Laoda Kaeni led her curly-haired visitor to Taliore's kitchen, located behind a large and empty dining room. The girl had a look around. The Durasteel elements were almost glistening. Everything seemed clean and the unmistakable stench of rotten food common to small hotels in backwater towns was suspiciously absent. Having seen that Taliore was nowhere as luxurious as most other seaside hotels, she was slightly confused.

"Aren't you cooking for your visitors?" she asked Laoda.

"I, cooks? Ha. That take away too much time. If they wants to eat, there restaurant on the beach, about two, three hundred metres away. I cooks them Hoth chocolate or makes them a toasted sandwich with whatever I has on hand. Cooking would requires having more staff. I cannot possibly hires anybody else right now."

"I really like a good slice of bread with pretty much anything, so I may have to ask you to make me one of those sandwiches when we're done with this."

"Okieday. Today I has nerf ham."

Okieday? That expression did not sound very Vagranite. The girl had heard that word before, but she could not remember where, or how. Maybe it was in one of the many holodocumentaries she had seen before she chose her current path. She shrugged and followed Laoda through the doors of the largest food conservator, as if that was the most common thing known to man. She had seen so many secret passages before, to the point where she swore she knew how to find them in almost every single place.

"You young people, constantly messings with datapads." Laoda objected, pointing to the device in the girl's hand.

"You are right. I will put that down."

The spiral staircase, very similar to the one leading to the first and second floor, led the two women underground.

"Knows how I saids I knows somebody you needed to talks to? Well, I lieds. There two of them!"

The girl was puzzled. She did hear the rumours of a Selonian slave having posed as a Stormtrooper and supposedly being eaten by the notorious burping Sarlacc, so it could not have been him. At this point, she was sure that Laoda was hiding a political prisoner from Force-knows-where in the Galaxy. Or two of them.

The catacombs led them to a small cave, likely above the sea, since the sound of waves hitting was pretty loud. The cave had been converted into a very simple apartment.

"Wakes up, friends." Laoda clapped her hands. "You has a visitor."

A Selonian male in yellow trousers got up and grabbed a blaster. The being who was sharing the underground space with him was still snoring, under a light blanket.

"I apologise. I always take my blaster out now that I have one again. My name is Soleo and that would be…"

Just as Soleo said that, his roommate jumped out of the bunk, screaming, with the blanket still covering his head. "My no wanten be executed! My innocent!" He looked at the mirror and screamed again. "Eeeek, mooie scary monster! Waiten…it's mesa!"

Soleo shook his head and went to help his friend remove the blanket. The girl did not get over the shock of the Selonian slave being alive, and now, right before her, there stood an important figure of recent Galactic history – Jar Jar Binks.

"Calm down, Master Binks!" She went up to him and patted him on the shoulder. "I am not here to hurt you or betray you. I know you have been hiding for quite a while and…I wouldn't want to be you right now."

Jar Jar nodded and shook hands with the visitor. There were days he didn't want to be himself either, particularly those before Soleo joined him in his little hideout. He had been on the run from a couple of months after the Battle of Yavin, ever since the day he saw the woman who killed Commodex Tahn.

"I am here to listen to your story. Soleo's, too, but I hope he won't mind that you'll go first."

"I won't, of course. Not that there is much to my story, either way. A malcontent Selonian sick of being breeding stock for a Queen was lured into promise of a different life and ended up stunned on a slave transport ship. You've heard it all before, right?"

The girl nodded, but sat closer to Soleo and hugged him, regardless.

"No story of suffering and deception is less important than any other."

"I will brings you those sandwiches…" Laoda headed towards the secret passage again. "It looks like it's going to be a long night!" She stopped for a moment. "Yes, Jar Jar, I brings you things that nobody else would eat, not even for a 100 000-credit bet. No worries."

Jar Jar, who was nervously walking around the hideout, finally sat down next to the girl and Soleo.

"Yousa no tellen me yousa name." He scratched one of his eye stalks. "My refuse to talken, if yousa no tellen me yousa name."

"Oh, silly me. I have many names. I play many games. I'm on the run, but what you need to know is that I work for the Alliance to Restore the Republic, that I'm from Aurea and that my name is Deeina Ferry. And I am here to get you out of this mess, but it will be risky."

"Pleased to meeten yousa, Deeina."

"So, what do you know? We are going to find the location of the second Death Star, so I assume there is something else. Otherwise, I just got myself into even more trouble for no reason."

Jar Jar took a deep breath. "The woman was with two machineeks…and she talked to one of them, he was muy scary! Mesa still scared!"

"Sounds like that notorious assassin droid who looks like a protocol droid," Deeina thought to herself. "And what did she say?"

"Deysa…could not believen that Anakin Skywalker had a son and that mistress Padmé was the mother. And then…my remembered that mistress Padmé's pregnant stomach was too big for a single babby!"

"Oh…my." Deeina sat down.

…

/ Seamadeofglass: Blasetreegoatau chat session started at 2000 GST. FAILURE TO FETCH DATE :: WEAK SIGNAL. REPORT TO support /

Seamadeofglass: prog!

Seamadeofglass: u ther?

BlasetreegoatAU: hai…bit bizi, but I can talk. W have u been?

Seamadeofglass: long story. moving to vagran f. university. very sun.

BlasetreegoatAU: get out of here! that good good news.

/ BlasetreegoatAU sets off fete fireworks for Seamadeofglass. /

Seamadeofglass: yup, but gredda…she went away this morning. i wont even get to say gbye. aparentli she got an important job related to the centerpoint station or something. :/

/ Seamadeofglass shakes the screen, like a Rebel /

BlasetreegoatAU: giv me sum time. slower.

Seamadeofglass: wut iz going on w/u?

BlasetreegoatAU: bizi…i m tell u one dai…or not.

Seamadeofglass: wai? u, outta all beings kriffin mi mind!

BlasetreegoatAU: g2 go…sori.

/ BlasetreegoatAU has left the conversation. /

Seamadeofglass: prog?

Seamadeofglass: prog?

/ Seamadeofglass shakes the screen, like a Rebel /

Seamadeofglass: kriff u!

Doria was close to throwing her datapad in the grass. Her mysterious HyperYak friend never acted like this before. And in a situation like this, she really wanted somebody to talk to, since Gredda was no longer responding to her calls. She had been the first person to get onto the field, the first person to grab the metal barrier and save a place for Tendra and the four boys at the very centre of the stage, yet nobody thanked her for it. For the past two hours, she and Tendra had been standing there, leaning on the barrier, with Dak to Doria's right. He had originally been standing next to Tendra, but for reasons he could not determine, the girls had switched places. He was trying to catch Tendra's eye, but at this point she was outright ignoring him.

"I am going to bring us some food." Tendra nudged Doria. "I hope you're hungry, because I am."

"I am, but I have to wait until the dinner at Duchess Branna's place…if there's anything left by the time this is over. Mom didn't give me any credits today."

Tendra frowned at even the thought of Maris. "Silly woman, your mother. Did she expect you to go without food and water all day? Anyway, even if you had credits, this would be on me."

"Hey Tendra, bring me a Hoth chocolate." Dak turned to the girls, flexing his muscles, imitating Antonio Nokaarbe. "I read in Galaxy Watch that it's a...love potion."

"Then go and get your own." Tendra held her head up high and headed to the nearest food booth. Doria sat down, making sure to save her friend's place. The four boys sat down, too. She notice Dak winking to the rest.

"Great. She's ignoring me again." He said to one of his friends. "Jan, are you even listening to me?"

Jan patted Dak on the shoulder. "That's the way it is. The wicked witches are always available." He looked Doria's way for a moment, or so she thought. "And the true catch never wants to look your way. How dare she torture you after you…after you put so much effort into impressing her?"

"I…I signed up to the special defence forces to get my body to look like this. I wanted to take her to the Young Progressive Alliance party after this." Dak threw the yellow T-shirt he was carrying to the ground and trampled it. "And she said no. She always says no. Kriffin' no, no matter what I do!"

"Women suck, my comrade…they suck a lot." Jan concluded. "Also, you seem to hate clothing. Keep on trying, maybe one day she will realise you're actually…reachable, while Nokaarbe is not."

Doria was doing her best to make it like they were not insulting her sort-of-friend in her presence, but it was getting more and more uncomfortable. She then decided to cut them short, somehow.

"Dak, I was wondering something. Could you give me that yellow T-shirt if you don't want to wear it? It's warmer than it was and…"

He stopped her before she could finish the sentence and threw the shirt in her face.

"Alright, alright, blabbermouth. Just make sure you change somewhere where I don't have to look at your horrible stormie helmets."

Doria shrugged and covered up with Tendra's "ANTONIO, I LOVE YOU" banner to change underneath it. This was not the first time somebody spoke to her this way. And what were "stormie helmets", anyway?