Chapter 25: First Contact

The Zim Bonor Aqueduct Office was a compact metal building nestled at the foot of the Martre Mountains, with a boxy shape and sharp edges softened when the heavy evening rain beat down on it. Tahiri and Jaina were the only ones to leave the Cassa this time – finding jobs for two would be easier than for four.

The office was dwarfed by the mountains, but when the two Jedi students approached, they found it to be larger than it had seemed from a distance. There was no obvious security at the door, so Tahiri and Jania walked right in.

"We're looking for employment," Jaina informed the curly-haired receptionist, casually leaning against the high durasteel counter.

The receptionist wound a springy lock around two fingers in an unimpressed way. "The only position we're hiring for is sanitation staff." Her gaze traveled over Jaina's wet, stringy hair and Tahiri's muddy boots. "Are you still interested?"

"Yes," Tahiri said. "When can we start?"

The receptionist glanced at the wall chronometer. "I guess I could call Boosa over." She pressed a painted fingernail against a black button on the counter.

A thin, harried-looking man with hazel eyes slightly too large for his face came rushing through one of the doors. "What is it now?"

"Sanitation workers. They want to be hired."

"How many times have I told you?" he cried out, twisting his hands together in a nervous gesture. "We don't need any more sanitation workers. Management doesn't want too many people working in the aqueducts." He gave them a swift look. "The budget's bad, I mean."

"They keep quitting," the receptionist pointed out. "I'm sick of hearing the others whine about overwork. Just hire these two and tell them to stop complaining."

Boosa thought the proposal over, staring at the ceiling with his large eyes. "I guess I could do that. But not a word to anyone, right?"

"Sure," Tahiri agreed, and Jaina nodded.

"When can you start?"

"Now," Jaina answered.

"This way, then," Boosa directed. He walked ahead of them with a strange kind of nervous energy. "Your first shift is tonight, but I'll just show you where the supplies are." He took a few turns down the hallway, and then opened a large closet. "You'll need to put these uniforms on. Some of the cleaning supplies are a bit acidic."

Indeed, Tahiri noticed that some of the garish yellow uniforms had holes burned in them.

"Just don't spill too much on yourselves," Boosa advised. "We have some forms for you to sign later releasing us from damages. Anyway, just put on these things and wait over by the turbolift." He stepped out of the closet and indicated a door several meters away. "Just through here, third door to the left."

"Got it," Jaina assured him.

Several minutes later, the two girls were signing forms under the not-so-watchful eye of the receptionist. "I wonder why they hired us so easily," Jaina whispered softly.

"They're Imperials; I don't think they're too concerned about underage labor," Tahiri whispered back. "Plus, we aren't even guaranteed to get anywhere near Luke."

"Still," Jaina said. "They're actually hiring normal people to work in a virtual Imperial base?"

"They have to keep producing drinking water, or people will get suspicious," Tahiri pointed out. "They can't just close the whole place down at once."

"I suppose."

It took a long time to fill out the forms, particularly because Jaina and Tahiri had to come up with false information. It was tedious and dull, so they passed the time in silence.

Several minutes later, Tahiri broke it with a stifled cry.

The receptionist looked up in annoyance. "Something wrong?"

"I'm sorry, no," Tahiri answered. When the receptionist had looked away, she bent close to Jaina. "I can't feel him anymore."

"What?" Jaina hissed. "You mean . . . like . . . ?"

"I didn't feel him die," Tahiri reassured her. "I just can't feel him anymore."

Boosa appeared in the doorway again. "It's time. Get dressed quickly, then meet me by the elevator."

After pulling on the stiff yellow uniforms closest to their sizes, Tahiri and Jaina obeyed. There were several other older workers, who passed them boxes of cleaning supplies.

Boosa rushed the sanitation crew around different areas through the maintenance tunnels. Most of them were leaky, and the mineral-rich water left stains on the walls that had to be scrubbed off. Not for cosmetic appearance, Boosa assured them, but because the maintenance tunnels would erode if left alone. The ventilation shafts also had to be washed out, and sealant sprayed on the leaks.

Tahiri and Jaina soon learned why the sanitation crew members kept quitting. The shifts were long and strenuous, and the workers weren't paid much. After three days, the two considered leaving themselves. They hadn't discovered anything at all!

"Almost done for the night," Boosa said encouragingly after several painful hours on the fourth day. His comlink chimed, and Boosa picked it up to listen.

"You two," he told Tahiri and Jaina, gesturing and waving his arms energetically to get their attention. "It's policy that the newcomers do the extra work. You'll get paid."

"What is it?" Jaina groaned.

"There are some, erm, maintenance stations that need special cleaning occasionally. They do some scientific research and experimentation up there, so don't be too curious of anything you see. There will be no need to ask questions. Understood?" Boosa asked nervously.

"Yes, sir," Tahiri answered, her heart pounding in her chest. Scientific experimentation?

"Right, then, up that corridor," Boosa pointed, "And follow the signs to Cyan Level 3, Section 12."

Cyan Level 3 turned out to be a rather large laboratory. It was mostly deserted – it was rather late, after all – except for Section 12. A man wearing a military uniform greeted them.

"I'm Captain Harken." He pointed to a rather conspicuous pile of shattered transparisteel scattered on the bloodstained floor. "There you go. These bloodstains are about a week old, if that makes a difference. We were busy. Anyway, clean that up and I'll be back in a bit. Don't touch anything."

"I wonder how that got shattered," Tahiri remarked. "It takes a lot of force to shatter transparisteel, right?"

"Yes, a lot," Jaina answered. "Usually it just bends, and only then if you smash something pretty hard into it."

"That's strange."

"I guess I can clean this up myself, if you'll go looking around," Jaina offered reluctantly, staring with distaste at the bloodstained transparisteel.

"I'll do it quickly," Tahiri promised.

"This planet sure is wet," Han commented as he and Chewbacca disembarked from the Millenium Falcoln.

After complimenting Han's skillful mastery of the obvious, Chewbacca growled a question.

"No, I haven't come up with a plan yet, but I have been tossing a few ideas around in my head," Han answered indignantly. "Want to contribute, furball?"

Chewbacca questioned Han again.

"My first idea is to pretend to be government inspectors," Han proposed. "Yeah, that's a pretty bad idea. If there are Imperials there, they won't tell anything to government inspectors."

He shrugged. "Well, we could always just try and break in." At the look on Chewbacca's face, he protested. "It's always worked in the past!"

Chewbacca growled a definite negative answer.

"Okay, so there was that one time on the Death Star . . . and the Nagai-Tof incident could have gone better, I'll admit . . . . If you can come up with alternatives, like zapping them into dust with the superpowered mind ray hidden in your fur, I hope you'll share them with me."

Chewbacca ignored the sarcasm. Even Imperials needed to eat, he reminded Han. They had to get supplies from somewhere. Why didn't they work from that angle?

Han thought it over. "Forget it," he decided. "Staking out all the shops in Martre would take forever. And then we'll probably just end up smuggling ourselves in with the food they buy, which doesn't give us better odds then just randomly breaking in somewhere. Not that I care about odds."

Chewbacca threw up his hands in defeat. Fine, he grunted. Reckless humans. What could you do?

Tahiri looked down the rounded tunnel. Doors branched out in every direction, and there were few signs in this part of the aqueduct system.

Choosing one at random, Tahiri ran through the room and out the other end as quietly as she could. The tunnels connected the rooms seemed to act like a multilevel sloping grid meshed at odd angles with several other such grids, but Tahiri made sure to memorize the layout so she could find her way back.

Most of the rooms seemed to be deserted, but others had equipment and supplies stacked inside. Tahiri supposed that some were used during the day, and others were just kept as storage rooms to be used later.

After only a few minutes, Tahiri began to start worrying. She had been running in an approximate straight line, and the tunnels showed no sign of stopping. What were the odds she would be able to find Luke and return to Jaina in enough time to avoid arousing suspicion?

She needn't have worried. Three turns later, a strange lack of feeling hit her.

Yslamiri.

Tahiri stopped. She had never felt the effects of yslamiri before – a completely cut-off connection to the Force – but she had heard it described as being numbed and blinded. Now she knew that the description was true.

It fit, now that she thought about it. That was why she couldn't feel Luke anymore. He was guarded by yslamiri!

Tahiri cautiously glanced into the next tunnel, and immediately whipped her head back inside. There were two guards in front of one of the doors right in the middle of the hallway, and no hope of sneaking past them.

Unless she used the ventilation shafts, that was.

These shafts seemed to have been cleaned recently, judging by the fingerprints on the grate, but metallic residue from the humidity of the air had still managed to accumulate inside. Grimacing, Tahiri crawled in, pulling the grate back into place behind her.

Luckily, the wind was blowing with Tahiri and not against her, so it took only a few moments to cross over the heads of the guards and into the room. Peering down through the grate, Tahiri saw that the room was brightly lit and empty, save for a single, still figure.

Luke.

Tahiri quietly slid the grate aside and eased herself out, landing with a soft thump on the metal floor. "Oh, my," she breathed once she had a good look at him.

He was slumped in a chair, held upright by illegal stun-cuffs that supplied a small but steady flow of debilitating electricity. He wasn't unconscious – Tahiri could see his eyelids fluttering slightly – but his eyes were closed. Luke's left arm was very obviously broken, twisted behind his back and held in place by the stun-cuffs.

Tahiri stood there for a moment, unsure of how to wake him. Most of his flesh was marked by dark bruises and deep cuts. She took a strange comfort in the fact. If they were torturing him, the cuts would be shallower, so as to not risk his health.

Luke had been badly injured and then neglected, and they had shown complete disregard for his pain, but at least they didn't seem to be hurting him more on purpose.

"Luke," she said quietly, unsure of how far her voice would carry.

But it seemed to be loud enough. Luke's eyes opened slowly, almost unwillingly, but he did not look at her.

"Luke," she repeated, "It's me, Tahiri."

He raised his head, and she gasped. His blue eyes, which were normally soft and bright at once, were hazy and dull. There was pain there, but even more than that, it was sheer exhaustion that showed in his face, and in the simple effort of lifting his head up a few centimeters to meet her gaze.

But even as she stared into his eyes, they began to clear a little. "Tahiri," he whispered back. "I knew . . . you'd come."

"Of course," Tahiri answered, trying to smile. "I wouldn't let you out of your promise to teach me just yet. I still have so much to learn."

"You'll will," he assured her, letting his head fall back limply again. "I'll . . . be okay . . . ."

Tahiri looked around the room helplessly. There was no way for her to lift Luke up into the ventilation shaft without the Force, and no way to escape undetected.

To make matters worse, Tahiri heard voices outside the door, and the telltale beeping of a keypad's buttons being pushed.

A/N: Sorry about this chapter being short. I'm going on vacation for a week, and I thought I might as well post it before I leave :) There's probably only about two long chapters left right now, not sure if that includes an epilogue. Hope you're enjoying it!