Chapter 14: Discovery

Omega crawled as quietly as she could through the maintenance shaft. The ancient metal plates scratched at her tunic sleeves and pant legs, and the unsettled dust floated in misty clouds about her unprotected nose.

Omega suppressed a sneeze. It wouldn't be very impressive for her and Tech to have escaped, only for the bounty hunters to locate her and drag her from her hiding spot. Omega had no desire to be discovered and yanked about all because of a sneeze.

Pulling at the collar of her tunic, she ducked her head down, stuffing the lower half of her face into her tunic top as a sort of makeshift mask.

Omega swallowed against the sliver of worry that tickled at her heart. These vent tunnels could go on forever. She would just have to memorize the twists and turns. She could navigate her way like Hunter did, right?

Setting her mouth in a grim line, Omega turned into a left-leading tunnel at the end of the first shaft and peered down into the first room it passed over.

Omega blinked in surprise and looked again. The room beneath her held a rusty orange glow, gray shadows cast across the salmon floor by the setting sun. There was various medical equipment scattered across the room on a couple shelves and an examination table. And in the corner of the room sat Tech's pack with his helmet perched on top and the rest of his armor clustered neatly about the base of the pile.

Omega grinned. "I guess I got lucky," she whispered and began to tug at the grate. The old metal scraped loudly against the stone, and Omega heaved harder, straining to loosen the grate from its rusted prison.

After several minutes, when her muscles had begun to shake in protest, Omega succeeded in prying one edge of the grating loose. Slipping the toes of her boots underneath the small space between metal and stone, she kicked up and out, flipping the entire piece of metal onto its head.

Omega crawled forward and stuck her head out of the hole. Neither Bane nor Fennec was in sight.

Omega slid one leg out of the hole and searched about with the toe of her boot. Locating the top shelf of a storage rack, she swung herself the rest of the way out of the maintenance shaft and clambered down to the ground.

Despite the orange sunlight shining steadily through the wall openings across an outer walkway, the silence was ominous and heavy.

Omega sneaked across the floor to Tech's pack, absently observing that no dust swirled about her boots as she walked. She reached the gear and seized Tech's helmet to her chest. Setting it aside, she flipped open the top of his pack and rummaged carefully through the contents. After several minutes, she rearranged his supplies, sighing in dissappointment. His datapad was nowhere to be found.

She closed the pack and replaced the helmet on top, quickly sorting through his armor until she found his left vambrace.

Clutching it to herself, she hurried back to the shelves and scurried up the rack into the tunnel once again. Heaving at the grate, she slid it over the opening and froze as a low rumble sounded from below.

She recongnized the stony scraping of an old three panel Kaminoan door, but she did not recognize the long, heavy footsteps that fell against the floor of the medical room.

"Where is he?" a low voice hissed. "Even with an injection of his own invention, he manages to sneak off! I leave for a few minutes to store his gear, and he runs away! When I find him..."

The boots stomped about for a moment longer, a few objects clattered against their surfaces, and Omega detected the slight beep of a droid powering up. The footsteps and the low, mechanical whirring of the droid exited the room, leaving the heavy silence to fall again.

Omega rubbed her head vigorously. The dizziness was starting to return, and panic crept up her throat as she realized she might very well pass out again at any moment.

She had to find Tech. There was no doubt in her mind that whoever that was in the room below was looking for him. And it couldn't be for anything good.

Omega slipped Tech's vambrace onto her left arm. The armor piece wobbled a bit, swallowing her arm past her elbow. It was definitely too roomy, but Omega took comfort in its weight.

She began to crawl back the way she'd come, but a sudden wave of vertigo sent her tipping into the shaft's metal floor. She raised a trembling hand to Tech's comm device, trying to push the correct button, but her hand flopped weakly down beside her.

"Hunter," she breathed. A heaviness was settling behind her eyes. "Hunter...we need...you. Tech...needs...help..."