CORUSCANT, 40 YEARS ABE:
Coruscant was a planet on which time held little meaning. The buildings were too tall, the levels too tiered, the lights too artificial. Lando would have had to check his chrono to know local time-but whatever time it was, it felt late.
He just hoped it wasn't too late.
The urgency of his Jedi escorts had rubbed-off, and he found himself walking nearly on Tenel Ka's heels. Fortunately she had eschewed the long robes common to Jedi; had she been dressed more like Kor Sazen, they both would have tripped from him treading on her hem.
See Threepio tottered along behind them all as only a stiff-jointed, anxious-natured protocol droid could. Lando ignored most of his chatter, as did the two Jedi; they at least had the excuse of having to be on guard against possible threats. Lando could always claim that excuse too if he needed, but it would ring a little hollow to anyone who knew the capabilities of Jedi. No matter how on-guard he was, their Force senses meant they were more so; no matter how competent he was in a battle (and while he was no slouch with a blaster, Lando's best weapons had always been his disarming smile and charming patter) they outmatched him by an order of magnitude that would have been embarrassing if he'd been trying to compete.
Given that even Lando, with his ordinary human senses, had picked up on the fact that they were being watched, it came as no surprise to learn that the Jedi had as well.
"Kor-" Tenel Ka said.
Kor Sazen shook his horned head. "Hyper-wariness. I feel it too. Don't worry, I don't think it's directed at us."
Tenel Ka nodded, her tense frown easing in response to the older Jedi's words.
Lando, by contrast, could feel his shoulders getting stiffer with every step. It wasn't just the furtive glances of the shabby people moving around them; wasn't just the threat of Imperial attack that dogged their every footstep. It was Coruscant itself that was making his stomach knot. Every planetary level they had descended had raised Lando's stress level correspondingly. They were still hundreds of kilometers from bedrock (if anyone even knew where the rock of Coruscant's buried surface was anymore) but they were lower than Lando liked to go. Any layer where he could no longer catch glimpses of sky between the tops of those towering skyscrapers was lower than Lando liked to go.
He followed his Jedi escorts through the damp, murky streets of far too many mid-level districts and tried to pretend that he was in any other city, on any other world. Crowds-even hostile crowds, and these were hardly that; just wary, tense people, which befitted beings under a sudden Imperial occupation and was the general state of existence on the bustling city-planet anyway-didn't bother Lando. He loved crowds. Crowds were easy. You could have a crowd in the palm of your hand in minutes if you played your cards right-and Lando was less of a mere cardshark than he was a master artist of the deck.
What bothered him was Coruscant itself, and the lower they went the harder it was to pretend he was anywhere else.
The four of them stepped through a wide, neon-labeled archway and onto a descending ramp that branched-off from the main thoroughfare three meters down. There were fewer signs and advertisements along this narrow alley but seemingly just as many people. The confined space packed them in tighter, but the Jedi each raised a palm and calmly strode forward as the throng of people parted casually around them.
Lando and Threepio hurried to follow before the crowds could cluster back in. No one else seemed to notice the way the two Jedi were clearing a path, no one seemed annoyed by being shooed aside; it was as though everyone had simply decided to walk a little bit more that way, leaving this passage through the press of bodies open almost as an afterthought. "Handy trick," Lando muttered. He was impressed, and wondered idly what it would cost to hire a Jedi-maybe just a small Jedi, a trainee-to perform crowd-control tricks like that for him when he went shopping in Dimitor on Gallinore or Ta'a Chume'Dan on Hapes or Merchant's Square on Drev'starn…
No, that would never work, Jedi were notorious at refusing paid contracts. If he could convince one of the instructors that it was a useful training exercise, on the other hand…
His idle fancies (or perhaps more accurately: his desperate attempts at distracting himself) were abruptly cut-short as Kor Sazen flitted to the side of the alley. (Somehow everyone else just flowed out of his way, like he was a rock standing in a placid stream rather than a man trying to push against the flow of crowded foot-traffic.) The tall Jedi leaned down and fiddled with a control panel, and suddenly a pitted door that Lando would have sworn was a solid part of the wall slid upwards with a tired whine.
Kor Sazen stepped to the side and turned his gaze on the shuffling passerby, none of whom so much as glanced towards the horned Jedi or the doorway yawning beside him.
Tenel Ka led the way into the narrow opening, beckoning Lando to follow before returning her hand to rest lightly on the hilt of her lightsaber in a way that screamed prepared rather than scared. Lando wished he could say he felt the same, but even his silver tongue balked at the size of some lies.
He glanced over his shoulder nervously, then ducked his head to follow Tenel Ka inside.