Notes: Hey everyone! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. How do you feel about the changes from canon? Do they work? What could work better if it was changed? What scenes or moments would you like to see happen in the future? But above all, thanks for reading :D

Chapter 7: Friendly Faces

There was an official dividing point between the upper and lower cities at exactly 150 stories down. Kyrena had thought it was more of a metaphorical thing, but at some point in the past the government had made the call. Which explained why there was all of one elevator stop that went that deep into the city, conveniently labeled "Lower City" in faded handwritten ink. All the elevator buttons below that had been blacked out.

Kyrena and Carth stood in an awkward silence as the elevator slowly descended deeper into the bowels of the city, the door pinging at each stop 20 levels apart. They stared out of the scratched plastiglass window as the light gradually faded away, and Kyrena couldn't shake the feeling she wouldn't live to see the surface again. By the time the lift slowed to a stop it was so black the only thing she could see outside were the lights from apartment windows of neighboring towers.

The elevator slowed and Kyrena glanced briefly over at Carth. The whole plan was terrifyingly vague, and for her, this was the scariest part – when would they get Carth out of that armor? How would they hide it? There was no way to plan that in advance, and improvisation was not exactly Carth's strong suit when it came to face-to-face action.

Kyrena took a slow, deep breath. The chances were very high they wouldn't survive the next twenty-four hours. Don't think about that. You can do your job, or you can be afraid. You had to accept that you were probably going to die and that you were going to try anyways. And, as frustrating as it was, this really was their best chance. Yes, she could go to ground, but she'd probably have to abandon Carth to do it, and what was the point? There was little she could do against the Sith in hiding by herself, and it wouldn't get her any closer to getting off-planet either. It was true that getting closer to the most hunted person on the planet was likely to get her killed, she'd be caught one way or another eventually. Helping the Republic, staying alive, running away . . . all of them pointed towards finding the Jedi, Bastila, and making an all-or-nothing bid for freedom, it wasn't much of a chance, but it was their best chance.

The elevator dinged arrival at the lower level and the doors split aside to reveal two Sith soldiers crumpled on the ferrocrete. Beyond them lay a corridor so pockmarked by blaster fire it looked straight out of a bad action holovid. The sound of distant blaster fire echoed down the scarred corridor and Carth and Kyrena glanced at each other.

Kyrena gestured and Carth obliged, unlocking her binders and pulling out a blaster for her from his pack. "Alright Carth, remember the plan. Find a place to hold up and get a feel for how things rare down here."

Carth nodded wordlessly, prompting a surreptitious glance from Kyrena. He'd been very quiet of late, and behind that armor she couldn't tell what he was thinking. She pulled the comlink out of her pocket and put it in her ear. Well, here goes nothing.

They stepped out into a war zone.

Burnt and broken its of furniture lined the hallway, the remnants of barricades still stained with blood. Kyrena frowned as she scanned the corridor down the barrel of her blaster pistol.

This didn't feel right. If there was anywhere the Sith would keep control, it was at the elevators. They had to be expending most of their manpower in the upper city to hold the spaceports. That meant there were no sizable detachments down here, and their only way to go after Bastila was to control the lifts. There was no way the Sith could leave this unanswered, and there was no way whoever was down here didn't know that.

"Carth, we have to get out of here."

He grunted in acknowledgment and took a step down the hall before freezing. The sounds of combat were coming closer and quickly. They looked at each other and dove for what was left of the barricades, and just in time.

Down the corridor a knot of Sith soldiers appeared, firing with strict discipline as they fell back, half of them leapfrogging back while the others covered them. Chasing them was a motley assortment of humans and aliens firing wildly at the retreating soldiers. Sever of the chasers went down to the Sith's accurate fire, but there were a lot more of them than there were of the Sith, and two more soldiers went down.

The fight was going to roll over them in just a few moments. Kyrena looked around for a way out desperately, but the nearest doorways were twenty meters away. No time, no time! Damn. Time for desperate measures. She tapped her com. "Carth, remember, you're a Sith!"

Carth didn't bother to reply, instead peeking out from behind his cover and opening fire on the rabble. With luck, the other Sith would accept any help in a fight. As for her . . .

Kyrena peeked out one last time. No other options.

She slid her blaster pistol along the crusty floor over to Carth, curled up behind her pitiful cover, and started to cry.

Carth fell in with the Sith soldiers, covering their quick but disciplined retreat. It was easy. They'd had the same Republic basic training he had; hell, it was possible he'd actually fought with some of these people on bigger maneuvers. It was too easy to fight with.

They'd fallen back thirty breathless meters before nearing a side corridor. The Sith kept going, content to bleed the rabble until they broke or were all dead. Carth, however, wasn't interested in continuing the fight. It was time to break contact.

The last soldier rushed past him while Carth fired down the corridor, grunting in satisfaction as a Rodian went down witih a burning hole in its chest. He didn't know who they were, but he was perfectly content to shoot back at anyone shooting at him. He turned and ran, the soldiers behind him providing the cover fire.

Sweat ran down his face as he past the last Sith and slid into position behind the androgynous slate-gray armor. There!

Carth snagged a grenade from the back of the trooper's belt and armed it, cocking his arm back to throw.

He hesitated.

Kyrena, perhaps, would have named half a dozen strategic reasons not to throw the grenade at the Sith. Heavy casualties would undoubtedly be met with an overwhelming response, just what you didn't want in your area while hiding out. If they went down the gangsters would keep going after him, or perhaps escalate their fight with the Sith further if they thought they could win.

But Carth wasn't Kyrena. His only instinctive thought in that moment was that he couldn't stab the people he'd been fighting with in the back. That was a betrayal too like what the Sith had done to the Republic, too like what they had done to him. He was better than that, better than them.

Instead he threw it in the space between two groups and screamed "Grenade!"

Both sides took cover as they could, bracing themselves against the blast. By the time the smoke cleared, Carth had disappeared down the hallway.

Kyrena lay huddled on the grimy floor, arms held protectively over her head, hands covering her tears as the battle raged around her. It was easy to forget just how loud fighting was. The cracks of blaster fire, the crunching of shattered duracrete, the hoarse cries of command competing with the screams of sentients as they went down in agony, as their flesh melted and the blood in their veins boiled away. And inside her, the darkness raged.

Eventually the sounds of battle faded away and Kyrena was left with a ringing in her ears. With the battle, the darkness slowly subsided within her and she realized she was soaking wet with sweat. Her muscles shook like she'd run a kilometer sprint, and adrenaline still thumped through her with every heartbeat.

No time, no time.

She cracked her eyes open, again surprised that she'd somehow miraculously come out unscathed. The soldiers should have training to avoid shooting civilians, and the gang of whoever they'd been were clearly gunning for Sith uniforms, but still – the plan, and the rules, often died with the first blaster shot.

She climbed shakily to her feet and surveyed the scene. Just in this narrow stretch, three Tarisians were down, along with one Sith. She didn't spot her blaster; it must have been kicked during the stampede.

At last the ringing began to fade. She heard the distant sounds of blaster fire as the fight moved on, but beneath it she heard something else; she heard a soft whimpering. One of the Tarisians was still alive. Kyrena ignored it and crouched over the nearest body, searching through the human's pockets. A picture of a naked woman, a handful of credits, a deck of Saabac cards, a packet of the drug pyrodene, a -

Kyrena leaped back as the body twitched and sucked in a wheezy breath. He was still alive. She cursed. No time! Even now she could hear the pounding of feet approaching in the distance. She wrenched the still-smoking blaster pistol from the dying man's hand, turned, and ran.

She moved with no objective other than to put as much space between her and the fighting as she could. She'd been going at a steady half-jog for nearly twenty minutes before she slowed to try to get her bearings. This deep into the city it was hard to tell how far she'd come. The fully enclosed bridges between buildings were only a handful of meters, easy to miss this far down where windows only showed darkness. Still, she was pretty sure she'd crossed two or three, and she'd definitely gone up four levels. Hopefully it was far enough, and high enough the Sith had gained some semblance of control. The front line of that fight was definitely not a good place to be.

It did seem a little calmer here. Now as the time to lay low for a bit, and to that end, she needed as safe a place as she could get. Time to find a cantina.

A quarter of an hour later Kyrena was entrenched in one of the booths along the wall of a dingy dive called Javyar's Cantina. Actually, the cantina was something of a surprise. It was quite a bit bigger than she'd expected, for starters. Her best guess was that this had been a major attraction at some point, a sort of underground hot-spot aimed at drawing in young, rebellious upper-city folk who wanted to feel like they were living on the edge. Unfortunately, the nicer-than-it-should-have-been décor had gone to ruin, as had most of the lower city, and the best of the place's owners could do was turn down the lights and hope nobody noticed.

The clientele either hadn't noticed or, more likely, hadn't cared. If this place had only been pretending to be dangerous before, it certainly wasn't faking it now. Within thirty seconds of her arriving a human wearing heavy combat armor and targeting sensors over his eyes had blown away two rodians. The whispered rumor spread through the cantina like lightning. Calo Nord, the bounty hunter, had claimed another prize.

Kyrena looked out over the cantina again as she nursed her drink, trying not to think about how it had cost half the credits she'd stolen. There was gambling aplenty, though like many places in the galaxy, the general mistrust of gambling machines meant the face-to-face card games still reigned supreme. The lights were brightest over there, hoping to give the impression the players weren't cheating, no doubt.

They were dimmer by the large U-shaped bar stocked with an impressive array of drinks from across the galaxy, and grew darker still over by a closed-off area for bounty hunters and those seeking to post bounties. That corner was dominated by a massive hutt that seemed to be in charge.

Kyrena looked back down at her drink and slowly rubbed her finger along its shatter-proof plastic. She'd tried to reach Carth on her com, but he'd either lost his or they were out of range. There was a pretty good chance that even if they both stuck nearby they'd never run into each other again, not without a way of getting into contact and setting up a time and place first. Their only fallback was in the upper city at their apartment, but there was no way she was getting back up to the upper city now, not alone.

She was on her own, broke, with nothing but a stolen blaster pistol to her name. Well, that and a borrowed lightsaber still strapped to her that would set a planet full of Sith on her in a standard minute if she pulled it out. Nope, this did not look good at all.

Oh frak, what was she going to do? She was going to die down here, alone. The darkness swirled inside at her despair. No, no, get a grip Kyrena. You're a trained scout, not some grunt. You can do this. She shoved those feelings deep down and took a deep breath.

Okay. Options. She needed credits. There was no way she could afford a buy-in at the Sabaac tables even if she'd dared. She could probably try the lower-stakes Pazaak tables if she was desperate, but gambling her very last credits was extremely risky. Bounty hunting was close to suicidal as poorly armed as she was. She could try to get a job, but her skills would only really be useful in the underworld, and she had no contacts for an introduction. Doubtless there were a whole host of criminals right here in the cantina, but being an outsider meant she wouldn't be trusted. That left some kind of manual labor, which meant she'd have no time to go looking for Bastila. On the upside, she wouldn't starve.

". . . your breath smells like bantha poodoo!"

The raised voices drew Kyrena's eye as a matter of course, but it was the words that caught her attention. Bantha poodoo? There were people in here that made their livings killing people. The contrast was jarring. She leaned forward a little to get a better look.

There was a twi'lek girl of what, ten? Twelve? Their ages could be tricky to judge. She was dressed in a snug black shirt covered with a heavy gray vest laden with pockets, over gray pants with thigh-high brown boots. The neon lights lit up the blue skin of her confidently crossed arms. She faced down two rodians that loomed over them. How many rodians were on this rock, anyways?

Kyrena's eyes scanned the room while they exchanged meaningless insults. They were getting a few looks, but mostly those faces wore amused half-smiles. So this was no surprise; they were regulars, known here. One of the bouncers shot a worried look at the barkeep, a grizzled human woman, but she shook her head. No danger then.

A growl drew Kyrena's attention back to the twi'lek in time to see a wookiee rise to his full impressive height. It was completely covered in shaggy brown hair, with fairly short fangs that marked it as fairly young. Was it male?

The wookiee approached the rodians who started backing away immediately. The twi'lek turned and gave the wookiee a high-five while the rodians slunk out of the cantina to a smattering of laughs as the patrons turned back to their conversation.

Kyrena's hand loosened its grip on her blaster beneath the table. Crisis averted. Well, one crisis anyways. Hmmm . . . perhaps two. She slid out of her booth and set off after the blue girl and her wookiee companion as they, too, left the cantina, and tried to ignore the rumbling of her stomach.

It took Carth nearly a full minute after his escape to realize he had no idea where Kyrena was. In the adrenaline soaked confusion of the fight he hadn't noticed where she'd gone, or how.

Carth swore and smashed a gauntleted fist into the corridor wall. Damn her, abandoned again! He should have expected it, should have seen it coming. No, he had seen it coming. That's why he had all the supplies.

He needed a base, somewhere safe to get this armor off and set up camp, then he could figure out how he was going to get in contact with Selven.

"Hey, wait up! Can I ask you a question?"

The blue twi'lek turned quickly, startled, but settled herself into a look of cool confidence after a quick glance at the wookiee. Assumed confidence. It fit right into Kyrena's picture of the girl.

The twi'lek folded her arms in front of her and gave Kyrena a cocksure once over. "Say, I don't recognize you, and I know pretty much everyone in the Lower City. You must be new around here."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that, I'm pretty new here.

The girl couldn't keep a grin from breaking through her attitude. "I guess that makes me and Big Z your official welcoming committee." She screwed up her eyes and deepened her voice, doing her best tourist commercial impersonation. "Welcome to Taris, the beautiful social and commercial center of the outer rim."

Kyrena replied in her best Ryl, the native language of the Ryloth and the twi'lek's home planet. "Hey thanks! I could use a friend around here."

Oddly this seemed to make the girl uncomfortable, though the wookiee who could only be "Big Z" looked up and gave her a searching look.

"Hey, don't speak Ryl just for me. I actually prefer basic."

Kyrena opened her mouth then closed it again. She doesn't speak it! Quickly she added this to her mental profile. So she wasn't the cute little girl who'd been dumped here, then, but she was still watched over by the others, but carefully, from a distance. It was a lot harder to get that kind of care from a rougher community if you'd grown up in it, unless . . . So that was it. She was pitied, but resented it. Something worse than usual happened to her parents, most likely. Easy to manipulate.

The thoughts flashed through her mind so fast she didn't pause to question them.

"Thanks, I guess I owe you one! My Ryl is pretty rusty."

The girl was slowly recovering from her discomfort and visibly brightened at the gratitude. "Hey, don't worry about it. I grew up on Taris, so I just sort of got used to speaking Basic."

Kyrena smiled. "Thanks. You were really brave talking to those rodians back there. What's your name?"

The twi'lek's arms opened as she gesticulated with them and the cool attitude melted away. "My name's Mission, Mission Vao, and this here is my best friend, Zaalbar. I'd love to show you around, but the streets aren't safe . . . you know, for an outsider. But if there's anything else you need, Big Z and I'd be happy to help."

Kyrena breathed a completely unfeigned sigh of relief "Thanks Mission. I'm Kyrena, and I got trapped when the Sith took over. There was a big fight and I got separated from the rest of my crew, and I'm all alone down here." Truth . . . in a manner of speaking.

"Hey, don't worry about it. You've got us now. Big Z and I will take care of you, right Big Z?"

Mission looked over at the wookiee expectantly. He gave her a, in Kyrena's opinion, rather skeptical glance, but grunted an affirmative.

"See? You're safe now! Here, I'll show you one of our secret hideout spots." She grabbed Kyrena's hand and charged down the corridor, dragging Kyrena in tow. As they past Zaalbar he looked her straight in the eye and have her a very low, but very threatening, growl. The message was clear. Mission might give her trust easily, but Zaalbar would be watching.

It took almost an hour for Carth to find an empty apartment. He'd backed away quickly after walking in on various drug deals, terrified families, passed out homeless, and more. The doors with upgraded security he'd ignored. Much less likely to be unoccupied, and a much higher change of getting shot. But at last his persistence had paid off.

He reset the lock, shucked his pack, and started pulling off his assorted armor parts. He sighed in relief at finally getting out of that oppressive helmet. Freed, he took a look around the apartment. A quick check revealed the refresher's shower was so moldy he couldn't make himself try it even if the water was running, which he doubted. If he had to be smelly, so be it. It wouldn't be the first time. As for the bed, well . . . something had clearly spent some time in it, but the dust over everything meant it was long gone. Unfortunately, it had left a lot of very small creatures behind living in the sheets, so many he could actually see them. Wroshyr lice? Maldovian swamp ticks? Carth didn't know, and he didn't didn't want to take this opportunity to find out, so the floor it was.

He stretched out his jacket on the cleanest bit of floor he could find and lay down on it with a tired groan. He cross his still-booted feet and put his hands behind his head while he stared up at the cracks in the duracrete ceiling.

Betrayed again. Carth shook his head and tried to clear the thought from his mind. There were a dozen, a hundred other possible explanations. For all he knew she could be dead. Forget about her, Carth. The mission, focus on the mission. Right. The mission. He pulled from his pocket the datapad that Dr. Forn had given them. Had given him. He sighed and reviewed the information one more time.

Wait at the dead drop site near some place called Javyar's Cantina with the datapad. A bith missing one eye would come by. After the bith left, he needed to put the datapad into the recycling dumpster and leave. Selven should then contact him on his holo message address he'd left on the datapad, the same holo address he should have given Kyrena before they got separated. Focus, Carth, Focus!

Mission's secret lair turned out to be not very far from the cantina. In fact, it was part of the cantina. Mission had led them to the corridor just behind the place and, after taking a quick look to ensure nobody was around, tapped a careful rhythm Kyrena promptly memorized onto a darker spot on the duracrete wall. A cunningly hidden panel slid open to reveal a bolt hole for the barman to escape through should things get out of hand . . . or more likely, if the authorities came calling.

This may have been just one of Mission's hideout spots, but it was clearly one of her primary ones. She had a makeshift hammock strung up, and the big pile of blankets was probably Zaalbar's spot. At first it seemed like it would be a rather noisy place to sleep, but a quick glance explained that mystery: soundproofing. It wouldn't do to have people walking by wondering why you could hear straight into the cantina from this particular spot.

Kyrena put a suitably impressed look on. To be fair, she was pretty impressed. "Wow, this is an awesome hiding spot!"

Mission grinned and plopped down into her hammock. Zaalbar gave her a warning glance before settling in on his bed, leaving Kyrena to pick out a spot in the scant remaining room against the wall. She sat down with a grateful sigh. It had been an exhausting, tense, occasionally terrifying day. Still, it wasn't over yet.

"So tell me Mission, how did you and Zaalbar find each other?"

Mission rocked herself onto her side to look over the edge of the hammock at Kyrena. "I don't know, we just kind of fell in together. It's not easy on your own here in the Lower City – everyone's always looking to push you around."

Kyrena hid a smile as Zaalbar gave Mission a protective glance. "well it seems like you make a good pair."

"Yeah, we do," Mission said with a deliberate air of nonchalance. Between my street smarts and Z's muscle we make a pretty good team!"

"For sure. How are you able to go wherever you want? When I wandered around I ran straight into a whole bunch of crazy people shooting at the Sith."

Mission grimaced. "Yeah, those bug-eyes are the Black Vulkars. They turned against the Hidden Beks and have messed things up ever since."

"The Hidden Beks?"

"Yeah, they're a gang here, but it makes them sound bad to say it like that, they're more like . . ." and on it went, Mission talking about her life, her world. She was a veritable gold mine of information. As the night wore on Kyrena learned about the dynamics of Taris, about the two main gangs in this section of the Lower City, the probably-not-as-good-as-they-sounded Hidden Beks, and a splinter group, the probably-worse-than-they-sounded Black Vulkars. Kyrena learned about the Exchange, the more serious, grown-up organized crime compared to the gangs' petty thuggery. Which made them much more dangerous and much more likely to be gunning for Bastila, but also much more likely to have a way off planet.

Something caught Kyrena's eye. Beneath Mission's hammock there was a collection of rocks, of all things. "Hey Mission, what are those?"

Mission's eyes lit up. "That's my rock collection! I found them in the Undercity!"

Kyrena's eyes narrowed. "The . . . the Under City? What's that?"

Mission leaned back into her hammock. "It's all the way down on the actual ground, can you believe it?"

It was clear in Kyrena's mind. If Bastila's pod hadn't hit a building like her own had, then it had slid between buildings and bounced around off them until it made it all the way down to this Under City. She had to get down there. But for that, she needed equipment, and for that she needed friends.

"Tell me more about these Hidden Beks. I thought they'd be like other gangsters. What makes them different?"

Mission lit up, ready to talk more about her favorite subject. Kyrena listened as well as she could until her eyes drooped lower and her head fell to her chest.

The dream started. It was a dream she had had before, but not for a long time. She was in a room, a box, made all of white. The box started moving, closing in slowly, inexorably, around her. She charged the wall, shoving against it with all her might. It didn't budge. She hurled herself against it, kicked it, punched it until blood ran down her fingers. No, she had to get out, had to get out! The walls were getting closer. She slid down to the floor. It was too small to stand up now. She couldn't fight it any longer, couldn't . . . couldn't take it anymore. Something was terribly wrong, but what? What!?

It was stunningly beautiful. It struck him every time he saw it – the wide open beach, the aqua-marine waves gently lapping at the shore, the swaying shade trees near his small vacation home . . . so beautiful. Yet for all its beauty the scene was surpassed, far surpassed, by her.

Morgana.

She was running down the beach, as she always did, in her favorite soft-blue wrap over her bathing suit. She laughed as she ran, sending the golden-red curls nearly down to her waist bouncing with every step. Morgana looked over her shoulder at him, calling to him, gesturing.

"Wait, wait Morgana! Wait for me! I'm coming!"

But she was so fast, too fast, and his legs were jelly, sinking into the sand with each step. "Wait, please! Don't leave me!"

The light fell, getting darker with every moment. He ran with desperation now, fear, trying to keep up. Fire started falling from the sky. He looked back down but Morgana was gone, she was gone! "Morgana? Morgana!?" In the distance he could hear screaming, shouting . . .

Carth's eyes shot open to see a filthy aqualish and equally unwashed duros shouting at each other as they fought over his pack. The aqualish punched the duros in the face, sending him sprawling, but rodian jumped on his back before could escape. How many of them were there?

"Hey, hey! Let go of that!"

Carth reached for his blaster, but before he could draw it the pack split, sending his possessions scattering across the floor. He shouted again and pulled the blaster free, but it was too late. A horde of desperate aliens descended.

"All of you, out here, now!" Carth fired into the ceiling once, twice, three times. The snap of his shot echoed in the confines of the room, and suddenly everyone was charging for the door and out. Within moments he was alone. Carth sucked in a deep, slow breath, and held it, held the cursing, the rage, inside, and instead got down on his knees to see what was left.

It wasn't pretty. There were a handful of MRE's left, a spare blaster pack and . . . the armor! Where was . . It was gone.

Damn it, his disguise was gone. He slid to the floor amidst the remains of his best hope for survival. He sat there, blaster in hand, and all at once it hit him how horribly, horribly alone he was. He was surrounded by fear and desperation, and surrounding that was a whole planet of Sith, and there was no one but him.

Alone.

She was gone, they were all gone, and he was alone. He couldn't do this. Nobody could do this. Tears rolled silently down his cheeks at the hopelessness of it all. He was going to die out here. He'd followed every order, done everything the'd ever asked of him, and how he was going to die, abandoned, alone, behind enemy lines.

Defeated.

No. No!

Not yet. He still had more to do, one last mission to complete. He couldn't die here, not now, not yet. Maybe he couldn't do this, maybe no man could, but a Jedi was no man. If anyone could survive this it was a Jedi. He needed a Jedi. So he'd get a Jedi. Then he'd get the hell off this damn planet, back to the war, and finish some unfinished business.

Carth pulled himself together, climbed to his feet, and checked his blaster.

Time to find himself a spy.