moments like this where the probability of survival was slim to none there was really only one thing to say.

"Shit." The word came out in a calm matter-of-fact sort of way that one would use to comment on the weather. He slammed his hand down on the emergency flaps and fought slewing with all his skill, experience and determination. Desperately trying to slow them down and keep them steady. Just a few more minutes, he just needed another few minutes then they would be down. He kept his mouth shut however. Afraid if he said anything else, the damn thing would crumble to dust, just to spite him.

The moment the flaps opened the pod jerked and shuddered so hard. He thought for sure that they had been ripped off the hull. But the screen in front of him said that they were still attached, though two of them were damaged and unable to be moved. Despite that their desperate free fall slowed and steadied. The temperature of the hull dropped rapidly and the flames covering the view port receded.

Beyond the transparasteel he could see the vast city world sprawling below. Hundreds of towering skyscrapers poking up above the spotty cloud layer. Every one of them had a softly curved peak reminding him of Gigantic loaves of bread. They glittered silver and gold in the evening light and he could see why this place had once been called 'The Coruscant of the outer rim.' Combined with the setting sun in the far distance glowing a soft red-gold and the vast ocean to the west shining with a deep amber light, the sight took his breath away.

For what felt like a long time he just sat and watched as the city swelled up in the view port, a strange feeling of calm flowing over him. The moment past however and he was very aware of the aforementioned massive skyscrapers becoming quit large in his view port. He adjusted their course aiming for one of the upper city Pedwalks. Setting the reverse thrusters to maximum Carth brought them down as carefully as he could.

They smashed into the Pedestrian Walkway hard enough to throw him forward and smack his face into the console. The harness no doubt leaving bruises across his chest from the massive force. They slid forward a good 150 meters grinding a nice shallow trough through the Duracrete of the Pedwalk. Pedestrians screamed and leaped out of the way. Some of them clutching strange feathery 'dog-bird' looking animals as they flashed past.

When they finally ground to a stop, ears ringing and sore in places he hadn't felt in a long time. He couldn't bring himself to move right away, he sat there panting with both fatigue and shock. Carth could feel hot blood dripping over his upper lip and down his chin. He wondered idly if he had broken his nose, as he tried to hit the release on safety harness. His hands were shaking so badly that it took him 3 tries to finally get it to release. The pod was tilted at a forward angle and he slid forward boneless and collapsed against the console.

He lay there for a moment trying to catch his breath and steady himself, dimly he wondered if his passenger was still alive. With a sense of unreality he realized that the sergeant hadn't made a sound the whole trip down. He could have been injured in the fighting on board the Endar Spire and just been to hopped up on adrenaline to notice. If he had been losing blood this whole time then he could very possibly be dead already.

Concern for a fellow soldier finally got him moving, he turned slowly and struggled his way back toward the man, the tilted deck beneath him forcing Carth to half walk half pull himself forward, using anything he could get a grip on.

The man was only a couple inches taller than Carth himself, but thickly built and very heavy. Large arms and shoulders bulged under his combat armor. Carth tried to shift him back and forth looking for wounds but it was hard to tell in the red light of the escape pod. Black blood splattered the man quite heavily but it was hard to tell if any of it was his.

After a minute of examining the Sergeant, Carth finally noticed the make of his battle armor, and decided he was probably not, badly wounded. The Sergeant was encased in very high quality gear. It was Mandalorian combat armor. The suit alone was probably worth more than Carth made in a year on a Lieutenant's salary. More important than it's price however was the fact that it was made with pure Cortosis, one of the strongest and most energy resistant metals in the galaxy. The stuff could stop lightsabers, unless he had been hit buy a speeder at high speed for fell off a cliff he would probably live. His weapons were of equally fine quality, the blasters in the holsters on his thighs were Mandalorian heavy blasters. Those things were so powerful that a fully charged power cell would only give the shooter about 20 shots, but each one would burn through up to 10 centimeters of solid durasteel. Where as his own modified Blastech E-55's gave him about a hundred shots per standard power cell, but fat chance of making it through more than an inch of durasteel.

A siren broke him out of his contemplation abruptly, it was soft a long way off still. But he could hear it, the Sith knew where they were, and they were coming. Bracing himself with one hand he reached forward and shook the man's shoulder trying to rouse him, nothing. Carth tried again shaking harder. The Sergeant was completely limp. He drew one of his own blasters and smacked the butt down on the man's helmet, once, twice, three times. Not even a twitch.

Giving up, Carth holstered his blaster and moved past the comatose soldier pulling himself up to the hatch at the back of the escape pod. He braced himself, hit the hatch release and pushed it open, grunting with the effort. He found himself looking out at a mostly deserted Pedwalk only the bravest of souls had stayed to see what was happening. The rest had bolted for the nearby buildings in search of shelter from whatever 'doom' was no doubt about to befall the area.

Of the half dozen or so people that had stayed only one looked to be of any use. A tall straight backed human man in his late 50's. Though he was obviously past his prime with almost completely silver hair he still had the posture of a soldier. Carth thought for a moment looking the man up and down wondering what he should do. Then with a deep breath to steady himself he made his decision and called out to the man.

"I'm Lieutenant Carth Onasi Republic Navy, I have an injured man here will you help us?" He waited watching the man. If he was a former Republic soldier or officer, the man would most likely come help. But if he was from the Tarisian military or even worse a former Sith, it would have effectively doomed them both on the spot.

The man looked Carth over appraising him carefully for a long moment, all the while the siren in the distance was getting louder, making Carth's blood run cold.

"Sergeant Collin Vakris Former Republic Marine Corps." The man called back, before quickly jogging over and clambering up into the rear hatch of pod with surprising speed and dexterity.

"Thank you Sergeant I appreciate your help." Carth said leading the man back down to his unconscious companion.

"Don't mention it Sir, what do we have here?" sergeant Vakris asked moving down and taking a position on the other side of the unconscious body.

"Not sure, I don't think he's dead or even seriously wounded but I can't wake him." Carth replied, getting sergeant Jager under the left arm. Vakris just nodded and took the other arm with out speaking.

Together they disengaged the harness and dragged him to the lip of the pod. Carth jumped down and took hold of his shoulders as Vakris gently slid him out. The dead weight of Jager was to much for Carth and he fell back landing hard on his backside the soldier slumping peacefully on his legs undisturbed.

"You owe me big time for this Bub!" Carth growled at him, his eyes watering from the pain in his ass.

Vakris dropped down after Jager's limp body. Bending down he took Carth's hand and helped him out from under the surprising amount of dead weight. Carth immediately grabbed at one of the straps over Jager's shoulders trying to get the extra weight off so they could carry him faster. Vakris intervened on behalf of the gear bags however. Smacking his hand away.

"No time for that Sir we need to move now!" With such an eloquent defense Carth had no choice but to leave the bags where they were and take the other arm. Alternating brutal yanks and sluggish pulling, they made it inside just as the imperial speeders came into sight. Carth grumbling increasingly vulgar expletives the whole way. The sleek silver metal of the Sith speeders shining in the last of the evening light, as they spotted the crash site and zipped down toward it with dangerous speed.

Carth and the Sergeant paused a few steps inside the main doors panting with effort. The main circular hall they found themselves in was large and well lit with bight white lighting panels set into the ceiling every few meters. The walls were made of painted Duraplaste smooth and white. The whole place had an impersonal almost abandoned feel to it. Like the only reason everything was relatively clean was because no one had come through there in a long time.

Vakris stretched arched his back and looked at Carth a thoughtful look plain on his face. He tapped his bottom lip with his index finger for a long moment before seeming to make up his mind.

"You can't stay with me, or anyone connected to the Republic. That's the first thing the Sith will try." he paused for another moment then a grin split his face.

"I know what to do, help me with him." he said leaning down and taking hold of a limp arm.

"And what's that?" Carth asked following suit.

"We will hide you in plain sight." Vakris said giving Carth a satisfied smile.

He led them through the tower and down two levels. By this time they had got the sleeping soldier up off the floor at least one arm wrapped over each mans shoulders as they carried him. When the door opened and they stepped off the turbo lift Carth saw that this level was much more lively. The first thing he noticed was the smell, something sweet and spicy drifted to him on the air making his mouth water. How long had it been since he had eaten last? Other smells assailed him as well, sweat from a number of different species, numerous types of alcohol, and above all that indefinable miasma of scents that just meant 'People'.

After only a couple of steps three children came rushing past screeching at each other in glee. Two little Twi'lek girls both with dark green skin, and a human boy. They went rushing off down the hall making enough noise to wake the dead and trying their damnedest to kill each other. The punched kicked and bit each other until the little boy, who been getting by far the worst of it screamed like a demon Banshee, plowing into the both of girls sending them all rolling to the ground. There the tide turned against them, they were faster then the little boy but he was much stronger and after just a few moments he had them both at his mercy. He sat astride one of the girls chest pinning her arms by her side while the other one he had around the stomach from behind.

Carth couldn't help but snort with laughter at the respective looks of, Utter triumph and Furiously Impotent Rage.

Vakris led them down the circular hall in the opposite direction of the three little whirling dervish. Carth still fighting back bursts of mirth.

The hall was lined on either side by large powered doors every few meters. Some of these were open revealing small apartments. Most of them in pretty bad shape, grimy and disorganized. Some of them seemed to be small shops or what he assumed were restaurants of some kind. Aliens of all shapes and sizes lined up shouting food orders at hassled cooks who stood behind huge Wok's. The smell of roasting meat saturating the air as they pasted. All sorts of species seemed to live down there. Devaronions, Twi'leks, Rodians, Ithorians, Zabrak and a number of others but something struck Carth as odd. At first he couldn't put his finger on it, but then as Vakris stopped to ask a couple of Devaronions something in a strange harsh tongue. It hit him. Out of all the talking, shouting, and singing he heard as they made their way slowly onward. He didn't here any Galactic Basic. Not only that he and Vakris seemed to be the only Humans down there as well, except for the little Pride Demon, they had seen at the entrance when they first arrived.

He didn't say anything however, he was to exhausted to think about it right then. The man between them was heavy with armor and weapons not to mention the to large bags still strapped to his back. Gods only knew what was in those bags. Though Carth had a sneaking suspicion that it was probably some sort of raw ore, or perhaps just bricks. He had also fought a number of Sith making his own way to the escape pods during the battle aboard the Endar Spire. That along with the nerve wracking flight down to the planet. If they didn't find some place to rest soon, Vakris was going to be dragging them both along.

Fortunately Vakris stopped after only another few meters and turned to one of the large doors on the outer wall. He pulled something small and cylindrical from a pocket in this pants and stabbed it into the wall next to the door. There came a whirring sound behind the door followed by a soft 'click' and the door slid almost silently open.

Inside the apartment was small and spartan with no decorations to speak of. The north facing wall directly in front of them, consisted of floor to ceiling windows. A large view screen sat in front of them, with a plain dark blue-grey sofa placed in front of it. There was a table and 4 chairs in the left hand corner closest to the windows. A workbench sat across from the table pressed up against the east wall, tools lined up on its surface. But what completely captured Carths full attention were the bunks. Three sets of double bunks, sat against the west wall. Lined up headboard to foot board stretching the full length of the large square room. Military style and only just big enough for one person. In Carth's exhausted mind they looked like the most wonderful things he had ever seen. It didn't even matter that there wasn't a refresher, as long as those bunks didn't collapse on top of him he would be happy.

Even if they did I probably wouldn't notice until morning. Carth thought with a sudden snort of slightly hysterical mirth. Wordlessly they moved the unconscious man over to the bunks and lay him down on his stomach. Vakris grabbed his legs and maneuvered them up onto the bed then together they pulled the packs off his shoulders and let them drop to the floor feeling heavy metal objects clank together inside them. Ha I was right! Carth thought to himself as he collapsed down on the other bunk, sleep already pulling at him.

"I can't stay."

Carth peeled one eye reluctantly open to look at the older man, who was digging in his jacket pocket.

"I also can't come back here ever." he said pulling out a small silver card.

"No no I'm not going to take credits from you. Not after everything else you have done for us." Carth reluctantly stood and motioned him to put the credit chit back in his pocket.

"Yes you will." Vakris said with a look that would brook no argument. "I don't need it, I have friends and family that can help me out. You have no one and nothing but an unconscious Spec Ops grunt and a couple bags full of weapons."

Carth wanted to argue, feeling terrible for even thinking about taking the money, but the sergeant was right. If he was going to find Bastila and get off this planet without getting killed or captured he would need credits… probably a lot more than Vakris had to offer. Swallowing his pride and distaste he nodded.

"Thank you Sergeant."

"You are welcome sir. And don't worry about it I'll be fine, just worry about taking care of yourselves." he said handing over the chit. "You also might want to get him out of that armor and make sure he's still alive." Carth put the chit in his pocket and nodded.

"You're probably right. I have never seen anyone like that who wasn't either dead or close to it." He looked over the big man laying on the bottom bunk closest to the table. He's probably dead, or dying. Damn I could have really used the help. More than anything though Carth hated the idea of losing a man under his command. It never get any easier to watch fellow soldiers die. Especially when you were responsible for their lives.

"Now you should be safe here. The Tarisian Security forces almost never come down here. The Sith will make it down here eventually but you should have a couple days at least before that happens." Vakris said moving over to the east wall of the plain square apartment. The wall was curiously bare. Nothing even touched it but the work bench in the corner.

Vakris touched a spot on the wall With quick motions he pointed out the refresher, almost hidden behind a blank grey panel that slid silently back into the wall. A small standing shower, a toilet and a sink, moving on he pulled another panel straight out of the wall to reveal a single electric burner and a small sink.

"That's all there is to this place. The Rodian three doors down owns this apartment and he owes me a favor so you should be fine for a while but not forever whatever you do try to do it quickly."

"We will thanks again Sergeant, you ah… you saved our lives." Carth said feeling a fervent pang or gratitude.

"Your welcome sir, take care." they shook hands again and Vakris turned to go, but then turned back remembering something. He handed Carth the small cylinder from his pocket that he had used to open the door to the apartment.

"There is an out fitter just across the pedwalk from this building she might be willing to 'Relieve' you of some of those weapons." With that he nodded once, turned and was gone out the door.

Carth had the uneasy feeling that he had somehow just killed that man, but it passed, he was far to exhausted to worry about anything right then. He locked the door then went and lay down on the other bunk falling into a deep sleep before his head even hit the pillow, still completely clothed.