Factory

The smog continued to thicken as we made our way further south until the buildings gave way to the armada of massive factories where it was so thick a thin yellow blanket of fog covering the ground. The factories towered over the surrounding buildings, their smoke stacks reaching up high into the sky like thin solitary skyscrapers.

Despite the violence happening only a short walk away, the workers seemed completely unaffected as hovertrucks and workers milled about between the buildings loading trucks and driving shipments out towards the city or to the far side of the factory area where I could see a landing dock.

"Alright," Cad said pulling his invisible toothpick out of his mouth and flicking it away, causing it to become visible as soon as it left his hand. "Don't draw any attention… You two start checking out the inside of the factories."

"What are you going to do?" Exa asked looking to Bane as he started walking away.

"I've got things to do," he said not turning to look at them as he left.

Exa paused looking like she was going to call after him again, then just shook her head. "Let's go nerd."

"Okay," I said falling in behind her as we made our way into the closest building.

The door we found lead us to a narrow hallway with one door to the left which looked like a supply closet, and a door directly in front of us through which we could hear the sound of people hard at work. Exa lead the way, and when she opened the door my helmets speakers muted for a moment so I wouldn't be deafened by the roar of a factory in the full swing of a work day.

I had only expected there to be a few dozen workers considering the building's size, but there was a veritable army of people in there. They were loading forklifts, climbing up the shelves to toss down material, stirring a strange thick caramel like liquid in 20 foot tall industrial sized cauldrons, and even doing maintenance on some machines that appeared to still be in use.

"So, what are we looking for?" I asked Exa through our radios.

"You ever got sent to find rebels while you were a trooper?"

"Yes."

"Do that."

"… but I never found any of them."

"Then do better this time."

I was about to ask her the simple question of 'how' when suddenly I spied a large Gran making a B-line towards us, its three eyes looking between us. "Uh oh. Incoming."

Exa's head didn't appear to move, but knowing her, she had either already seen them or turned her head just enough to not have her disguise move but she could see them out of the corner of her eye. "Distract them."

"Why me?"

"Because apparently you suck at this," she said turning and walking towards the room marked bathroom.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" the Gran shouted.

"Gotta pee boss, I'll be back," she said as she ducked through the door before he could say more.

My mind was so focused on distracting the Gran that by the time I realized I could just do the same thing as Exa the Gran was already in front of me with their large hand grasping my shoulder.

"What's your station Twi?"

I could feel myself beginning to sweat under my helmet. "I… I'm new here."

All three of the Gran's eyes narrowed at me. "We weren't expecting anyone new today." He paused, and I started stammering out a response as when he reached up and rubbed his temples. "Fucking corporate never sends us the stars damned new hire notifications or tells you sorry sods where to go. Come on," he said motioning for me to follow. "You have to go through safety orientation before you can be on the floor."

I nodded and started following as my mind began to panic.

"Kid what's happening," Exa called over the radio.

I muted my exterior mic as I was lead past more and more workers, through the dozen towering cauldrons towards a small strip of what looked like 4 offices. "I'm being brought in for safety orientation. They think I'm a new worker."

"That's… not as bad as I thought that was going to go."

"What should I do?"

There was a short silence before she responded. "Play along until you can slip away. Then see if you can break into one of the offices."

"Why the offices?"

"They might have some maps or something linking one of them to who we're looking for."

"Okay will do," I said then unmuted myself as I was lead into the office furthest to the right. Inside was a small classroom setup with two large cabinets in one corner, a good dozen small desks, and one large desk in the corner opposite to the cabinets with two holoscreen monitors and a sleeping Gungan sitting behind it.

The Gran growled as they marched over to the Gungan and kicked the leg of their chair out, causing them to fall to the ground with a loud scream. "The fuck kind of help are you sleeping on the job?"

"Meesa no sleeping. Meesa… Meesa… uhhhh…"

The Gran stared at them, crossing his arms as he waited.

"… Meesa was doing a Gungan prayer," they said smiling nervously.

Sighing, the Gran turned back to me and motioned for me to take a seat. "Got an orientation for you. Just do your fucking job you lazy slob."

"Yousa got nottin to worry about big boss," the Gungan said as the Gran took their leave, slamming the door behind them so hard it shook the room. With that the Gungan stood up and stuck it's incredibly long tongue out at the door before turning their attention to me. "Hello. Whosa is yousa?" they asked as they grabbed a piece of paper and set it in front of me.

"Uhh… G-George," I said wanting to kick myself for saying such a non Twi'lec sounding name, but the Gungan did not seem to notice.

"Meesa Safety Manager Giingen," they said with a smile then hit a button on their desk that caused a holoprojector on the ceiling to activate at the front of the classroom. "Yousa gonna watch a video about safety, then yousa go to work okieday?"

"Uhhh… Sure?" I said looking down at the paper that asked for basic personal information as they started the video. Looking up I checked the navigation bar on the video to find that it had a runtime of three and a half hours, far longer than I could afford to wait through.

While I was hopeful that Giingen would start the video and leave, they instead walked behind the desk, fixed their chair and sat right back down. Since they were staying I decided to keep playing along, but found I had not been given a pen to write with. When I looked up to ask for one though I found Giingen had already fallen asleep again. It had not even been a full five seconds though, so I was certain they were faking it, then they let out a loud snore and their head fell forward, slamming into their desk.

I am ashamed to admit that I spent a good three minutes sitting there looking around the room for a pen and even rose out of my chair with the intent to look on Giingen's desk for one. Only then did I realize this would be the perfect opportunity for me to look around like Exa had said.

Walking around the room, I was not sure what exactly I was looking for but from my, admittedly little, experience I was starting to see a pattern of bounty targets being below ground. With that in mind I started looking around for hidden buttons or switches that could be used to open a secrete door.

"Use the force," suggested Mac as he watched me walk along the far wall.

I paused, turning to look at the bot who was sitting on one of the desks. "How would telekinesis help me find a hidden door?"

"Teleka what now?" Mac asked tilting slightly to the side.

I sighed. "The ability to move things with my mind."

"The force is far more than that. It is everyone, in everything. Learn to speak to the force and it will reveal many things to you."

"… And you access the force how exactly?"

"You must feeeeel it," Mac said mystically.

"How do I feel something if it's everywhere though? That's like saying feel something is wet when it's completely submerged."

There was a long pause. "Use your hate."

"I'm not mad though."

Mac paused then looked from side to side for a moment before floating to the ground and picking up a pen cap that had been left behind. With the cap pinched between its claws Mac floated half the distance towards me, paused, then threw it directly at my face.

Now, I know a pen cap would not be able to hurt me with my helmet on… but in my defense, it did fly right towards my eye, and I flinched. In the process of flinching I took a small step back, entangling my foot in an exposed extension cord, which was a surprising thing to find in a safety office, and I tripped.

I reached out in both directions, trying to grab ahold of anything as I fell. One hand found nothing but air, while my other hand smacked against the wall. Instead of a solid sturdy surface though, when I reached out, the wall moved away from me with a soft click, causing one of the cabinets to swing away from the wall, revealing a hidden door. Which was great since it was probably exactly what we were looking for. Unfortunately, that meant I found nothing to catch myself and I fell to the ground, hitting the back of my head against the ground.

I let out a groan of pain loud enough that I'm surprised it didn't wake Giingen as stars danced across my vision.

"… See I told you," Mac said eventually as it floated up to the hidden door. "The force lead us to the door."

"Ow."

"Yes, the force can be painful when overused. You just lay there. Watch and learn of my power with the dark side," the bot said, activating its scomp link and shoving it into the door's terminal.

I slowly sat up and turned to face the droid as it hacked the small door. There was a keypad which I could use to help Mac get through the door, but I did not really feel like being helpful at the moment.

"Interesting," the droid said as it continued working. "I believe I may be able to bring our opponents here if you are felling impatient You."

"What do you mean?" I asked, slowly rising to my feet.

"There's a silent alarm. I can set it off and make it, so they come up here and open the door for us. Then we can kill them. With the force… and my blaster."

"I'm not giving it back."

Mac let out a mechanical groan. "I am your master! You are supposed to give me what I want."

"And the dark side says something about how you should be able to take whatever you want from me. So, if you really want it, take it back."

There was a long pause. "No. You are weak and will need the firepower in a fight until we can get you your lightsaber."

"I would have no idea how to use one if we found it. Also, just unlock the door, don't set off the alarm."

"But that will be less fun."

"For you! I'm the one that will have to fight them."

"Indeed, and you will succeed."

I sighed, walking over to the wall and removing the panel to find that the silent alarm was actually hard wired into the system, which would make attempting to disable it all but impossible from the scomp.

"… Was you threatening to activate the alarm your way of asking for help without saying help?" I asked as I reached in and started getting to work rewiring the door.

"What?!" Mac said surprisingly loudly. "I would never. Sith need no assistance and my powers with the dark side far outmatch this infernal machine's."

"Does this lock have any force powers at all?"

"Of course! It must to resis-"

The door clicked as I finished rerouting the power around the alarm. I carefully cracked the door open, testing to make sure it wasn't a trapped or had a tripwire placed on it. Feeling nothing, I opened the door and turned back to Mac who was staring at the now open door, its one eye flicking between me, the door, and the scomp.

"… Good teamwork," the bot said then floated up and latched onto my helmet.

I chuckled as we headed through the door. Once inside I closed the door and paused, listening to the door until sure enough there was a quiet thump from the cabinet moving back into place to block it.

"Good, now our enemies will have a more difficult time escaping."

Scanning around the door though I discovered something more than a little alarming. "I… cannot find the door handle?"

"What?" Mac asked, tapping its legs against my helmet.

"I can't find out how to open the door from this side."

"That should be an issue for later You. For now, you should focus on finding the rebel scum."

"Right, Exa said we should… Oh right!" I said, changing my radio frequency over. "Exa, can you hear me?"

"Yea kid, you get out of that bull shit yet?"

"Yes, and I found a secret entrance in the training room."

"What?!" she asked in surprise followed by a metallic thump. "Fuck."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm just wedged in one of the vents."

I paused for a long moment. "… Why a vent?"

"It was open and looked like a secrete entrance."

"People would climb through vents to get to their lairs every day?"

"Duh, how else would they keep everyone from trying to get in there?"

"Apparently a secrete door behind a cabinet."

"Don't get smart with me nerd. Where was it?"

"Last office on the right, straight on the opposite side of the factory from the bathrooms."

"Shit, I went basically the other way. I'm going to be a minute."

"Okay… I can't find a way to reopen the door."

"You went through it?"

"Yes."

"Before you called me?"

"I thought there would be a handle on the far side."

Exa let out a heavy sigh as I heard her shimmying through the vents. "Whatever. If you're stuck in there, might as well start exploring. I'll catch up in a minute."

"You sure you don't want me to stand here and wait by the door to help you get in?"

"Why? You scared?"

"… Yes."

"Too bad, get to work. You don't get paid to be scared."

I sighed. "Alright, 10-4."

"Remember, don't get into any fights. We're trying to make friends with these people."

I made my way down the very thin cave which was only maybe wide enough for two thin people to walk alongside each other. I ran my hand along the walls, feeling the smooth stone underneath my hand.

Ground excavation was not something I was extremely familiar with, but it seemed impossible that this tunnel was natural. I would have put my money on it being done by a laser mining rig. But while easy to use, they were extremely expensive, and the tunnel would have had to have been drilled before the factory was completed as to not cause damage to the foundations of the factories above.

Maybe this was a tunnel to allow management to move between the factories during heavy weather. Or maybe it was an evacuation point for their emergency action plan. I had no idea at that point.

The issue was that as I looked up and around at the walls asking myself these questions I did not notice the MSE-6-series repair droid until I had already tripped over it, nearly falling on my face but managed to catch myself and stumble shoulder first into a wall.

I spun around as the little mouse like droid let out a little surprised beep and the two of us sat there staring at each other before the droid shot down the tunnel past me letting out a loud trill.

"Wait! No come back! It was an accident!" I shouted, chasing after the droid which moved with surprising speed considering its size.

We reached an intersection in the tunnel which had five branching paths that I almost lost the repair droid in. Luckily it was still wailing so I just followed the noise down the path that was directly in front of me.

This tunnel turned out to be incredibly short as it rounded a single bend that ended with a large door equipped with a doggy door the MSE-6 duck through just as I rounded the corner.

Rushing up to the door I threw it open without a second thought. This was an action I immediately regretted as on the other side of the door was a breakroom with a large table at which sat a large Togruta and a Mon Calamari who were looking down at the MSE-6 which was beeping at them incessantly, then turned and started motioning at me.

The two were dressed in basic clothes and had the grizzled, muscular appearances of people who had worked in factories their whole life. They looked followed the MSE-6's motioning up to me, their eyes narrowing in suspicion.

I stood frozen in the doorway for a few seconds until they both slowly started standing up. "… Um… Hi… I'm new here."

"We weren't expecting someone new," the Togruta said slowly reaching for something at their hip.

"Ye, what's the password," asked the Mon Calamari as they stepped out from around the table.

"… uhhh… o-orientation?"

The Mon Calamri laughed but then paused and turned to the Togruta whose hand was now resting on their hip. "That's not the password, right?"

"Idiot we don't have a password."

With their attention on each other I made the executive decision that now was the time to flee. I slammed the door shut and took off back down the tunnel to the sounds of the MSE-6 droid wailing again and the two men shouted after me.

"Mac! Fly ahead and look for a way to open the door please!"

I felt the droid release my helmet and could hear the invisible droid speed off ahead of me as I zipped up my coat activating shielding which I was very thankful to see was fully charged.

As I got my coat zipped up Mac's camera feed popped up in my vision. "Which way did we come from?"

"Straight!" I shouted as I reached the bend in the tunnel.

"Ah good, my powers of deduction had not failed me then," Mac said, letting out a little robotic chuckle.

"Now isn't the tim-" I started to say but was cut off as I suddenly tripped, falling straight to the floor and rolling over to see the MSE-6 had come after me and tripped me, again. As I looked at it the two men rounded the corner and pointed at me.

"Don't move!" shouted the Togruta, a command which I immediately ignored as I tried to get to my feet, only for the Mon Calamari to dive on me and take me back to the floor.

The large fish faced man grabbed one of my arms and twisted it behind my back, easily overpowering me. "Don't try anything stupid," they said as the MSE-6 rolled up and started repeatedly running itself into my leg.

"Okay, okay," I said holding my free hand up as best I could in surrender.

Looking slightly over my shoulder I saw the Togruta reach back to his hip, but instead of pulling out a blaster, they pulled out a commlink.

"Father-3, this is Son-12, were we expecting any new recruits today from warehouse 12?"

There was a slight pause before a feminine voice crackled through the commlink. "None were reported but with today's actions it might have slipped through the cracks. Who invited them."

"Kid, who invited you?"

I paused, trying to think of a lie, but I knew hesitating too long would appear suspicious so eventually I just blurted out. "No one! I was just in the safety orientation. I stood up to walk around, tripped and accidentally hit the secret button for the door."

The MSE-6 beeped at me but I wasn't familiar with their language coding so I didn't know what it was trying to tell or yell at me, though I would bet it had something to do with me tripping a lot.

"And how did you get it open?" the Togruta asked, looking at me suspiciously.

"… I hacked it," I said, once again failing to come up with a suitable lie.

"I told you to change the pass code," they said, kicking the Mon Calamari's leg.

"I did," they shot back, their grip tightening on my arm.

"What did you change it to?"

"2-2-2-2."

"How is that any better than 1-1-1-1!?"

"Because it's not the first number!"

"… I'm going to get a gun and shoot you."

They suddenly let go of me and stood up, turning to face the Togruta. "Do it! I can take it."

The MSE-6 looked at them then to me then started beeping incessantly at them, regaining their attention.

"Oh right," the Mon Calamari said reaching down to pull me back to my feet and place me between him and the Togruta.

"Why did you hack the door?" they asked.

"… Curiosity. Who wouldn't want to find out what's on the other side of a secret door?"

"A smart person," said the Mon Calamari, causing the Togruta to look up at them in confusion.

"Like you would know what smart people think."

"You want to say that to my face?"

"I did, just now!"

"I could leave if you two want to work this out," I said hopefully, pointing back the way I had come.

The Togruta brought the commlink back up. "They weren't invited. Found a door, broke in, and decided to explore."

There was another pause before the female voice responded. "Bring them in for questioning."

"Roger that Father-3," he said and motioned at the Mon Calamari who attempted to hit me on the back of the head, only for his hand to loudly ping off the hardlight image around my head.

"Ow! Kark!" they shouted causing the Togruta to look at them in confusion then to me.

Perhaps a good few second too late, I began acting like the hit had hurt, which only seemed to increase the Togruta's suspicion.

"Grab both his arms Dari," they said motioning at me.

"You're not supposed to say my real name Hagger!" Dari said as they did as they asked, grabbing both my arms and forcing them behind my back.

"Shut up," Hagger shouted back.

"You know I really do think this is all a big misunderstanding."

"Quiet thick head," Dari said twisting my arms unnaturally far behind my back before shoving me down one of the many tunnels deeper into the underground.