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Chapter 26: Qumawarat

They got off the turbolift on a floor towards the middle of her skyscraper and took a public shuttle, then a maglev, then pulled up the hoods of their jackets and took another turbolift into the depths of Coruscant. They were now in the lower Mid-Levels of a majority-alien district and the atmosphere had become distinctly seedy. Ayesha headed for a deserted alley where a hole in the wall had been plugged with duracrete. She swung the plug, revealing nearly invisible hinges, and pushed Thrawn through the opening before closing it carefully again. They soon reached yet another, smaller turbolift tucked away between two buildings. It stank of the urine, sweat and excrement of a dozen different alien species. Ayesha extracted her balaclava from her pocket and pulled it over her face as they rode down. She gestured for Thrawn to do the same, and for good measure drew his hood over his head to hide the glow of his eyes in its folds. When the door slid open, they were in the bowels of the city. The stench of rotting garbage, toxic refuse and what may well have been putrescent corpses was suffocating, the alleys were narrow and dark with only the occasional light of a half-broken glow panel, and there were shadows lurking in every corner.

Ayesha took a cautious look around and led Thrawn through a complex system of stairs, ramps and passageways. She was moving swiftly and silently like a hunter in the wild, making use of every nook and cranny to remain unnoticed. She glanced a few times over her shoulder and at one point dragged him hastily in a side alley, standing with her back flat against the wall. A silhouette that was very human in shape and size passed by quickly, as if in a hurry. She peered around the corner to make sure that the man was gone, then led Thrawn to another passageway and pulled a bundle of monofilament from her satchel. "Are you okay with a bit of rappelling?" she whispered. "It's better if we go this way." He nodded in a curt, military gesture. She tied the monofilament to the railing in a complicated knot and dropped one level down. Thrawn followed and she gave the rope a few well-placed tugs until it fell in her hand. She put it away carefully, then started walking again, and, a few twists and turns later, they reached a door on a small platform. She punched a code in the key panel and it slid open.

A middle-aged man who appeared far more tired and troubled than his years was sitting at a desk, absorbed in his datapad. Behind him was a Twi'lek woman in an armchair. She had clearly been very beautiful, but her face was entirely blank, as if her personality had been wiped out. Ayesha took a step inside, pulling Thrawn behind her, and said, "Hi, Simon."

The man named Simon stood up. He was wearing the white blouse of a doctor. He pointed his chin at Thrawn. "Who's this?"

"He's with me," Ayesha said. The doctor gave her an inquisitive look. "He's with me," she repeated. "Is anyone else here?"

"Just Uumana and Dex."

Ayesha pulled her balaclava off her head and Thrawn went to do the same, but she held his hand. "Not you. We don't show faces or use names here, except Simon, Uumana, Old Dex and me because we already know each other." She looked at the Twi'lek woman and asked, "Still nothing?"

Simon's jaw tightened. "Nothing. Those drugs don't work for her."

Ayesha crouched in front of the Twi'lek and caressed her face and lekku, whispering gently as if hoping for a reaction. The Twi'lek didn't even bat an eyelid. Ayesha sighed, turned to the desk and picked up the datapad. "What do we have?"

"Not much," the doctor said. "A bunch of Twi'leks, a Mon Calamari, three Gamorreans and two Wookiees. We just got the new sedatives so everyone is asleep or at least very drowsy, except the Wookiees. Dex is working on them. I'm going to operate on the Rodian kid with the broken leg, so you two are on your own for the next hour."

Ayesha scanned the datapad. "It's okay, I think we can handle it. The Gamorreans don't even have chips. I'll see you later. With a bit of luck you can even get some sleep."

She took Thrawn's hand and led him through a corridor to a large room that looked like a hospital ward. There were rows of beds along the walls and, on every bed, there was an alien. A Besalisk was towering over a sleeping Twi'lek girl, his four massive arms handling a variety of medical and computer equipment. He gave Ayesha a wide, toothy grin. "Hi there, lil' one," he said in a cheerful bass voice. "I see you brought us company, that's a first."

She smiled back. "Just for tonight, Old Dex."

The Besalisk laughed. "I toldja not to call me old in front o' people."

"That'll happen when Hutts ride swoops," she said with a grin, "or when you stop calling me lil' one, which is the same." Her face suddenly became serious. "Old Dex, the guy who's been sneaking on us is still out there. And he was much closer today."

Dex frowned. "This ain't good. I sent my people after 'im but they always come up dry. But we'll get 'im in the end." He gestured towards the aliens in the beds. "You ready to get started? The Mon Cal's taken care of 'n' I got the Twi'leks under control, but I'm havin' trouble understandin' the Wookiees 'n' I ain't got no clue where they escaped from."

She nodded and went to a locker to drop her satchel and jacket and take a handheld scanner and a datapad similar to those Dex was holding. Thrawn followed her. "What is this place, Ayoo'sha?" he asked in a whisper. "Who are these people?"

She saw bewilderment in his eyes when she looked up at him. "They're runaway slaves. We bring them here so Simon can look after them and we deactivate their chip. Then another group takes them home."

His eyebrow arched under the balaclava. "Chip?"

"Some slavers embed an explosive chip in the sentients they capture to prevent them from escaping," she explained. "You should know that, the Empire does it. But we usually manage to slice the code before they activate. I can tell you more later, I need to work."

Thrawn watched silently as she took her equipment to the nearest Wookiee, an adult female by the looks of it. The bed next to hers was occupied by a pup perhaps nine or ten years old, but he was already taller and larger than a grown man. Both were in a pitiful state; their hide was sagging on their bones and their fur was dirty and matted, with tufts missing in places. Ayesha pulled a stool between the two beds and started speaking softly to the mother. The female Wookiee growled a long response and Ayesha said, "I understand, Qumawarat. We'll find a way." She picked her handheld scanner. "Do you know where your chip is?" Qumawarat hit a paw to her chest. "I'm going to look for it, okay?"

The Wookiee let out a long howl and waved her paw at the bed behind Ayesha, who nodded in assent. She asked a few more questions and spun on her stool to face the pup. "Hey, little guy," she said with a kind smile. "Don't be afraid. You're safe now and I'm going to take good care of you, and then I'll look after your Ata'." She caressed his head until the glitter of terror disappeared from his beady eyes, then started moving the scanner above him until it beeped. She took a small device from the bedside table, clasped it to a vertical bar hanging from the ceiling and activated it. A thin laser beam appeared. She focused it on a spot on the side of the Wookiee's chest, all the while looking at her datapad, and began reading the flow of symbols on the screen while Dex worked his way through the last of the sleeping Twi'leks.

"Old Dex, can you have a look?" she asked after a while. "This is Imperial code but I've never seen anything like it."

The Besalisk came and glanced at the datapad over her shoulder. "This one's gonna be a tough nut to crack," he grumbled. "Did she say where they escaped from?"

"They were being transferred from one of the orbital platforms when they managed to slip away. She doesn't know which one," Ayesha replied. She then stood on the tip of her toes to whisper in his ear, "It's a miracle they didn't activate yet. They were running for hours before our guys found them. And whoever came up with this is a real son of a Sith. The chip is embedded under his ribs."

Dex growled something in his mother tongue that Ayesha and Thrawn didn't understand but it definitely sounded very rude. "I s'pose I better get started on the mother then. We'll figure it out, lil' one, dontcha worry."

He repeated the same procedure as Ayesha with the female Wookiee, joking with her in his deep voice to reassure her, and he and Ayesha worked in silence on their datapads for a long while. Ayesha was becoming a little nervous as she keyed commands to no avail, until her datapad suddenly froze. "I got it," she blurted, "I think I got it." She stared at the screen for a few seconds with a cautious smile, but the flow of symbols resumed and her shoulders sagged. "Where's that slicer when you need him?" she muttered under her breath. "This is like cupping water, the code's changing all the time and he's not even around."

"The man just spent three days in 'ere with us," Dex chided. "Three days with 'is mask on. Give 'im a break." A wailing alarm interrupted him and red lights started flashing above both Wookiees. "They activated. Blast room, now!"

Ayesha sprang to her feet and they wheeled the two beds hurriedly down a corridor to a room with thick walls. There was a waist-high, hollow duracrete cube in a corner, and a blast-proof transparisteel panel on one side, behind which sophisticated computers were blinking. She re-set the laser beams over the Wookiees' chests while Dex left and reappeared behind the control room window. "How long do we have?" she called.

"Twenty minutes, give or take," Dex's voice came over the intercom. "I need to calibrate." He turned his gaze to the monitors and started busying himself with the keyboards.

Ayesha looked at Thrawn, her face contorted in despair. "Do you know how to slice this code?"

"I wish I did, Ayoo'sha," he breathed. "I truly wish I did."

She sighed, then straightened her posture as if making up her mind. "I'll go in manually then."

"Ayesha, you can't do that," Dex barked, his eyes still on the computers. "The sedatives we got don't work on Wookiees."

She turned to Thrawn. "Did you bring your blaster?" He nodded. "Stun them. Three shots to the head should do." He hesitated. "Stun them," she ordered again. "You promised."

Thrawn pulled his blaster from the back of his belt, checked the setting and shot the pup three times. He then turned to the female. She let out a series of angry grunts and waved at her son. He looked at Ayesha questioningly. "Forget it," she said. "She wants to know that her son is safe. I'll take care of her afterwards. Help me with this instead."

She pulled a set of light, flexible armour from a locker and slipped it on with quick, practiced moves. Thrawn was clasping the helmet in place when Dex looked up. "There ain't time, lil' one," he growled over the comm. "Get outta there."

She swiftly pushed Thrawn out of the room and slammed her hand on the blast door lever before turning to the transparisteel panel. "I can do this, Old Dex. You know I can. I'm not losing another one." Thrawn had found his way to the control room and appeared at Dex's side. "You keep an eye on the monitors for any surges and Qubshi be-khadeeb will tell me the time."

Dex punched a few keys on the console and sighed. "Crazy kid locked the door from the inside," he grumbled. "All we can do now is sit 'n' wait." He flipped a switch and a countdown timer appeared, reading nine minutes. "You watch this," he told Thrawn. "You give 'er the time every minute. Got it?"

Thrawn watched as Ayesha brought a tray of surgical tools to a table near the pup and shaved the fur off his ribcage before opening him up. She pulled the skin apart and started exploring the underside of his ribs with cautious fingers. The deafening silence was broken only by Thrawn's voice as he announced the minutes ticking by. There were less than three minutes left now and a string of curses was flowing through her lips when Simon barged into the control room. "What in the blue blazes do you think you're doing?" he thundered. "I go to fix the Rodian's leg and you let her in there?"

The Besalisk held his four hands palms upwards in a gesture of surrender. "You know the kid. Crazy 'n' stubborn like 'er uncle."

The doctor shot him a furious look. "Two minutes," Thrawn said.

Simon banged on the transparisteel window. "Ayesha, listen to me. You have to come out now."

"Shut up," she snapped without raising her head. "Just shut up. I can do this." Her small hands were moving frantically now inside the Wookiee pup's chest.

Simon gazed at her for a while and turned to Thrawn. "You! Say something!"

Thrawn didn't even look at him, his eyes glowing intensely as he stared at Ayesha. His jaw was trembling. "One minute," he called tightly, then breathed, in a barely audible whisper, "Ayoo'sha, please..."

She suddenly shouted in triumph and inserted surgical tweezers under the Wookiee's rib, extracting a tiny chip. "I got it," she said. "I got it!" She dumped the chip inside the duracrete cube.

"Thirty seconds."

Ayesha turned to the Wookiee mother. "I'm so sorry," she said, but Qumawarat smiled and gave her a grateful growl.

"Fifteen seconds."

Qumawarat curled up on her side after a last glance at her son. Ayesha lay down on the pup's open chest, wrapping herself protectively around him with arms and legs, and the room exploded in a pandemonium of gore, one chip scorching the duracrete cube and the other tearing the Wookiee mother apart.

There was a long silence. "Open the door now, Ayesha," Simon finally said. "Open the door. I'll take it from here."

She staggered to her feet and the two men and the Besalisk rushed in. Simon started busying himself with the Wookiee pup immediately while Dex set about cleaning the room after handing Thrawn a pair of heavy-duty gloves. He helped Ayesha out of the bloodstained armour without saying a word. They then followed Simon back to the corridor as he wheeled the bed to a small room, and waited outside while the doctor hooked his patient to a series of monitors.

Dex had joined them by the time Simon came out. "Will he be alright?" Ayesha asked anxiously.

The doctor sighed. "I can't tell yet. He's very weak and he lost a lot of blood. I don't have painkillers that'll work on him and our bacta capsule is way too small. We'd need a full-size tank for him. But you did a good job, all things considered." He gestured towards the room. "The stun blast is wearing off and he'll be awake any time now. You should go in, at least you understand what he says. Be warned, he'll be in terrible pain."

Ayesha sat at the Wookiee's side and waited in silence. A few minutes later, the pup stirred. "Hey, little guy, welcome back," she said softly, stroking his head. "How are you feeling?" The Wookiee grunted in pain. "I know, it hurts. But we're going to take care of you and you'll be okay." The Wookiee suddenly looked around and tried to sit up. She pushed him back gently and he growled a question. "I'm sorry. There wasn't enough time for your Ata'. I'm so, so sorry," she repeated as the pup let out a howl of bereavement. "But we'll make sure you're okay, and then we'll take you back to Kashyyyk, and you can take your Trials and hunt and play in the trees. Do you remember the trees?" Tears rolled down her cheeks as she continued whispering in the pup's ear while the two men and the Besalisk looked on from the hallway.

Dex turned to Thrawn. "You're 'er man," he said without preamble. Thrawn looked at him questioningly, tilting his head slightly to the side. "She changed, 'bout a year 'n' a half ago. Became happier. I knew there's a man involved. I known 'er since she was a tiny lil' thing like this" – he held the hand of his lower arm to the height of his hip – "'n' I never saw 'er shine that way before."

"You were the owner of the diner," Thrawn said.

"She toldja that, didn't she? Crazy Quin brought 'er over, she was in a right state, I can tellya. Ate like there was no tomorrow."

Simon interrupted him to give Thrawn an angry look. "Can't you stop her from pulling these stunts?"

Thrawn sighed as if he were carrying a massive weight on his shoulders. "She made me swear a life-oath. To keep the secret, to obey her instructions tonight and not to interfere in the future."

Dex looked at him for a long moment. "She gotcha cornered real good." There was a hint of pride in his voice. "Dontcha worry, though," he added reassuringly. "It ain't like this every day. It's been months since it last happened, but it was a Wookiee again 'n' that kinda gets 'er in a tizzy."

Simon shrugged in disgust. "Take her home. The Wookiee pup needs to rest, and she won't be doing anything else tonight. I'd normally force her in a bed here, but you can manage that at least."