Coming out of hyperspace landed the stolen First Order shuttle squarely in Republic space, maybe three inhabited systems from Coruscant. No way they could get any closer with those identifying marks on their hull. Anyone in Hosnian system would be sure to tell you, there's only one greater ghetto than Hosnian, and it's not far. Ghetto meant crime, isolation. And people willing to keep dirty secrets for the right price.
It also meant dirty spaceports, a fair bit of decay setting in around old docking pylons, the simple brackets that hardly hinted at the loads they bore. Metal that shouldn't rust was discolored almost as gangrenous flesh, and a wall of the stuff greeted the junkers as they disembarked. Wiles threw his central arm to his face in surprise. It'd been a while since he'd seen anything not sandblasted, heard anything not drowned by howling wind.
The sight was certainly an oppressive one: multilevel docking pylons holding dozens of ships each in loose grips, scattered just almost evenly across a crowded landing field, open clamp branches marked by rollen blinkers. Half of the image was blurred by the never-ending ins and outs of moving ships ranging from personal speeders to freighters with crews up to five-hundred.
"Ayy, pyijexa!" shouted a Teedo, whistling in a grand arc that Poe followed all the way down, cringing and trying to put a name to the note. He struggled to sit up, but made it. Finn saw him struggling, heard the frustrated grunts, and ran over best he could to help his partner up.
"Thanks," Poe responded. "How bad is it out there?"
"Oh, it's bad. Wouldn't be surprised if the whole planet was a big landing field."
"Now this I gotta see," he muttered, cynical, and winced. "A little more support would be nice."
"You're not light, you know." A chuckle.
"Oh, I do." A painstaking shuffle-step, another wince of pain, sharp intake and exhalation. The minimal and obsolete Terry medical training was equivalent to little more than nothing. It might've saved Poe's life from a puncture wound, if only for a little while, but it sure made it impossible to tell where to hold him up by.
But they reached the open bay door.
"Damn. Sure this is a planet? Looks like - " Labored breath. " - A shipyard station."
"Indeed 'tis. Hosnian, second-greatest slum in the Republic," Unkar answered.
"And what's the first?" The oversized junker shot a narrow-eyed look to them. And did not answer.
"We climb down on yon ladder. Once we reach the ground, stay close. Bad things to loners here, less they the bad kind."
"Like us?"
"Worse. Much worse."
"It will be good to be rid of this ship, though," Wiles commented passively. "And into something flashier!"
The Teedos went first, more jumping than climbing to the several deck layers spaced oddly between wide ladders. If they saw someone on the same deck, the Silent flashed an obscene universal gesture while the talkative one spat out a breathless string of ancient curses.
"Or at least something with proper bedding," Wiles lamented. "It's been too long."
"Eh, shaddap. We git sumtin', we go fer it."
"Right."
Again, the Teedos ran on ahead and downward, yelling any concerning figures - everyone - away. They were almost to the ground, and the smell greeted them in earnest. A powerful stench of over-processed or else undercooked food, various fuels and strong exhaust. Not to mention the body odor of thousands in a space optimized for dozens.
"Now I gotta wonder," Finn panted, Poe slung 'round his shoulder. "How do you know this place?"
He was leading their little cluster when they reached the ground, swaggering the only way his build allow him. He turned, scowling. Even more.
"You don't remember any of you I tell ye, didje?" As one person with arms linked, Finn and Poe shrugged.
"Bunch of words over a conversation piece," Finn countered. "Doesn't mean anything."
Poe nodded into Finn's shoulder - most likely agreement.
"Reck'n not, then." With that he turned and kept them moving, shoving his way through whatever blank alien faces they passed. Whatever he couldn't get through, he motioned for the Teedos to take care of. So many faces, all of them seeming to blend with one another. Some of this, to the humans, was some of the old and very stubborn indoctrinations: "All aliens are the same."
Except, in this case, even the alien junkers could see it: the almost uniform drab clothing, desaturated complexion and droning look in their faces. They all seemed to mix in with one another, no matter their size or shape, moving in or out or just about. Even the few scattered humans they saw seemed to demonstrate this. The effect didn't seem possible, yet here it was. One could only try to wonder something more intense than this monotony. Hosnian had a uniform.
"Gotta wonder just what they're doing here."
"Whole lot ta nathin', yon's sure. Nathin' ta do, anyhow. Now, shaddap and look fer some brill need'n rid of a spaceship."
"Aaagh. Wahzhda, bokka soo'ka!"
It was one of the hooded faces they passed that answered:
"Y shokka-nigli-ngoch tvei, debil nagka'i!"
Both Teedos zealously objected to the insult on their grandmother's alleged intelligence. Finn had wondered just how fast the little grimlini could move. No more.
Some few hours later, which felt like forever, landed Unkar sitting across a table from some even bigger, fatter boss with a cleft lower lip separated by a cluster of wiry tusks, compound oyos and sunken ears. Watching him talk made Poe dry-heave onto the fake wood.
Funny thing was, one of the boss's goons had picked Unkar out of a crowd at least thirty deep on any side, reached into the crowd and cleared a path for them to follow. That led to a hut which led to a tunnel which led to an empty alley which led... Finn couldn't remember.
Unkar was fiddling with that crystal around his neck again. It shone a faint blue when the boss raised a light-pointer to it, apparently confirming its authenticity.
"Sooittisyeaafterall, soonofablaastadaamnedKraayt" he somehow managed to drawl and still blend the syllables into one. His lower lip - both of them, flapped about, a bloated tongue visibly wiggling his overgrown tusks. Finn wasn't far from joining Poe, who was having his shirt ripped open and his wound sprayed lightly with alternating coats of unknown elixirs and painkillers. The alien nurse tsk-tsked at him without meaning.
"Yar, 'tis I. What brings yer operation out dis far?" A wide gesticulation, seeming to catch the whole planet in open arms. He did not seem to have elbows.
"Eexpaansion! Eexpaansionbegooodfaabusinees, Unkar. Notoonlythat, buuttheRepaablicmakesfahgreeaatnegleectofitssyystems! Wecancoomeinwhereeverwewaant, taakeoverwhateeverwewaant. It'safreegaalaxytheesedaays."
The effect was just as dizzying for Finn to hear. Alien speaking certainly twisted Basic in ways it was not meant to be twisted, because it was a language that didn't serve them, it originated serving humans. Why couldn't this whole galaxy be human!?
But that was no way to think anymore, not if they were going to survive. He kept straining to listen, couldn't help but be drawn away when Poe grunted and the alien nurse was trying to stand him up.
"Hey, I can help you with that," he announced. The medic nodded, and together they hoisted Poe up by the shoulders. He followed their eyes and head as they nodded towards the door into another room. An oyostalk over the doorway gyrated down to them, blinked twice. It lifted for them, and they walked through.
The last thing Finn heard before the door shut behind them was "Iitisgoodtohaaveyebaack, Unkaar."
Poe woke from his latest shjester with more than a groan - but a scream. His spine folded and he shot up. The nurse immediately raised overlong arms to hold him down, and nodded hurriedly for Finn to do the same.
"I need to sedate him!" It was a hermaphroditic voice that made Finn's skin crawl, but what was that when his partner was suffering? Poe's eyes needed a moment to open, like he was a newborn baby birthed on this table, and unwilling to accept the pains of life just yet. He'd be accepting the pains of death if he didn't get the wound properly treated, though, and Finn couldn't have that.
"AAAAAAAAAGH!"
His response, hurling himself across his friend's torso the second he went down: "POE! SHUT THE HEL UP AND CALM DOWN!"
The stubborn brill heard, then listened.
